1831.] I 481 ] 



WHO WKOTE GIL BLAS ? 



-Lux altissima fati 



Occultum nihil esse siuit, latebras que per omnes 

 Intrat et obstrusas explorat fama recessus. 



Claudian. 



Who has not read Gil Bias ? Who has not dwelt with feelings of 

 exquisite delight on this masterly delineation of human nature, garbed 

 in the graceful mantle of romantic Spain ? Possessing qualities of a 

 high moral and literary value, independent of the capricious tastes and 

 ephemeral fashions that prevail temporarily from age to age, this novel is 

 one of the few works of its kind that have survived the general wreck 

 of the libraries of romance pubhshed in Europe during the last century; 

 and may now fairly be considered as forming part of the standard and 

 classical literature of the modern world. 



Gil Bias— which paints with such extraordmary truth and fidelity of 

 colouring the manners, opinions, and vices of every gradation of Spanish 

 life, from the monarch to the bandit ; and which, moreover, may be 

 considered the moral and political history of the Spanish monarchy, 

 from the reign of Philip the Second till the year 1640 — was published 

 by Le Sage, in three distinct portions at different periods ; the first two 

 volumes in 1715, the third in 1720, and the fourth and last 1735. The 

 first two volumes contained only six books ; but Le Sage, struck with 

 the extraordinary success of the work, and observing that it had been 

 successively translated into the English, Dutch, German, and Italian 

 languages, conceived the idea of adding a third volume to the novel ; 

 and, if we may judge from the Latin distich which terminates the 

 volume — 



" Inveni portum ; sors et fortuna valete 



Sat me lusistis; ludite nunc alios" — ii 



it would appear that he had no intention of adding anything more to 

 the work ; but, fifteen years afterwards, he added a fourth and last 

 volume. 



In the year 1738, he also published the novel entitled " The Bachelor 

 of Salamanca," confessing that it was taken from an unpublished 

 Spanisli manuscript, which mas not, however, in the form in which it was 

 written hy the original author. The reader is requested to bear this 

 circumstance in mind, as it will be shewn that " The Bachelor of 

 Salamanca" forms the ground- work of Gil Bias. 



Scarcely had Gil Bias appeared in France, than strong doubts were 

 raised, by the literary contemporaries of Le Sage, as to the justice of his 

 claims to the original authorship of the work. Voltaire, whose well- 

 organized habits of plagiarism would easily enable him to detect it in 

 others, has, in a theory of his own, boldy denounced it as a plagiarism 

 Irom the literature of Spain. La Martiniere, De Chaudon, and other 

 compilers of a French historical dictionary published in Paris in 1771» 

 mention the work with " Guzman de Alfarache," " Le J)ial)le Boiteux," 

 and " The Bachelor of Salamanca," among the author's translations or 

 imitations from the Spanish. Althougli it would be extremely unfair to 

 adduce these facts as general principles of argument against the author- 



M.M. New Series — Vol. XII. No. 71. 2 R 



