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 it go to swell
the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved
as if it came from Apollo himself: but get on, gossip, and make haste,
for it is growing late."

"This book," said the barber, opening another, "is the ten books of the
'Fortune of Love,' written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet."

"By the orders I have received," said the curate, "since Apollo has been
Apollo, and the Muses have been Muses, and poets have been poets, so
droll and absurd a book as this has never been written, and in its way it
is the best and the most singular of all of this species that have as yet
appeared, and he who has not read it may be sure he has never read what
is delightful. Give it here, gossip, for I make more account of having