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LIFE


II              "   It~
- - -, i1


OF
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
BY
HENRY EDWARD WATTS.


LONDON:
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE.
189I.


(All rights reserved.)




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CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
Introduction-Carlyle on Cervantes-The author and his
work-Birth and parentage of Cervantes-Native townFamily and descent-Name of Cervantes-Youth and
education-Early years-First essays in poetry... I I
CHAPTER II.
Cervantes enters the service of Cardinal Acquaviva-Leaves
Madrid for Rome-The Holy League-Cervantes resigns
the Cardinal's service and enlists as a soldier-The
regiment of Moncada-The Christian armada under Don
John of Austria-Rendezvous of the allies at MessinaThe battle of Lepanto-Cervantes' conduct in the fightHis wounds-His description of the battle-Recognition
of his services-In hospital at Messina-Recovery and
return to service-Second campaign in the Levant-Takes
part in the expedition against Tunis-Returns to NaplesObtains leave to visit Spain-Embarks in El Sol-Attacked
and captured by Algerine corsairs-Taken to Algiers as a
slave...........                                   21
CHAPTER III.
Romantic story of Cervantes' captivity in Algiers-The corsairnation-History and condition-The Christian slaves and
their masters-Hassan Pasha-His character of singular
brutality-The "homicide of the human race"-Cervantes
attempts to escape to Oran-Other attempts-Constant illfortune-Efforts of his family to raise his ransom-Frigate
sent from Majorca for his deliverance-His plan of escape




4


CONTiENTS.


PAGE
again frustrated through treachery-Cervantes brought
before the Viceroy with a rope round his neckThreatened  with  death - Mystery  of the Viceroy's
behaviour-Testimony of Haedo -Cervantes' reference
to'his personal immunity-His influence among the captives-The Viceroy purchases him from  Deli MamiCervantes' poetical epistle to the King of Spain's secretary
-Proposes to Philip II. the capture of Algiers-Further
attempts at escape-Treachery of the Dominican Blanco
de Paz-Cervantes again pardoned-His captivity the
worst in Algiers-His father petitions King Philip for aid
-A  sum raised by his family for his ransom-Father Gil,
the Redemptorist-Ransom finally completed-Freedom of
Cervantes-Investigation into his conduct in AlgiersTestimony of his fellow-captives-Value of his Algerine
experiences in the formation of Cervantes' character and
development of his genius......     31
CHAPTER IV.
Cervantes lands in Spain after ten years-His portrait-Story of
the current false portraits-William  Kent's inventionDiscovery of supposed portrait at Seville-Pacheco's
picture-Cervantes painted by himself-His prospects
under Philip II.-Compelled to begin the world afreshPoor, disabled, without a profession... 46
CHAPTER V.
Cervantes resumes his calling of soldier-Re-enters the regiment
of Figueroa-Invasion of Portugal-Naval expedition
against the Azores-Cervantes serves in the San MateoEngaged in the battle off Terceira-Second campaign in
the Azores, and return of the fleet to Lisbon-Finally quits
military life-Residence in Lisbon-Fondness for Portugal
-Love affair at Lisbon —Charity of Cervantes-At
Mostagan in Barbary-Composes the Galatea-Character
of Pastoral-Marriage-Cervantes' wife and her fortuneResidence at Madrid, and final adoption of literature as a
profession.........55




CONTENTS.


5


CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
Madrid in 1585-Spain at the height of her power and
grandeur-Beginning of the national decay under Philip II.
-The Church and America sap the springs of Spanish
life-Extraordinary growth of ecclesiasticism-Dawn of
golden age in letters-Multitude of poets-Cervantes as a
man of letters-Writes poems and ballads-Makes his
essay in the drama-Composes many plays for the stagePlays received with favour-Character of La Numancia a
patriotic tragedy-Played at Zaragoza during the siegeEl Trato de Argel-Cervantes quits the stage-Appearance
of Lope de Vega-Removes from Madrid to SevilleAppointed a commissary for the fleet-A buyer of grain
and oil in Andalucia-Applies for a place in AmericaCollects rates-Involved in the failure of an agent and
imprisoned-Darkest period of Cervantes' life-Obtains a
prize of three silver spoons for a poem-English attack on
Cadiz-Satirical sonnet on the Duke of Medina Celi-La
EspaAola Inglesa...64
CHAPTER VII.
Death of Philip II.-His character-Antithesis to CervantesCervantes no politician or social reformer-His feeling towards Philip-Sonnet on the dead king's monument at Seville
-First experience of La Mancha-Employed as tax collector
-Imprisoned at Argamasilla-The Casa de Medrano-The
town and country of Don Quixote-Picture in the parish
church -Rodrigo   de Pacheco -Traditions respecting
origin of Don Quixote-Removal of the Court to Valladolid-Cervantes moves thither with his family-Hopes
of preferment - Begins writing Don Quixote - Design
known to his friends-Copyright sold to Robles-Printed
by Cuesta at Madrid-Cervantes' first patron the Duke of
Bejar-Dedication of Don Quixote at first refused-Story
of Cervantes reading Don Quixote before the Duke.. 78




6


CONVTENTS.


CHAPTER VIII.
PAGE
Reception of Don Quixote-Received with coldness by the
world of letters-Lope de Vega's opinion-The book
regarded with suspicion and dislike by Lope's friends and
the ecclesiastics-Very popular with the multitudeExtraordinary number of early editions-Frequently reprinted-Cervantes' carelessness about his work-His
blunders —His motive in Don Quixote-Cervantes a great
lover of the romances-Zeal for pure literature-Don
Quixote a romance of chivalry-Influence of romances in
Spain-Chivalry and Knight-Errantry-Amadis of Gaul
and his progeny-Success of Don Quixote in demolishing
the chivalric romances... 90
CHAPTER IX.
Cervantes' life at Valladolid-Small gains from his book-His
friends and enemies-Gongora and his sonnets-Visit of
the English Ambassador to Spain-Narrative of his
reception ascribed to Cervantes-The affair of Gaspar de
Ezpeleta-Cervantes in trouble-Returns to Madrid with
the Court-Visit to Seville-Letter to Diego de Astudillo
-The Conde de Lemos a patron of Cervantes-Disappointed hopes of preferment-The Argensolas-The
Archbishop of Toledo-His patronage of CervantesProtects him against the Holy Office-Second edition of
Don Quixote (60o8)-Corrected by the author... io6
CHAPTER X.
Literary life in Madrid-Cervantes' new works and projectsThe Exemplary Novels- The Voyage to Parnassus-Roll
of poetasters-Comedies and Interludes-Engaged on the
Second Part of Don Quixote-Further adventures promised
in the First Part-4Popular demand for "more Quixoteries"k I8
CHAPTER XI.
Cervantes forestalled in his Second Part of Don QuixoteAvellaneda publishes the false "Quixote "-An attack




CONTENTS.


7


PAGE
upon Cervantes-Avellaneda justified by certain criticsCervantes' treatment of his enemy-The mystery of Avellaneda examined-Theories of his identity-Lope de Vega's
relations with Cervantes-Their constant rivalry-Lope's
jealousy-Avellaneda's defenders..                30
CHAPTER XII.
Cervantes busy on his Second Part-Story of the Archbishop's
chaplain-Cervantes' contemporary fame-The Second
Part published-Its character+Compared with the First —
Last works of Cervantes-Persiles and Sigismunda-Story
of the journey to Esquivias-Dying words-Death and
burial..... 148
CHAPTER XIII.
Estimate of the author and his work-Life of Cervantes the
key to Don Quixote-Theories of the book —Cervantes'
real purposeyMistakes of critic4-Suspected by his
countrymen -Appreciated abroad-Criticisms of Don
Quixote-The world's classic-(ecret of its popularity-"
Cervantes' art-Conclusion....65








PREFATORY NOTE.


HE Life of Cervantes here presented, as one of the
series of "Great Writers," is designed to correspond in scale and in character with the literary
biographies familiar under that name to the British
public. There have been many Lives of Cervantes, of
which I have myself written two. The ampler biography
prefixed to my edition of Don Quixote (I888) was
intended especially to serve as an introduction to my
translation of Cervantes' great work, in accordance with
my theory that the best commentary on the book is the
life of the author. It was part of a large scheme which
embraced a complete and fully-equipped edition of
Don Quixote, brought down to the present state of
knowledge, on a scale worthy of the book as one of the
world's great classics. That edition was so limited in
the number of copies printed as scarcely to deserve the
name of publication.
The present Life of Cervantes is an entirely new work,
built out of the materials which I had collected for my
larger edition.  It is re-written and re-arranged, with




10             PREFAT OR Y NOTE.
much matter, intended chiefly for Spanish scholars and
more advanced Cervantists, omitted, and much else by
way of addition in the shape of criticisms and literary
history added, to interest a wider circle of readers.
For the leading facts of Cervantes' life I have availed
myself of all the existing sources of information in
Spain and elsewhere, though for the opinions and
theories I have adopted I am myself solely responsible.
The translations from the Spanish, except where
acknowledged as being by another hand, are my
own, the passages from Don Quixote being taken from
my version as contained in my edition in five volumes
of i888.
H. E. WATTS.




LIFE OF CERVANTES.
CHAPTER I.
L/
" A CERTAIN strong man, of former time, fought
stoutly at Lepanto; worked stoutly as Algerine
slave; stoutly delivered himself from such working; with stout cheerfulness endured famine and nakedness and the world's ingratitude; and sitting in gaol, with
one arm left him, wrote our joyfullest, and all but our
deepest, modern book, and named it Don Quixofe."
This is Thomas Carlyle's brief summary of the life and
work of Miguel de Cervantes. Brief as it is, and true
in all essentials, it is unhappy in combining almost
every kind of popular error regarding a great writer
whose fate it has ever been to be more praised in his
work than studied in his life. Cervantes, though he
bore himself stoutly in captivity, as in every other of the
numerous ills of his luckless life, did not "stoutly
deliver himself," having, after all his heroic attempts at
self-deliverance, to be tamely ransomed. He had not
one arm only, but two arms left him, though the hand
of one was, by wounds received in battle, maimed,




12


LIEE OF


disfigured, and rendered useless. His great book was not
written in a gaol, only begotten there. Lastly, opinion
is divided whether Don Quixote is really the "joyfullest"
of modern books. Though designed, in the author's
own words, as "a pastime for melanchl spirits, " those
who look for the soul within have found more sadness
than mirth in Don Quixote.  Certainly, though the
humour is of the deepest, the springs of it lying close
to the fountain of tears, "joyful" is an epithet which
jars upon the sense in connection with the book It
could have been in no joyous mood that Cervantes,the
old, maimed, and needy soldier, set himself, in the sunset of his life, the close of his hopes and aspirations,
to write that burlesque on the chivalric books which is
the dirge of chivalry. For none loved a romance of
chivalry better than he. He had himself drunk deeply
of the draught which had intoxicated his hero. He had
been infected with the same disease as the good Alonso
Quixano. He had shared in the fond illusion that
the function and duty of chivalry was the redressing of
the world's wrongs. He had been a Knight Errant
himself, and his own life the very matter of a romance.
In his youth he had been dazzled with the lustre of a
great enterprise, which seemed to revive the glories of
the heroic age. He had himself assisted at pageants
and deeds of arms which recalled the fabled splendours
and feats of Amadis. Can we conceive him, with his
illusions spent, disappointed with fortune, a man broken
in health and in hope, even though it was at the close of
that long night so fatal to romance and to chivalry, the
reign of the second Philip, entering upon Don Quixote
with a joyful heart?-As truly may we speak of Don




CER VA NZ'E S.


13


Quixote as the mournfullest as the joyfullest of books.
May not this be the secret of its extraordinary popularity
and ever-enduring delight that, written to give vent to a
passing humour, which was as much born of a quenched
aspiration and a frustrate longing for the chivalric age
as of contempt and disgust for the vicious and foolish
books of chivalry, Don Quixote owes its immortality to
*its capacity for reflecting the moods and fancies of all its
readers as well as to its wealth and truth of human
nature
To understand the book and its purpose we must
know the author. The life of Cervantes is to the full
as romantic as that of his hero, abounding in strange
adventures and beset with troubles and rebuffs, borne
and encountered with a gallant resolution and a gay
good humour, of the very essence of that chivalry which,
by an odd perversion of his purpose, he is charged by a
great English poet with having " laughed away." Certainly no life is recorded of any man of letters so full of
action, so beset with dangers, so chequered by fortune,
so varied, picturesque, and adventurous. For the story
of that life we have materials in plenty. Born at the
ancient town of Alcala de Henares, in the province of
New Castile, the seat of a famous university, founded
by Cardinal Ximenes, Miguel de Cervantes was baptised on the 9th of October I547.  From the name
then given to him, it is plausibly conjectured that the
date of his birth was the Michaelmas day preceding, it
being customary in Spain to christen the infants after
the saint on whose day he was born. The date of
Miguel de Cervantes' baptism is recorded in the register
of the parish church of Santa Maria the Greater. That




14


LIFE OF


he was a native of Alcala, and a hidaigo principal of
that town, had been mentioned by Haedo in his
Topography of Algiers, published in i6I 2. In several
official documents Cervantes had written himself and
had been described by others, a native of Alcala; yet
his own countrymen were so incurious or so careless of
their greatest writer, that for two hundred years the
place of his birth was by them undiscovered.  By a
singular freak of destiny, which might almost look like
poetical justice, the very mystery with which Cervantes
deliberately surrounded the birthplace of his herocuyo nombre no quiso acordarsel-with the intent, as
he explains at the end of the book, that "all the towns
and villages of La Mancha might contend among
themselves for the honour of giving him birth, as the
Seven Cities contended for Homer,"-overtook himself,
for his own place of birth was forgotten; and seven
cities actually contended, as one or two still, in the face
of all evidence, obstinately contend, for the honour of
being the cradle of Miguel de Cervantes-these seven
being Madrid, Seville, Toledo, Lucena, Esquivias, Consuegra, and Alcazar de San Juan.    The last-named
town to this day clings to the belief that it produced
the real author of Don Quixote, and to the sceptical
visitor is proudly shown the parish register in which is
recorded that " Miguel, son of Bias Cervantes Saavedra
and Catalina Lopez," was born on November 9th, I558.
Opposite to this entry, in a modern hand, are written
the words, Este fue el autor de la historia de Don Quixote.
This, of course, cannot be the true Miguel, as, apart
1 See the opening words of Don Quixote, Part I., chap. i.




CER VA NTES.


15


from all other evidence (including Cervantes' own
repeated declarations), the date would alone settle the
question. If born in November I558 Cervantes must
have been not quite thirteen years of age when he took
a conspicuous part in the battle of Lepanto.  That
there was a second Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
(probably a far-off cousin), whose obscure and worthless
life (he appears to have been a scapegrace) has become
entangled with that of the older and more famous man,
is certain. The first of native scholars who is entitled
to the credit of clearing up all doubts on this subject (doubts which should never have risen) was Juan
de Iriarte, librarian to Charles III., who discovered
among the royal manuscripts a list of certain captives,
redeemed from  Algiers in I580, among whom     is
included "Miguel de Cervantes, of the age of thirty '- I/
years (he was really thirty-three), a native of Alcald
de Henares."   The question was finally settled by
the learned Father Sarmiento in his tract, Noticia
sobre la Verdadera Patria de Cervantes, written in
1761.
The father of our Miguel de Cervantes was Rodrigo
de Cervantes, also a native of Alcald, and his mother,
Leonor de Cortinas, a native of the neighbouring village
of Barajas. Both father and mother were of good
hidalgo strain though of humble fortune. They were
married in 1540, and had four children-two sons and
two daughters-of whom Miguel was the youngest.
The elder brother, Rodrigo, was a soldier of some
distinction in the wars of Philip. He served with
Miguel in the Levant, was taken prisoner at the
same time, and shared for a while his captivity in




16


LIFE OF


Algiers. He is mentioned as having earned much
credit under the Marques de Santa Cruz in the
expedition against the Azores, and died in Flanders, at a
date unknown, before Miguel. The elder sister, Andrea,
was twice married, and as a widow lived with her brother
till the end of his life. The younger, Luisa, became a
Carmelite nun in I561.   The father of Rodrigo de
Cervantes was Juan, who seems to have been of higher
station than his immediate descendants, for he had
filled the office of corregidor (paid magistrate) of the
city of Osuna, and is mentioned in history as the friend
and associate of the Conde de Urefia, a grandee of
influence in Philip's court. The family of Cervantes
(who bore, as their arms, two stags, in punning allusion
to their name) came originally from Galicia, and by
the early genealogists (who certainly never thought of
honouring the author of Don Quixote) were traced from
the blood of the Gothic kings of Leon. Their direct
progenitor was the famous Nuno Alfonso, the warlike
Alcaide or constable of Toledo in the eleventh century,
whose son took the surname of Cervatos (i.e., " a place
for stags") from the castle and lands so designated,
which he inherited from his father. This younger son
changed that designation for the more euphonious one
of Cervantes, being the first who bore the name. From
him, if heralds and genealogists do not lie, was derived
in the male line Juan de Cervantes, who was a veintituatro, or alderman, of Seville in the reign of Juan II.,
from whom to Miguel de Cervantes the descent is
1 Conde, the Orientalist, was the first to point out that Benengeli
(the supposed original author of Don Quixote) means in Arabic,
" son of a stag."




CER VAN7TES.


17


direct and undoubted.l The family branched into La
Mancha early in the fifteenth century; and several members of it held command in the military orders of Santiago and San Juan. In order to distinguish himself from
others of the same name (the family being rather numerous, as the name is still not uncommon, both in Spain
and in Spanish America), Miguel de Cervantes, upon his
return from Algiers, in I580, assumed the additional
surname of Saavedra from one of his ancestors, always
signing himself thenceforth Cervantes (or oftener Cerbantes) Saavedra.2
Of the youth and early years of Miguel de Cervantes
nothing is known, except from the slight and too infrequent references to himself which are to be found
in some of his prologues and dedications. One of the
earliest glimpses we have of the youthful Miguel is from
an interesting passage of autobiography contained in the
prologue to the Comedies, printed by Cervantes in
September I615, a few months before his death. In
this Cervantes tells of his reminiscences of "the great
Lope de Rueda," the founder of the Spanish drama,
who went about the country with his troupe of strollers,
acting the pieces he himself had, written, with most
rustic and primitive apparatus. Doubtless it was from
Lope de Rueda, who is described as "the first who
brought Comedy out of her swaddling clothes and
gave her habitation and decent attire," that the young
1 See the genealogical tree in the appendix to Navarrete, Vida de
Cervantes, taken from Mendez de Silva (I648).
2 The labials b and v are interchangeable in Spanish, and are
identical in sound. Hence the joke of Scaliger, of the bliss of
living in a country where bibo and vivo were the same.
2




18


18iE~ OF


Cervantes derived that impulse to the drama which, to
the last, in spite of all rebuffs and failures, he was never
able to resist. His early education Cervantes received
under a teacher of some celebrity in those days, one
Lopez de Hoyos, who wrote verses and dedications (as, indeed, what educated man did not in that age?), and was
famous for his learning and urbanity. Lopez de Hoyos
kept a school at Madrid, the site of which is still remembered, and thither we must presume the young Miguel
to have gone from his native town of Alcala, some
twenty miles distant. There is a tradition, too hastily
accepted by Ticknor on the authority of Navarrete (who
himself had nothing but a baseless theory to go upon
in connection with the novel La  a fingida, attributed,
as I hold wrongly, to Cervantes), that Miguel kept his
terms at the University of Salamanca. But this legend
may be rejected on the score of many improbabilities.
Cervantes' parents were hardly in such circumstances as
to be able to afford to send their younger son to Salamanca; nor is it likely that they should have chosen to
send him that distance, having a university scarcely less
renowned at their doors. There is no proof that Cervantes went to any university; nor was he likely to do
so, not being destined for the Church or any learned
profession. For such learning as he acquired-and his
scholarship, though not profound or exact, was equal to
that of the average of the men who wrote in that age,
while his general knowledge was superior-he must have
been indebted to Hoyos, and to his own reading, which
was vast and multifarious beyond that of any of his
contemporaries-especially in the literature of his own
country and in the poetry of Italy. Hoyos seems to




CER VANTES.


