e!" said the curate with a shout, "'Tirante el Blanco' here!
Hand it over, gossip, for in it I reckon I have found a treasury of
enjoyment and a mine of recreation. Here is Don Kyrieleison of Montalvan,
a valiant knight, and his brother Thomas of Montalvan, and the knight
Fonseca, with the battle the bold Tirante fought with the mastiff, and
the witticisms of the damsel Placerdemivida, and the loves and wiles of
the widow Reposada, and the empress in love with the squire Hipolito--in
truth, gossip, by right of its style it is the best book in the world.
Here knights eat and sleep, and die in their beds, and make their wills
before dying, and a great deal more of which there is nothing in all the
other books. Nevertheless, I say he who wrote it, for deliberately
composing such fooleries, deserves to be sent to the galleys for life.
Take it home with you and read it, and you will see that what I have said
is true."

"As you will," said the barber; "but what are we to do with these little
books that are left?"

"These must be, not chivalry, but poetry," said the curate; and opening
one he saw it was the "Diana" of Jorge de Montemayor, and, supposing all
the others to be of the same sort, "these," he said, "do not deserve to
be burned like the others, for they neither do nor can do the mischief
the books of chivalry have done, being books of entertainment that can
hurt no one."

"Ah, senor!" said the niece, "your worship had better order these to be
burned as well as the others; for it would be no wonder if, after being
cured of his chivalry disorder, my uncle, by reading these, took a fancy
to turn shepherd and range the woods and fields singing and piping; or,
what would be still worse, to turn poet, which they say is an incurable
and infectious malady."

"The damsel is right," said the curate, "and it will be well to put this
stumbling-block and temptation out of our friend's way. To begin, then,
with the 'Diana' of Montemayor. I am of opinion it should not be burned,
but that it should be cleared of all that about the sage Felicia and the
magic water, and of almost all the longer pieces of verse: let it keep,
and welcome, its prose and the honour of being the first of books of the
kind."

"This that comes next," said the barber, "is the 'Diana,' entitled the
'Second Part, by the Salamancan,' and this other has the same title, and
its author is Gil Polo."

"As for that of the Salamancan," replied the curate, "let