excellent Don Raphael, in the house of Pedro de Moyadas. In like manner, the incident of that worthy assuming the dress of a dead hermit, is anticipated by Lazarillo de Tormes, in the second part of his History; and probably many other resemblances, or, if the reader pleases to call them so, plagiarisms, might be pointed out; for as the author furnished the plots of his dramatic pieces very often at the expense of the Spaniards, there is no probability that he would scruple to borrow from their romances whatever he found suitable to his own purpose.

There has been, indeed, an unauthenticated account of Le Sage having obtained possession of some manuscripts of Cervantes', which he had used liberally, and without acknowledgment, in the construction of his Gil Blas. A translation of Le Sage's novels into Spanish, bears also on the titlepage the vaunt, that this operation has restored them to the language in which they were originally written. But the styles of Cervantes and Le Sage are so essentially different, though each in itself is masterly, that, in the absence of positive evidence, one would as soon be induced to believe that the Frenchman wrote Don Quixote, as that the Spaniard composed Gil Blas. If Le Sage borrowed any thing from Spain, excepting some general hints, such as we have noticed, it may have been some of the detached novels, which, as in the Diable Boiteux, are interwoven in the history, though with less felicity than in the earlier publication, where they do not interrupt the march of any principal

narrative. On the other hand, it is no doubt wonderful, that merely by dint of acquaintance with Spanish literature, Le Sage should have become so perfectly intimate, as he is admitted to be on all hands, with the Spanish customs, manners, and habits, as to conduct his reader through four volumes without once betraying the secret, that the work was not composed by a native of Spain. Indeed, it is chiefly on this wonderful observation of costume, and national manners, that the Spanish translator founds his reclamation of the work, as the original property of Spain. Le Sage's capacity of identifying himself with the child of his imagination, in circumstances in which he himself never was placed, though rare in the highest degree, is not altogether singular; De Foe, in particular, possessed it in a most extraordinary degree. It may be added, that this strict and accurate attention to costume is confined to externals, so far as the principal personage is concerned. Gil Blas, though wearing the Golillo, Capa, and Spada, with the most pure Castilian grace, thinks and acts with all the vivacity of a Frenchman, and displays, in many respects, the peculiar sentiments of one.

The last French editor of Le Sage's works thinks that Gil Blas may have had a prototype in the humorous but licentious History of Francion, written by the Sieur Moulinet de Parc. I confess I cannot see any particular resemblance which the History of Gil Blas has to that work, excepting that the scene of both lies chiefly in ordinary life, as may be said of the Roman Comique of Scarron.

The whole concoction of Gil Blas appears to me as original, in that which constitutes the essence of a composition, as it is inexpressibly delightful.

The principal character, in whose name and with whose commentaries the story is told, is a conception which has never been equalled in fictitious composition, yet which seems so very real, that we cannot divest ourselves of the opinion, that we listen to the narrative of one who has really gone through the scenes of which he speaks to us. Gil Blas' character has all the weaknesses and inequalities proper to human nature, and which we daily recognise in ourselves and in our acquaintance. He is not by nature such a witty sharper as the Spaniards painted in the characters of Paolo or Guzman, and such as Le Sage himself has embodied in the subordinate sketch of Scipio, but is naturally disposed towards honesty, though with a mind unfortunately too ductile to resist the temptations of opportunity or example. He is constitutionally timid, and yet occasionally capable of doing brave actions; shrewd and intelligent, but apt to be deceived by his own vanity; with wit enough to make us laugh with him at others, and follies enough to turn the jest frequently against himself. Generous, good-natured, and humane, he has virtues sufficient to make us love him, and as to respect, it is the last thing which he asks at his reader's hand. Gil Blas, in short, is the principal character in a moving scene, where, though he frequently plays a subordinate part in the action, all that he lays before us is coloured with his own opinions, remarks, and sensations. We feel the

individuality of Gil Blas alike in the cavern of the robbers, in the episcopal palace of the Archbishop of Grenada, in the bureau of the minister, and in all the other various scenes through which he conducts us so delightfully, and which are, generally speaking, very slightly connected together, or rather no otherwise related to each other, than as they are represented to have happened to the same man. In this point of view, the romance is one which rests on character rather than incident; but although there is no main action whatsoever, yet there is so much incident in the episodical narratives, that the work can never be said to linger or hang heavy.

The son of the squire of Asturias is intrusted also with the magic wand of the Diable Boiteux, and can strip the gilding from human actions with the causticity of Asmodeus himself. Yet, with all this power of satire, the moralist has so much of gentleness and good-humour, that it may be said of Le Sage, as of Horace, Circum præcordia ludit. All is easy and good-humoured, gay, light, and lively; even the cavern of the robbers is illuminated with a ray of that wit with which Le Sage enlightens his whole narrative. It is a work which renders the reader pleased with himself and with mankind, where faults are placed before him in the light of follies rather than vices, and where misfortunes are so interwoven with the ludicrous, that

1["We venture to be of opinion, that there is as much useful knowledge in Gil Blas, if the reader be one of those who would have understood the Epitaph of the Licentiate Pedro Garcias, as in any dozen volumes of real history the country of Le Sage has yet produced."-Quarterly Review, Sept. 1826.]

we laugh in the very act of sympathizing with them. All is rendered diverting-both the crimes and the retribution which follows them. Thus, for example, Gil Blas, during his prosperity, commits a gross act of filial undutifulness and ingratitude; yet we feel, that the intermediation of Master Muscada the grocer, irritating the pride of a parvenu, was so exactly calculated to produce the effect which it operated, that we continue to laugh with and at Gil Blas, even in the sole instance in which he shows depravity of heart. And then, the lapidation which he undergoes at Oviedo, with the disappointment in all his ambitious hopes of exciting the admiration of the inhabitants of his birthplace, is received as an expiation completely appropriate, and suited to the offence. In short, so strictly are the pages of Gil Blas confined to what is amusing, that they might perhaps have been improved by some touches of a more masculine, stronger, and firmer line of morality.

It ought not to escape notice, that Le Sage, though, like Cervantes, he considers the human figures which he paints as his principal object, fails not to relieve them by exquisite morsels of landscape, slightly touched indeed, but with the highest keeping, and the most marked effect. The description of the old hermit's place of retreat may be given as an example of what we mean.

In the History of Gil Blas is also exhibited that art of fixing the attention of the reader, and creating, as it were, a reality even in fiction itself, not only by a strict attention to costume and locality, but by a minuteness, and at the same time a viva