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or "membre de la cour royale," "escribano" instead of "notaire," (8, 9.) "Hospital de ninos" instead of "hospice des enfans orphelins," "olla podrida" three times "marmalada de berengaria," (9, 4,) and "picaro" instead of "fripon," (4, 10, 12.) Scipio says, "un jour comme je passois aupres de l'eglise de los reyes." There is at Toledo a church named "San Juan de los Reyes." How could Le Sage, who never had been in Spain, know this fact? Gil Blas thus relates an event at Valencia--"Je m'en approchai pour apprendre pourquoi je voyois la un si grand concours d'hommes et de femmes, et bientot je fus au fait, en lisant ces paroles ecrites en lettres d'or sur une table de marbre noir, qu'il-y avait audessus de la porte, '_La posada de los representantes_,' et les comediens marquaient dans leur affiche qu'ils joueraient ce jour-la pour la premiere fois une tragedie nouvelle de Don Gabriel Triaguero." This passage is an attestation of the fact, that during the reign of Philip IV. the buildings of the Spanish provinces in which dramatic performances were represented were at the same time the residence, "posada," of the actors--a custom even now not altogether extinguished; but which Le Sage could only know through the medium of a Spanish manuscript. Gil Blas, imprisoned in the tower of Segovia, hears Don Gaston de Cavallos sing the following verses-- "Ayde nie un ano _felice_ Parece un soplo ligero Pero sin duda un instante Es un siglo de tormento." Where did Le Sage find these verses, sweet, gracious, and idiomatic as they are? The use of the word "felice" for "feliz" is a poetical license, and displays more than a stranger's knowledge of Spanish composition. It has been said that Smollett has left many French words in his translation of Gil Blas, and that too strong an inference ought not to be drawn from the employment of Spanish phrases by Le Sage. But what are the words? Are they words in the mouth of every one, and such as a superficial dilettante might easily pick up; or do they, either of themselves or from the conjunctures in which they are employed, exhibit a consummate acquaintance with the dialect and habits of the people to which they refer? Besides, it should be remembered that French is a language far more familiar to well-educated people in England, than Spanish ever was to the French, and that Smollett had lived much in France; whereas Le Sage knew from books alone the language which he has
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