the world of marvels, is to depict natural objects exaggerated in size, or otherwise abnormally developed. Hence giants, dwarfs, elephants large as mountains and trees reaching to the sky, perpetually occur in the legends of childhood or of a childish period. The one-eyed cannibal Polyphemus, the Læstrygones with their terrible queen, 'as large as the top of a mountain,' are the legitimate parents of the giants and ogresses of nursery lore. Most of the marvels of the Odyssey, that wonder-book of the early Greek, or of the more fantastic Indian mythology, belong to this class; so likewise the childish fables of a later day, when the unexplored regions of the New World, or the mysterious recesses of Cathay, gave full scope to the fancy, and might be illuminated with the silver roofs and golden pinnacles of El Dorado, or peopled with the most fantastic shapes imagination could devise:

'Dog-headed, bosom-eyed, and bird-footed.'

A more enlarged experience and less crude conceptions of natural laws and possibilities, shook the faith in these childish fancies, and imagination took refuge in the preternatural beings not of mortal mould nor subject to earthly laws, mingling among mortals and influencing their destinies. To this period belongs all the lore of faërie; genies, pixies and water-sprites, with their multifarious congeners. But the time came when this belief was no longer tenable. Pleasant Bishop Corbett dates the period of the disappearance of the English fairies very accurately when he writes:

'But when of late Elizabeth,

Or later James came in,

They never danced on any heath,

As when the time hath bin.'

For the reign of James I marks as far as the English nation is concerned - the sudden expansion of the next form of romantic faith: the belief that ordinary mortals might be invested with supernatural powers. For, although no clear boundary-line can be drawn between any of these periods, as the culture of particular provinces may

be centuries in arrear of that of the rest of the nation though there were magicians at Pharaoh's court, and there may yet survive in some obscure corners, a lingering belief in fairies, yet the period in question can be confidently designated as preeminently the time of witches and wizards; a time when all the land was filled with the terror of sorcery.

In the present day so much of the world has been explored and so many of nature's secrets have been ransacked, that we are confident that what is yet unknown can not differ very greatly from the known: natural laws and their universality are so far understood that we apply them or concede their application to all material things, and supernatural powers or interferences (in the romantic sense) can no longer be conceived possible. In this general illumination, what dark corner of the universe is left in what faint twilight can Romance pitch her shadowy pavilion ? Pushed by the advancing march of science completely over the confines of the material world, she now plants herself in the still mysterious spirit-land- the dim and nebulous regions of psychology. Inexplicable influences of soul on soul, strange conferences with the spirits of the departed, mesmerism, clairvoyance, and the whole nightmare catalogue of modern marvels are the result. Where will be the next station when this too becomes untenable ?

This, however, is a digression: we return to our original subject. From the first to the second work on our rubric from the first to the sixteenth century of our era —is a great stride, yet one which we are compelled to make. When the new wine of Teutonism was poured into the old bottles of Roman civilization, the bottles broke and the wine was spilled. In the grand cataclysm usually called the Dark Ages, the whole classic literature was wrecked. Many precious fragments have been saved, but how much was lost, no man knows. Doubtless, among the rest, there perished works of the class of which we are treating; and perished undeplored, for the delight in unveiling the daily and familiar life of an ancient race - the life of the shops. and houses, of the streets and markets, as well as that of

the palace or the camp-is of comparatively modern origin; and scholars who bewailed the missing Annals of Tacitus, had no moan to spare for the lost Milesian Tales.

Some glimpses of this life are given in Apuleius and his prototype, the Pseudo-Lucian: less in the sentimental romances of Heliodorus, Xenophon Ephesius and the rest of that school, of which the modern sentimental novel is the direct descendant. At a much later period it re-appears in the legends and ballads of Northern Europe, with a certain breezy freshness about it, but lacking the glow and color of the South. In Spain, especially, this literature attained its fullest development, and most, if not all, that is not of Spanish origin is founded on Spanish types.

