The “Examen de Ingenios,” or How to determine, from the Physical and External Condition, who are fit for Training in the Sciences, by Juan de Huarte, (Alcalá, 1640, 12mo, first published in 1566,) is one of them. It enjoyed a prodigious reputation in its time, was often published in Spanish, and was translated into all the principal languages of Europe; into English by Richard Carew, 1594; and, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, into German by a person no less distinguished than Lessing, whose version, entitled “Prüfung der Köpfe,” was printed for the second time at Wittenberg, 1785, 12mo. It is a work full of striking, but often wild, conjectures in physiology, written in a forcible, clear style, and Lessing aptly compares its author to a spirited horse, that, in galloping over the stones, never strikes fire so brilliantly as he does when he stumbles. It is praised by Forner, (Obras, Madrid, 1843, 8vo, Tom. I. p. 61,) and is on the Index Expurgatorius of 1667, p. 734. The “Examen de Maridos,” a spirited play of Alarcon, (see, _ante_, II. 322,) and the “Vexamen de Ingenios,” a lively prose satire of Cancer, (Obras, 1761, p. 105,) were, I suppose, understood by their contemporaries to have reference to the title of the “Examen de Ingenios,” then very popular. A work not unlike the “Examen de Ingenios” appeared at Barcelona, (1637, 4to,) entitled “El Sol Solo, etc., y Anatomía de Ingenios,” taking a view of the same subject more in the nature of Physiognomy, and not without an approach to what has since been called Phrenology. It was written by Estevan Pujasol, an Aragonese; and is curious for its manner of treating the subjects it discusses,--half anatomical, half spiritual; but is not otherwise interesting. The second is the “Historia Moral y Philosóphica” of Pero Sanchez of Toledo, published at Toledo, 1590, folio, when its author, who was connected with the cathedral there, was already an old man. It consists of the Lives of distinguished men of antiquity, like Plato, Alexander, and Cicero, and ends with a treatise on Death;--each of the Lives being accompanied by moral and Christian reflections, which are sometimes written in a flowing and fervent style, but are rarely appropriate, and never original or powerful.