ancient institutions, but does convey to us a sense that we see an energetic people of fine qualities struggling on to high destinies. [SN: _The decadence._] The fall from Mariana to any of his contemporaries or successors is great. The _Cisma de Inglaterra_--‘The English Schism’--by Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1527-1611), enjoys the reputation of being a well-written account of the great movement by which the English Church vindicated its independence of the see of Rome, told from the point of view of a Spanish Jesuit. Prudencio de Sandoval, a distinguished churchman and one of the historiographers of the Crown, continued the general history of Morales, and then added to Mariana a life of Charles V., which is of about the same length as the Jesuit’s whole history. Sandoval shows what the reign of the great emperor looked like to a learned Spaniard of the later sixteenth century, but it has no great force and no merit of style.[53] Other names might be added--Bartolomé de Argensola’s _History of the Moluccas_ (1609), the work of a pure man of letters who wrote to please his patron, and the _History of the Goths_ of the diplomatist Saavedra-Fajardo, published at Munster in 1649--but they could swell a list to little purpose. All these writers had the good fortune to write before the invasion of Góngorism, except Saavedra-Fajardo, who escaped it by residence abroad. [SN: _Solis._] Antonio de Solis (1610-1686) had the honour of resisting the plague. If the second-rate men of a literature could be dealt with at any length in our limits, Solis would be an interesting figure to dwell on. He was an accomplished man, who did very creditable work both as poet and dramatist, but in the schools of other and more original writers. There are few more melancholy lives among the biographies of men of letters. In spite of reputation and success, he was always poor. Although he held the post of _Cronista Mayor_ of the Indies in the latter part of his life, he died in utter poverty, leaving “his soul to be the heir of his body”--that is, giving orders that his few belongings should be sold to pay for masses. In the general bankruptcy of Spain his salary was probably not paid. A sense of duty rather than an inclination to the task may be supposed to have led him to undertake the writing of a book which has always remained very dear to the Spaniards. This is _The Conquest of Mexico_, published by the help of a friend in 1684.[54] The excellence of the style was recognised from the first, and has preserved the reputation of the book. Yet it wants the rude life of the contemporary narratives, and the understanding of, or at least strenuous effort to understand, the native side, which is to be found in Mr Prescott. Flowing and eloquent as Solis is, he is also somewhat nerveless. Perhaps our knowledge of the fact that he stood on the very verge of the time when the voice of literature in Spain was to be silenced altogether makes the reader