19


have entertained for his pupil a singular affection, and
he may claim, in fact, the credit of being the first not
only to detect the promise of greatness in the youth, but
to give a bent to his genius. Upon the sudden and
greatly lamented death of Isabel of Valois, the third
wife of Philip II., the public grief took the form of
innumerable encomiastic sonnets and elegies. Of these
a considerable number were contributed by the pupils of
Lopez de Hoyos, some half-a-dozen of which were composed by Miguel de Cervantes. These, the first favours
of a muse sedulously wooed but seldom kind, are
extravagantly praised by Lopez de Hoyos himself for
their " elegant style," " rhetorical colours," and "delicate
conceits"; and the youthful poet himself (now in his
twenty-first year) is referred to as his master's "dear
and well-loved pupil." More fortunate than the rest of
Cervantes' early pieces, these poems are still in existence,
preserved in Aribau's single-volume edition of the works
of Cervantes, and also in the sumptuous twelve-volume
edition of Argamasilla, which was edited by Hartzenbusch. These early effusions testify rather to Hoyos'
kindliness as a critic than to Cervantes' faculty as a
poet. To this period also may be referred a pastoral
poem entitled "Filena," of which Cervantes, who had
ever a dutiful feeling for his own offspring, though his
tenderness never ran into self-conceit, makes fond,
though obscure, mention in the Voyage to Parnassus.l
Other sonnets, ballads, elegies, and pieces of verse are
spoken of by Cervantes among the works of his youth,
' See El Viaje del Parnaso, chap. iv., p. io8, in Mr. J. Y.
Gibson's edition, to which is appended an excellent translation in
the metre of the original (I883).




20          LIFE OF CERVANTES.
all of which have perished. Whatever may have been
their quality, it was sufficient to give their author a
certain character in the world, even at this early period,
as a poet, though perhaps Navarrete, his Spanish biographer, speaks too partially of him as being already
enrolled among "the most celebrated poets of the
nation."




CHAPTER II.


N the year 1568 there arrived in Madrid the Cardinal
Acquaviva, sent by His Holiness the Pope, ostensibly
to condole with King Philip on the death of his son
Don Carlos, but really to negotiate for the settlement
of certain differences in respect of jurisdiction over the
Milanese. This prelate, who was but a year or two
older than Cervantes himself, had acquired already a
character as a virtuoso and a lover of letters. He was
fond of the society of men of talent, and would carry
them about with him in public, discussing "divers curious
questions of politics, science, learning, and literature."1
Into the service of the Cardinal Miguel de Cervantes -
entered as camarero, or gentleman of the chamber-an
office implying, in that age, no menial duties, which a
gentleman of birth and education might hold. A scion
even of the proud Mendozas had held it in the previous
generation in the person of the famous Hurtado de
Mendoza, who rose to be the most powerful man in
the State. That Cervantes was recommended to the
Cardinal by his literary accomplishments there is no
reason to doubt. More questionable is the theory which
has been started by some of his Spanish biographers
1 So Mateo Aleman the author of Guzman de Alfarache, who
saw his Excellency at Madrid (Navarrete, pp. 285, 286).




22


LIFE OF


that Cervantes was moved to enter the Cardinal's service
through his great affection for the Church. In the train
of Acquaviva Cervantes left Madrid in December I569,
being now in his twenty-third year, taking the road to
Rome overland through the south of France. At Rome
Cervantes remained but a very few months. The air
was full of rumours of war and the din of military
preparation. A new crusade was being organised against
the Turks. The Pope (Pius V.) had succeeded in influencing the Christian powers of Spain and Venice to
lay aside their differences and to combine with Rome
in a Holy League against the Sultan, whose naval
armaments and encroachments by sea were making him
a terror to Christendom. The call to arms to a youth
of Cervantes' temperament was irresistible. In 1570
he resigned his place in the Cardinal's chamber to enlist
as a soldier in the regiment of Spanish infantry commanded by Don Miguel de Moncada, which regiment
was at that time stationed at Rome as part of a
contingent which had been lent to the Pope by
King Philip. The tercio de A~foncada was one of
the most distinguished regiments of that famous
Spanish infantry, then at the height of its glory
and at the top of European soldiership.  It enlisted
none but young men of good family, for whom it was a
distinction to serve in the ranks.  The regiment of
Moncada, with the rest of the Spanish military contingent, was ordered to Naples in the summer of 1570,
there to be reorganised for the great armada which
was being got ready to be launched at the Turk. At
Naples Cervantes tells us that he "trod the streets for
more than a year." The Holy League took some time




CER VANTES.


23


to form, and when formed was but a partial and imperfect representation of the Christian States-the Emperor
and the King of France not only refusing to join, but
secretly giving information, if not help, to the enemy.
Only Spain and Venice responded to the appeal of the
Pope, and at sea the two behaved rather as rivals than
as allies. Eventually the treaty was signed on the 20th
of May 157I. The allied fleets assembled in the harbour of Messina in August, under the command of Don
John of Austria as generalissimo, who had brought with
him thither the Spanish contingent from Naples. The
infantry were distributed among the ships-Miguel de
Cervantes, with a detachment of his regiment, being
placed on board the Marquesa, a private ship of Doria's,
chartered by the Spanish Government. On the I6th of
September Don John put to sea with his whole force,
which numbered more than two hundred galleys, with
twenty-four sailing ships, and 26,000 soldiers on board.
No such formidable armament had ever taken the sea
under the Christian flag.
The battle of Lepanto, which for ever demolished the
naval supremacy of Turkey, without materially lowering the Turkish power by sea, was fought on the 7th
of October I571. Though, for the forces engaged in it
and for the immediate results, it is to be reckoned as
the greatest of sea-fights up to that date and a very
glorious victory, it had not much decisive effect on the
issue of the war. The quarrels between the Venetians
and the Spaniards, who were each more jealous of the
other than angry with the Turk-the dissensions between the commanders-perhaps the youth and inexperience of the generalissimo, who, with all his rare




24


LIFE, OF


soldierly qualities, was hardly competent to lead so
vast and discordant an array-finally, the superiority
of the Turkish seamanship, and the excellent strategy
of their admirals, combined to defraud the conquerors
of all but the barren laurels of victory.  Still, it was
a great battle, glorious to all who took part in it.
The MAarquesa, Cervantes' ship, was in the squadron
under the immediate command of the Venetian provedditore, Agostino Barbarigo, which formed the left wing
of the Christian fleet.  On the morning of the 7th
October, Cervantes, though ill and weak through a
fever contracted at Naples, insisted, according to the
testimony of his comrades, in being allowed to take a
part in the fighting, and was stationed, in command of
twelve soldiers, on the quarter-deck by the side of the
long-boat (esquife).  The left wing, under Barbarigo,
was completely victorious against the Turkish right, and
the Marquesa, by all accounts, took her full share of the
fighting.  Among her immediate opponents was the
galley of the Pasha of Alexandria, bearing the royal
standard of Egypt, which was captured by boardingCervantes being among the first to leap on her deck,
receiving in the fight three gunshot wounds in the
breast and one through the left hand.  Fortunately
there has come down to us a minute account of our
hero's behaviour on this day.  Mateo Santisteban, a
soldier who fought alongside of him on the deck of the
Marquesa, testifies before the king's alcalde in I578 -being summoned to speak in support of a petition for
aid presented by Rodrigo de Cervantes, his fatherthat he and his comrades prayed Cervantes, when going
into action, to remain below in the galley's cabin, for he




CER VANTES.


25


was weak and ill of a fever-that Cervantes replied that
if he did so they would say of him he had not done his
duty-that he would rather die fighting for God and his
king than keep himself under cover and in safety-that
he (Santisteban) saw Cervantes fight like a valiant
soldier at his station by the esquire, where, with other
soldiers, the captain had placed him; which testimony
is confirmed by Gabriel de Castafteda, another of his
comrades.' Cervantes has himself given us an animated
picture of the fighting in his poetical letter to Mateo
Vasquez.    I quote from    the spirited version of the
poem made by my late friend, Mr. J. Y. Gibson, and
have the greater pleasure in doing so as neither the
original (only discovered in i863), nor the translation, is
so wvell known as it deserves to be
"And on that happy day, when dubious Fate
Look'd on the foeman's fleet with baleful eye,
On ours with smiling glance and fortunate,
Inspired with mingled dread and courage high,
In thickest of the direful fight I stood,
My hope still stronger than my panoply.
I marked the shatter'd host melt like a flood,
And thousand spots upon old Neptune's breast
Dyed red with heathen and with Christian blood;
Death, like a fury, running with foul zest
Hither and thither, sending crowds in ire
To lingering torture, or to speedy rest;
The cries confused, the horrid din and dire,
The mortal writhings of the desperate,
Who breath'd their last 'mid water and 'mid fire;
The deep-drawn sighs, the groanings loud and great
That sped from wounded breasts in many a throe,
Cursing their bitter and detested fate;
1 See Navarrete, p. 317, for the full depositions.




26


LIFE OF


The blood that still was left them ceased to flow,
What time our trumpets, pealing far and near,
Proclaimed our glory and their overthrow;
The sounds triumphant, ringing loud and clear,
Bore through the smitten air, in jubilant flood,
The Christians' victory, from ear to ear!
At that sweet moment I, unlucky, stood
With one hand buckled firmly to my blade,
The other dripping downward streams of blood;
Within my breast a cruel thrust had made
A deep and gaping wound, and my left hand
Was bruised and shatter'd, past all human aid.'
Lepanto has become an empty name. The great
victory which rang all Europe through from side to
side is forgotten. The brilliant figure of the young
conqueror-" the Man sent from      God, whose name
was John," as Pope Pius in his ecstasy dubbed himwhich sheds a passing gleam of romance even over the
dull page of Philip's reign-an apparition which must
have cheated for a while the youthful fancy of Miguel
de Cervantes to imagine that the age of chivalry had
come again-has faded out of the world's knowledge.
Of all who took part in that famous battle, who included the flower of the youth of Spain and Italy, and
the most illustrious captains of the age-it is the private
in Moncada's regiment whose memory survives. It is
the fortunes of the Marquesa galley we follow throughout the fighting.  It is Miguel de Cervantes who is
the hero of the battle: Don Quixote, which has made
Lepanto immortal. Still, it would be a poor compliment
to the memory of the great writer were we to forget or
lightly estimate that which he esteemed as the chief
honour of his life-his share in the victory of Lepanto.




CER VANTES.


27


In after-life he cherished his hurts received in that
fight as his most precious of blessings.  He would
rather, he says in his reply to his venomous secret
assailant, Avellaneda, bear his losses and his sufferings
than be whole and have had no share in the glory of the
day. He had lost his left hand for " the greater glory of
his right." 1
The recognition of Cervantes' services in the battle,
even though those services were rendered in the capacity
of a common soldier, was sufficiently notable when
we consider that he was but one out of some twenty
thousand, though it took a shape which may move a
smile. His pay was raised by six crowns a month. He
was visited by Don John himself in the hospital at
Messina, whither the sick and wounded were taken, and
where he was long detained. The wounds in the breast
and in the hand tormented him, as we know from his
own words, for two years afterwards.  His hand was
"still dripping blood " at Tunis, where he was engaged
under Don John in the capture of La Gole/a. The use
of this hand, which was " shattered in a thousand places,"
was never recovered, though the popular notion, which
has been kept alive by forged portraits and fraudulent
statues, that Cervantes was wholly deprived of his hand
by a shot or a surgical operation, is erroneous. His own
words are that he lost " el novimienteo de la mano
izquierda "2 the movement, or use, of the left hand;
not that he lost the hand altogether. Nor could he
have served as an infantry soldier for four years after
1 See Prologue to the second part of Don Quixote, in vol. iv. of
my edition, p. 6.
2 See Viajc del Farnaso, chap. i.




28


LIFE OF


his wound had he been disabled by the total loss of his
hand. On the 29th of April 1572, he was sufficiently
recovered to leave the hospital at Messina. He then
joined the regiment of Figueroa, as famous as his old
regiment of Moncada, and took part in Don John's
abortive second naval campaign in the Levant, of which so
graphic an account is given in the " Story of the Captive"
in the second part of Don Quixote. The next year he
was engaged in the expedition against Tunis. From the
end of I573 to May 1574 he was in garrison with his
regiment in the island of Sardinia; thence, at the latter
date, he was transferred to Lombardy, under the orders
of Don John. In August I575 we find him at Naples,
whence, there appearing no further prospect of active
service, the League being dissolved, and Don John
called away from his designs of empire in Africa by
his jealous  half-brother,  Cervantes  got leave  of
absence  to revisit his native  country.   He  was
furnished with many certificates of conduct and letters
of recommendation, of a character and emphasis
which we must regard as extraordinary, seeing that he
was still but a private soldier, and they who wrote
in his behalf were the most illustrious captains and
dignitaries of the age. Don Carlos de Aragon, Duke of
Sesa and Viceroy of Sicily, wrote to the king and to the
Council, in most flattering terms, in favour of "a soldier
as deserving as he was unfortunate, who, by his noble
virtue and gentle disposition, had won the esteem of
his comrades and chiefs."'  Don John himself, the
See Navarrefe, p. 314. The Duke de Sesa was he who afterwards became Lope de Vega's great patron, in which character he
forgot his old friend and fellow-soldier of Lepanto.




CER VA NTE S.


29


commander-in-chief, gave him letters to the king, in
which he was strongly recommended for a company, as
" a man of valour, of merit, and of many signal services."
Provided with these letters, which proved to be of most
woful disservice instead of the expected advantage to the
possessor, Cervantes set sail for Spain on board the
galley El Sol, in company with several other distinguished
soldiers, including his brother Rodrigo and one Don
Pero Diaz de Quesada, ex-governor of the Goletta.1
It could have been in no very cheerful mood, however fair his prospects of advancement might have
seemed, that Cervantes set out to return home.  His
six years' arduous service had resulted in no bettering of
his fortune. His dreams of military glory must have
been rudely disturbed. That era of knightly enterprise
which seemed to dawn when Don John, in person and
character no ill-embodiment of one of his heroes
of romance, entered upon his command in the East,
had closed abruptly, leaving the promise of great deeds
but half accomplished. The vision of chivalry which
broke upon the young soldier's eyes when the great
fleet went forth to battle upon that memorable morning
in October was dissolved. The Turk was beaten, only
to renew the fight next year in greater strength. The
victories in Africa had been quickly turned to defeat and
disaster. The Christian champion-the " man sent from
God"-who had begun the fight so gloriously against
the Paynim, alas! had been forced to turn his back to
the enemy with the duel only half fought out. So
ignoble an ending to a campaign so loftily inspired and
1," They affirm that his name was Quejada or Quesada."-Don
Quixote, Part I., chap. i., in vol. i., p. 33, of my edition.




30


3LIFE OF CER VANTE S.


so gloriously begun, might well damp the enthusiasm of
a soldier like Miguel de Cervantes and afflict even his
sanguine soul with despair of chivalry.
But a still greater affliction was in store for our disillusioned and wounded hero, to extinguish his hopes and
to spoil his life. The galley El Sol, when almost in sight
of the Spanish coast, was set upon by a squadron of
Algerine corsairs under the command of the redoubtable
Arnaut Mami, an Albanian renegade, the terror of the
narrow seas. After a running fight between El Sol and
three of the swiftest of the pirate galleys, in which Cervantes is reported by his companions to have borne
himself valiantly, the Spaniards were overpowered, and
had to yield themselves prisoners.' They were divided,
according to their supposed value-that is, their ransomyielding capacity-among the captors, Cervantes himself
falling to the lot of a corsair captain, one Deli Mami,
a renegade Greek, noted even among the renegades for
his singular brutality. The letters of Don Juan and other
chiefs which were found upon him led his captors to
believe that he was a person of extraordinary importance,
upon whom, therefore, an excessive ransom might be set.
Thus the very favours which were conferred on Cervantes.
and the acknowledgments which he received for his services, were, by a peculiar stroke of ill-fortune, turned to his
greater injury and were the special cause of his suffering.
He was brought to Algiers, loaded with chains, and treated
with exceptional harshness, in order that, according to
true corsair policy, he might be the more eager, being
so considerable a personage, to purchase his freedom.
1 This fight is supposed to be described by Cervantes in his Galatea,
book iii.




CHAPTER III.


NO passage in Cervantes' chequered and ill-starred
life is so full of melancholy interest as his five
years' captivity in Algiers. That dismal record
called the Calamities of Authors contains many a painful
chapter; but to no man of letters did it ever happen to
endure a torture so exquisite as that which it was the
unhappy lot of the author of Don Quixote to bear.
Camoens, in his old age, half-blind and crippled,
begging his daily bread in the streets of Lisbon, is a
sufficiently pathetic figure. But Camoens was at least
among his own people, and it was by Portuguese, whom
he glorified and tried to exalt, that he was starved and
neglected. Cervantes, in whom we recognise so many
traits, physical and moral, in common with the poet of
the Lusiads, was in the prime and flower of manhood,
with the bloom of his valiant deeds in soldiership fresh
upon him, when he was taken prisoner and left to drag
out his life in chains, a slave to the hereditary persecutors
of his nation and creed. The mind cannot conceive,
for one gifted with the poet's and soldier's temperament,
at the threshold of what seemed a career full of promise,
a more terrible stroke of fortune than that which now
fell on Cervantes.  Algiers, that den of pirates which
had insolently raised itself in the very face of the most




32


LIFE OF


potent of the Christian states and barred the road to
the inland sea, was then at the height of its power-a
power which, strange to say, no maritime nation dared
to contest.  The armaments directed against the Turk
would have sufficed to beat down the walls of Algiers
and extirpate that hornet's nest. But for some reason,
which those who interpret the policy of nations have
failed to explain, none of the Christian states ventured
to assail this outwork of Islam, which was ten times
more dangerous to the peace and welfare of Christendom
than the Grand Signor at Constantinople.  Since the
time of Charles V. no Spanish monarch seemed to have
thought it worth his while to clear the seas of this brood
of rovers, though it was Spain which suffered most by
their enterprises. In the time of Cervantes, Algiers was
a dependency of Turkey, having been conquered from
the Moors by one of the brothers Barbarossa, in I516.
The Viceroy, or Dey, nominated from Constantinople,
was usually chosen from among the most select of the
cut-throats, and was little more than the corsair commodore-his jurisdiction limited to the strip of litorale
commanded by the pirate galleys, and his revenue
derived entirely from prizes taken at sea. The corsair
captains were mostly renegades, the converts from
Christianity being invariably found to make the most
savage and truculent of Mohammedans. In 5 7 5 the Viceroy of Algiers was Rabadan Pasha, a Sardinian renegade.
The total population over whom he ruled did not
amount, according to Father Haedo (who is the best and
most trustworthy authority on all that relates to the affairs
of Algiers), to more than Ioo,ooo, of whom the renegades,
including individuals of every Christian race, formed one



CER VANTES.


