d when Spain looms
as largely in English politics as does France later, saw the publication
in London of "some hundred and seventy volumes written either by
peninsular authors, or in the peninsular tongues[30]." At such a time
this number represents a very considerable influence; and it is,
therefore, no wonder that critics have fallen victims to the allurements
of a theory which would ascribe Spanish origins for all the various
prose epidemics of Elizabethan literature. To pair Lyly with Guevara,
Sidney with Montemayor[31], and Nash with Mendoza, and thus to point at
Spain as the parent, not only of the euphuistic, but also of the
pastoral and picaresque romance, is to furnish an explanation almost
irresistible in its symmetry. It must have been with the joy of a
mathematician, solving an intricate problem, that Dr Landmann formulated
this theory of literary equations. But without going to such lengths,
without pressing the connexion between particular writers, one may admit
that in general Spanish literature must have exercised an influence upon
the Elizabethans. Mr Underhill, our latest authority on the subject,
allows this, while at the same time cautioning us against the dangers of
over-estimating it. Any contact on the side of the lyric and the drama
was, he declares, very slight[32], and the peninsular writings actually
circulated in our country at this time, in translations, he divides into
three classes; occasional literature, that is topical tracts and
pamphlets on contemporary Spanish affairs; didactic literature,
comprising scientific treatises, accounts of voyages such as inspired
Hakluyt, works on military science, and, more important still, the
religious writings of mystics like Granada; and lastly artistic prose.
The last item, which alone concerns us, is by far the smallest of the
three, and by itself amounts to less than half the translations from
Italian literature; moreover most of the Spanish translations under this
head came into England after 1580, and could not therefore have
influenced Lyly's novel. But of course the _Libro Aureo_ had been
englished long before this, while the _Lazarillo de Tormes_,
Mendoza's[33] picaresque romance, was given an English garb by Rowland
in 1576, and, though Montemayor's _Diana_ was not translated until 1596,
Spanish and French editions of it had existed in England long previous
to that date. Perhaps most important of all was the famous realistic
novel _Celestina_,