LAWS OF INE (King of West Saxons, 688-726).
THE EARLIEST LAWS OF WESSEX. Reissued by King Alfred. Ed., B. Thorpe, 'Ancient Laws and Institutes of England', text and tr., 1840.
LAYAMON. 1200. English priest.
LAYAMON'S BRUT, OR CHRONICLE OF BRITAIN: a poetical semi-Saxon paraphrase of the Brut of Wace. [With a tr.] Ed. by F. Madden, 3 v., 1847.
This work is important as the principal literary monument in the English language of that period.
The poet 'thrummed' three books into one in his work, namely, Wace's 'Geste des Bretons' (1155), his chief source, Baeda's work in his own Latin, and Alfred's translation of the same. The author has the distinction of being the first to commemorate King Arthur in English verse.
LAZARILLO DE TORMES. [1554.]
THE PLEASAUNT HISTORIE OF LAZARILLO DE TORMES, A SPANIARDE ... draune out of Spanish by David Rowland ... 1586.
'This little work may be thought by some of a low and trifling nature: but it is the first of a race of comic romances. For wit, spirit and inexhaustible resources ... there is nothing like the Spanish rogue'.
'The first novela picaresca, or rogue story'. The appearance of this work (1554) marks the date at which such stories first took shape as a distinct branch of the novel, to be known as the 'picaroon' or 'picaresque'. From that time, for nearly a century, the 'Novelas de Picaros' are a chief product of Spanish writing. Chief among the progeny of 'Lazarillo' are 'Guzman de Alfarache' (1599), a sequel to 'L' itself by Luma (1620), and 'The Life of Buscon' by Quevedo (1626). All these were quickly translated into English. In England the effect of the picaresque novel first appears in the 'Jack Wilton' of Nash. In France the type passed through the hands of Scarron and Le Sage, whose 'Diable Boiteau' and 'Gil Blas' were destined to eclipse the fame of the Spanish originals. From the examples of France this species broke out in England with the 'Moll Flanders' and 'Colonel Jack' of Defoe, the 'Joseph Andrews' of Fielding, the 'Roderick Random' and 'Peregrine Pickle' of Smollett. In the nineteenth century it finds its congeners in the 'Three Musketeers' of Dumas and in the works of several minor English novelists. 'Mr. Jingle does not essentially differ from this type'.