33


third. Of the thirty-five corsair captains who are enumerated by Haedo, twenty-four were renegades or sons of
renegades, ten Turks, and one Jew. The captives retaining
the name of Christians were estimated at nearly 25,000,
among whom were persons of the highest quality, chiefly
Spaniards and Italians. These were treated, in ordinary
times, with tolerable leniency. The meaner sort were made
to work for their masters, but those from whom ransoms
were expected, though kept in strict confinement, were
allowed considerable indulgences. If the property of the
Viceroy, they did no menial work. They were suffered the
free exercise of their religion, and even to act comedies and
otherwise recreate themselves.l The one unpardonable
offence in the captive was attempting to escape, which
was resented by the owner as an invasion of his pecuniary
rights. A price was set upon every slave according to
the local estimate of his worth and quality, the business
of ransoming being a regular traffic, conducted upon fixed
principles, with recognised agents on either side.
Shortly after Cervantes' arrival in Algiers, Rabadan
Pasha was replaced as Viceroy by Hassan Pasha, a
Venetian renegade, a monster of cruelty, noted even
among the Algerines for his lust of blood and singular
brutality. His character is described by Cervantes himself, through the mouth of the Captive in Don Quixote."And though hunger and nakedness might trouble us at
times, and indeed almost always, nothing afflicted us so
1 Cervantes himself is said to have written plays to amuse his
fellow-captives. That one of them, however, which is attributed to
him, La Virgen de Guadelupe (printed by the Seville Society of
Bibliophiles), could scarcely have been calculated to recreate even an
Algerine slave. I cannot see any trace in it of Cervantes' hand.
3




34


LIFE OF


much as to hear and see at every turn the till then
unheard-of and unseen cruelties which my master (Hassan
Pasha) inflicted upon the Christians. Every day he
hanged some one, impaled another, and cut off the ears
of a third; and this upon so small a pretext or on none
at all, that even the Turks acknowledged that he did so
for nothing else than because it was his will to do it, and
because by nature he was the homicide of the human
race (homicida de todo elge'nero humano)."'
This tyrant, who was said to keep a house full of noseless Christians for his private entertainment, was master
of Algiers during the whole five years of Cervantes'
captivity. Very soon after Cervantes was taken, and
while he was still a slave to Deli Mami, he made the
first of his many attempts at escape. In company with
some of his friends, he tried to reach Oran-then a
Spanish possession-by land; but the party was deserted
by the Moor whom they had engaged for their guide, and
were compelled to return to Algiers.  Two or three
other attempts were made, as Cervantes himself mentions
in his comedy of Zife in Algiers (El 7rato de Argel);
but in every case, though he displayed extraordinary
cunning and craft in planning the enterprise, he was
foiled, either by the timidity or the treachery of some
one of his comrades-he being always the first to give
himself up, when the attempt had miscarried, and take
the blame upon his own shoulders.
In the second year of his captivity Cervantes managed
to communicate with some of his friends at home
regarding his own and his brother's deplorable condition.


1 Don Quixote, Part I., chap. xl.




CER VANTES.


35


His father, Rodrigo, responded to his appeal by raising
a sum of money for their ransom, which was remitted
to Algiers. The money was rejected by D6li Mami
as insufficient for the redemption of a captive so illustrious as Miguel, but it obtained the release of his
brother Rodrigo.  The elder brother being free, a
plan was concocted between the two for the deliverance of Miguel and some of his companions, through
the agency of an armed Spanish ship, which was
to appear off the shore on a certain day.    This
plan miscarried, as did every other, though through
no fault of Miguel's, whose conduct throughout
was marked by extraordinary coolness, daring, and
magnanimity. In the garden of a Greek renegade named
Hassan, six miles to the eastward of Algiers, was a
cavern by the sea-shore, where, from time to time, some
forty or fifty escaped captives, chiefly gentlemen of
quality, had taken refuge. They were maintained and
supplied with food by Cervantes, with the aid of a
Navarrese slave called Juan. Here they awaited the
arrival of the promised ship from Spain which was to
carry them away-Cervantes being the last to take
refuge in the cavern. The appointed day arrived.  A
frigate, sent from Majorca, came off Hassan's garden
in the night, and succeeded in establishing a communication with the captives. Some Moorish fishermen,
however, having given the alarm, the ship was obliged
to put to sea again. Meanwhile there was a traitor at
work, as usual, among those whom Cervantes was risking
so much to save. A certain renegade called El Dorador
(The Gilder), who had been enlisted in the scheme,
took fright and revealed it to the Viceroy himself, who




36


I SEE OF


sent a strong party of armed Turks to the cavern.
Quick to perceive that his plans had failed, Cervantes
came forward to declare before the Viceroy's soldiers
that he alone had managed the affair, and that none of
his companions were to blame. When brought before
the Viceroy, he repeated his declaration, nor could he
be induced, even with a rope round his neck and the
threat of instant death by torture, to implicate any one
in his scheme of flight.
There -is something inexplicable in the behaviour of
the Viceroy on this and other similar occasions, when
confronted with this captive. This minister of cruelty,
who was never known to spare any one in his wrath,
whose daily pastime was torture and mutilation, w^ho
had a fancy, revolting even to the Algerine mind, for
hanging offenders with his own hands, seems to have
quailed before the intrepid bearing of this one Christian
slave. According to the remarkable testimony of Father
Haedo, who compiled his history of Algiers from the
mouths of those who had been captives during Cervantes'
time, Hassan Pasha was wont to say that, " could he
preserve himself against this maimed Spaniard, he would
hold safe his Christians, his ships, and his city."
Cervantes himself records, with a pardonable selfcomplacency, in Dion Quixote, that "1 the only one who
held his own with him (Hassan) was a Spanish soldier
-a certain Saavedra (lie., Cervantes himself)-to whom,
though he did things which will dwell in the memory of
those people for many years, and all for the recovery of
his liberty, his master never gave a blow nor bade any
one to do so, nor even spoke to him an ill word."' How
are we to account for the strange, unique, immunity




CER VAN1TES.


37


enjoyed by Cervantes?  That they took him for a
person of higher rank than he was is certain; but
that circumstance alone, with the prospect of large
ransom, would not account for his being spared the
indignities and torments to which the highest captives
were subject. Some have supposed that they had
hopes of converting their prisoner to Mohammedanism,
as so   many   of his bold   and   fearless nature
had been converted. But nothing in Cervantes' life
or conduct in Algiers gives colour to this theory. On
the contrary, all the evidence goes to prove that he
was distinguished among the captives for his correct
behaviour, for his benevolence and kindliness of heart
towards the poorer Christian captives, and his efforts to
comfort them in affliction and keep them steadfast in
the faith.  Another theory is that Cervantes had a
powerful friend at court in the person of one of the
corsair captains, one Morato (Murad), called Maltrapillo (The Sloven), a Murcian renegade, who was one of
Hassan Pasha's principal favourites. This circumstance
clearly does not go far enough to explain the influence
which Cervantes exercised during his captivity, not only
over the Viceroy, but, as a consequence of that perhaps,
over the other Christian captives.
In order to keep his dreaded prisoner more close
Hassan Pasha purchased him from his master, Deli
Mami, for 500 gold crowns; and henceforth, being upon
ransom and a slave of the Viceroy's, he was exempt
from menial labour, according to custom, though still
forced to wear chains. About this time it was, having
been now two years in captivity, that he wrote his
poetical epistle to Mateo Vasquez, the King of Spain's




38


LIFE OF


secretary, which was discovered some five-and-twenty
years ago among the archives of the house of Altamira,
and forms one of the most valuable of the documents
connected with his biography.  In this poem, which
consists of eighty-one tercets in the metre of The Voyage
to Parnassus, the author begins with an autobiographical
sketch, reciting his acts and services by sea and land,
concluding with a proposal for a general rising of the
Christian slaves in Algiers, to be seconded by an armament from Spain. The king is entreated to complete
the work which was attempted by his illustrious father,
Charles V.; to destroy the pirates' den; to take pity on
the poor Christians, who, with straining eyes, watch for
the Spanish fleet to come and unlock their prison doors.
The poet is confident that the benign royal bosom is
touched by pity of the poor wretches who pine in chains
almost in sight of the sacred invincible shores of their
native land. The land of the infidel was weak, the city
ill-fortified, and its defenders divided by blood and race
-held together only by a common faith and lust of
gain.1
The adventure was one which was not by any means
desperate; and had Philip II. been inspired by any
particle of chivalry, or even by any feeling of national
duty, he might have succeeded in winning Algiers.
Haedo avers that "had Cervantes' fortune corresponded
to his intrepidity, his industry, and his projects, this day
Algiers would belong to the Christians." But there is
no evidence that the letter to Mateo Vasquez ever
1 Mr. J. Y. Gibson has translated the epistle to Mateo Vasquez,
which will be found included in the volume containing his version
of The Voyage to Parnassus.,




CER VANTES.


39


reached the royal eyes. That "benign bosom" (there is
always a suspicion of sarcasm in Cervantes' references
to Philip II.) was occupied just then with a safer and
more tempting adventure-the seizure of Portugal-the
throne of which kingdom had become vacant through
the disaster which overwhelmed the madcap Don
Sebastian and his army at Alcazarquiver.
Undaunted by the ill-fortune which seemed to dog
his steps, Cervantes made several other attempts to
escape from his abhorred prison. Shortly after his last
failure he sent a secret message to the Governor of
Oran, entreating him to meet himself and a party of
captives at the frontier. The messenger, with Cervantes'
letter on him, was seized and brought before the Viceroy,
who ordered the one to be impaled and the other to
receive two thousand blows with the stick. Once more
Cervantes, to the astonishment of Christians and Moslems, was spared-once more to resume his attempts at
deliverance. In September 1578 he found a Spanish
renegade, one Abderrahman, formerly the Licentiate
Giron of Granada, to conspire with him, together with
two Valencian merchants resident in Algiers, in a means
of escape. These, at their own cost, were to provide
an armed vessel, which was to take off sixty of the
principal captives, under the direction of Cervantes.
The traitor on this occasion was one Blanco de Paz,
an Aragonese and a Dominican monk, said to be an
agent of the Holy Inquisition, who had for some reason
unknown conceived a bitter hatred for Cervantes. This
creature, whose mysterious conduct and wholly inexplicable baseness gave Cervantes a good deal of trouble in
Algiers, went before the Viceroy to reveal the plot and




40


LIFE OF


denounce the author. The intrusion of the Holy Inquisition (not for the only time) in Cervantes' affairs is a
curious circumstance, which the Spanish biographers have
passed over with the usual reserve when motives of faith
are in question. The fact that the Holy Office had an
agent in Algiers, with free access to the Viceroy, is in
itself strange. Upon Blanco de Paz's information, Cervantes was once more summoned to appear before Hassan
Pasha, public proclamation being made that any one
harbouring him should be punished with death. Cervantes came forward voluntarily, and, presenting himself
before the Viceroy, was seized and bound hand and foot,
with a rope put round his neck, and threatened with
instant death. Again we are told that, moved by his
fearless demeanour and his "ingenious and witty answers,"
the Viceroy was induced to pardon him, ordering him,
for his only punishment, to be confined in the Moors'
prison, which was in his own palace, and laden with extra
chains and guarded with special rigour. The cheerfulness, constancy, and fortitude with which these severities
and his unvarying ill-fortune were borne by Cervantes
won him, says one of the witnesses of his conduct and
fellow-captives, Luis de Pedrosa, "great fame, praise,
honour, and glory among the Christians." We have the
remarkable testimony, indeed, of Haedo, who wrote his
Topography of Algiers upon the information obtained
from various gentlemen of rank and condition who had been
captives in Algiers, to prove that the case of Cervantes
attracted singular attention among his contemporaries,
for the extraordinary rigours to which he was subject,
his daring attempts at escape, and his influence over
his fellow-captives, which seems to have been without




CEIR VANTES.


41


precedent. Haedo (whose book, though not published
till I612, was written before Don Quixote appeared,
and therefore before his testimony could have been
influenced by Cervantes' celebrity as a writer) says
distinctly that the captivity of Cervantes was "one of the
worst there ever was in Algiers." Protracted through
the causes we have indicated, the over-estimate put by
the Algerines upon the value of their prisoner and the
inability of his family to raise the required ransom, it
was destined to come to an end, for the world's good
fortune. In 1579 the large preparations made by Philip II.
for the conquest of Portugal spread terror throughout
Barbary, it being supposed that his real object was a
descent on Algiers. Accordingly, while the hardships and
sufferings of the poorer captives were increased through
the strenuous efforts of the Algerines to add to the
defences of the port, there was a greater eagerness in
the masters to realise their property in slaves, so that
ransoms began to be reduced. The friends of Cervantes
had never ceased their efforts to procure the sum
demanded for his redemption, though it was out of all
proportion to their means. In March 1578 a petition
was presented to the King's Council by Rodrigo Cervantes,
the elder, reciting his son's services, and praying for
assistance to free him from captivity. The Duke of Sesa
backed up this petition, speaking warmly of Cervantes as
a good soldier, who had fought for his Majesty, whom he
had himself recommended for promotion, and who was
deserving of all favour and consideration. The father,
Rodrigo Cervantes, died in 1579, leaving the burden of
Miguel's liberation to rest upon his mother and the
widowed sister, Andrea.  The two women managed




42


LIFE OF


between them to raise a sum of 300 ducats, equivalent
to ~35 in English money. From various other sources
another sum of 300 ducats was got, chiefly by way of
loan-(a burden which hung round the neck of Miguel
for years after)-and the whole placed in the hands
of Father Juan Gil, the Redemptorist Father, and Official
Redeemer of Castile-a good and holy man, whom
Cervantes, in his gratitude, has made immortal.
Father Gil arrived at Algiers in May I580 with his
600 ducats in gold. But Hassan Pasha would not abate
a jot of his demand for Cervantes, which was 0ooo
ducats, or double the amount he had himself given for
this slave to his old master, Deli Mami. Being on the
point of returning to Constantinople, on his recall from
his government, Hassan had already placed Cervantes on
board of one of his galleys, among his other gear,
chained and fettered. At the last moment, when the
galley was putting off, Father Gil, through his pious
entreaties and efforts among the local merchants and
others (among whom we should be glad to include the
friendly "Sloven"), was enabled to raise a further sum
of 500 crowns (escudos) in Spanish gold, with which
Hassan was satisfied.l Then Cervantes was once more
a free man, having completed just five years of captivity.
There took place a further delay before Cervantes
could embark for Spain, caused by the obdurate malevolence of Cervantes' old enemy, Blanco de Paz. Baffled
in his attempts upon Cervantes' life in Algiers, the
Dominican had been spreading certain calumnies in
1 The total sum paid for Cervantes' ransom was a little more than
I1oo of English money of that time-equivalent at this day to
~5co.




CER VA NTES.


43


Spain respecting Cervantes' behaviour in captivity. It
was necessary for Cervantes, who believed that he had
established a claim upon the king for his services, and
who looked for civil or military employment of some
kind on his return to Spain, that he should come back
to his native country with a fair character. The process
which ensued seems to have been regarded at the time
as unusual, and to us must appear a little superfluous.
However, a formal investigation was held in the presence
of Father Juan Gil, with all the forms of a judicial
inquiry, into the conduct of Miguel de Cervantes during
his captivity. A number of witnesses were summoned,
including all the gentlemen of note who had been or
still were prisoners in Algiers, and the proceedings
terminated with the solemn testimony of the judge,
Father Juan Gil; for all which the world cannot be
too grateful to the memory of Blanco de Paz, who
figured as Cervantes' accuser on the occasion.  The
report of the process, with the depositions of all the
witnesses, has come down to us, and it is from it that
we are enabled to obtain a most minute, vivid, and
pathetic picture of Cervantes' life in Algiers. Had there
survived no other record than this to tell us what kind of
man Cervantes was before he became a great writer,
this would have been sufficient. The enthusiasm, the
alacrity, and the unanimity with which the witnesses,
who include the captives of the highest rank and
character then in Algiers, gave their testimony in favour
of their beloved comrade, are very remarkable and most
touching. They speak of him in terms such as might
glorify any knight of romance; of his courage in danger,
his resolution under suffering, his patience in trouble,




44


LIFE OF


his daring and fertility of resource in action. Miguel de
Cervantes, during his five years' slavery, had clearly won
the hearts of his fellow-captives as completely as he had
quelled the fury of his barbarous tyrants and softened
their temper.1
So ended the fiery ordeal through which the "mutilated
of Lepanto" had to pass when yet the world knew him
for nothing but a soldier. The story of his life in Algiers,
usually passed over hastily by his biographers, it is
necessary to tell at large, for it was in that rough school
the writer was developed out of the soldier. Algiers,
which spoilt his life and ended his dream of romance,
roused in him that finer humanity of which Don Quixote
was the outcome. Throughout all his life and in all his
works we see the influence of the hard training which he
had gone through in Algiers. How deeply impressed he
was by his Algerine experiences, which gave him, doubtless, a larger view of human nature, with a deeper
knowledge and a wider tolerance, is made evident in the
numerous references he makes to his captivity and to
the scenes and characters he had witnessed and studied
in that curious little world, with its motley group of
people of all races and creeds. Of several of his plays
Algiers was made the scene, and his own and his
companions' adventures the subject. In several of his
novels Algerine corsairs and Christian captives are introduced.  In Don Quixote we have the episode of the
captive Luis de Viedma, doubtless a real passage in the
life of one of Cervantes' companions, and the moving story
1 The whole report of the case, with all the depositions of the
witnesses, is given in Navarrete, pp. 319-349. I have abridged it in
an appendix to vol. i. of my edition of Don Quixote.




CERVANTES.                   45
of the Morisco Ricote and his daughter. In all his writings
we have the frequent recurrence of Eastern ideas and
Eastern expressions, with, what is the most notable fruit
of his Algerine experience and a singular evidence of his
own good nature and generosity of heart, a degree of
tolerance and charity for Mohammedans, which was certainly unusual at that age, and unique in a Spanish great
writer.




CHAPTER IV.


ERVANTES landed in Spain on one of the last
days of I580. He had been absent just ten years
from his native country.  He was now thirtythree years of age; and it may be convenient, at this
period of his life, to describe what manner of man he
was. Unhappily, and to the scandal of Spain, even then
entering upon the golden age of her native art, there is
no authentic portrait extant of the author of Don
Quixote. Though said to have been twice painted in his
lifetime-by Francisco Pacheco, the master and father-inlaw of the great Velasquez, and by Juan de Jaureguy,
an artist of eminence-these pictures have been lost or
are no longer to be identified. The well-known effigy,
in a court suit bedizened with lace and frill, with a ruff
of portentous dimensions, all of the period-the hooked
nose, big round eyes, and baby mouth-which has stood
for the last hundred years and more the counterfeit
presentment of Miguel de Cervantes, must be pronounced,
for the credit of nature and in the interests of physiognomy, a forgery. A counterfeit indeed it is, but no
true presentment.  This portrait is a pure fabrication,
and a work of fancy, of which the history is not the
least of the strange mystifications of which our hero has
been the victim. I have told the story in detail else



LIFE OF CER VANTES.


47


where,1 and need only recapitulate the main facts.
When in the year 1738, the English Minister, Lord
Carteret (who, with other claims to remembrance of
which he has been so strangely deprived, is to be
welcomed as an enthusiastic Cervantist), in order to please
Queen Caroline, published his edition of Don Quixotethe first in any country in which the text was treated
with due honour as a classic, and still, in Tonson's
beautiful type, one of the handsomest-he endeavoured to obtain for his frontispiece a portrait
of the author.  But though, as we are told by Dr.
Oldfield in the preface, every effort was made
through the English ambassador in Madrid to find a
portrait of Cervantes, none such could be heard of in
Spain. Therefore, to match the other fanciful illustrations in the four volumes-gorgeous and ghastly sculptures in the Dutch manner by Vanderbank and Vandergucht-the English artist, William Kent, was set to
prepare "a representation which should figure the
ingenious author in his great design." William Kent
accordingly "invented and delineated" a portrait of
Cervantes. A three-quarters figure, since familiar to all
the world by his hooked nose and his starched ruff,
supposed to be the ingenious author of Don Quixote,
is seated in his library with a pen in his hand, and paper
and ink (for the greater assistance of the imagination) on
a table by his side. His left arm ends in a stump, gaily
frilled. By his side is depicted a knight on horseback
in full armour, with Sancho and his ass in the rear. We
have only to compare this print with all the other
1 In the first volume of my edition of Don Quixote, p. 117, etc.