The picaresque romance, as has been said, is the counterpart of the chevaleresque. It is the comic and animal side of life as opposed to the heroic and ideal. The action passes in real life, and the incidents are of the most familiar kind; the heroes are but witty vagabonds, usually of equivocal lineage, their exploits anything but glorious and their sufferings of the most undignified character. The picaro has no lofty idea of honor; he is little troubled with conscientious scruples, still less with heroic aspirations; errant he may be, but it is in avoiding dangers, not in seeking them; he lives by his wits, or, to put it more accurately, by the lack of wit in other men; and he who wisely builds thereon, rarely fails to make his foundation sure. Gathering where he has not strewed, and reaping where he has not sown, the vast domain of human folly, stupidity, and gullibility is his seed-field, and one harvest is no sooner garnered than another is ripe for the sickle. His doctrine, as clothed in the grand phrase of a prince of his tribe, is: 'Le temps passe, mais les badauds ne passeront pas occupons-nous de ce qui est éternel !'

Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus crura sagittis.

Happily, or unhappily, as we may please to consider it, the pícaro is himself no more exempt from human frailty than the world he victimizes; and the hooks he has so often baited for others, he gulps, when dangled before his own

mouth, as greedily as the veriest gudgeon of them all. Cards and dice, the fascinations of the wine cup and of black eyes, are more than his weaker moments can resist; and very many of his moments are of the weaker sort. Hence the rapid ups and downs of his inconstant life, the sudden moulting of his gay plumage and the substitution of ragged old frippery for his velvet and gold. From the company of courtiers and gallants, he drops to the fraternity of tatterdemallions and is made free of the guild of scarecrows; when, in disastrous eclipse, he bewails his imbecility, or execrates the baleful conjunctions of malign planets that have brought him to such a pass.

The sharpening of the wits which these worthies undergo in what may be called the apprenticeship of their career, is usually a gradual process; rarely is it so suddenly effected or by such simple physical means as in the case of Lazarillo. His first master was a blind beggar, an abominable old humbug, who hired him as a guide, and soon found out that his simplicity must be cured before he could render him efficient service. Leaving Salamanca,' says the story, we came to the bridge, at the entrance of which. there is a stone figure somewhat resembling a bull, when my master said to me: "Lazaro, put your ear to this bull, and you will hear a great noise inside." In my simplicity I believed him, and did so; when he knocked my head with such violence against the stone, that I did not get over the pain for more than three days. He laughed heartily at the trick, and said: "Fool, learn that a blind man's servant must have sharper wits than the Old Serpent himself." From that moment my simplicity and credulity all vanished.'

Having the advantage of sight, he soon becomes a match for the old rascal, though he never quite rivals him in cunning. A charitable vintager once gives the old fellow some clusters of ripe grapes, and he proposes to share them equitably with Lazaro. "We will divide them thus," says he, "we will pluck alternately, each one grape, and each promises the other to take but one at a time; so there can be no cheating." This proposition being agreed to, we

began to pluck, but the deceitful old wretch fell to pulling two at a time, so when I saw this, I pulled three at once, or as many as I could take. When all were eaten, he sat awhile with the stalk in his hand, and, wagging his head, said: "Lazaro, you have cheated me: you have been eating three at a time." I did no such thing, said I; why do you suspect me? The cunning old dog answered: "Do you know how I know it? Because I myself took two at a time, and you said nothing.'

From a master who beats but feeds him, he goes to one who beats and starves him, and then to one whom he himself has to feed. The sketch of this beggarly proud hidalgo is amusingly drawn :

'As I was thus wandering from door to door, and thinking that charity had flown to the skies, I met an esquire who was walking the streets in handsome attire, well combed, and his gait and carriage grave and imposing. I . looked at him and he at me: "Boy," said he, "are you looking for a master?" Yes, señor, I replied. "Follow me, then," he said. "Heaven is bountiful to you in sending you to me." I followed him at once, giving thanks in my heart, for he seemed the very master I was in search of. It was in the morning when I met him, and he made me follow him through a great part of the city. We passed the places where they sell bread and other provisions, and I was every moment expecting that he would load me with some of them, as it was the time when people usually provide for the day's wants; but he passed all these things by with a steady pace. In this way we kept on until the clock struck eleven, when he entered the principal church, with me behind him, and heard mass with great apparent devotion. When the service was over, he left the church and turned at a rapid pace down a lower street. I was delighted to see that he had no occasion to look for provisions, concluding that my new master was a man who laid in supplies by the quantity, that our dinner was all ready, and that he was now hastening to it with an appetite as sharp as my own. By this time the clock struck one, and we reached a house before which my master stopped, and,