[116] “Vida y Hechos de Estevanillo Gonzalez, Hombre de Buen Humor, compuesta por el mismo,” was printed at Antwerp in 1646, and at Madrid in 1652. Whether there is any edition between these and the one of 1795, Madrid, 2 tom. 12mo, I do not know. The _rifacimento_ of Le Sage appeared, I believe, for the first time in 1707. Both in the original and in the French translation, it is called “The Life and Achievements of Estevanillo Gonzalez, the Good-natured Fellow,” and gives an account of his travels all over Europe, and of his adventures as courier, cook, and valet of the different distinguished masters whom he at different times served, from the king of Poland down to the Duke of Ossuna. Nothing can exceed the coolness with which he exhibits himself as a liar by profession, a constitutional coward, and an accomplished cheat, whenever he can thus render his story more amusing;--but then, on the other hand, he is not without learning, writes gay verses, and gives us sketches of his times and of the great men to whom he was successively attached, that are any thing but dull. His life, indeed, would be worth reading, if it were only to compare his account of the battle of Nordlingen with that in De Foe’s “Cavalier,” and his drawing of Ottavio Piccolomini with the stately portrait of the same personage in Schiller’s “Wallenstein.” Its faults, on the other hand, are a vain display of his knowledge; occasional attempts at grandeur and eloquence of style, which never succeed; and numberless intolerable puns. But it shows distinctly, what we have already noticed, that the whole class of fictions to which it belongs had its foundation in the manners and society of Spain at the period when they appeared, and that to this they owed, not only their success at home, in the age of Philip the Third and Philip the Fourth, but that success abroad which subsequently produced the Gil Blas of Le Sage,--an imitation more brilliant than any of the originals it followed. CHAPTER XXXV. SERIOUS AND HISTORICAL ROMANCES.--JUAN DE FLORES, REINOSO, LUZINDARO, CONTRERAS, HITA AND THE WARS OF GRANADA, FLEGETONTE, NOYDENS, CÉSPEDES, CERVANTES, LAMARCA, VALLADARES, TEXADA, LOZANO.--FAILURE OF THIS FORM OF FICTION IN SPAIN.