Of the best works for the study of Visaya, or Bisaya, first dialect in the islands acquired by missionary and conquistador, wherein he gives 352 titles (p. xxix), Retana has the following: "Up to a few years ago the dictionary held in highest repute by linguists was the work of the Augustinian scholar Alonso de Méntrida," a vocabulary of the Hiligueina, or Hiligayno, and Haraya tongues--two of the three chief dialects spoken in Panay, not very different from the Visaya of Cebú, used, however, by the less cultured tribes of hillsmen in that island. This vocabulary, first printed in 1637, and in 1841 republished at Manila, with diagrams of Indian alphabets, enlarged in another edition in 1842, by a brother missionary, Julián Martín, has now been supplanted by the Visaya-Spanish dictionary (in two volumes), of another Augustinian scholar, Juan Félix de la Encarnación, printed at Manila, first, in 1851-1852, then in 1866 and again in 1885. Another work deserving of praise is the Arte of the Visaya idiom in use in the islands of Sámar and Leite (Binondo, 1872), composed by the Franciscan traveler, Antonio Figuerroa, in which latter language--Leite, that with slight changes is similar to Cebuano, the first grammar was published by the Jesuit missionary, Domingo Ezquerra, in 1662. Helpful, too, as much as the former Arte in philology is the Christian Doctrine translated into Visaya-Cebuano by the Recoleto scholar and orator, Tomás de San Jerónimo, known to his contemporaries as "the Cicero of Cebú." His school-book re-issued at Binondo in 1876 is a reprint of his edition of 1731. Of the Tagal dialect,--a form of speech so hard to acquire with nicety that, according to a Spanish saying, one needs therefor "un año de arte y dos de bahaque," [12] that is to say, unless I am wrong in my interpretation of the last word--"bahaque" which likely is Aeta, the scholar needs "a year of study and two of practice." The earliest Tagal Arte, so styled in chronicles, for what with the universal destructive touch of time, and in Luzon especially, the voracity of that pest of librarians, the anay,--an ant that in a few hours, it is said, will devour a library,--cases as well as books, not a sole copy, apparently, has survived, was composed in 1580 by the Augustinian voyager and missionary, Agustín de Albuquerque, fourth superior of his brotherhood in the Philippines, and printed at Manila in 1637. In Tagal the works most highly praised are the following: The Critical Treatise on Tagalisms (Mexico, 1742), by the Franciscan linguist, Melchior Oyanguren, the only work known wherein that tongue is contrasted on scientific lines with the classic Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and Mandarin Chinese. The author was moved to prepare his manual for the instruction of his brother missionaries prior to their entrance into their field of work in Luzon.