[31] _id._, p. 268 note. Mr Underhill writes: "The attempt to connect the style of Sidney with that of Montemayor has failed."
[32] Underhill, p. 48, but see Martin Hume, ch. IX.
[33] Some doubt has been thrown upon Mendoza's authorship. See Fitzmaurice-Kelly, p. 158, and Martin Hume, p. 133.
This literary invasion will seem perfectly natural if we bear in mind the political conditions of the day. Under Mary, England had been all but a Spanish dependency, and, though in the next reign, she threw off the yoke, the antagonism which existed probably acted as an even greater literary stimulus than the former alliance. Throughout the whole of Elizabeth's rule, the English were continually coming into contact with the Spaniards, either in trade, in ecclesiastical matters, in politics, or in actual warfare; and again the magnificence of the great Spanish empire, and the glamour which surrounded its connexion with the new world, were very attractive to the Englishmen of Elizabeth's day, especially as they were desirous of emulating the achievements of Spain. And lastly it may be noticed that English and Spanish conditions of intellectual life, if we shut our eyes to the religious differences, were very similar at this time. Both countries had replaced a shattered feudal system by an absolute and united monarchy. Both countries owed an immense debt to Italy, and, in both, the Italian influence took a similar form, modified on the one hand by humanism, and on the other by feelings of patriotism, if not of imperialism. Spain and England took the Renaissance fever more coldly, and at the same time more seriously, than did Italy. And in both the new movement eventually assumed the character of intellectual asceticism moulded by the sombre hand of religious fanaticism; for Spain was the cradle of the Counter-Reformation, England of Puritanism.