48


LIFE OF


engraved portraits in the Spanish or the English editions,
to perceive that they are all copies of this, William Kent's
fanciful sketch. That neither the English artist nor the
editors of Lord Carteret's Don Quixote had any idea of
deception is proved by the epigraph in large letters at
the foot of the picture: Retrato de Cervantes de Saavedra
por el mismo (Portrait of Cervantes Saavedra by himself),
meaning, of course, a portrait drawn after Cervantes'
own description of his person. On this basis, as I have
shown, as the best and most candid of Spanish critics are
now agreed, every existing print purporting to be a portrait
of Cervantes has been worked. Sometimes the face is
turned to the right-sometimes to the left. Generally
the lower limbs are omitted, with the stump, the pen,
the writing-table, and the other decorative accessories.
Everywhere, however, are repeated the hooked nose, the
curly moustache, the round eyes, which grow rounderthe baby mouth, which grows smaller-the ruff, which
grows stiffer and more newly got up, with every repetition. The editors of the great Spanish edition of I780,
issued by the Academy out of very shame at the homage
paid to Cervantes by the foreigner, made a feeble attempt
to assert for their own portrait (which was a bust only, in
an oval frame) a legitimate paternity. It was taken, they
said, from a picture painted by Alonso del Arco, which
the Conde de Aguila, a patriotic nobleman of Seville,
had purchased from  a dealer in Madrid.   The first
difficulty here is that Alonso del Arco, the deaf and
dumb painter, was not born till I625-nine years after
Cervantes' death; so that his work could have no claim
to be painted from the life. Another awkward circumstance, which everybody can detect, is, that the face in




CER VANTES.


49


the Academy's portrait is identical in feature, in look,
and in pose with Kent's ideal portrait of 1738. For this
mystery the scholars of the Spanish Academy suggested
a most ingenious, but, what will appear to all candid
minds, a most desperate solution-namely, that it was
their own portrait which was the original, and Lord
Carteret's the copy-a theory which requires us to
believe that the English editors of I734, having before
them a genuine portrait of Cervantes wherewith, for the
first time, to adorn an edition of Don Quixote and give
it value, preferred, out of their preposterous vanity or
abundant deceitfulness or sheer perverseness, to make
the world believe the real portrait was a sham one.
The facility with which the Spanish Academy in 1780
convinced themselves that their portrait of Cervantes
was a true and perfect likeness closely resembles the
process by which Don Quixote was made to accept the
helmet-which in the first essay we learn he demolished with ease-as "a good and perfect helmet,"
which needed no further trial. Ever since that time the
Spaniards have gone on repeating that false image as
though it were a real effigy of their Prince of Wits
-painters and sculptors reproducing those delusive
features, poets singing and patriots gushing over them,
until William Kent's ideal Cervantes has become stamped
on every one's fancy as the true MigueL Of late years
there has been a revolt against the absurd and childish
superstition, led by Spanish critics of the new school of
Cervantistas. The most enlightened of them reject the
Kent portrait and the fable which connects it with a
Spanish original. In I864 the hearts of all true Cervantophiles were rejoiced with the report of the discovery of a
4




50


LIFE OF


new portrait, believed to be the vera egfigies of the author
of Don Quixote. The discoverer was Don Jose Maria
Asensio, a gentleman of Seville, who is noted for the
enlightened zeal and industry with which he has followed
up every trace of Cervantes.  The story, as told by
Asensio,l is briefly as follows:-In 1850, Don Jos6
found an anonymous manuscript (not dated), which
had once belonged to Don Rafael Monti, of Seville,
entitled Relacion de cosas de Sevilla de I590 ad 640. In
this manuscript it was written that in one of the six
pictures, painted by Francisco Pacheco and another for
the convent of La Merced-a picture representing a
Redemptorist Father landing with some captives from
Algiers-there was a portrait of Miguel de Cervantes,
among other real personages. This statement was confirmed to Don Jose by a manuscript notice of a collection of portraits in chalk of eminent contemporaries by
Pacheco, which (in an incomplete form) is still extant.
Induced by these hints to search among the pictures in
the Museo of Seville (which was formerly the convent
Casa Grande de la Merced), Don Jose found one in the
series of six described in the catalogue as San Pedro de
Nolasco en uno de los pasos de su vida (St. Peter of Nola
in one of the passages of his life). This represents a
boat putting off from shore, in and about which are
seven figures, one of which is the saint himself. The
others are evidently captives lately redeemed. All are
believed, on evidence which has satisfied Senor Asensio,
to be portraits of real personages. Among them, conspicuous above all, is a man standing in the stern of
1 NVuevos Documentos para ihstrar la vida de Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra. Seville, I864.




CER VANTES.


51


the boat using a pole, dressed like a sailor, with bare
legs and feet, and a wide-brimmed, low-crowned hat.
His face is turned full to the spectator, as though the
artist wished him expressly to be seen. This, according
to Sefior Asensio, is Miguel de Cervantes. There is
much to strengthen and support this conjecture; but
alas! it is only a conjecture. Cervantes might well have
been chosen as one of the captives to be represented in
a scene intended to illustrate the good deeds of the
Redemptorists.  His case had made a great noise in
Spain. Moreover, we know that he was a personal
friend and intimate of Pacheco, by whom, we know also,
he was painted. The figure in the boat is a handsome
man in the prime of early manhood, as Cervantes was in
1580. The face, though badly modelled and ill-drawn,
is a singularly fine face, with a broad forehead, beautiful
eyes, a well-defined and rather prominent nose; defective
only in the jaw and chin, of which the weakness has
probably been exaggerated by bad drawing, though it is
true to Cervantes' known defects of character, his indecision and infirmity of purpose.  Of this portrait
it may be truly said, what cannot be said of its
rival, the hook-nosed impostor, that it might be the
portrait of Cervantes.  No lover of Cervantes who
ever looked upon the original at Seville, dimmed
by age as it is and hung in a bad light, but
must have devoutly wished that its claims to be a true
portrait could be verified. Unfortunately they rest only
upon a long chain of conjectures, of which one or two
of the links are rather weak.' One piece of evidence,
1 I have a copy in colours of the head and bust of El Barquero,
for which I am indebted to the kindness of my friend, Don Jose




52


LIFE OF


which would have been conclusive, is lacking. The
collection of portraits by Pacheco of his contemporaries
done in chalks, which has been recently reproduced
under the auspices of Senor Asensio, is unfortunately
wanting in the sketch of Cervantes. In its absence, we
can only hope that something will turn up to confirm
our faith in El Barquero.   Meanwhile we must be
content to take Cervantes' own portrait of himself in
words, which, in the absence of the promised engraving
from Jaureguy's picture, he gave us in the Prologue
to the Novelas Exemplares, published in 1613:-"He
whom you see here, of aquiline features, with chestnut
hair, a smooth, unruffled forehead, with sparkling eyes,
and a nose arched, though well proportioned-a beard
of silver which, not twenty years since, was of gold,
great moustaches, a small mouth, the teeth of no
account, for he has but six of them, and they are in bad
condition, and worse arranged, for they do not hold
correspondence one with another; the body between
two extremes, neither great nor little; the complexion
bright, rather white than brown, somewhat heavy in the
shoulders-this, I say, is the aspect of the author of
Don Quixote of La Mancha."   This description, allowing for the difference of years, tallies exactly with
Pacheco's figure of the boatman. The smooth, unruffled
forehead, the sparkling eyes, the well-arched nose, are
all in the picture. The colour of the boatman's hair is
of a ruddy chestnut, and the shoulders-algo cargadasstrikingly evident.
Maria Asensio. The engravings of the head in Sir W. StirlingMaxwell's Life of Don John and in the frontispiece of Gibson's
translation of the Viaje del Parnaso, do not do justice to the picture.




CER VANTES.


53


To assist the imagination, in the absence of a pictured
likeness, in calling up before the mind's eye the man
as he was in his prime of life, let it be added that he
was near-sighted, and had an impediment in his
speech.l From his physical attributes, as well as from
the features of his mind and character, we may assume
Cervantes to have belonged by blood to the ancient
Gothic red-haired and fair-skinned type of Spaniardsthe type which seems to be gradually dying out in
these latter days, beaten, under the modern conditions
of the struggle for life, by the darker, black-haired racethe type to which Camoens also belonged, and the best
of the Conquistadores, and every prominent hero, fighting
and writing man, of the Peninsula from the Cid to Don
Enrique the Navigator.
For such a man, on his return to Spain after five years'
captivity, the prospect, with Philip the Prudent in full
glory, was no pleasant one. Cervantes was now in his
thirty-third year, with a spirit unbroken by trouble and
a heart which no adversity seemed able to sour. Yet
his condition was doleful enough to need all the resources
of his gay and sanguine temperament to preserve him
from despair. He had come back to Spain, after ten
years' absence, blighted in all his hopes, disappointed in
the promise of his life, without a profession, without a
career, neither a soldier nor a civilian, not knowing
whether he was in the king's service or out of it, and
with the treasure of the prime talent within him still
See Viaje del Parnaso, chap. iii.; and the epistle to Mateo
Vasquez. Avellaneda, in the bitter, venomous prologue to the false
Don Quixote, speaks of his rival with incredible brutality as having
" more tongue than hands " —as lengua que manos.




54


LIFE OF CERVANTES.


undiscovered. To begin the world afresh, as he had to
do, he was even less well equipped, except in the matter
of experience, than when he was a young man, before
Lepanto. His wounds had left him in a great measure
disabled for the profession of arms which he had adopted.
His chief patron, Don John of Austria, was now dead.
Such interest as he had won by his services and good
character was already exhausted in the efforts for his
release. Those services were precisely, as it happened,
those least likely to recommend him for preferment to
Philip, who hated the memory, as he had grudged to
the victors the glory, of Lepanto. The family of Cervantes was reduced to dire poverty through their exertions to raise his ransom, and henceforward he had to
bear the charge of his widowed mother and sister. He
himself, without any revenue, was burdened with the
debt which had been incurred by his family for his
redemption.  What was there for the poor maimed
soldier of Lepanto to do in the Spain of Philip II.?




CHAPTER V.


ERVANTES returned to Spain at the close of
1580, as poor as he had left it ten years before,
the richer only in his experience of life and in
that liberty which he has declared to be "the greatest
gift bestowed by God on man." His hopes of employment in the public service were doomed to be disappointed, so he was driven to resume his profession of
soldier, joining his old regiment of Figueroa. That he
was enabled to carry a musket in the ranks testifies not
only to the fact that his claims to promotion were
ignored, but also to his being less crippled by his wounds
than is usually supposed. The regiment of Figueroa
was now on the frontier of Portugal, forming part of the
force under the Duke of Alva which Philip II. was
collecting for the invasion of Portugal. It does not
appear to have arrived in time to take part in the review
of the army by King Philip at Badajoz; nor was there
any fighting by land in which it could distinguish itself,
the Portuguese resistance being most feeble, and the
veteran Alva bearing down all before him by his skill
and cruelty combined. An animated picture of life and
character in this very regiment of Figueroa during this
campaign, is given by Calderon in his play of El Alcalde
de Zalamea-Don Lope de Figueroa, the well-known




56


LIFE OF


commandant, being introduced as one of the personages
in the drama. Lope de Vega also, who, it is interesting
to know, was himself serving at this date in the ranks of
the Figueroa regiment, wrote a play in which this tough
old soldier, who seems to have been accepted as the
very type of the Castilian man-at-arms, figures as a
leading character. The picture which the dramatists
give of the internal economy of the regiment is not one
which is creditable to the morals or the discipline of the
famous Tercio de Flandes. The men were badly paid
and starved, so that it is no wonder that the habits
acquired in the campaign in Flanders, and the severities
which it had been accustomed to practise on the
heretical subjects of Philip, made it the terror of the
country people as much as of the foreign enemy.
Cervantes himself in several of his works bears testimony
to the lawlessness and recklessness of the Spanish soldier,
which were the natural reflection of the stern and
barbarous treatment to which he was subject.
Philip claimed the throne of Portugal in right of his
mother Isabella, who was sister to King Joam III.
But there was another claimant put forth by the native
party, in the person of Don Antonio, known in history as
the Prior of Ocrato, whose pretensions were supported
by France and England. Driven from the country by
the superior force and genius of Alva, Don Antonio took
refuge with his adherents in the Azores, which he
occupied with the Portuguese fleet, strengthened by
a contingent of English and French ships. Thither,
after a considerable delay, caused by disputes between the
military and naval commanders, was despatched, in the
summer of I582, a strong naval armament under the




CER VANITES.


57


veteran Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marquess of Santa Cruz.
The regiment of Figueroa formed part of the expedition,
Miguel de Cervantes serving in it as a private, and
Rodrigo, his brother, as alferez, or ensign-both on board
the galleon San Mateo. A great battle was fought off
Terceira on the 25th of July I582, in which the Spaniards
gained a signal and glorious victory over Don Antonio
and his allies-the San Afateo bearing, according to the
historians, a conspicuous part in the fight, and taking
several of the French ships.  The fleet returned to
Lisbon in the autumn; but, Don Antonio's partisans
again making head, the Marquess of Santa Cruz was
a second time obliged to take to the sea in the year
following, and Terceira was again the scene of an
obstinate naval battle, in which Rodrigo de Cervantes
so greatly distinguished himself as to attract the notice
of the admiral and secure his promotion. Don Antonio
being finally suppressed, the fleet returned to Lisbon,
after a series of naval operations, which certainly deserve
a place among the most glorious, as they were almost
the last, of all the achievements of Spain by sea.
Miguel de Cervantes' own share in these transactions,
crippled as he was by the damage he had received at
Lepanto, could not have been very great. But in his
memorial to the king, presented some years afterwards,
he refers to his service under the Marquess of Santa
Cruz, and in his sonnets he has celebrated "the great
Marquess," that " thunderbolt of war," whose fame in the
years following was destined to suffer eclipse.1
1 The Marquess of Santa Cruz was the first designated Admiralin-Chief of the Invincible Armada, but is said not to have approved
of the expedition and died a few days after its despatch.




58


8IFE OF


With the return of the Spanish fleet to Lisbon,
Cervantes seems to have closed his career as a
soldier. He lingered in Portugal for a time, seduced by
the courteous and liberal manners of the people, which,
as well as the praises of the beauty and grace of their
women, he was never weary of reciting. It was in Lisbon
that he formed an attachment to a lady, it is said of
high birth, of which the fruit was a daughter, Isabel,
Cervantes' only child and his constant companion till
his death.1 How deep was the impression left by this
romantic episode in his life is proved by the fond and
frequent references Cervantes makes to Portugal, and
especially to Lisbon, and this in an age when there was
even less love between the two races of the Peninsula
than there is now. In his very last work, Persiles and
Sigismunda, written but a few months before his death,
he returns to speak of Portugal and the Portuguese with
singular enthusiasm, exalting their beauty and high
qualities, and commending even their language as sweet
and pleasant. Nor was there any attribute of our hero
more singular in him than this, his large charity towards
all mankind, without distinction of race or creed. He
was tolerant even of Moors and of Englishmen, in that
fanatical time when the one for their hostility to the
faith were not regarded as more outside the pale of
humanity than the other for their heresy; nor is there
any great Spanish writer of that or any other succeeding
age who, steeped as he is in Espanolismo, is uniformly
so courteous to all foreigners.
His military career in Portugal ended, Cervantes seems
1 Dona Isabel de Saavedra, after her father's death, took the veil,
entering a convent of barefooted Trinitarian nuns at Madrid.




CER VANTES.


59


for a time to have been indulged with hopes of civil
employment At some date, not precisely to be fixed
but probably after his return from the second of the
expeditions to the Azores, Cervantes was at Mostagan,
on the coast of Barbary-then an outpost of Spainwhence he was made the bearer of despatches to the
king, by whom he was ordered on a service supposed to
be connected with the provisioning of the Spanish garrison
at Oran. The service must have been of a trifling and
temporary character; and there is no record of Cervantes
being employed by the State in any capacity until some
years afterwards.
Meanwhile Cervantes must have revisited his old
home at Alcala and formed acquaintances in the
district, for out of a new romance which now crossed
his life was begotten his first acknowledged work,
Galatea, a pastoral of mixed prose and poetry, after
the Italian model-a model which the Portuguese
Jorge Montemayor, in his Diana, had recently brought
into fashion. A Valencian poet, Gil Polo, had followed
Montemayor with his Diana Enamorada; and both
pieces were then highly popular and believed to represent the finest culture as imported from Italy.  The
Galatea is written in a flowing, melodious style —a
style for correctness superior to that which was natural
to the author-profusely interspersed with poems, in the
shape of ode, eclogue, and sonnet-abounding in fancy,
and what was then regarded as passion. The characters
are all shepherds and shepherdesses, but have very little
to do, as usual, with sheep. One tells another of a girl
who loves him or whom he loves. Sometimes it is the
lady who loves the gentleman, and the gentleman will




60


LIFE OF


not. Or it is the other way about, and it is the lady who
is unkind, loving another, who carries on the game by
bestowing his affections on some one else.  They all
make long speeches, and have a tendency to break out
into verse, which is as stiff with embroidery as the
shepherdesses themselves.  What is to be done with
such themes? The whole life is unreal; the sentiments
false; the passions artificial and affected. No human
genius can make anything of a pastoral; and it is no
discredit in Cervantes to have failed in a kind of composition for which he, of all men, was most unfit. Nor
has any one ridiculed the pastoral life of romance more
happily than Cervantes himself in one of the last
chapters of Don Quixote,; though it may be doubted
whether Don Quixote brought him more fame in his lifetime than Galatea had done. Into the body of the
piece is inserted, without any connection with the story,
a long poem called El Canto de Caliope, in a more
ambitious strain than Cervantes had yet attempted. It
is so far the most interesting portion of the book as that
it is a catalogue of all the leading poets of Spain, who
are discovered td be very numerous and invested with
the rarest qualities, which nobody but Cervantes (the
most good-natured of critics) has ever been able to
discern. Another feature of interest in Galatea is that
most of the characters, perhaps all, are real personages,
disguised under fantastic names. In the shepherdess
Galatea herself is figured the lady whom the poet afterwards took to wife, and for whose delectation the story
is said to have been written. Cervantes himself appears
as the shepherd Elicio; while even so grave and reverent
a personage as Hurtado de Mendoza, the famous




CER VANTES.


61


statesman and diplomatist, is represented as a shepherd
recently deceased.
Absurd and insipid as Galatea is to the modern reader,
it is clearly unfair to judge of it by the standards of our
time.  By his contemporaries Cervantes' pastoral was
received with great applause, and we have evidence to
show that it brought him immediate fame outside of his
country. As a pastoral it certainly compares favourably
with other pastorals. Nothing so good in that kind had
appeared in Spain. Some of the occasional incidents and
episodes are told with all Cervantes' grace and skill as a
story-teller. Even to this day the piece may be read (in
the original) by young men and maidens with a certain
pleasure, and without any harm. The author himself
has pronounced, in the famous Inquisition on Don
Quixote's library, a very fair verdict on the book which
was the first fruit of his genius, by saying, through the
mouth of the Priest, that "it contains a little of good
invention."
The immediate purpose for which Galatea was written
was happily accomplished. A few days before its publication, on the I2th of December 1584, Miguel de Cervantes
was married at Esquivias, a small town of New Castile,
to Dofia Catalina de Palacios y Salazar. The young lady
appears to have been of a family somewhat superior in
worldly circumstances to her husband's; and there is
a tradition that one of her kinsmen opposed the match
on the ground that Cervantes was not sufficiently
endowed with fortune. The tradition goes further, and
says that it was in revenge for this opposition that
Cervantes made Don Rodrigo de Pacheco, who is
identified with Dofia Catalina's churlish cousin, the




62


LIFE OF


hero of Don Quixote.l This legend may be dismissed
with all the other wild theories and speculations which
hang by the silly notion that Don Quixote was a satire,
intended for personal application. Not much is known
about Cervantes' wife, who was probably one of the
good wives who leave biographers little to speak about.
She was very much younger than her husband, Cervantes
at the date of his marriage being in his thirty-eighth
year; she bore him no children, and survived him more
than ten years.  As in her will she requested to be
buried by his side, we may suppose that she did not
regret her choice. Upon her marriage all her own
goods were settled on her by Cervantes, in a deed which
is still extant, with an inventory of Dofia Catalina's
effects, which has a pathetic interest for us as showing
what were the circumstances of the young lady who is
supposed to have brought a fortune to Cervantes. The
list includes several plantations of vines in the district
of Esquivias, and goes minutely into the enumeration
of various articles of domestic furniture-"two linen
sheets, one good blanket, and one worn; tables, chairs,
a brasier, a grater, several sacred images, one cock and
forty-five pullets."2
In 1585 Cervantes moved from his wife's town of
Esquivias to Madrid. He now seems to have finally
adopted literature as a profession, despairing of employment in the public service and having no other means
than his pen by which to support his household. In
this were now included his wife, his little natural
1 See vol. i., pp. I30 and I57, of my edition of Don Quixote
(1888).
2 See Pellicer's Don Quixote, vol. i. p. 205.




