[141] The story of Apollonius,--the same with that in Shakspeare’s “Pericles,”--was, as we have seen, (Vol. I. p. 24,) known in Spanish poetry very early, though the old poetical version of it was not printed till 1844; but it is more likely to have been taken by Timoneda from the “Gesta Romanorum,” Tale 153, in the edition of 1488. The story of Griselda he, no doubt, took from the version of it with which the “Decamerone” ends, though he may have obtained it elsewhere. (Manni, Istoria del Decamerone, Firenze, 1742, 4to, p. 603.) As to the story so familiar to us in Percy’s “Reliques,” he probably obtained it from the fourth Novella of Sacchetti, written about 1370; beyond which I think it cannot be traced, though it has been common enough ever since, down to Bürger’s version of it. Similar inquiries would no doubt lead to similar results about other tales in the “Patrañuelo”; but these instances are enough to show that Timoneda took any thing he found suited to his purpose, just as the Italian _Novellieri_ and the French _Trouveurs_ had done before him, without inquiring or caring whence it came. Indeed, the very next is of this high order. It is that of Cervantes, who began by inserting such stories in the first part of his “Don Quixote” in 1605, and, eight years later, produced a collection of them, which he published separately. Of these tales, however, we have already spoken, and will, therefore, now only repeat, that, for originality of invention and happiness of style, they stand at the head of the class to which they belong.[142] [142] See, _ante_, Vol. II. p. 84. Others followed, of very various character. Hidalgo published, in 1605, an account of the frolics permitted during the last three days of Carnival, in which are many short tales and anecdotes, like the slightest and gayest of the Italian _novelle_;[143] and Suarez de Figueroa, who was no friend of Cervantes, if he was his follower, inserted other tales of a more romantic tone in his “Traveller,” which he published in 1617.[144] Perhaps, however, no writer of such fictions in the early part of the seventeenth century had more success than Salas Barbadillo, who was born at Madrid, about 1580, and died in 1630.[145] During the last eighteen years of his life, he published not less than twenty different works, all of which, except three or four that are filled with such dramas and poetry as Lope de Vega had made fashionable, consist of popular stories, neither so short as the tales of Timoneda, nor long enough to be accounted regular romances, but all written in a truly national spirit, and in a strongly marked Castilian style. [143] It is in the form of dialogues, and called “Carnestolendas de Castilla, dividido en las tres Noches del Domingo, Lunes y Martes de Antruexo, por Gaspar Lucas Hidalgo, Vezino de la Villa de Madrid,” Barcelona, 1605, 12mo, ff. 108. Editions are also noted of 1606 and 1618.