the wants of his stomach by the abundant energies of his head. One-half of his imagination is made up of dry bread and scraps, and the other of meditating how to get at them. Every thought of his mind, and every feeling of his affection, coalesces, and tends to one point, with a ventripetal force. It was said of a contriving lady, that she took her very tea by stratagem. Lazarillo is not so lucky. It is enough for him if, by a train of the most ingenious contrivances, he can lay successful siege to a crust. To rout some broken victuals,-to circumvent an onion or so extraordinary,—is the utmost aim of his ambition. An oxfoot is his beau-ideal. He has as intense and circuitous a sense of a piece of cheese as a mouse at a trap. He swallows surreptitious crums with as much zest as a young servant-girl does a plate of preserves. But to his story. He first serves a blind beggar, with whom he lives miserably, except when he commits thefts which subject him to miserable beatings. He next lives with a priest, and finds his condition worse. His third era of

esuriency takes place in the house of a Spanish gentleman ; and here he is worse off than ever. The reader wonders, as he himself did, how he can possibly ascend to this climax of starvation. To overreach a blind beggar might be thought easy. The reader will judge by a specimen or two. The old fellow used to keep his mug of liquor between his legs, that Lazarillo might not touch it without his knowledge. He did, however; and the beggar, discovering it, took to holding the mug in future by the handle. Lazarillo then contrives to suck some of the liquor off with a reed; till the beggar defeats this contrivance by keeping one hand upon the vessel's mouth. His antagonist, upon this, makes a hole near the bottom of the mug, filling it up with wax, and so tapping the can, with as much gentleness as possible, whenever his thirst makes him bold. This stratagem threw the blind man into despair. He "used to swear and domineer," and wish both the pot and its contents at the devil. The following account of the result is a specimen of the English translation of the work, which is done with great tact and spirit,

we know not by whom. But it is worthy of De Foe. Lazarillo is supposed to tell his adventures himself. "You won't accuse me any more, I hope,' cried I, 'of drinking your wine,* after all the fine precautions you have taken to prevent it.' To that he said not a word; but, feeling all about the pot, he at last unluckily discovered the hole, which dissembling at that time, he let me alone till next day at dinner. Not dreaming, my reader must know, of the old man's malicious stratagem, but getting in between his legs, according to my wonted custom, and receiving into my mouth the distilling dew, and pleasing myself with the success of my own ingenuity, my eyes upward, but half shut, the furious tyrant, taking up the sweet, but hard pot, with both his hands flung it down again with all his force upon my face; with the violence of which blow, imagining the house had fallen upon my head, I lay sprawling without any sentiment or judg. ment; my forehead, nose, and mouth, gushing out of blood, and the latter full of broken teeth, and broken pieces of the can. From that time forward, I ever abominated the monstrous old churl, and, in spite of all his flattering stories, could easily observe how my punishment tickled the old rogue's fancy. He washed my sores with wine; and with a smile, 'What say'st thou,' quoth he, Lazarillo? the thing that hurt thee, now restores thee to health. Courage, my boy!' But all his raillery could not make me change my mind."

At another time, a countryman giving them a cluster of grapes, the old man, says Lazarillo, "would needs take that opportunity to show me a little kindness, after he had been chiding and beating me the whole day before. So setting ourselves down by a hedge, 'Come hither, Lazarillo,' quoth he, ' and let us enjoy ourselves a little, and eat these raisins together; which that we may share like brothers, do you take but one at a time, and be sure not to cheat me, and I promise you, for my part, I shall take no more.' That I readily agreed to, and so we

*The reader is to understand a common southern wine, more like a washy cider than anything else.

