The glass to you but gives a shade,
To me mine eyes the true shape carry:
For such a thought most highly prizèd,
Which ever hath Love's yoke despisèd,
Better than one captiv'd perceiveth,
Though he the lively form receiveth,
The other sees it but disguisèd."
Montemôr closes with the promise of a sequel, which never appeared. But, as his popularity continued, publishers printed new editions, containing the story of Abindarraez and Jarifa, boldly annexed from Villegas' Inventario, which was licensed so early as 1551. The tempting opportunity was seized by Alonso Pérez, a Salamancan doctor, whose second Diana (1564) is extremely dull, despite the singular boast of its author that it contains scarcely anything "not stolen or imitated from the best Latins and Italians." Pérez alleges that he was a friend of Montemôr's; but, as that was his sole qualification, his third Diana—written, though "not added here, to avoid making too large a volume"—has fortunately vanished. In this same year, 1564, appeared Gaspar Gil Polo's Diana, a continuation which, says Cervantes, should be guarded "as though it were Apollo's"—the praise has perplexed readers who missed the pun on the author's name. The merits of Polo's sequel, excellent in matter and form, were recognised, as Professor Rennert notes, by Jerónimo de Texeda, whose Diana (1627) is a plagiary from Polo. Though the contents of the one and the other are almost identical, Ticknor, considering them as independent works, finds praise for the earlier book, and blame for the later. An odd, mad freak is the versified Diez libros de Fortuna de Amor (1573), wherein Frexano and Floricio woo Fortuna and Augustina in Arcadian fashion. Its author, the Sardinian soldier, Antonio Lo Frasso, shares with Avellaneda the distinction of having drawn Cervantes' fire—his one title to fame. Artificiality reaches its full height in the Pastor de Fílida (1582) of Luis Gálvez de Montalvo, who presents himself, Silvestre, and Cervantes as the (Dresden) shepherds Siralvo, Silvano, and Tirsi. Almost every Spanish man of letters attempted a pastoral, but it were idle to compile a catalogue of works by authors whose echoes of Montemôr are merely mechanical. The occasion of much ornate prose, the pastoral lived partly because there was naught to set against it, partly because born men of action found pleasure in literary idealism and in "old Saturn's reign of sugar-candy." Its unreality doomed it to death when Alemán and others took to working the realistic vein first struck in Lazarillo de Tormes. Meanwhile the spectacle of love-lorn shepherds contending in song scandalised the orthodox, and the monk Bartolomé Ponce produced his devout parody, the Clara Diana á lo divino (1599) in the same edifying spirit that moved Sebastián de Córdoba (1577) to travesty Boscán's and Garcilaso's works—á lo divino, trasladadas en materias cristianas.
Didactic prose is practised by the official chronicler, Jerónimo de Zurita (1512-80), author of the Anales de la Corona de Aragón, six folios published between 1562 and 1580, and ending with the death of Fernando. Zurita is not a great literary artist, nor an historical portrait-painter. Men's actions interest him less than the progress of constitutional growth. His conception of history, to give an illustration from English literature, is nearer Freeman's than Froude's, and he was admirably placed by fortune. Simancas being thrown open to him, he was first among Spanish historians to use original documents, first to complete his authorities by study in foreign archives, first to perceive that travel is the complement of research. Science and Zurita's work gain by his determination to abandon the old plan of beginning with Noah. He lacks movement, sympathy, and picturesqueness; but he excels all predecessors in scheme, accuracy, architectonics—qualities which have made his supersession impossible. Whatever else be read, Zurita's Anales must be read also. His contemporary, Ambrosio de Morales (1513-91), nephew of Pérez de Oliva, was charged to continue Ocampo's chronicle. His nomination is dated 1580. His authoritative fragment, the result of ten years' labour, combines eloquent narrative with critical instinct in such wise as to suggest that, with better fortune, he might have matched Zurita.
Hurtado de Mendoza as a poet belongs to Carlos Quinto's period. Even if he be not the author of Lazarillo, he approves himself a master of prose in his Guerra de Granada, first published at Lisbon by the editor of Figueroa's poems, Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, in 1627. Mendoza wrote his story of the Morisco rising (1568-71) in the Alpujarra and Ronda ranges, while in exile at Granada. On July 22, 1568 (if Fourquevaulx' testimony be exact), a quarrel arose between Mendoza and a young courtier, Diego de Leiva. The old soldier—he was sixty-four—disarmed Leiva, threw his dagger out of window, and, by some accounts, sent Leiva after it. This, passing in the royal palace at Madrid, was flat lèse majesté, to be expiated by Mendoza's exile. To this lucky accident we owe the Guerra de Granada, written in the neighbourhood of the war.