"_Secretary_.--Wonderful ability, rare genius. Such a man might rule Alanis, Cazalla, ay even Esquivias." Francis de Humillos is considered fit for the magistracy because of his nearness in soling a shoe. Michael Jarret is voted worthy, as he shoots an arrow like any eagle. Peter the Frog knows every word of the ballad of the "Dog of Alva" without missing one, but Humillos stands the examination with rather more credit than the rest; he knows the four prayers, and says them four or five times per week. The number of wandering gipsies and brigands and thieves of all description was out of all rational proportion with the honest and respectable population. These were united under the hampa, and it was a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain information against any delinquent from a brother of the order. Little is said about the mercantile or manufacturing classes in books connected with the time of Cervantes. Enough is told of the pride, and luxury, and generally perverted tastes of the great, and hints are given of the kind and considerate demeanor of the nobility residing on their estates to their dependents. {16} DON QUIXOTE'S PREDECESSORS. Spain is not the only country which for a time has set an extravagant estimate on some books or class of books. Even in our own days and in those of the last generation, have not literary furors prevailed for picturesque banditti, and feudal castles, and caverns, and awful noises in vast and dimly lighted bedchambers, for poetry beckoning its victims to despair and suicide, for novels stamped with the silver fork of high life, and lastly, for those which enlarge on the physiology of forbidden fruit? M. Chasles will pleasantly explain the literary _penchants_ of the peninsula two hundred and sixty odd years since: