[261] Juan de Zabaleta flourished as an author from 1653 to 1667; and his works, which were soon collected, have been frequently printed, 1667, Madrid, 1728, 4to, 1754, etc. (Baena, Tom. III. p. 227.)--Christóval Lozano (noticed, pp. 91, 108) was known as an author from 1656, by his “David Arrepentido,” to which he afterwards added his “David Perseguido,” in three volumes, and yet another work on the subject of David’s Example illustrated by the Light of Christianity; all of little value.--Juan Francisco Fernandez de Heredia wrote “Trabajos y Afanes de Hercules,” Madrid, 1682, 4to. He makes it a kind of book of emblems, but it is one of the worst of its conceited class. Latassa (Bib. Nov., Tom. IV. p. 3) notices him. Of Antonio Perez Ramirez, I know only the “Armas contra la Fortuna,” (Madrid, 1698, 4to,) which is a translation of Boëthius, with dissertations in the worst possible taste interspersed between its several divisions. One other author might, perhaps, have been placed at the side of Lozano,--Joseph de la Vega,--who published (at Amsterdam in 1688, 12mo) three dialogues, entitled, “Confusion de Confusiones,” to ridicule the passion for stockjobbing which came in with the Dutch East India Company, in 1602, and was then at the height of its frenzy. They are somewhat encumbered with learning, but contain anecdotes, ancient and modern, very well told. The author was a rich Jew of Antwerp, who had fled thither from Spain, and published several works between 1683 and 1693, but none, I think, of much value. Amador de los Rios, Judíos Españoles, p. 633. Nor is this remarkable. On the contrary, it is rather to be considered worthy of notice, that didactic prose should have had any merit or obtained any success in Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For the end it proposes is not, like that of poetry, to amuse, but, like that of philosophy, to enlighten and amend; and how dangerous in Spain was the social position of any teacher or moral monitor, who claimed for himself that degree of independence of opinion without which instruction becomes a dead form, needs not now to be set forth. Few persons, in that unhappy country, were surrounded with more difficulties; none were more strictly watched, or, if they wandered from the permitted paths, were more severely punished.