reign of Charles V wrote a clever satirical prose work called
Lazarillo de Tormes, which became the foundation of a class of fiction
of which Gil Blas, by Le Sage, is the best known and most celebrated
example.

Except for the Cid, Spain had no historical narrative poems of any
account, and her prose historical works, especially on the discovery
and conquest of America, are of a purely local character, and had no
influence outside of Spain. The beginning of the eighteenth century saw
the accession to the throne of Philip V, a grandson of Louis XIV; and
this brought a strong French influence into the country, which for a
time dominated the national literature.

A new poetical system founded on Boileau was introduced by Luzan in his
Art of Poetry; but it did not seem to bring about any real advance in
literature; and it was not until Spain threw off this foreign yoke,
that any revival in her literature took place. It is due to a monk,
Benito Feyjoo, in the middle of the eighteen century that a renaissance
in Spanish literature took place. Feyjoo, a devout Catholic, labored to
bring to light scientific truths, and to show how they harmonized with
the true Catholic spirit. In the same century Isla, a Jesuit, undertook
with entire success, to purify the Spanish pulpit, which had become
lowered both in style and tone. His history of Friar Gerund, which
slightly resembles Don Quixote, aimed a blow at bombastic oratory,
causing it soon to die out. Proverbs which Cervantes had styled "short
sentences drawn from long experience," have always been a distinctive
Spanish product, and can be traced back to the earliest ages of the
country. No fewer than 24,000 have been collected, and many more
circulate among the lower classes which have not been recorded in
writing.

PORTUGUESE.

The earliest imitators in Europe of the bucolic poetry of Virgil, were
the Portuguese; and as a people they thought that the pastoral life was
the ideal model for poetry. This idea is strongly brought out by
Ribeyro in the sixteenth century.

The great number of Mocarbians that settled in Portugal infused into
them as a nation, a stronger Orientalism than is found elsewhere in
Europe, and their poetry was of an enthusiastic order, more marked than
that of the Spaniards.

Henry of Burgundy, who married a daughter of Alfonso XI of Spain, in
the eleventh century, introduced Provencal poetry. The Cancioneros, or
courtly ballads, in imitation of th