The question of the origin, or, if the word be preferred, of the originality, of _Gil Blas_ may not be of much intrinsic importance. But its traditional importance in the history of literature is considerable, and something, perhaps, must be said about it here. The assertions of the more or less complete indebtedness of the author to a Spanish original may be classed under three heads. There is, first, the assertion that _Gil Blas_ is taken from the _Marcos de Obregon_ of Vincent Espinel. This was advanced very shortly after the appearance of the book, and currency was given to it by Voltaire, who roundly repeated it, in consequence, beyond all doubt, of the galling attacks which Lesage had made upon his early dramatic and epic efforts, not merely in his farces but in _Gil Blas_ itself, where the author of _Zaire_ figures as Don Gabriel Triaquero. The second is due to a Spanish Jesuit author, who, avowedly setting before him the object of claiming _Gil Blas_ for his own country, endeavours to make out that it is simply a translation of a Spanish original. The third is a more elaborate hypothesis and more difficult of disproof--its foundation, such as it is, has been already alluded to. It is supposed that Lesage extracted the matter, at least, of _Gil Blas_, as well as that of the _Bachelier de Salamanque_, from a manuscript Spanish original which has since disappeared. As to the first charge, it is one of those curiously hazardous ones, the making of which can only be accounted for on the general principle that some of most handfuls of mud which are thrown is likely to stick, for Espinel's work is unanimously confessed by competent examiners to be not in the least like _Gil Blas_ on the whole, though a very few detached traits may have been taken by Lesage from it, as they almost certainly were for others of his prose fictions. The patriotic hypothesis of Father Isla suffers only from the fact that there is not the faintest trace of a Spanish _Gil Blas_ or of any allusion to such a work. As for the third, it is obviously, and on the face of it, as impossible to disprove as to prove. There may have been French _Macbeths_ and _Lears_ from which Shakspeare adapted the existing pieces, for aught we know. But, when we dismiss merely hypothetical argument and examine the matter coolly, we find, first, that there is absolutely no external evidence that Lesage did in any way plagiarize _Gil Blas_; secondly, that there is overwhelming internal evidence that, while he made free use of his Spanish predecessors for details, for local colour and so forth the essential part of the book is fairly his own. The "picaroon" romance, as it is called, was a specially Spanish variety of _Roman d'Aventures_ which, abandoning giants and enchanters on the one hand and the long-winded sentimentalities of the _Amadis_ and the Scudéry romances on the other, confined itself to the actual life of