CER VANTES.                  63
daughter Isabel, his widowed sister Andrea, with her
daughter Constanza, eight years old. All these women
were maintained by him for many years-in fact, during
their lives and his life, through every phase of his slender
fortune.




CHAPTER VI.


ADRID in 1585 was the centre of a kingdom
which, to all outward seeming, was then at the
height of its greatness and power. The monarch
of Spain, now for the first time ruler of the entire
Peninsula, was lord of a dominion such as till then
never had been on earth. In Europe he held sway,
outside of his own states, over more than half of Italy,
including Lombardy and Naples, with the islands of
Sicily and Sardinia. Tuscany and Genoa were his vassals.
The Duke of Savoy was his dependent. Of the Low
Countries he still held military possession, which the
recent assassination of William of Orange seemed to
render whole and indisputable.  By the conquest of
Portugal he had added all her extensive colonial empire
in the East and West to his own. All South and Central
America was his, besides Florida and the Antilles. In
Africa and Asia he possessed vast territories. By land
and sea there was no single power to match that of
Philip II. At home he had contrived to absorb all
right and law into his single person, and was a more
absolute despot than Spain had ever seen. Whatever of
local privileges the states of the Peninsula had enjoyed
under their ancient fueros were practically extinguished.
The Cortes met only to register the king's decrees. The




LIFE OF CERVANTES.


67


Church, once the representative and champion of the
national liberties, had been bribed and coerced in the
name of Faith to be the king's right arm and in all civil
matters the minister of his will.
In all the arts of luxury and refinement Spain was
then the foremost state in Christendom. The wealth of
the Indies, then no figure of speech but a very substantial tribute which yearly came to swell the king's
coffers, had wrought a great change in the ancient
Spanish manners. The sudden and extraordinary influx
of the precious metals led to great inequalities of social
condition, with a general rise in the cost of living, which
tended to increase the national poverty and widen the
gulf between rich and poor. The question of whether
the discovery and possession of America were productive of any real benefit to Spain-whether they were
not indeed the immediate causes of her decadence-has
been elsewhere and often amply discussed. The process
of national decay had already begun under Philip II.,
and was doubtless accelerated, if not caused, by the
narrow and bigoted spirit with which he dispensed his
extraordinary power.  The period of Spain's greatest
fertility and vigour unhappily coincided with that of
her worst corruption and blindest rule. The Church
and America together sapped the springs of her growth.
All the best manhood of the nation had been flowing
now for nearly a century westward, and what America
did not receive of energy and intellect was absorbed by
the Church. The figures which the native historians
give of the enormous multiplication of priests and monks
and religious institutions under Philip the Prudent are
almost incredible.
5




LIFE OF


Never in the history of the world did any state
expend so much of its manhood in the service of God.
The number of monastic houses within the wh6le
dominion of Philip was reckoned at 60,000; of secular
priests over 300,000; of monks and friars about
60o,000o.1 The Holy Inquisition was then in the very
pride and flower of its energy, roasting a heretic about
every other day, besides imprisoning and torturing at
the rate of some 6000 a year. It sat like an ugly vampire upon the nation, shadowing every process of life,
dulling the individual spirit-an abiding terror by day
and night. For a genius like that of Cervantes it is
impossible to conceive any sphere more hopelessly
uncongenial than that which he found at Madrid.
The very fertility of the Spanish mind at this period
rendered his prospects, from a worldly point of view,
more disheartening.  Never was Spain so prolific of
writers. The time of quickest growth seemed, by some
curious destiny, to have coincided with a season of
greatest unkindliness.  Though Philip himself did
nothing to encourage either letters or art, except so far
as they could be brought into the service of the Church
-though he is not known to have taken pleasure in
any product of human wit-never was the Spanish
intellect so busy as during his long reign. In letters
and in art there was a spring of life of astonishing force
and exuberance. It was the dawn of the golden age of
Spanish literature.  In poetry especially the outburst
was phenomenal. The Castilian tongue, with its double
resource of consonant and assonant, lends itself to rhyme
1 See Buckle's History of Civilisation, vol. ii. p. 476, where
all the authorities are cited.




CER VA7NTES.


67


with a fatal facility. Its very harmonies are a snare to
the true poet. In Cervantes' time, when the language
had attained its highest perfection, almost every one
who wrote was a rhymester who called himself a poet.
Their multitude was so great as to be a standing joke
with the wits. "In every street four thousand poets,"
writes Lope de Vega, himself the most prolific of all.
To write verses was so common an art as to cease to be
a mark of liberal education. Those who could hardly
read, complains Suarez de Figueroa, wrote farces in
rhyme.   Cervantes himself, who had but a modest
estimate of his own gift of poetry, ridicules the poetambre-the poetastery —" the squadron of seven-month
poets, twenty thousand strong"-" the useless rabble
who attempt to storm the mount when they are not
worthy to stand under its shade."'
Amidst this crowd of hungry bards Cervantes had to
struggle for a living, as yet unconscious of his true
powers, and with scanty help from any friend or patron.
He may claim to be the first man of letters who attempted
to live by his pen.  Every other great writer of the
period had some preferment, or private source of revenue. Many were ecclesiastics; others were courtiers;
all depended on some other means of life than literature.
A public, in the modern sense of the word, there was
none.  The patron was a necessary appendage of the
author; and at this period of his life we do not hear
of Cervantes having any special patrons.  For an
original genius of independent spirit the prospect was
gloomy. The publisher, as we know him, did not exist.


1 See The Voyage to Parnassus, chap. ii.




68


LIFE OF


There were booksellers, but readers were few and editions
limited. There was no general law of copyright even
for Spain. To make any kind of livelihood by writing,
in such a society as that of Madrid, was about as
desperate an undertaking as the most romantic imagination could conceive. Madrid had only been made the
capital since 1568, the unhappy choice of Philip II.
Though designated "the only Court "-La Corte-it was
far from popular as a residence of the nobility. Of commerce or of industry there was none. More than one
city in the provinces excelled Madrid in population, in
wealth, and in splendour and gaiety of life. To our poet
the struggle for existence must have been a severe one,
though of the details of his life at this period we
know but little.  He had won some fame by his
Galatea, as appears by the flattering allusions to him
in the commendatory sonnets of the time. He himself tells us that he wrote an infinite number of
ballads-that on " Jealousy" being the one most esteemed
-most of which he supposes are among the damned.'
In the ample Spanish romanceros and cancioneros it may
be that some of these are still extant, if no longer to be
identified. There are some five or six ballads about the
famous Uchali (Aluch Ali), the Turkish admiral who
brought away the remnant of the Moslem fleet from
Lepanto, which are probably by Cervantes, especially
one, which contains the lament of a Christian slave
for his mistress Talinca, which, by reasonable conjecture, is made to be an anagram of Catalina,
the name of Cervantes' wife.


1 Viaje del Parnaso, chap. ii.




CER VA NTES.


69


Besides writing ballads and sonnets, it was about this
time that Cervantes made his essay as a dramatist, upon
a field which, could his genius have fully compassed it,
would have been the most profitable of all to him as
a writer.  The Spanish comedy, which was shortly to
develop into such extraordinary grandeur and luxuriance,
was then just emerging from its infancy.' Lope de Vega
had not yet begun to practise his marvellous talent for
play-writing. Cervantes, in fact, may be said to be the
first of the great writers of Spain who wrote for the
stage, his appearance as a playwright being exactly
coincident with that of Peele and Marlowe on the English stage. In what year he began to cater for the new
taste for the drama, soon to attain, under Lope de Vega
and Calderon, to such enormous vogue, and what kind of
favour he received, we are not told in any of the histories
of the period. Our sole authority for all that we know of
Cervantes' career as a dramatic author is an interesting
passage in the characteristic prologue to the collection
of Comedies and Interludes, published by Cervantes
thirty years afterwards.  He composed, he tells us,
about twenty or thirty plays (not included among the
number printed), which were all put upon the stage
and received with favour-that is, they were acted
"without their receiving tribute of cucumbers or of any
other missile." " They ran their course without hisses,
cries, or disturbances." The names of some of these
plays are enumerated by Cervantes in the delightful
prose appendix to the Voyage to Parnassus. He speaks
with special pride of one, La Confusa ("The Perplexed
Lady"), as "good among the best of the comedies of
the Cloak and Sword (de caspay espada) which had been




70


LIFE OF


up to that time acted." According to Pellicer, he
received payment at the full rate, being 800 reals for
each play, which was no less than the sum usually paid to
the popular favourite, Lope de Vega. Cervantes, in his
prologue (full of those touches of modest self-allusion
which invest all his prologues and side utterances with
so peculiar a charm), speaks of himself as the first who
reduced the number of acts in the Spanish comedy from
five to three, and also the first who introduced moral
and allegorical figures on the stage. Neither claim, as
Ticknor has shown, can be maintained; and the second
is of more than doubtful merit.
Of all Cervantes' plays only two of those which were
represented have come down to us, the Anumancia and
El Trato de Argel (" Life in Algiers ")-two so different
in quality and in style as scarcely to seem the work of one
and the same hand. The NZumancia is a tragedy, having
for its subject the siege of the Iberian city so named by
the Romans under Scipio Africanus-the most splendid
page in the heroic annals of ancient Spain. Cervantes
has treated this theme, almost too tragic for representation,
with a nobility and passion of sentiment, according to
Schlegel and Bouterwek, only to be matched in the
masterpieces of.Eschylus. In grandeur of conception;
in the sublimity of its pathos; in intensity of patriotic
feeling and concentrated heroic energy, it would be
difficult to find a parallel for the Numancia in the whole
range of tragedy. Let it be remembered that the drama
in Europe was still in its swaddling clothes; that Cervantes was the first in Spain to give shape and consistency
to the rude experiments of Lope de Rueda and Naharro.
The stage was only just beginning to be evolved from




CER VANTES.,


71


the booth and the cart of the itinerant showman.
Dramatic art was in its infancy, with no examples but
those of ancient Greece and Rome to direct the modern
playwright. Shakespeare had not begun to write for the
theatre. Corneille and Racine were not born. Italy, to
whom Spain was inclined to look for her models in poetic
art, had as yet produced only the pastoral comedy. The
Numancia must he reckoned as the first play with any
attempt at concerted action and poetical expression which
was put upon the Spanish stage. It was a tragedy such as
no living man had witnessed. That it is deficient in the
ordinary artifices of the stage and sublimely careless of
effect, without a plot in any proper sense, without construction, with nothing to attract the spectator but the
passion and force of national sentiment, and a catastrophe
the most tremendous which any dramatist has ever dared
to introduce into a play-this is what must be said of the
Numancia, which is not to be compared with any other
drama.  Cervantes never rose to so high a strain
in poetry before or since. The verse, in spite of its
monotony and its unsuitableness to dramatic action-it
is the ottava rima in all the narrative passages-is of
rare quality, with a majesty of thought and depth of
passion such as we may look for in vain in the more
highly developed Spanish drama of an after age. Something of Marlowe's vigour and picturesqueness of expression may be found in the Numancia, but Marlowe never
gave us any passages of tender pathos to equal Liria's
despairing appeal to Morandro-a scene which has moved
even the frigid Ticknor and the judicious Hallam to an
unwonted enthusiasm. The rising of the corpse on the
invocation of the wizard Afarquino is an effect which, for




72


LIFE OF


sublimity of horror, neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare
ever equalled-without parallel in ancient or modern
tragedy.  The wonder is how such a play could ever
have been acted. Yet acted it was, with an effect such
as no play ever reached and with a mise en scene unparalleled, on one memorable occasion. When the
French cannon were thundering at the gates and
crumbling walls of Zaragoza, the defenders of the city,
by a happy inspiration, conceived the idea of playing
Numancia before the citizens. The result was to excite
the garrison to such a frenzy of enthusiasm that the
French were driven from the walls and the city
preserved.'
August Schlegel is perhaps too extravagant in his
estimate of the positive worth of the Numancia as a
drama, and certainly so when he says that it was here
that Cervantes found the true development of his inventive genius. La Numancia remains the highest effort of
the author in his serious mood. He never attained
to this height in any other drama.  The only other
extant comedy of his, dating from this period, is El
Trato de Argel, which is a confused medley of personal
experiences of Algiers, mixed with comedy and sentiment, written in the monotonous octosyllabic verse, with
real characters introduced side by side with demons and
abstractions like Necessity and Opportunity. It is difficult
to imagine how such a play could have been put on the
stage, and even more difficult to conceive how it could
have been written, even for bread, by one who had, as
1 The Numancia has been done into very spirited and flowing
English, with all its various kinds of verse faithfully rendered, by
Mr. J. Y. Gibson.




CER VANTES.


73


Cervantes proved afterwards that he had, so true and
excellent a notion of the office and character of the
drama. Cervantes, however, was not the first great writer
who, while perfectly able to make the creatures of his
imagination live and move, could not combine them in set
scenes to make a play which should be a mirror of life.
Cervantes left off writing for the stage about 1588;
he tells us himself, with charming candour, why. He
had found other things to occupy him. "I gave up
the pen and comedies," he says in the prologue to
the Comedies printed in I6I4, "and there entered presently the monster (or prodigy) of nature (monstruo de
naturaleza), the great Lope de Vega, and assumed the
dramatic throne."  It has been disputed whether the
phrase applied by Cervantes to his great rival was
intended to be complimentary or sarcastic. Monstruo
de naturaleza may be used in either sense, and perhaps,
as Cervantes was fond of double meanings, he deliberately chose the phrase because of its dubiousness.
But I cannot help thinking that, seeing the words
quoted were written in his old age, when he could
no longer be blind to Lope de Vega's bitter and
furious enmity, he used them as much in sarcasm as
in praise.  And considering what had been the relations between the two, and that Lope de Vega (as
will be seen hereafter) had more than once attempted to
take the bread out of Cervantes' mouth, the reference
to Lope's appearance on the dramatic throne is nothing
discreditable to Cervantes' magnanimity. Lope de Vega
was at this time (r588) twenty-six years of age, being
fifteen years younger than his rival. He began to write
plays for the stage immediately after his return from the




74


LIFE OF


Invincible Armada, on board of one of the ships of
which he had enlisted as a soldier.
Finding himself eclipsed by this new and prodigious
comedy-maker, of whom it is reported that he could
produce an original play of three acts in forty-eight
hours, Cervantes was driven to seek for a livelihood
elsewhere and by other means. He does not appear to
have finally abandoned the hope of succeeding as a
playwright until some years after, for there has been
lately discovered the text of a contract, dated in I592,
between him and one Rodrigo Osorio, according to
which the latter agrees to give Cervantes fifty ducats
each for six comedies, provided they are successful. It
does not appear that the payment for the six plays was
ever earned; perhaps through failure in the condition
annexed.
Before this Cervantes had removed from Madrid to
Seville, in quest of the means of life. Seville was
then the richest, busiest, and most populous of
Spanish cities-the great port for the trade of the
Indies-the emporium of the commerce and trade
which had been created by the New World. Here
Cervantes seems to have been happier and more at
home than in the cold and gloomy atmosphere of
Philip's capital. That he entered deeply into all the
life of this gay and brilliant city, with every phase of
which he acquired a profound and minute acquaintance,
all his subsequent works bear testimony. Don Quixote
is full of allusions to Seville-" the support of the poor
and the refuge of the outcast," while more than one of
the Novelas has Seville for its scene. There our author
seems to have found friends, through whose interest he




CERR VANTES.


75


obtained a small place as one of four commissaries
employed to purchase stores for the fleet in Andalucia.
His commission is signed June I2th, 1588. From that
date, for some years afterwards, he was engaged in the
purchase of oil and grain in the districts around Seville
and Granada-an occupation which doubtless furnished
him with ample material for his future work, in extending
his knowledge of country life and manners. There are
still extant, preserved with a care which is in striking
contrast with the negligence shown towards all other
works of Cervantes, a great number of receipts, invoices,
and schedules of expenditure relating to these transactions in grain and oil, all written in Cervantes' clear
and bold hand.
In May 1590, sick of the oil and grain buying business,
Cervantes made application for a place in the Indies, at
that time the universal "refuge and sustenance," as he
says, " of desperate men of Spain,"-addressing the king
through the President of the Council in a memorial
which recited all his services by land and sea, his sufferings in Algiers, his subsequent employment in Portugal
and the Azores, " in all which time he had received no
preferment," and prayed for one of four offices which he
learns to be then vacant-namely, accountant of New
Granada, governor of the province of Socomusco in
Central America, paymaster of the galleys of Cartagena,
or magistrate of the city of La Paz. There is a tradition
that this petition was not unfavourably received, and
that Cervantes might have succeeded in obtaining one of
the places he asked for, had he not been guilty of some
indiscretion or negligence not specified. He has himself
alluded, in the autobiographical chapter of the Voyage to




76


LIFE OF


Parnassus, to certain defects of temperament which
marred his future and spoilt his destiny-defects which,
without any prejudice to his genius or character, might
well have been a bar to his usefulness as an official.
The only formal notice of his memorial was an endorsement by one Nuinez Morquecho, probably a secretary, to
the effect that the applicant "might seek about here (ite.,
nearer home) for the preferment he wants." No such
preferment coming to him, he continued his purchases of
wine, oil, and grain for his Majesty's service.  About
this time also he seems to have undertaken the duties of
rate-collector for the State-an office which brought him
an income of 3000 reals, or ~30 a year. He proved his
unfitness for this business by over-confidence in those
whom he had to trust, so that more than once he was
brought into money troubles through the failure or dishonesty of his agents. The most serious of these was in
connection with one Simon Freire, who was entrusted by
Cervantes with a sum of 7400 reals to carry from Seville
to Madrid. Freire became a bankrupt and fled the
country, and Cervantes had to make good his default.
He was imprisoned for three months at Seville, and
suffered damage to his credit for some years afterwards
on account of this affair, although there was no charge
affecting his personal honour.
During all this period, which is the darkest in his life,
Cervantes did not wholly neglect the pursuit of letters.
It was probably at Seville that he wrote some of his novels,
which were not published, however, until many years
after. In 1595, on the occasion of the canonisation of San
Jacinto, Cervantes entered into the competition for three
silver spoons which were offered by a Dominican house




CE R VANTES.                 77
at Zaragoza as the first prize for a poem in praise of the
saint, and was successful. In the year after, upon the
sacking of Cadiz by the English fleet under Lord Howard
of Effingham, Cervantes wrote a satirical sonnet which
expressed the popular view of the conduct of the Duke
of Medina Celi, who marched in with his beplumed
soldiers just when the English earl had- departed, after
doing all the damage he could to the Spanish shipping.
Of this incident of the English irruption Cervantes made
happy use in one of the most charming of his novels, La
Espafola nAglesa.




CHAPTER VII.


ON the I3th of September I598 died Philip II., after
a reign of forty-two years, which must be reckoned
as at once the climax and the turning-point of the
fortunes of Spain. This is not the place to discuss the
character of a monarch who filled so large a space in
the eyes of the world. By the majority of his countrymen he is regarded as the model of a judicious and
patriotic ruler. He was a true reflex of that Spanish
character which he helped so largely to mould, and this,
which was the secret of his power, is his best apology.
Outside of Spain mankind are agreed to judge him as a
cruel, mean, cold-blooded bigot, fitter to rule a monastery
than a kingdom, and only wanting courage and energy
to be a tyrant. Such a character, the very antithesis of
his own, and such an influence, fatal to all true romantic
dreams of knightly enterprise which he had cherished in
his bosom, could hardly be agreeable to Cervantes, who
must have regarded the close of Philip's reign, as we know
from many palpable signs the nation did, as the
awakening from a long and dark night. I do not mean
to support the theory, as started in Spain and elsewhere, that Cervantes was actuated in his works by any
ambition to shine as a political or social reformer. He
was essentially a man of letters, who troubled himself




LIFE OF CER VAN2TES.


