The “Ten Books of Fortune and Love,” by Antonio de Lo Frasso, a Sardinian and a soldier, published in 1573, is the next Spanish romance of the same class with the Diana; but it is without merit, and was forgotten soon after it appeared.[69] Nine years later, in 1582, a better one was published,--the “Fílida,”--which passed early through five editions, and is still valued and read.[70] Its author, Luis Galvez de Montalvo, was born in Guadalaxara, a town near Alcalá, the birthplace of Cervantes; and, perhaps from this circumstance, they soon became acquainted, for they were long friends, and often praised each other in their respective works.[71] They seem, however, to have had very different characters; for, instead of the life of adventure led by Cervantes, Montalvo attached himself to the great family of Infantado, descended from the Marquis of Santillana, and passed most of his life as a sort of idle courtier and retainer in their ducal halls, near the place of his nativity. Subsequently he went to Italy, where he translated and published, in 1587, “The Tears of Saint Peter,” by Tansillo, and had begun a translation of the “Jerusalem Delivered” of Tasso, when he was cut off in the midst of his labors by an accidental death, in Sicily, about the year 1591.[72] [69] It is the same book that Cervantes ridicules in the sixth chapter of the first part of Don Quixote, and in the third chapter of his “Journey to Parnassus”; and is curious for some specimens of Sardinian poetry which it contains. But Pedro de Pineda, a teacher of Spanish in London, taking the irony of the good curate in Don Quixote on Lo Frasso’s romance to be sincere praise, printed a new edition of it, in two very handsome volumes, (London, 1740, 8vo,) with a foolish Dedication and Prólogo, alleging the authority of Cervantes for its great merit. Hardly any other of the Spanish prose pastorals is so absurd as this, or contains so much bad verse; a great deal of which is addressed to living and known persons by their titles. The tenth book, indeed, is almost entirely made up of such poetry. I do not recollect that Cervantes is so severe on any poet, in his “Journey to Parnassus,” as he is on Lo Frasso. [70] The best edition of the “Fílida” is the sixth, (Madrid, 1792, 8vo,) with a biographical prologue by Mayans y Siscar; ill-digested, as are all his similar prefaces, but not without valuable matter. [71] Navarrete, Vida de Cervantes, pp. 66, 278, 407. [72] Lope de Vega, Obras Sueltas, Tom. I. p. 77, and Tom. XI. p. xxviii. Don Quixote, ed. Clemencin, Tom. I. p. 146, and Tom. III. p. 14, in the notes. The “Tears” of Tansillo enjoyed the honor of being four times translated into Spanish.