CHAPTER XXXIX. PROVERBS: SANTILLANA, GARAY, NUÑEZ, MAL LARA, PALMIRENO, OUDIN, SORAPAN, CEJUDO, YRIARTE.--DIDACTIC PROSE: TORQUEMADA, ACOSTA, LUIS DE GRANADA, JUAN DE LA CRUZ, SANTA TERESA, MALON DE CHAIDE, ROXAS, FIGUEROA, MARQUEZ, VERA Y ZUÑIGA, NAVARRETE, SAAVEDRA, QUEVEDO, ANTONIO DE VEGA, NIEREMBERG, GUZMAN, DANTISCO, ANDRADA, VILLALOBOS, PATON, ALEMAN, FARIA Y SOUSA, FRANCISCO DE PORTUGAL.--GONGORISM IN PROSE: GRACIAN, ZABALETA, LOZANO, HEREDIA, RAMIREZ.--FAILURE OF GOOD DIDACTIC PROSE. The last department in the literature of any country, that comes within the jurisdiction of criticism on account of its style, is that of Didactic Prose; since in this branch, so remote from every thing poetical, the ornaments of manner are more accidental than they are elsewhere, and, beyond it, are not at all to be exacted. In modern times, the French seem to have been more anxious than any other nation, not excepting even the Italians, to add the grace of an elegant style to their didactic prose, while, on the other hand, none have been more unsuccessful than the Spaniards in their attempts to cultivate it. In one particular form of didactic composition, however, Spain stands in advance of all other countries; I mean that of Proverbs, which Cervantes has happily called “short sentences drawn from long experience.”[223] Spanish proverbs can be traced back to the earliest times. One of the best known--“Laws go where kings please they should”--is connected with an event of importance in the reign of Alfonso the Sixth, who died in the beginning of the twelfth century, when the language of Castile had hardly a distinct existence.[224] Another has been traced to a custom belonging to the days of the Infantes de Lara, and is itself probably of not much later date.[225] Others are found in the General Chronicle, which is one of the oldest of Spanish prose compositions, and among them is the happy one on disappointed expectations, cited in Don Quixote more than once: “He went for wool and came back shorn.”[226] Several occur in the “Conde Lucanor” of Don John Manuel,[227] and many in the poetry of the Archpriest of Hita,[228] both of whom lived in the time of Alfonso the Eleventh. [223] Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 39.