79


little about politics, and still less about religion. He
was content to take the world as he found it, and was
oppressed by no sense of a " mission." He had a good
deal of the temper of our own Shakespeare, who, as Ben
Jonson reports, was "honest, and of an open and free
nature," and did not meddle with the world's bettering,
except as it came in the way of his calling. He was too
good a Spaniard to be o her than orthodox, which is not
to imply that he approved of the Holy Inquisition. In
that age, and under Philip II., a man had to be careful
of what he spoke and wrote. It is only by chance
expressions, by side hints, and words of dubious sense,
that Cervantes, a master of irony, chose to speak
his mind about public affairs on the rare occasions
that he did so; yet we cannot be wrong in
inferring that he did not approve of the character and
system of Philip II. In the first place, in an age when
it was the custom in every printed book for the author
to pour out a stream of eulogy on the reigning monarch,
to laud his wisdom and might, and especially his singular
prudence and magnanimity, Cervantes seems deliberately
to have avoided doing so. I cannot find any reference
to Philip which is without a double meaning, as even
the cautious Clemencin is forced to admit.' In the
Numancia he had called the king seogundo sin segundo
" second without second "-a poor pun, which may be
taken either way. In Don Quixote, where Charles V. is
several times praised with enthusiasm, Philip receives
no other notice than once as nuestro buen rei-"our good
king "-a phrase more contemptuous than respectful.


1 Clemencin's Don Quixote, vol. H. p. 290.




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LIFE OF


But there is a positive and, as it seems to me, a
conclusive proof of Cervantes' feelings towards Philip II.
in the sonnet which he wrote on the occasion of the
erection of a funeral monument to the dead king at
Seville.  A catafalque was erected by the cathedral
dignitaries in opposition to the civic authorities, and
contrary, as it would seem, to the wish of the inhabitants,
of a size so monstrous, and decorated so extravagantly,
as to excite general ridicule. Cervantes expressed the
public feeling in an ironical sonnet, or rather irregular
poem of seventeen lines, which he ever afterwards
regarded with a peculiar complacency, speaking of it in
the Voyage to Parnassus as " the principal glory of my
writings "-(honra principal de mis escritos). Allowing
for some humorous exaggeration, these words would
imply an extravagant amount of self-laudation could we
take them as referring only to the literary merits of
the poem.    A  soldier is speaking, staring at the
stupendous erection with startled eyes, vowing that it
beggared all description, placing Seville on a level with
Rome for wit and wealth. He would wager that to
gloat on such a rare sight the soul of the defunct would
desert its joys eternal in the skies. It is impossible in
any translation to convey the full force of the concentrated sarcasm which almost every word contains,
under a mask of simplicity. That the poem won much
applause, and was regarded as a kind of event in the life
of the city, is proved by the references to it in several of
the contemporary chronicles.
It was about this time, when his fortunes seemed to
have touched their lowest point-when he was on more
than one occasion forced to depend for bread on his




CER VANTES.


81


friends, that Cervantes first had that experience of La
Mancha, out of which was begotten the idea of Don
Quixote-an idea which, it is important to note, only
took form and shape at the close of Philip II.'s reign.
Between 1599 and I603 Cervantes was employed in
collecting certain dues on behalf of the Grand Priory of
San Juan, one of the great military orders of Spain,
which held property in La Mancha. Cervantes might
have had some previous knowledge of the district, as
there were members of his family settled in Alcazar,
which is just within the border. In the capacity, never
a popular one, of rate collector, he seems to have given
some offence to the people of Argamasilla, a small town
in the wildest part of that unlovely region. One theory
to account for his unpopularity is, that Cervantes was
concerned in some enterprise connected with the manufacture of gunpowder, and that he incurred the wrath of
the people of the neighbourhood by diverting the scanty
stream of their only river, the Guadiana, to the uses of
his industry. Another is, that he had offended a principal
inhabitant of Argamasilla, presumably that same particular cousin of his wife's who had objected to her
marriage, by writing satirical verses at his expense.
Another is, that it was a lady of the place (afterwards
disguised as Dulcinea) who had offended him, or whom
he had offended.  However this may be, it is certain
that once, when employed about his business, Cervantes
was laid hold of by some leading person of Argamasilla,
and imprisoned in the cellar of a house called and still
known as the House of Medrano. It is a miserable den,
half underground, lighted only by a grating looking on
the street, which remains to this day probably in the
6




82


LIFE OF


same state as when Cervantes was there incarcerated.
How long Cervantes was detained here is not known,
but a pathetic letter of his was extant at the beginning of
this century (now lost), written to an uncle, or probably
cousin, Juan Bernabe de Saavedra, at Alcazar de San
Juan, praying for help and relief, and declaring that
"long days and troubled nights are wearing me out in
this cavern."
That this was the injury, apparently wantonly inflicted,
without any right or law, which caused Cervantes to
cherish a grudge against the people of La Mancha is the
universal belief. Certainly the Manchegans are a people
who lend themselves easily to satire. They are among
the rudest and least cultivated of the races of Spain,
bearing strong traces of Morisco blood, and with a
peculiar expression of mingled simplicity and cunning
in their faces, which Cervantes could not fail to note and
make use of. Argamasilla de Alba, which was the town
whose name the author of Don Quixote "would not recall,"
has acquired a renown which to its present inhabitants
is a little embarrassing, though they cannot be persuaded
to regard it as unflattering. Although fallen somewhat
from its old dignity-it was obviously, from the width of
the streets, the character of its buildings, and the size of
its parish church, once a place of greater importance
than it is now-Argamasilla cannot greatly differ from
what it was in Cervantes' time. The Casa de Miedrano
still stands-a solid structure of stone, with the famous
cellar, lately used as a printing office, whence Rivadeneyra
issued his two beautiful editions of Don Quixole-now a
shrine at which good Cervantists worship, and the rare
English visitor pays homage. On the outskirts of the




CER VA NTES.


83


town stand conspicuous the ruins of what was once a
solid house, where Don Quixote is affirmed to have
lived; more by token that there is still to be traced a
window out of which the housekeeper pitched the books
which were condemned by the priest to the fire. In and
around Argamasilla it is safer to doubt of Cervantes
than of Don Quixote. Of the two it' is the creature
rather than the creator who is the living and real
presence. Are there not windmills everywhere on the
horizon to recall the memory of their inventor? For
that Don Quixote was the inventor of windmills is the
popular belief. As for Miguel de Cervantes, his name is
uttered, with a certain distrust and a shaking of the
head, as a wag, who made of Don Quixote a joke, and of
his respectable story a fiction.
Next in interest to the dungeon in which Cervantes
was imprisoned, and to the house said to have been
inhabited by Don Quixote, is the parish church, which
is one of unusual size and dignity for so small a town as
Argamasilla. In the north transept, in one of the side
chapels, is a votive offering in the shape of a picture
enclosed in a retablo, representing the Virgin, with angels
about her, looking down from heaven upon a gentleman
and lady kneeling in the act of prayer. The gentleman
is about fifty years of age,1 with high cheek-bones and
lanthorn jaws, robust complexion, wandering eyes, and
large moustaches. The lady is younger, and not uncomely. Underneath the picture is an inscription, now
to be made out with difficulty, setting forth how that
Our Lady appeared to this gentleman when given up by
1 Frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta aios.-Don
Quixote, Part I., chap. i.




84


LIFE OF


physicians, on the eve of St. Matthew in the year 160I,
and cured him of a great pain he had in his brain,
through a chilliness which " curdled it within " (que se le
quaj/ dentro). The portrait is of one Rodrigo de Pacheco,
who is known to have been the only hidalgo resident at
Argamasilla at this period.  The lady was his niece.
The picture was painted to commemorate Rodrigo de
Pacheco's recovery from a mental affliction-he having
been the owner of the house which corresponds to the
description of Don Quixote's, and is pointed out to-day
as his.  The picture must have been put up in the
church about the time when Cervantes is known to
have been in La Mancha.    Lastly, it was Pacheco,
according to the tradition, who, as the leading man in
Argamasilla, clapped Cervantes into the cellar of the
house known as the Casa de Medrano, probably in some
more violent access of "chilliness in the brain."
Here is surely a string of evidence which is almost
conclusive as to the source whence Cervantes derived the
leading figure and perhaps motive of his Don Quixote.
Rejecting/as preposterous the theory that Don Quixo-te
was intended to be a satire on some living person of the
time; holding it to be impossible that Cervantes, even if
he could have taken a personal grievance so much to
heart, could have given it such large utterance and noble
shape; we may still admit it to be probable that, having
conceived the idea of his book as a burlesque on the
romances of chivalry, he borrowed some of the external
features of his hero from the life and story of Rodrigo
de Pacheco, and perhaps may have been tempted to
heighten the picture into a resemblance of the original
by the memory of his own wrong. The tradition that it




CER VA NTE S.


85


was in the cellar under the House of Medrano that
Cervantes wrote his book is untenable. He was not
there long enough to write it, nor could he have written
it in such a place. I have little doubt, however, that it
was here where the idea of writing the book was first
conceived, to be carried out afterwards, as we shall see.
If my theory is correct that it was the picture in the
church of Argamasilla which first suggested Don Quixote,
the book must have been conceived after I6ot. There
are other reasons, which it is unnecessary here to dwell
upon, why it is improbable that Don Quixote could have
been begun while Philip II. was alive.
In I60o, Philip III., disliking the site of his father's
capital, removed the Court to Valladolid, a city by
nature far better suited for a metropolis than Madrid.
How Cervantes employed his time in the interval, and
how long he remained in the execution of his trivial and
ignoble duties in Andalucia and La Mancha, we have no
means of learning; but in 1602, at the earliest, he must
have begun to write Don Quixote. In I603 we hear of
him as removing to Valladolid with his family, doubtless
with some desperate hope of sharing in the royal bounty.
But Philip III., though of some liberal instincts and with
a taste for letters, was a poor weak creature, even more
completely abandoned to the debasing influences of
priestcraft than his father had been, without any of his
father's talent or force of character.  His favourite
minister, "the Atlas who bore the burden of his
Monarchy," as Cervantes called him, was the Duke of
Lerma,-the lord of his Sovereign's will and dispenser of
his power and grace-a man, according to Quevedo (who
spoke with greater freedom than any of his contem



86


LIFE OF


poraries), " alluring and dexterous rather than intelligent;
ruled by the interested cunning of his own creatures but
imperious with all others; magnificent, ostentatious;
choosing his men only by considerations of his own
special policy or from personal friendship or family ties."
Under such a man it was not likely that any portion of
the king's benevolence should light upon Cervantes. The
Duke of Lerma openly professed his contempt for all
letters and learning; and as for Cervantes' merits as a
soldier, they had now become an old and too common
story. Disappointed in his hopes of preferment, Cervantes
had to maintain himself with his pen, writing letters and
memorials for others, and occupying himself in " various
agencies and businesses," says Navarrete, while busy upon
his Don Quixote. His design must have been known to
some of his friends, and it appears that the work was
circulated in manuscript before he could find a patron or
a publisher. In the first edition of the Picara Justina,
an unsavoury tale by Francisco de Ubeda, the licence
to print which was dated August I604, Don Quixote is
mentioned as though he were already famous; and there
is a letter from Lope de Vega to his patron the Duke
of Sesa, dated August 4th, I604, in which there is a
malignant allusion to Cervantes and to Don Quixote.
It was not until the 26th of September 1604 that the
privilege to publish Don Quixote was obtained.  The
copyright, for ten years, was sold to Francisco Robles,
the king's printer; the sum received by the author is not
recorded. The book was printed by Juan de la Cuesta
at Madrid, and published in January I605.
Cervantes was still resident at Valladolid, nor does he
appear to have taken any trouble whatever with the




CER VANTES.


87


printing of his book. This first impression of Madrid,
1605, was very carelessly made, and swarms with blunders
of every kind, typographical and otherwise; though in
respect of the press-work it is quite equal to most of the
books printed by Cuesta, the chief printer of Madrid.
The title-page bears a shield with Cuesta's device of an
arm holding out a hooded falcon, with' the motto Post
fenebras spero lucem. This motto has seriously exercised
the wits of some ardent Cervantists, it being absurdly
supposed to carry a special reference to the character of
the book. It is no more than Cuesta's usual motto, and
a common form prefixed to all his books-the "light"
spoken of meaning, of course, the light which came of
the invention of printing.
The story of Cervantes' quest of a patron and its subsequent results is a very curious one, which has been
very attractive to painters, but strangely enough has been
neglected by the critics. The patron chosen, apparently
not without some effort, was the Duke of Bejar, a principal grandee of the Court, himself, according to a/
contemporary witness, a poet and a valiant soldier. The
choice was not a very happy one, unless we are to
suppose that Cervantes made it in a spirit of irony.
The Duke of Bejar, of all the noblemen of the day,
was the one who might be said to have a special claim
to be regarded as the patron of those books of chivalries
which Don Quixote came to destroy. Tohis own ancestor
-his great grandfather-had been dedicated one of the
silliest and dullest of the old romances by the worst and
most extravagant of the old writers, Feliciano de —Siva,
the writer especially rid;' y  -ervd a " iwos bk,
Flora is the very book which is parodied




88


I FE OF


Vin the opening chapter of Don Quixote. The Duke of
Bejar himself was noted for his uncomm _n tste f er he
"ooks of chivairies then insshion.  It is probable that
he took Don Quixote, in spite of the queer title, to be a
romance of chivalry. We can imagine his disgust and
the consternation of his household when the true
character of the work was discovered.  The patronage lent to the poor author was immediately withdrawn, chiefly at the instigation, it is said, of an
ecclesiastic, the Duke's confessor. Then, according tothe pleasant story first told by Vicente de los Rios,
was enacted that scene which has furnished so frequent
a subject to the painters. Cervantes, it is said, begged
of the Duke to give him a hearing before deciding
against his book. He was permitted to read a chapter,
which the Duke found so much to his taste that he
graciously revoked his decision, and consented to receive
the dedication. There is strong reason to believe, with
Hartzenbusch, that the dedication itself was tampered
with by somebody-most probably the aforesaid confessor, who, keener of nose than his patron, must have
scented something not of the common odour in the new
book. The language of the dedication, with its affected
and artificial phrases of conventional compliment, is
most unlike the style of Cervantes, whose dedications
have as marked a character of their own as his prologues.
What Hartzenbusch supposes, on the strength of the
discovery that this dedication of the First Part of Don
Quixote is almost word for word identical with Herrera's
dedication of his Poems to his patron in 1580, is that
Cervantes originally wrote a dedication in a different
strain, and that the Duke or some one of his house, not




CER VANTES.                  89
being pleased with it, caused it to be altered by a hand
better provided with that "precious ornament of elegance and erudition with which the works composed in
the houses of the learned are wont to be composed."
Cervantes took his revenge in after years upon this
meddling ecclesiastic by bringing him into the Second
Part of Don Quixote, where there is a passage against 9
those of the religious profession who "govern the
houses of Princes," written with a heat and bitterness
most unusual in one of his generous and tolerant spirit.L
The patronage of the Duke of Bejar does not appear
to have done much good either to the book or the
author; and from the fact that the Second Part was
dedicated to another patron, it has been inferred that
Cervantes did not retain the Duke's favour, and that his
book failed to please.
1 Don Quixote, Part II., chap. xxxi.




CHAPTER VIII.


"D   ON QUIXOTE" was received on its first appearance with a cold welcome from the author's
friends. The critics and the literary coteries
were puzzled by this strange novelty, and could not
make up their minds at first whether it was more
abominable or admirable. Nothing like this book had
ever appeared in the world of letters. Nothing like it
was expected, it is clear, from Miguel de Cervantes, the
old maimed soldier, whose Galalea was now dropping
out of fashion. His age-he was now fifty-seven-his
character, his social position, and what was known of his
romantic antecedents, did not promise a book of humour.
The men of learning sneered at the ingenio lego-the lay
or unlearned wit-who had started this new mode of
entertainment, in contempt of the rules and in defiance
of those who made them. The very title was derided as
absurd and vulgar. What of good could come out of
Ia Mancha? Two of the leading spirits of the age,
Gongora and Lope de Vega, did not disguise their
opinion of the new work-an opinion which perhaps
lost some of its effect from its obvious tincture of envy.
G6ngora wrote a satirical sonnet upon the advent of the
English ambassador and the Queen's accouchement in




LIFE OF CER VANTES


91


I605, in which Don Quixote, Sancho, and his ass are
introduced in ill-natured connection with the author.
Lope de Vega was one of the earliest to give vent to his
personal malice against Cervantes, with whom he appears
to have kept up, till this date at least, a semblance of
friendship. Writing to his patron, the Duke of Sesa,
even before the book was published, to give him the
news of the town, he says-" Of poets I speak not.
Many are in the bud for next year; but there is none so
bad as Cervantes or so stupid as to praise Don Quixote."
There was, it must be admitted, some ground for Lope's
dislike of the book; and seeing that he was then at the
very top of his popularity-the "Phcenix of the age "the darling of princes and delight of the people-we can
understand the feeling of consternation with which his
parasites and creatures-some of whom never ceased to
malign and persecute Cervantes after the appearance of
Don Quixote-must have read some chapters of the
book.  There was the daring Prologue-that matchless piece of irony-in which Cervantes had actually
"chaffed" the great Lope, taking every kind of liberty
with his works, laughing at his pedantry, his vanity, his
extravagance.  There was the forty-eighth chapter, in
which the comedies of Lope are so rudely handled by
the Canon of Toledo. All this-in an age when no man
dared to speak of the great Lope but with bated breath
-a familiar of the Holy Office, too, as one of Cervantes'
foulest detractors reminded him in after years-must
have caused some little commotion in the circles of the
cultured and the literary. On the other side, for the
honour of Spanish letters be it recorded, were Quevedo,
a kindred genius, always a warm friend and admirer of




92.LIFE OF


Cervantes; and Calderon, who, though belonging to a
generation later, seems to have cordially appreciated
Don Quixote, even introducing the author himself, whom
he always treated with respect, as well as the principal
personages of his story, into his plays.' The chorus of
detractors was swelled by all those-chiefly persons of
quality-whose taste in romance had been ridiculed.
Here was a man, forsooth, who tilted against Belianis
of Greece, and dared to enter the lists against Felixmarte, not sparing Florambel or Esferamundi! So bold
an innovation as a book, professing to be of entertainment, in which knights and knightly exercises were made
a jest of,-in which peasants, innkeepers, muleteers, and
other vulgar people spoke their own language and
behaved after their own sordid kind,-had never, since
the revival of letters, been made.  Lastly, the great
mass of the ecclesiastics, with a few honourable exceptions, with the whole body of their patrons, dependents,
and dupes, though they were too dull to perceive and
too dense to feel the shafts aimed at obscurantism,
superstition, and bigotry, had something more than a
suspicion that Don Quixote meant mischief, and was a
book to be discouraged.
In spite of the frowns and sneers of the quality however and the ill-concealed disgust of the learned, who
saw themselves and their affectations and extravagances
calmly thrust aside, Don Quixote, there is no reason
to doubt, enjoyed from its birth an unbounded and
1 As indeed Lope de Vega did himself, in his Cautivos en Argel
(of which whole scenes are cribbed from Cervantes' El 7ra!o de
Argel), where Cervantes is introduced, under the name of Saavedra,
in a not very respectful way.




CER VANTES.


