But the principal exception to be made in favor of Spanish epistolary correspondence is found in the case of Antonio Perez, secretary of Philip the Second, and for some time his favorite minister. His father, who was a scholar, and made a translation of the “Odyssey,”[196] had been in the employment of Charles the Fifth, so that the younger Perez inherited somewhat of the court influence which was then so important; but his rapid advancement was owing to his own genius, and to a love of intrigue and adventure, which seemed to be a part of his nature. At last, in 1578, at the command of his master, he not unwillingly brought about the murder of Escovedo, a person high in the confidence of Don John of Austria, whose growing influence it was thought worth while thus to curtail;--a crime which, perpetrated as it was in consequence of the official connection of the secretary with the monarch, brought Perez to the very height of his favor. [196] “La Ulyxea de Homero,” etc., por Gonzalo Perez, (Venecia, 1553, 18mo,) is in blank verse; but in this edition we have only the first thirteen books, with a dedication to Philip the Prince, whose chief secretary Gonzalo Perez then was, as his son Antonio was afterwards secretary of the same Philip on the throne. Subsequently, when he had translated the remaining eleven books, he dedicated the whole anew to Philip as king, (Anvers, 1556, 12mo,) correcting and amending the first part carefully. Lope de Vega (in his Dorotea, Acto IV. sc. 3) praises the version of Perez; but, like most of the Spanish translations from the ancients in the sixteenth century, it shows little of the spirit of the original.