“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.”