93


quite unparalleled share of popular favour.  By the
general public its reception was most hearty and enthusiastic. The theory that the book hung fire, being
deemed to be dangerous, so that the author, in the
spirit of Bully Bottom, found it necessary to take pains
to assure the public and to "name his name," so that
they might not fear, is purely the invention of an
impudent farceur, one Adolfo de Castro, who, in I848,
wrote El Buscaie ("The Squib, or SearcR-foot "), which
he alleged to be the work of Cervantes, and was so
taken to be by some critics. There was no need for
any such device, for Don Quixole was, from the
beginning, extraordinarily successful, being received,
as the proud and happy author himself affirms, with
"general applause by the nations." The king's printer,
Cuesta, had to issue a second edition, or rather impression, in the same year, and apparently so quickly upon
the heels of the first, that bibliographers are puzzled to
know which is the real first edition of I605.  In the
same year Don Quixote was printed twice in Lisbon,
and twice in Valencia. Don Pascual de Gayangos, who
is the first living authority on Spanish books, inclines to
the belief that there were other editions of I605 which
have perished-one almost certainly of Barcelona, the
press of which city was then very active; one probably
of Pamplona, and one of Zaragoza, which were the
capitals of old kingdoms.  The number of copies of
Don Quixote issued from the press in the first year was
probably in excess of the number reached by any book
since the invention of printing. Taking each impression
to consist of 500 copies, there would have been printed,
according to this estimate, more than 4000 copies of




94


LIFE OF


the book in the first year-a figure which was certainly
never reached before by any book of entertainment,
and extraordinarily large for an age when readers were
few and books a luxury-when as yet, though the
ancient order of Mutual Admirers was probably in being,
there was no recognised system of advertising. Writing
some seven or eight years afterwards, Cervantes himself
calculated that the number of copies of his book then in
print were "more than I2,000," which is no extravagant
estimate, seeing that the volume had been then reprinted
at Madrid, in Brussels, in Antwerp, in Barcelona, in
Milan, and perhaps other of the Flemish and Italian cities
under the Spanish dominion. Of all these their popularity has been their ruin. The original Don Quixotes
have been bethumbed out of existence. This story,
written for a passing occasion, became the book of
humanity - to  use the   saying  of Sainte-Beuve.
"Children finger it; young people read it; grown
men are versed in it; grey-beards delight in it," says
Samson Carrasco in the Second Part of Don Quixote.
So many fingers were there from the first to spoil the
book, that now a copy of any of the I605 editions, or
even of the Brussels edition of I607, or of the true
second edition of Cuesta of I6o8 (the first which has a
critical value as being the first which was corrected by
the author), is now a prize within the reach of only the
most fortunate of collectors.
This extraordinary popularity of a work which it is
clear the author himself but lightly regarded-an
experiment in a novel kind of entertainment for the
first time tried in literature-an essay in a path which he
must have trodden somewhat hesitatingly and anxiously,




CER VANTES.


95


considering that in the new venture he risked both
fame and fortune-must have come as a pleasant solace
for twenty years of neglect and failure. That Cervantes
thought but lightly of his chance of success is proved, I
think, beyond dispute by his carelessness in regard to
the first edition of Don Quixote, which was printed without the author's correction and sent into the world full
of the most extraordinary defects. What was written in
one chapter is forgotten in the next. Sancho Panza
loses his ass, and is found riding on it a little further on.
His wife is called now Theresa, now Juana, and again
Maria. Names are altered capriciously, times and places
are confounded, and gaps left in the narrative unfilledall which blunders, the matter of stern and malignant
comment by his enemies, were an occasion of laughter
to the author himself. What are we to conclude from
this carelessness? Cervantes, it is true, was living at
Valladolid while the book was being printed at Madrid.
But it was not till three years afterwards that he seems
to have taken any interest in giving shape and symmetry
to his work. Are we to suppose that he was ignorant of
the good thing he had achieved? This theory would
be a little unflattering to his intelligence, and indeed is
contradicted by all we know of his character. He must
have known the value of Don Quixote better than any
one else.. But itjsrobable that heega toai4 n —
kind of despair, without any particular design. WVe have
his own words, which ought to be enohto prove
thg  el had no ulterior or profound purpose, such as
some of i    ritis- have pretended to find in Don
Quixote. He has told us that his object was primarily
to produce a book of entertainment



96


IrFE OF


"Yo he dado en Don Quixote pasatiempo
Al pecho melancolico y mohino
En cualquiera sazon, en todo tiempo." 1
This pastime was to be given by a story which was to
"destroy the authority and influence which the books
of chivalries have in the world over the vulgar." There
is no reason to believe that Cervantes, at the outset, had
any more serious intention.,There has been written, both in Spain and elsewhere, a
vast amount of nonsense as to Cervantes' presumed real
and esoteric motive in Don Quixote.   I shall discuss
this part of my subject more fully in a subsequent
chapter, when dealing with Don Quixote as a whole. At
present I have to do with the Don Quixote as published
in i605, which, though intended for a complete story,
was afterwards continued in a Second Part. In this, the
First Part, the author's purpose is clearly indicated.  It
was to cure the false taste in the romances of chivalry by
parodying their style and ridiculing their extravagances.
There is no reason to believe that Cervantes had any
personal objection to romances of chivalry.  He himself
loved a romance, as the shepherd in the maritime Bohemia
Biloved a ballad, "but even too well." He knew all these
false and foolish books by heart, as perhaps no one else
but the good Alonso Quixano ever did. He had tasted
of all their mischief, and if his brain was not turned by
their reading, it was because that brain was a particularly
strong one. Every line of Don Quixote proves how pro1  And I it is in Quixote who have given
A pastime for the melancholy soul,
In every age and for all time and season."
- Viaje del arnaso, chap. iv.




CER VANTES.


97


found and minute was the writer's acquaintance with the
fustian stuff which he ridicules. He cannot help letting us
feel, in that famous Inquisition which the Priest and the
Barber hold over Don Quixote's books, how strong is his
inclination to this kind of literature. Nor is it all books
of chivalries, as such, which he condemns. Some are
specially exempted from the penalty inflicted through the
secular arm of the Housekeeper. Amadis of Gaul and
Parnlerin of England are saved from the fire and treasured
as good Christian books.  There is a good though perhaps a jesting word even for the unromantic Tirante
the Vhitze, where " the knights eat and sleep and die in
beds and make their wills before dying." To argue that
because he burlesqued them therefore he hated them is
to go against the order of nature. The truth is that it was
only against bad romances that Cervantes took up his
pen. He hated and despised them, not- ecaise-they
were  romances, still less  because they were of
chivalry, but because they brought the romantical
way of writing into discredit and reduced chivalry to
braggadocio and rodomontade. The zeal which impelled
him was simply a zeal for pure literature. The reform
of morals or of manners, except in so far as it resulted
naturally from the employment of ridicule against the
bad taste in books, was no part of his design. We need
not go outside of Don Quixote to be convinced that this,
and no other, was Cervantes' purpose. Has he not,
through the mouth of the shrewd Canon of Toledo, laid
down himself the lines on which a true romance should
be written?  What is Don Quixote itself, as the
ingenious SalvA suggests, but a romance of chivalry,
which has ruined the fortunes of the others by being
7




98


LIFE OF


immensely in advance of them? Cervantes' own last
work, as we shall see, was intended to be a romance of
chivalry-which is by no means free from the very errors
he has ridiculed. Nay, what was Cervantes' own life but
a romance of chivalry?
To estimate the nature of the task which Cervantes
undertook and to judge of the value of the service he
rendered to literature and to humanity, we have to consider what was the character of those pernicious books
of chivalries, and the extent of their influence over the
minds of the people of Spain in the sixteenth century.
Thoroughly to deal with the subject would need a larger
space than I can afford. Even the bibliography of the
romances, called of chivalry, would fill a volume. Those
who desire to be further acquainted with these books
and their history, whose very names would have passed
into oblivion but for the one book which ruined them
and cast them out, are referred to the masterly Discurso Preliminar prefixed to his edition of the four
books of Amadis of Gaul, in the original Spanish, by
Don Pascual de Gayangos, a resume' and brief epitome
of which I have given in the appendix to the first volume
of my edition of Don Quixote. An essay upon the growth
and history of chivalry in Spain would be out of place in
a book like this. Let it suffice for our purpose to say
that chivalry, as an institution, lingered in the Peninsula
at least a hundred years after it had died out of Europe
proper. A century after Chaucer wrote his "Sir Thopas,"
making mock of the forms of knighthood, the knightly
calling was in full glory in Spain. The long duel with the
Moor, which only closed with the fifteenth century, had
trained the whole manhood of the nation to soldiership.




CER VANTES.


99


The trade of fighting was sanctified and made romantic
by the presence of the Paynim at her very doors, who
possessed the double qualification, as enemies, of being
at once of hostile religion and of alien blood.  All
through that fifteenth century the conditions were perfect
for producing the Knight-Errant. He had not far to go
in quest of adventure.   Mahound and Termagaunt
lived just over the border.   A   dark-featured race
which, by a happy chance, was not less chivalrous than
the ChristiansCaballeros Granadinos,
Aunque MAoros hijos d'algowere to be easily found when wanted. They were on the
other side of the hill or the river. Small wonder then
was it that out of that fruitful soil which had grown the
Cid and the pre-chivalric warriors there sprang up that
ranker produce, the Bohemians of the knightly orderthe Knights-Errant. Knight-Errantry, which was a caprice
in France or in England, in Spain was a calling. No
other country afforded such a field for it, and to no other
society was it so well suited. No other country in the
fifteenth century could show the world such a scene as
that gravely enacted before Juan II. and his court, when
eighty knights ran a-tilt with each other, incurring serious
loss of limb and damage of person, in order that one of
them might fulfil a fantastic vow made to his mistress.1
Even so late as the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella,
the grave and sober Fernando de Pulgar writes complacently of the noblemen whom he knew who had
travelled into other countries in search of adventure, "so
1 The Paso ionroso, held at the instance of Suero de Quiniones in
1434, at the bridge of Orbigo, near Leon.




100


LIFE OF


as to gain honour for themselves, and the fame of valiant
and hardy knights for the gentlemen," boasting that of the
Errant sort were more Spaniards than of any other nation.
The adventure generally ran in this form. A gentleman,
clad all in steel, goes out into the wood a-horseback,
with his squire behind. To him enters another gentleman similarly clad, regarded by the first as ill-favoured,
though nothing can be seen of his countenance. The
second gentleman is called upon by the first to confess
that the lady he adores is inferior in personal charms to
the lady of the challenger. He declines, with injurious
expressions. Then they both couch their lances, and,
wheeling about to fetch a comfortable distance, gallop
their steeds at each other. One is overthrown, upon
which the victor inserts the point of his sword
within the bars of his opponent's helmet, and makes him
admit that his lady is less beautiful than the other's lady.
Or there is a dishevelled maiden discovered in the
middle of a desolate forest, who is bound to a tree, or
otherwise discourteously entreated by a miscreant unsound of religion and large of stature. Her the adventurous knight rescues, slaying her oppressor, and is much
put to it, through the lady's loveliness, to maintain his
constancy to his own mistress. So runs the course of all
Knight-Errantry, with a due admixture of dwarfs, giants,
dragons, and enchanters.
The literature which was the product of this chivalry
partook largely of its spirit and character.  The romance
of chivalry flourished nowhere so luxuriantly as in Spain.
Indeed, Amnadis and his progeny are as much racy of the
soil as Don Quixote itself. The attempt to trace their
engendure in the Armorican legends has wholly failed.
~.




CER VANTES.


101


There is nothing of the French or Breton character in
the romances of the school of Amadis (excluding of
course the books of Provencal growth, like Tirant
lo Blanch), unless we accept the Comte de Tressan's
argument that they must be French because of their
superior tone and taste. There is reason to believe,
indeed, that the Breton romances were 'known in the
Peninsula before any of native growth made their
appearance. The first germ of Amadis itself may be
Breton, for we know that there was some romance bearing that name current in Spain before the middle of
the fourteenth century. How much of that is retained
in the Castilian romance as it now exists, which was
written after the conquest of Granada (1492), it is now
impossible to say and useless to inquire.  The conclusion which has been reached by the best authorities
is that the Amadis, in four books-which is the Amadis
of Don Quixote, pronounced by Cervantes to be "unique
in its art and the best of all the books which have been
composed in that kind," long supposed to be the work of
the Portuguese Lobeira-was composed by a Castilian
gentleman, Garci Ordofiez de Montalvo. It was first
printed, as Sehor Gayangos is of opinion, before the close
of the fifteenth century. This is a romance of a far
different sort from any of the Breton romances, breathing
a spirit more sober, more noble, and more chaste. The
life to which we are introduced is as unlike the life of
the court of Arthur as Lyonesse is to Trapisonda. The
hero himself is cast in a more refined and delicate mould
than any of the Arthurian heroes. He has sensibility,
tenderness, culture, and even virtue. In the story there
is a far more elaborate construction; there is real pathos




102


LIFE OF


and grandeur of sentiment, with no lewdness though
much freedom of manners. Nor is Cervantes the only
one who has praised Anadis. Tasso declared it to
be "the most beautiful as well as the most profitable
story of the kind that can be read."  Sir Walter
Scott thought it "a well-conducted story." Compared
with the romances of the ages succeeding, the
prodigious inventions of Gomberville, Calprenede, and
Scudery, it is vastly better-cleaner, more orderly,
more interesting, with more of art as well as of
nature.  The heroes fight too often and win too.e-i-a YVe are so assured of their triumph over the
miscreant Paynim and the discourteous giantry, that
the record of their perpetual victories becomes a little
tedious. But it is very good fighting, which cannot be
said of some later attempts in that kind. The slaughter
is conducted in an artistic way, by none of your amateur
murder-mongers, but those who knew how men were
killed, and wrote for a public well experienced in killing.
And, after all, the exploits of Amadis are not more
wonderful than those of the British baronet of modern
romance.
Of the race of which Amadis was the progenitor-the
Lisuartes, Florisandros, Florisels-down to the fourteenth
book claiming to be of Amadis, with the Palmerins
(except that "Palm of England" which the priest saved
from the auio-de-fe), and the heroes of the " GaloGrecian" and the Greco-Asiatic cycles, and the heroic
books, Provencal, independent, and Christian-nothing
need be said but that they are incredibly bad and stupid.
Against these it was that Cervantes directed his ridicule
in Don Quixote. The extent to which the public morals




CER VANTES.


103


as well as the public taste (for be it understood that the
successors of Amadis departed very widely from their
ancestor in morals as in manners) were corrupted by
this kind of reading, we may estimate from the unanimous
testimony of moralists and historians. In vain did the
Church and the Cortes fulminate and issue decrees
against the pernicious habit. All Spain'was given up
to the reading of those "romantical books."  They
formed the model on which society based its life and
its talk. Courtiers spoke no other language. Lovers
wooed like Amadis, and their mistresses too often loved
like Oriana.  Even the grave Charles the Fifth, who
issued decrees against the books, chose Belianis of
Greece for his favourite reading. The potent and solid
Mendoza took with him, when sent on an embassy
to Rome, Amadis and Celestina for his only library.
Ignatius Loyola (whom some have wickedly imagined to
be satirised in Don Quixofe) founded his idea of a
Christian order upon that of chivalry. Even the sainted
Teresa, glory of Spanish piety, not only was given up to
the reading of these vain books but is reputed to have
written some herself. For the country people the only
entertainment was the reading of these books, which
came to be received as gospel truth. What says the
innkeeper when the priest tries to persuade him that
FeZixmarle of Hyrcania and Cirongilio of Thrace were
lying books, full of frenzies and follies? "To another l/
dog with that bone!-as though I knew not how
many beans make five or where my shoe pinches
me.   A good thing indeed that your worship should
wish to persuade me that all which these fine books
say are but follies and lies-they, printed with the




104


L1IFES OF


licence of the Lords of the King's Council-as if they
were people who would allow such a pack of lies to
be printed-and so many battles and enchantments as
take away one's wits." 1 Many of those who took to this
reading, both high and low, believed that these heroes
once really lived and performed the exploits set down for
them.  Was there not a Portuguese poet once swore
upon the Evangelists that Amadis was all true? There
is a pleasant story, cited by Ticknor from the Arte de
Galan(eria, of a knight who came home one day from
the chase, and found his women all in tears. Asking
them why they wept-"Sir," they replied, "Amadis is
dead." They had come to the I74th chapter of the
eighth book, which is specially devoted to the chronicling
of the deeds of Lisuarte of Greece, a nephew of Amadis.
From the single fact that, from first to last, there were
produced in Spain over seventy romances of chivalry, most
of them longer than a modern novel, we may judge of
the enormous hold which this species of literature had
taken on the national mind, and also of the arduous
* nature of the adventure to which Cervantes devoted
himself, of rooting up and destroying the whole pernicious
brood. How completely he succeeded, and what excellent knight's service was done by his Don Quixote, is
proved by the fact that from I605 not one new book of
chivalry was written, nor one old one printed. Such a
revolution in taste was never accomplished by any writer
before or since. The doughtiest knight of romance
never achieved an adventure so stupendous. With his
pen, keener than the lance of mythic or imaginary


1 Don Quixote, Part I., chap. xxxii.




CERVANTES.                  105
hero, he slew the whole army of puissant cavaliers, very
valiant and accomplished lovers-making havoc of the
Primaleons and Polindos, conquering those invincible
ones, scattering the puissant and the ever-victorious, and
leaving the entire show in as great rout and confusion
as Don Quixote left Master Peter's puppets, "with all
the fittings hacked to pieces and made mincemeat, the
King Marsilio badly wounded, and the Emperor Charlemagne with his crown and head split in two."
1 Don Quixote, Part I., chap. xxvi.




CHAPTER IX.


T   HE success of Don Quixote seems to have been of
s      scant profito the author. Such glimpses as we
e- of Cervantes' life at Valladolid show him
to be still battling against the ill fortune which never
ceased to dog his steps, and was now preparing for him
fresh humiliations. The direct receipts from his book
were doubtless small, and from his allusions to their
tricks in the Second Part we'may judge that the author
was not over pleased with his publishers.
"Prithee tell me, sir," asks Don Quixote of an author! in Barcelona, "is this book being printed on your
own account, or has the copyright been sold to a
bookseller?"
"I print it on my own account," answered the author;
"and I expect to gain at least a thousand ducats by this
first edition, which is to be of two thousand copies, and
they will go off in a trice at six reals a-piece."
"You are mighty good at the reckoning," responded
Don Quixote; " it is very clear that you do not know the
ins and outs of the publishers, and the understandings
they have with one another. I promise you that when
you are saddled with two thousand copies of a book you
will find your shoulders so sore as to frighten you, and
especially if the book is a little out of the common, and
nothing piquant."




LIFE OF' CER VANTES.


107


Doubtless Cervantes was speaking of his own painful
experience. In his novel of The Licentiate Glass-house
he notices one of the devices of the publishing trade,
which was to buy the right of printing fifteen hundred
copies from the author, and to print and sell three
thousand. From the more distant publishers in Lisbon,
Barcelona, and Valencia, who reprinted Don Quixote
on its first appearance, it may be doubted whether
Cervantes received any payment at all. In those days
to live by writing books alone was what no man had
attempted. The pen which had written Don Quixote
was employed, perhaps more profitably, in writing letters
and petitions, and transcribing formal documents-sometimes, it is said, of State, but generally for individuals.
Valladolid, as the seat of the Court, was the resort of all
the most famous of the men of letters; and among these
Cervantes found friends. That he made others by his
book is probable, though we know of the success of Don
Quixote among the wits of the age rather by the sarcasms
of those he had offended than the praises of those he had
pleased. Among those who could not forgive Cervantes
for writing Don Quixote was Luis de Gongora, then
giving up that pure and simple style which had made
him the first of the living poets of Spain, to plunge into
the abyss of Gongorism. A satirical sonnet written
by G6ngora on the occasion of the coming of the
English ambassador, Lord Nottingham, in May I605,
contains one of the earliest references to Don Quixote.
Apparently G6ngora was disgusted with the attentions
paid by the Spanish Court to the "Lutheran," and gave
vent to what was probably the feeling in the ultranational and orthodox circles, in lines less conspicuous




108


LILFE OF


by wit than by ill-humour and jealousy. The sonnet
concludes with a reference to Cervantes:"Unto Don Quixote the commandment ran
To write these deeds-to Sancho and his ass."
The point of the sarcasm is not very clear, but the
shaft is evidently levelled at the character thus early
earned by Cervantes of one who earned fame by ridiculing the national weaknesses. By the mandate to Don
Quixote, Sancho and his ass, to write of the acts of
extravagant welcome performed in honour of the Englishman, I do not think that G6ngora meant anything more
than to gibe Cervantes for the liberality he had always
shown in writing of those who were the enemies of his
country and of his faith. On the strength of this sonnet,
however, and without any other evidence, the Spanish
biographers have concluded that the official account,
which is extant, of the Earl of Nottingham's coming and
reception was actually written by Cervantes. On this
supposition, with a surprising lack of common judgment,
Hartzenbusch, the leading Cervantist critic and editor,
has included the Relacion de las Fiestas de Valladolid
among Cervantes' works in his magnificent edition of
Argamasilla. I confess I can see no trace of Cervantes'
hand-and it is impossible to mistake that hand, at least
in prose-in this dull, frigid, and lifeless composition.
Nor is it likely that a man in Cervantes' position, without
favour at Court, could have been employed in such a
work.   G6ngora's insinuation was like himself, mischievous and malicious.  There is another sonnet
printed by Pellicer, in truncated verse like those at
the beginning of Don Quixote, bitterly abusive of Lope




CER VANTES.


