“The Divine Politics” of Quevedo, a part of which was published before the Christian Prince and a part after it, may have suggested his subject to Saavedra, but not the mode of treating it; and, in the same way, the great satirist may have had some influence in determining Antonio de Vega, the Portuguese, to write his “Political Dream of a Perfect Nobleman,” in 1620;[247] Nieremberg, the Jesuit, to write his “Manual for Gentlemen and Princes,” which appeared in 1629;[248] and Benavente, his “Advice for Kings, Princes, and Ambassadors,” which appeared in 1643.[249] But none of these works, nor any thing else in the nature of didactic prose that appeared in the seventeenth century, is equal to the Christian Prince of Saavedra; unless, indeed, we are to except his own vision of a state, which he calls “The Literary Republic,” and in which he discusses somewhat satirically, but in a vein of agreeable criticism, the merits of the principal writers of ancient and modern times, foreign and Spanish. The Literary Republic, however, was not published till after its author’s death, and never enjoyed a popularity like that enjoyed by his longer and elder work; a work which leaves far behind every thing in the class of books of emblems, that so long served to tax the ingenuity of the higher classes of society in Europe.[250] [247] “El Perfeto Señor, etc., de Antonio Lopez de Vega,” 1626 and 1652, the latter, Madrid, 4to. He published, also, (Madrid, 1641, 4to,) a series of moral Dialogues, on various subjects connected with Rank, Wealth, and Letters, under the title of “Heraclito y Demócrito de nuestro Siglo,” and giving the opposite views of each, which the names of the interlocutors imply; a book that affords sketches of manners and opinions at the time it was written, that are often amusing, and generally delivered in an unaffected style. The poetry of Antonio de Vega has been noticed, II. 529.