One more variety in the characteristics of this style of writing in Spain is, however, so distinct from the rest, that it should be separately mentioned,--that which has sometimes been called the Allegorical and Satirical Tale, and which generally took the form of a Vision. It was, probably, suggested by the bold and original “Visions” of Quevedo; and the instance of it most worthy of notice is “The Limping Devil” of Luis Velez de Guevara, which appeared in 1641. It is a short story, founded on the idea that a student releases from his confinement, in a magician’s vial, the Limping Devil, who, in return for this service, carries his liberator through the air, and, unroofing, as it were, the houses of Madrid, during the stillness of the night, shows him the secrets that are passing within. It is divided into ten “Leaps,” as they afterwards spring from place to place in different parts of Spain, in order to pounce on their prey, and it is satirical throughout. Parts of it are very happy; among which may be selected those relating to fashionable life, to the life of rogues, and to that of men of letters, in the large cities of Castile and Andalusia, though these, like the rest, are often disfigured with the bad taste then so common. On the whole, however, it is an amusing fiction,--partly allegorical and partly sketched from living manners,--and is to be placed among the more spirited prose satires in modern literature, both in its original form and in the form given to it by Le Sage, whose _rifacimento_ has carried it, under the name of “Le Diable Boiteux,” wherever letters are known.[178] [178] Antonio (Bib. Nov., Tom. II. p. 68) and Montalvan (in the catalogue at the end of his “Para Todos,” 1661, p. 545) make him one of the principal and most fashionable dramatic authors of his time. (See, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 293.) The “Diablo Cojuelo” has been very often reprinted in Spanish since 1641. Le Sage published his “Diable Boiteux” in 1707, chiefly from Guevara; and nineteen years afterwards enlarged it by the addition of more Spanish stories from Santos and others, and more Parisian scandal. In the mean time, it had been carried upon the stage, where, as well as in its original form, it had a prodigious success. Earlier than the appearance of the Limping Devil, however, Polo had written his “Hospital of Incurables,” a direct, but poor, imitation of Quevedo; and in 1647, under an assumed name, he published his “University of Love, or School for Selfishness,” a satire against mercenary matches, thrown into the shape of a vision of the University of Love, where the fair sex are brought up in the arts of profitable intrigue, and receive degrees according to their progress.[179] It is, in general, an ill-managed allegory, filled with bad puns and worse verse; but there is one passage so characteristic of Spanish wit in this form of fiction, that it may be cited as an illustration of the entire class to which it belongs.