Turning now to the proper Didactic prose of Spanish literature, the first instance we find--after those formerly noticed as imitating the Italian philosophical discussions of the sixteenth century--is one that comes near to the borders of fiction. It is “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” by Torquemada, originally published in 1570, of which the curate, in the scrutiny of Don Quixote’s library, says, that “he does not know whether it is more true, or, to speak strictly, less full of lies,” than the “Olivante de Laura,” a book of chivalry by the same author, which, for its peculiar absurdities, he sends at once to the bonfire in the court-yard. “The Garden of Curious Flowers,” however, is still a curious book. It consists of six colloquies between friends, who talk for their amusement on such subjects as the monstrous productions of nature, the terrestrial paradise, phantasms and enchantments, the influence of the stars, and the history and condition of those countries that lie nearest to the North Pole. It is, in fact, a collection of whatever strange and extravagant stories a learned man could make, beginning with such as he found in Aristotle, Pliny, Solinus, Olaus Magnus, and Albertus Magnus, and including those told by the most credulous of his own time. Being put into a form then popular, and related in a pleasing style, they had no little success. They were several times printed in the original, and, beside being translated into Italian and French, are well known to those who are curious in the literature of Queen Elizabeth’s time, under the much-abused name of “The Spanish Mandeville.” It may be added, that some of Torquemada’s accounts of spectres and visions are still pleasant reading; and that, though Cervantes spoke slightingly of the whole book in his “Don Quixote,” he afterwards resorted to it, both for facts and for fancies respecting the wonders of Friesland and Iceland, when he wrote the first part of his “Persiles and Sigismunda.”[235] [235] “Jardin de Flores Curiosas, etc., por Ant. de Torquemada,” 1570, 1573, 1587, 1589. The edition of Anveres, 1575, 18mo, fills 536 pages. “The Spanish Mandeville of Miracles, or the Garden of Curious Flowers,” (London, 1600, 4to,) is a translation into good old English, by Ferdinand Walker. The original is strictly prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 68. The “Coloquios Satíricos,” by the same author, (1553,) I have never seen.