began our banquet ; but at the very second time he took a couple, believing, I suppose, that I should do the same. And finding he had showed me the way, I made no scruple all the while to take two, three, or four at a time; sometimes more and sometimes less, as conveniently I could. When we had done, the old man shook his head, and, holding the stalk in his hand, 'Thou hast cheated me, Lazarillo,' quoth he, 'for I could take my oath, that thou hast taken three at a time.' 'Who? I! I beg your pardon,' quoth I; 'my conscience is as dear to me as another.' 'Pass that jest upon another,' answered the old fox; 'you saw me take two at a time without complaining of it, and therefore you took three.' At that I could hardly forbear laughing; and at the same time admired the justness of his reasoning."" Lazarillo at length quitted the service of the old hard-hearted miser, and revenged himself upon him at the same time, in a very summary manner. They were returning home one day on account of bad weather, when they had to cross a kennel which the rain had swelled to a little torrent. The beggar was about to jump over it as well as he could, when Lazarillo persuaded him to go a little lower down the stream, because there was a better crossing; that is, there was a stone pillar on the other side, against which he knew the blind old fellow would nearly dash his brains out. "He was mightily pleased with my advice. 'Thou art in the right on 't, good boy,' quoth he, 'and I love thee with all my heart, Lazarillo. Lead me to the place thou speak'st of; the water is very dangerous in winter, and especially to have one's feet wet."" And again "Be sure to set me in the right place, Lazarillo,' quoth he; and then do thou go over first.' I obeyed his orders, and set him exactly before the pillar, and so leaping over posted myself before it, looking upon him as a man would do upon a mad bull. Now your jump,' quoth I, 'and you may get over to rights, without ever touching the water.' I had scarce done speaking, when the old man, like a ram that's fighting, ran three steps backwards, to take his start with the greater vigour, and so his head came with a vengeance

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against the stone-pillar, which made him fall back into the kennel half dead." Lazarillo stops a moment to triumph over him with insulting language; and then, says he, "resigning my blind, bruised, wet, old, cross, cunning master, to the care of the mob that was gathered about him, I made the best of my heels, without ever looking about, till I had got the town-gate upon my back; and thence, marching on at a merry pace, I ar-, rived before night at Torrigo."

At the house of the priest, poor Lazarillo gets worse off than before, and is obliged to resort to the most extraordinary shifts to arrive at a morsel of bread. At one time, he gets a key of a tinker, and, opening the old trunk in which the miser kept his bread (a sight, he says, like the opening of heaven), he takes small pieces out of three or four, in imitation of a mouse; which so convinces the old hunks that the mice and rats have been at them, that he is more liberal of the bread than usual. He lets him have in particular “the parings about the parts where he thought the mice had been." Another of his contrivances is to palm off his pickings upon a serpent, with which animal a neighbour told the priest that his house had been once haunted. Lazarillo, who had been used when he lived with the beggar to husband pieces of money in his mouth (substituting some lesser coin in the blind man's hand, when people gave him anything), now employs the same hiding-place for his key; but whistling through it unfortunately, one night, as he lay breathing hard in his sleep, the priest concludes he has now caught the serpent, and, going to Lazarillo's bed with a broomstick, gives him at a venture such a tremendous blow on the head as half murders him. The key is then discovered, and the poor fellow turned out of doors.

He is now hired by a lofty-looking hidalgo, and follows him home, eating a thousand good things by anticipation. They pass through the markets, however, to no purpose. The squire first goes to church too, and spends an unconscionable time at mass. At length they arrive at a dreary, ominous-looking house,

and ascend into a decent apartment, where the squire, after shaking his cloak, and blowing off the dust from a stone seat, lays it neatly down, and so makes a cushion of it to sit upon. There is no other furniture in the room, nor even in the neighbouring rooms, except a bed "composed of the anatomy of an old hamper." The truth is, the squire is as poor as Lazarillo, only too proud to own it; and so he starves both himself and his servant at home, and then issues gallantly forth of a morning, with his Toledo by his side, and a countenance of stately satisfaction; returning home every day about noon with " a starched body, reaching out his neck like a greyhound." Lazarillo had not been a day in the house before he found out how matters went. He was beginning, in his despair of a dinner, to eat some scraps of bread which had been given him in the morning, when the squire, observing him, asked what he was about. 'Come hither, boy,' said he, 'what's that thou art eating?' I went," says Lazarillo," and showed him three pieces of bread, of which, taking away the best, 'Upon my faith,' quoth he, 'this bread seems to be very good.' 'Tis too stale and hard, sir,' said I, 'to be good.' 'I swear 'tis very good,' said the squire; 'who gave it thee? Were their hands clean that gave it thee?' 'I took it without asking any questions, sir,' answered I, 'and you see I eat it as freely.' 'Pray God it may be so!' answered the miserable squire; and so putting the bread to his mouth, he ate it with no less appetite than I did mine; adding at every mouthful, Gadzooks, this bread is excellent!""

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Lazarillo, in short, here finds the bare table so completely turned upon him, that he is forced to become provider for his master as well as himself; which he does by fairly going out every day and begging, the poor squire winking at the indignity, though not without a hint at keeping the connexion secret. The following extract shall be our climax, which it may well be, the hunger having thus ascended into the ribs of Spanish aristocracy. Lazarillo, one lucky day, has an ox-foot and some tripe given him by a butcher-woman. On coming home with his treasure, he finds