ingles out with such
painful anxiety the error to which we have adverted, suffers others of
equal importance to pass altogether unnoticed? For instance, in the
twelfth book, eighth chapter, Olivarez speaks of a journey of Philip IV.
to Zaragoza; which took place indeed, but not until two years after the
disgrace of Olivarez. Cogollos, speaking in 1616, alludes to a
circumstance connected with the revolt of Portugal in 1640; Olivarez,
sixteen months afterwards, mentions the same circumstance, saying to
Cogollos--"Your patron, though related to the Duke of Braganza, had, I
am well assured, no share in his revolt." In 1607, Gil Blas, being the
servant of Don Bernardo de Castel Blanco, says, that some suppose his
master to be a spy of the king of Portugal, a personage who at that time
did not exist. Now, if Le Sage intended to leave to posterity a lasting
and unequivocal proof of his plagiarism, how could he do so more
effectually than by dwelling on one anachronism as an error which he
intended to correct, in a work swarming in every part with others
equally flagrant, of which he takes no notice? We have mentioned these
mistakes, particularly as being mistakes into which the original author
had fallen, and which, as his object was not to give an exact relation
of facts, he probably disregarded altogether. And here again we must
repeat our remark, that these perpetual allusions indicate a writer not
afraid of exposing himself by irretrievable blunders, and certain of
being understood by those whom he addressed. A Spaniard writing for
Spaniards, would of course take it for granted that his countrymen were
acquainted with those very facts and allusions which Le Sage sometimes
formally endeavours to explain, and sometimes is unable to detect; while
a writer conscious, as the French author was, of a very imperfect
acquaintance with the language and usages of Spain, would never indulge
in those little circumstantial touches which a Spaniard could not help
inserting.

We now come to errors of Le Sage himself. Dona Mencia speaks of her
first husband dying in the service of the king of Portugal, five or six
years after the beginning of the seventeenth century. Events are
described as taking place in the time of Philip II., under the title of
Le Mariage de Vengeance, which happened three hundred years before, at
the time of the Sicilian Vespers, 1283. Gil Blas, after his release from
the tower of Segovia, tells his patron, Alonzo de