NOTE.--At my request, Vierge has furnished the following brief details of so much of his life and work as he wishes to make public:--
_ ...Je suis né le 5 Mars, 1851, des l'âge de 3 ans je commençais à crayonner, il parait que c'était mon seul amusement d'enfant; mon pêre me voyant des dispositions serieuses pour le dessin me fit travailler sans relâche._
_Ma santé jusqu'à 7 ans était délicate; pour ce motif mes parents ont quetté la ville, pour habiter un endroit, prés de Madrid, nommé Pinto, et là tout en remettant ma santé du matin au soir je prenais des croquis d'après nature._
_En 1864 j'entrais à l'école des Beaux Arts de Madrid, J'avais comme maîtres_, Madrazo, Fédérico, M. de Hatt, Borglini, _etc. En 1865, le 18 Juillet, j'obtonais une mention honorable notée excelente. En 1866, le 8 Juillet, même récompense; en 1867, le 16 Juin, un diplome d'honneur. C'est à cette époque que j'ai illustré_ "Madrid la Nuit," _écrit par_ Eusebio Blasco; "Les Mystéres de Rome et du Globe." _A la suite au musée de Madrid, j'ai copié quantité d'études de peinture d'après_ Velasquez _et_ Gohia. _En 1869 j'arrivais à Paris avec l'espoire de ne faire que de la peinture, à peine dans cette ville la guerre Franco-Allemande éclata, par cet incident je me suis trouvé accaparé par_ "Le Monde Illustré" _et par_ "La Vie Moderne." _A cette même époque j'ai illustré quantité de livres, entres autres_, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer," "Année Terrible," "Notre-Dame de Paris" _et d'autres écrits par_ Victor Hugo; "La Mosaïque," "Le Musée des Familles," "Le Magasin Pitoresque," "Le Grand Tacagno" _de_ Quevedo, "Les Contes" _d_'Edgar Poe, _et aussi_ "L'histoire de France et la Revolution" _de_ Michelet _et quantité d'autres. En 1882 je fus nommé commandant ordinaire de la Reine d'Espagne Isabelle la Catholique. Le 29 Septembre, 1889, j'ai reçu la médaille d'or à l'Exposition Universelle de Paris de 1889, et le 29 Novembre, 1889, ma décoration de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur...._
_With an Essay on the_ Picaresque _Novel_.
Not more unquestioned is Cervantes' claim to be the first of Spanish humorists than that of Quevedo to be the second. Among his own countrymen the title, which is generally the more disputable, has been by a singular consensus of opinion assigned to Quevedo. The author of _Don Quixote_ apart, who is with the Immortals, there is no greater name among the writers of Spain than that of the author of _The Visions_, of _Don Pablo_, of innumerable poems, pamphlets, satires, pieces of wit, and works serious, moral, sportive, and fanciful. In that Golden Age, prolific of authors, the hundred years between the birth of Cervantes and the prime of Calderon, there was no genius so fruitful in every kind of intellectual product. Poet, politician, humorist, satirist, theologian, moralist, historian, novelist--Quevedo stands out a prodigy of learning, wit, and quick and various invention, even among the crowd of gifted writers who made that period famous in letters. He has been called the Spanish Juvenal--the Spanish Ovid--the Spanish Lucian. He is something of all these, and yet is unlike any of them. He wrote lyrics with the grace, simplicity, and ease of Horace. He is as prodigal of humour as Rabelais, whom he resembles also in his unfastidiousness, his obscurity, and his extravagance. He has been likened to our English Swift, to whom he is akin in the quality of his mordant wit, and almost approaches in his anti-humanity; but he is lacking in the creative force of the author of _Gulliver_. Not unlike Swift was Quevedo in fortune as in genius, for it was disappointed ambition which wore out his heart and drove him to satire, to visions, and assaults on human folly and vice.
