his other work aside and brought Don Quixote to a hurried conclusion. In the last chapters of Don Quixote he was forced to write hastily because his rival had stolen his plan, and it was necessary for him to recast it as well as to bring out his novel with all speed. But, these blemishes notwithstanding, much of the sequel is truly epical in its grandeur. Don Quixote, if less amusing, is greatly more thought-provoking, and Sancho Panza becomes even richer in common sense and clear-sightedness. The portraiture of the remaining characters, too, is sharper in outline than in the first part. The sequel, indeed, is a great mirror in which the Spanish society of Cervantes' day is reflected with all the thaumaturgy of genius. The immense success which followed it must have afforded the greatest gratification to the dying novelist, and must in great measure have consoled him for the disappointments of a career spent in the shallows of exile and poverty. Lazarillo de Tormes The greatest humorous romance which Spain had produced prior to Don Quixote was the Lazarillo de Tormes of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, a many-sided man and once Spanish Ambassador to England. He was of noble extraction on both sides, and was born in Granada in 1503. As a younger son he was destined for the Church, and studied at the university of Salamanca, where, while still a student, he wrote the novel which rendered him famous. Its graphic descriptions, its penetration into character, and its vivacity and humour instantly gained for it a high place in contemporary Spanish literature. But Mendoza soon exchanged the clerical for the political sphere of activity, and Charles V created him Captain-General of Siena, a small Italian republic which had been brought beneath Spanish rule. Haughty and unfeeling, Mendoza exercised a most tyrannical sway over the wretched people committed to his care. They complained bitterly to the Emperor regarding his conduct, and when this remained without effect, his life was attempted by assassination. On one occasion, indeed, his horse was killed under him by a musket-shot aimed at himself. During his absence Siena was captured by a French army, and as the weakness of the city was attributed to his withdrawal of certain troops he was recalled to Spain in 1554. But while thus employed in Italy as a statesman and a soldier Mendoza had not been idle in a literary sense, for he had written his political commentaries, a paraphrase of Aristotle, a treatise on mechanics, and other notable works, none of which, however, have achieved for him a tithe of the popularity of his first literary effort.