It is needless for our purpose to follow further the story of Spanish literature, which, since the seventeenth century, has been singularly barren, and, in any case, has exerted no appreciable effect whatever upon our own. On the whole it has been justly said that the writing of Spain has not been quite worthy of the nation. Perhaps its best work, leaving Cervantes aside, has been in history, from which, however, we have derived no definite influence which can be classed as literary. Apart from these its merits are those of inventiveness in plot and of a certain high conception of dignity—a most consistent trait of the Spaniard. But it is a literature wordy in expression, lacking in insight, and seldom concerning itself with the deeper interests of human life. BRIEF CONSPECTUS OF SPANISH LITERATURE. DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE. CHIEF REPRESENTATIVE OR WORK. DATE. SOME EFFECTS ON ENGLISH LITERATURE. Fiction: (_a_) Moral Tales Don Juan MANUEL (_Count Lucanor_) Early fourteenth century Passed into stock of _fabliaux_ and _novelle_, and thence occasionally reappear, _e.g._, in _Taming of the Shrew_. CERVANTES (_Novelas Exemplares_) 1613 Utilized by later Elizabethan playwrights, _e.g._, Middleton’s _Spanish Gipsy_, Fletcher’s _Fair Maid of the Inn_. (_b_) Chivalric Romances (Libros de Caballerias) _Amadis of Gaul_ Fourteenth century _Palmerin_, _Palmerin of England_, etc. Fifteenth century The chivalric romances, combined with the pastoral, led (through D’Urfé) to the French “heroic romances” of La Calprenède and Scudéry. For their effect on English work, _see_ French Literature. (_c_) Pastoral Romance (part prose, part verse) MONTEMAYOR (_Diana_) 1520-1562 CERVANTES (Galatea) 1585 The _Arcadia_ of Sidney and Spenser’s _Shepheard’s Calender_ owe some influence to Montemayor. _Diana_ was Englished at the end of the sixteenth century. (_d_) Romance of Common Life _Celestina_ (_Calisto and Meliboea_) Fifteenth century Picaroon Novels (Novelas de Picaros) _Lazarillo de Tormes_, _Guzman de Alfarache_ 1554, 1599 QUEVEDO (_Life of Buscon_) 1626 The original source of the picaroon (or picaresque) novel, first seen in England in, _e.g._, Nash’s _Jack Wilton_. In France passed through Scarron to Lesage. Taken up by Defoe (_Moll Flanders_, etc.), Fielding (_Joseph Andrews_), Smollett (_Roderick Random_, etc.). Revived by Dumas and his followers. (_e_) Satirical CERVANTES (_Don Quixote_) 1547-1616 (_D.Q._ 1605) Greatly read and quoted in England at all times. Imitated in Butler’s _Hudibras_. Poetry: (_a_) Early Romance _Poem of the Cid_ Twelfth and thirteenth centuries (_b_) Learned Poetry (lyric) GARCILASO DE LA VEGA 1530-1568 GONGORA