verse. Thus Ercilla made his _Araucana_: that is, the poem of the
expedition against the Araucanians in Chili, or rather he thus wrote the
first (and best) of the three parts; later, desirous of rising to epic
heights, he had resort to the contrivances and conventional traditional
ornaments of this type of work and became dull, without entirely losing
all his skill. "This poem is more savage than the nations which form its
theme," said Voltaire in a pretty phrase which was somewhat hyperbolical.
The _Araucana_ is agreeably savage in its first part without being
ferocious and fastidiously civilised in the sequels without being
contemptible.

MENDOZA.--Hurtado de Mendoza must be regarded--that proud, gloomy,
bellicose and haughty minister of Charles V--because he was the earliest
of the picaresque romancists. The picaresque method consisted in
delineating the habits of outcasts, bohemians, spongers, swindlers, and
vagrants. It lasted for about three quarters of a century. To this class
belonged _Guzmar of Alfargue_, by Mateo Aleman; _Marco of Obregon_, by
Espinel; _The Devil on Two Sticks_, by Guevara; and somewhat, in France,
the _Gil Bias_ of Le Sage. Now the prototype of all these was _The
Lazarillo of Tormes_, by Hurtado de Mendoza.

GUEVARA.--A moment's heed must be paid to the amiable Antonio de Guevara,
an insinuating moralist whose _Familiar Letters_ and _Dial of Princes_,
though rather affectedly grave, contain interesting passages which
commend the author to readers. He is more particularly interesting to
Frenchmen because it was from him La Fontaine borrowed his _Countrymen
of the Danube_, attributing it to Marcus Aurelius (which led to much
confusion), because the principal personage in _The Dial of Princes_ is
one Marcus Aurelius, who is discreetly intended for Charles V. In spite
of what Taine wrote, though his criticisms in detail were accurate,