Through 1 by Rizal and 2 by Marcelo H. del Pilar, we get a taste of the flavor and impact of essay by the two leading propagandists. Sardonic and caustic humor is expertly wielded by Rizal as a weapon in his attack on the Spanish journalist whose writings on the Philippines were markedly anti-Filipino, and the essay is decidedly a masterpiece of the genre Del Pilar's essay is of an altogether different type, a coolly rational and dispassionate analysis of the issue of assimilation.