Doliente" appeared in the same year with "Sancho Saldaña." But Espronceda was probably most influenced by his friend Escosura, who had printed his "Conde de Candespina" in 1832. The latter's best effort in this genre, "Ni Rey ni Roque," 1835, was written when its author was undergoing banishment for political reasons in a corner of Andalusia. To employ the enforced leisure of political exile in writing a historical novel was quite the proper thing to do. The banishment to Cuéllar must have taken place in late 1833 or early 1834, for Espronceda's novel is unquestionably inspired by his enforced visit to that town, and the contract with his publisher is dated in Madrid, February 5, 1834. On reading the contract it is apparent that the novel had hardly been begun then, as it was to be paid for in installments. Whether it was written mostly in Cuéllar or Madrid we do not know and care little. In January of that year El Siglo was founded, a radical journal with which Espronceda was prominently connected. During the brief existence of this incendiary sheet (January 21 until March 7) Espronceda contributed to it several political articles. The last issue came out almost wholly blank as an object lesson of the censor's activity. There follow a few months of agitation and political intrigue, the upshot of which was Espronceda's imprisonment for three weeks without trial. After protesting in the press and appealing to the queen regent, he was released and banished to Badajoz. How long he was absent from the capital we do not know, except that this banishment, like the others, was of short duration. During all this commotion there was produced at the Teatro de la Cruz, in April, an indifferent play, "Ni el Tío ni el Sobrino," whose authors were Espronceda and his friend Antonio Ros y Olano. It is difficult to paint anything but a confused picture of Espronceda's life during the remaining years of this decade. We catch glimpses of him debating questions of art and politics at cafés and literary tertulias like the Parnasillo, where Mesonero Romanos saw him faultlessly attired and "darting epigrams against everything existing, past, and future." Córdoba in his memoirs bears witness that he was still the buscarruidos of old. Espronceda with Larra, Escosura, Ros De Olano, and Córdoba constituted the "Thunder Band" of the Parnasillo (partida del trueno). After a long literary discussion they would sally forth into the streets, each armed with a peashooter and on mischief bent. A favorite prank was to tie a chestnut vender's table to a waiting cab and then watch the commotion which followed when the cab started to move. On one occasion, finding the Duke of Alba's coachman asleep on the box, they painted the yellow coach red, so altering it that the very owner 

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