109


de Vega, which doubtless was also by Gongora, who
hated Lope as much as he envied Cervantes, and
probably thought by this stroke to take a double
revenge. That this sonnet was, at the time at least,
supposed by Lope to be the work of Cervantes is
proved by a filthy and scurrilous sonnet in reply,
attributed to Lope, in which Cervantes is furiously
assailed. I have very little doubt that Gongora wrote
both sonnets, with the object of setting his two enemies
at each other.'
About this time there fell upon Cervantes and his
modest household another trouble, involving doubtless
a passing scandal, out of an occurrence which reads like
a scene out of one of the comedies " of the cloak and
sword." On a night in June 1605, Don Gaspar de
Ezpeleta, one of the Court gallants, passing along the
street where Cervantes lived-it is now the Calle de
Rastro-was suddenly assailed by a man out of the
darkness, who dealt him two severe blows and fled.
Don Gaspar crying out for help, there ran to his succour
the dwellers in the house near where he fell, among
whom were Miguel de Cervantes and some of the women
of his family. The wounded man was taken into Cervantes' apartments, where he died within a few hours,
living long enough to bequeath some of his fine clothes
to one of the ladies of the family in recognition of her
services in attending to his hurts. In accordance with the
rude custom of Spanish law, Cervantes and his family
were taken off to the gaol, where they were detained until
after the inquiry into the cause of Ezpeleta's death. The
1 See the two sonnets, which are too vile for publication in this
day, in Pellicer's Life of Cervantes, p. 110.




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0LIFE OF


depositions before the Alcalde are still preserved, and
from them we glean some interesting particulars of Cervantes' mode of life at this period.  The family of
Cervantes-himself fifty-seven years of age-consisted at
this time of Catalina, his wife; his natural daughter Isabel,
aged twenty; his widowed sister Andrea, aged sixty-one;
her daughter Constanza, aged twenty-eight; Magdalena
de Sotomayor, called Cervantes' sister-who must have
been a cousin-over forty; with Maria, their servant.
Out of the depositions of the witnesses-that is, of the
members of the family themselves-we gather these
facts: that the household was poor, living in a house
shared by other tenants, in a not very fashionable quarter;
that Miguel de Cervantes had many visitors; that he
"wrote and transacted affairs" there (escribia y trataba
negocios); and that the family, helped by some needlework
of the women, were dependent on him for their living.
There is no trace of any imputation upon Cervantes or
upon any member of this family arising out of this
unpleasant business. One of the witnesses, indeed, speaks
of a woman as having been the cause of the trouble-which
is probable enough, without witnesses. Don Gaspar de
Ezpeleta had a reputation for gallantry. In connection
with this story may be here mentioned another scandal
which my friend Don Pascual de Gayangos thinks he has
discovered, attaching to the name of Cervantes. There
is in the library of the British Museum a manuscript
diary by a Portuguese gentleman without name, living
about this time in Valladolid, apparently a loose liver
and given to gaming. In this diary the name of "Cervantes" once occurs in a not very reputable connection,
being uttered by a woman in a gambling house. But




CER VANTES.


111


Cervantes was not an uncommon name in Spain. There
was another Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, as I have
shown, then living. With all deference to Senor Gayangos,
I cannot but regret that without any other grounds than
that of a name uttered by an anonymous Portuguese he
should seem to suggest that our Miguel de Cervantes
(now nearly sixty years of age) was a night-ruffler and a
frequenter of gambling houses. Had there been any
imputation on Cervantes' character we may be sure that
we should have heard it repeated from the mouths of
some of his enemies. But even the most venomous of
them, he who wrote afterwards as Avellaneda, though
he alludes maliciously to Cervantes' frequent imprisonments, never charges him with any crime worse than old
age, infirmity, and depreciation of Lope de Vega.
In i606 Philip III. moved the Court back to Madrid,
whither Cervantes followed, apparently not yet having
lost the hope of preferment in the king's service.
Before settling in Madrid there is reason to believe,
upon the strength of a certain manuscript discovered in
1864 by Sefior Guerra y Orbe, in the Colombina Library
of Seville, that Cervantes paid a flying visit to that city.
Among the documents then discovered is one dating
from the early part of the seventeenth century, containing among various pieces of humour by Quevedo
and others, besides La Tia Fingia, a novel ascribed to
Cervantes, an account of a burlesque tourney or poets'
frolic held at San Juan de Alfarache, a village near
Seville, in July i606. Poems were recited, comedies
acted in the open air, and a tournament fought with
swords and spears. A narrative of the proceedings, in
the shape of a letter to one Diego de Astudillo in the




112


LIFE OF


city of Seville, was written by some one whose name is
not disclosed, who acted as secretary of the revels. From
internal evidence there is strong reason to believe that
this secretary was Miguel de Cervantes. The spirit and
the style are his. The letter abounds in phrases such
as occur in Don Quixote, with numerous allusions to the
characters and incidents in the story. The burlesque
names assumed by the competitors (among whom was
Alarcon, the Mexican playwright) are clearly from the
same mint as Brandabarbaran de Boliche and Penta/olin the Garamantan. I take this to be one of the
" stray pieces going hereabout without the knowledge of
their author," of which Cervantes speaks in his prologue
to the Novels. In any case the tract is important as a
literary document, showing that even at this early date, a
year after its first publication, the names, phrases, and
characters out of Don Quixote had become familiar in
the mouths of the gay youth of the period.
The two chief patrons of Cervantes at this time were
the Conde de Lemos, nephew and son-in-law of the
reigning favourite, the Duke of Lerma, and Don Bernardo Sandoval y Rojas, archbishop of Toledo, who was
of the same family, being uncle to the duke.  Both
these eminent men were noted for their fondness
for learning and literature, and their liberality to poets
and men of letters.   The Conde de Lemos was
President of the Council of the Indies, one of the highest
offices in the State, which he exchanged in i6io for the
Vice-Royalty of Naples.  He seems to have held out
some promise of a place to Cervantes, but the brothers
Argensola, Bartolom6 and Lupercio, kept a monopoly
of the Count's patronage, and though they pretended to




CER VANTES.


113


be friends of Cervantes, they are suspected of having
intercepted, as Cervantes himself hints, the Conde de
Lemos's favour. In the third chapter of the Voyage to
Parnassus there is a reference to promises made and
expectations raised but unfulfilled, through "new occupations which had caused them to forget the pledges they
had given."   The Argensolas were old. friends of
Cervantes, of whom he had spoken very handsomely in
several of his writings, especially in Don Quixote, where
Lupercio Argensola's three plays were exalted above any
of Lope de Vega's.1 The Conde de Lemos, when at Naples(
founded a literary society called the Academia degl4
Oziosi, under the direction of the Argensolas. Cervantes
seems to have been disappointed that he was not asked
to join the Oziosi.  Perhaps it was well for his fame
that he was not.  Here, as in other instances of his
life, it was the ingratitude of friends and the unkindness
of patrons which proved to the advantage of the world.
The Archbishop Sandoval, to whom, according to my
belief, Cervantes owed a great deal, was, by his double
position as head of the Spanish Church and InquisitorGeneral, the most powerful ecclesiastic in Christendom
next to the Pope. He was celebrated for his goodness
of heart, his generosity, and his tolerance, and by
various passages in his life he proved that he was a
prelate in advance of his age. He twice refused the
office of Inquisitor-General, and was only induced to
accept it at last through a conviction that by holding it
he might be able to investigate what Bossuet calls the
" holy severitie " of the Church. He is known to have


1 See Don Quixote, Part I., chap. xlviii.


8




114


1LIFE OF


discouraged the national taste for autos-de-fi, which
were fewer under his administration than under any
previous Inquisitor-General. He rebuked the Provincial
Boards of the Inquisition for their over-zeal in witchfinding. A crowning proof of Archbishop Sandoval's
enlightenment and liberality was shown in his taking
Cervantes into his favour and extending his protection
to that suspected book Don Quixote. That Cervantes
was greatly indebted to the Archbishop's patronage for
what I cannot but consider his singular immunity from
the attentions of the Inquisition cannot be doubted, I
think, by any one who has studied the history of those
times; though the Spanish biographers, up to quite
a recent date, have chosen to observe a conspiracy of
silence on this and other points of our hero's career.
How much the book owed to the Archbishop's favour is
sufficiently proved by one fact. Both the First and the
Second Parts were published not only without a word
of notice from the Holy Office-which was a most
unusual circumstance attending any publication of this
character-but with the special approbation of the
Archbishop of Toledo.  Yet at Lisbon, which was
outside 'of the Archbishop's jurisdiction, and where his
authority as Inquisitor-General was probably of small
force, there were some twenty passages in the First
Part of Don Quixote which were marked as offensive to
the Catholic Faith and ordered to be expunged. Nor
was it until I619, when both author and patron were
dead, that the Central Holy Office, under a new
Inquisitor-General, found anything offensive to true
religion in Don Quixote.
There is reason to believe that, according to the




CER VA NTE S.


115


custom of the age, the favour received by Cervantes
from his patrons took the shape of gifts of money,
though it was not until some time after he had acquired
fame by Don Quixote that he relinquished all hope of
employment in the public service. In I6o8 Don Quixote
reached what must be regarded as the true second
edition. The first had been printed, as we have said,
without the author's corrections. There was some excuse
for this, as Cervantes was then living at Valladolid. In
I608 the book was reprinted under his own eyes, and
various alterations and corrections of the text were made
which it is impossible to believe could have been made
by anybody but the author and by his authority. A
theory has been started by Hartzenbusch, himself the
most daring, careless, and irreverent-if not the most
incompetent-of editors, that even this second edition
of I6o8 was corrected and amended by somebody other
than the author; that Cervantes was so careless of his
most successful work as to let it take its chance a second
time with the printers; that, having the opportunity of
correction and being on the spot to correct, he allowed
some other hand to revise and alter his book. This
theory would be unworthy of notice by me were it not
that it has been adopted and seriously defended by Mr.
John Ormsby, a competent Spanish scholar and very
capable critic, in his translation of Don Quixote. It is
sufficient to say that if we reject what has been the
belief of all the native authorities, including the Spanish
Academy, up to the time of Sefior Hartzenbusch, we
must hold, not only that Cervantes valued the book
so little as not to care to revise his work when he had
the chance of so doing, but that he allowed material




116


LIFE OF


alterations and additions to be made in the text by
some one who-seeing that on this theory he is the
author of Sancho Panza's lament over the loss of Dapple
-must have been of a genius not only akin but equal
to his own. Not more extravagant is the theory which
another modern translator has started, that Cervantes
purposely mutilated and defaced his story in order to
make it resemble the books of chivalry. What evidence
is there to show that Cervantes thought lightly of his
own work? In his Second Part we have abundant evidence to the contrary, showing Cervantes' sensitiveness
to his fame of author. It is true that he makes merry over
his blunders, but the very language he uses about them
proves that the subsequent corrections could have been
made by no hand but his own.      The robbery of
Sancho's ass is precisely one of those passages over
which Cervantes indulges his humour, apparently at his
own expense, but really at the cost of his critics.
Had there been an independent and unauthorised corrector at work, is it possible that Cervantes, when
discussing this matter, should have passed him by
without at least a word of thanks?  When Sancho
himself refers to the incident, and tells us of the trick by
which Gin6s de Pasamonte stole his ass, how does he
conclude the story?-"The tears reached to my eyes,
and I set up a lamentation which, if the author
of our history has not put in, you may reckon
he has not put in a good thing." 1  This story of
Sancho's ass and how it was stolen, and how he came to
be riding on it after it was stolen, was to the author


I See Don Quixote, Part II., chap. iv.




CER VANZTES.


117


himself an infinite source of mirth, and would probably
have diverted him more could he have foreseen how it
would exercise his critics. The very fact that, in the
edition of i608, out of seven blunders about the ass
which were in the edition of I605, only two were
corrected, seems to me conclusive that it was Cervantes
himself and no other who was the corrector. Had the
corrector been any other than the author he would
surely have been set to do his task thoroughly. But it
is highly characteristic of Cervantes that, while sensible
of the blunder, he was too careless or too indolent to
amend it entirely. There were other alterations in the
text of I608, which make it clear that it must have been
revised by the author, so that we cannot be wrong in
holding with the Spanish Academy of Letters, who based
their own critical edition upon it, in regarding it as "the
last choice of the author." It is quite as rare as any of
the editions of 1605, and far more valuable.




CHAPTER X.


THERE is very little known of Cervantes' life in
Madrid during the ten years which intervened
between the first and second parts of Don
Quixote. He seems, by various isolated passages and
incidental allusions in his works, to have mixed with the
best literary society then in the capitaL  He was a
member, according to Navarrete, of a club called the
Seivages (Savages), and paid and received the usual,compliments between friends in the shape of commendatory sonnets, though we may imagine that, after the
ridicule he had thrown on the practice in Don Quixote,
some of those to whom the tributes were paid must have
received them with a certain shyness. In i609, being
then in his sixty-second year, he sought to make a
provision for his latter days and secure for himself
decent burial by joining, according to the fashion of
the age, a religious confraternity called the Order of the
Knights of Grace, of which order several of the leading
men of letters as well as officials of the court were
members, including Lope de Vega and Quevedo. His
wife, and his sister and faithful companion Andrea (the
latter of whom died in i609), had already joined the
Third (Lay) Order of St. Francis.
Encouraged, doubtless, by the fame he had acquired
by his works, and especially by the popularity of Don




LIFE OF CERVANTES.


119


Quixote, Cervantes, whose genius had lain fallow for
twenty years before this, began to collect his scattered
writings, developing at the same time an activity and
fecundity very remarkable in a man of his time of life.
In 1613 he published for the first time his Novelas
Exemplares-short stories of a kind then quite new, most
of which had been written some years before. To turn
them literally into Exem/lary Novels, as our translators
have done, is to convey a very hazy notion of what they
were intended to be.  They might better be called
ELxperimental Novels, as in fact they were. Cervantes
himself tells us that he chose to call them Novelas
Exemplares, "because there is not one of them from
which some profitable example (or instruction) cannot be
drawn." In his prologue, which is as characteristic as
all his prologues, sparkling with life and wit and good
spirits, he claims to be "the first who has written novels
in the Castilian tongue "-a claim which must be allowed,
if by novels we mean connected short stories, dealing
with real life and character. These are, in fact, the first
attempts ever made in modern times in that kind of
literature which has since flourished so luxuriantly.
They are of various character and merit, exhibiting in an
extraordinary degree not only the author's fertility of
invention, but his deep and wide knowledge of life
under many conditions. In a dedication to the Conde
de Lemos Cervantes speaks with unusual bitterness of
the evil tongues who, out of envy, tried to do him
wrong, while offering to his patron thirteen (there were
but twelve) of his tales, saying, "had they not been
turned out of the workshop of my wit I might presume
to place them by the best ever designed." This self



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complacency -always in Cervantes redeemed from
egotism by a subtle tone of humorous sincerity-was in
this case not without good warrant. Although differing
greatly one from another in style, subject, and mode of
treatment, so that no two are alike in character, we can
hardly mistake the Novelas to be from any other than
the hand of Cervantes. They may be classed as standing next in merit to Don Quixote among his prose
works, being esteemed indeed by native critics to be
superior in elegance and correctness of style.
The English-Spanish Lady (La Espaaola Inglesa) is a
charming, pathetic tale of a young girl who was taken
away by the English at the sacking of Cadiz by the Earl
of Essex in I598. Brought up in English ways by a
nobleman of Elizabeth's court, she is restored to her
parents and her faith; and when on her way to the convent to become a novice, meets with her long-lost lover
in the person of a captive just freed from Algiers. The
names and the characters of the English noblesRicaredo, Arnesto, etc.-are amusingly unlike any types
of that nation.  Elizabeth herself and her courtiers
receive most delicate and generous treatment, such as
never in that age was extended to the enemy and the
heretic in Spain. Rinconete and Cortadillo is also a
story of Seville, which may be taken to embody some of
Cervantes' experiences when at the lowest ebb of his
fortunes. No such lively picture of the vagabond and
picaresque life has ever been painted. It is as full of
colour and movement as Velasquez's Borrachos. Monipodio is the literary father of Fagin; and the bullies
and cut-purses and troll-my-dames of his gang may have
furnished some hints to Scott for his Alsatia. Next to




CE R VANTES.


121


Don Quixote, Rinconete and Cortadillo must be reckoned
Cervantes' best piece of humour. The Little Gipsy (La
Gitanilla) is a beautiful and touching story, the foundation of all the gipsy stories from that day to this, where
the heroine is a girl of noble parentage stolen by the
gitanos in infancy. Weber took his lib-etto of Preciosa,
as well as the name of his leading lady, from La Gitanilla,
which testifies to another side of Cervantes' profound
knowledge of Spanish Bohemian life. The ballads and
songs in this tale abound in tenderness and simple
pathos, and are among the best we have by Cervantes.
The Generous Lover (El Amante Liberal) takes us into
quite another sphere of the author's experiences, being
drawn from his own life as a captive in Algiers. It is
written in a style of somewhat redundant sentiment, in a
vein which recalls some of the episodes in Don Quixote.
The Colloquy of the Twzo Dogs (Los Perros de Mahudes),
Scipio and Berganza, is another reminiscence of the
Triana-a study of low life at Seville, where Monipodio
again figures. This and another of the tales, oddly
named The Icentiate Glass-house (El Licenciado Vidriera),
abound in dark allusions to matters of passing and local
interest now forgotten, and satirical touches of which
the point has been blunted by time.   The Licentiate
Glass-house (which may almost be taken for the first
sketch of Don Quixote) is an eccentric scholar, whose
brain has been turned by a love-potion, who wanders
about the streets delive ig himself of quaint enigmatical
speeches.  The Illustrious Scullery-MAfid (La  Ilustre
Fregona) is one of the best constructed of the little
stories, truly an "examplar " for the simple and easy art
with which the denouement is reached. The scene is




LIFE OF


laid in a lodging-house of Toledo, which still survives as
La Posada de Sangre, in almost the same state as when
Constanza served there as scullery-maid. The Jealous
Es/remaduran (El Zeloso Extremeno) is a tale of intrigue
and jealousy, written, like The Deceitful Marriage (El
Casamiento Erganoso), in a lower key than most of the
others. They are probably both of them founded on
histories of real life. The Two Damsels are of a more
romantic cast. Ihe Force of Blood is an interesting and
lively story; and so is The Lady Cornelia, which again
is in a different style from any of the others. All of the
Novels are distinguished, not only by a peculiar grace
of style and delicacy of expression, which have made
them classic in their own country, but for a certain
force and sharpness of touch which prove them to have
been drawn from real life, most likely from the author's
personal experience.
The Novelas Exemlpares were received with great
favour by Cervantes' contemporaries-nay, among the
literary cliques, with greater favour than Don Quixote.
It was a kind of composition in which Cervantes had no
rival or predecessor, success in which could give no
offence. The name of "The Boccaccio of Spain," given
him by the dramatist, Gabriel Tellez (better known as
Tirso de Molina), was indeed not a very happy one, for
the Novels are as different in style and treatment from
the Italian tales as they are superior to them in art and
in purity, both of taste and of touch.  Even Lope de
Vega, who followed Cervantes soon after in this line, as
he had followed him in every other, was pleased to admit
that they were not wanting "in grace and style." Ten
editions were called for in nine years, showing that




CER VANTES.


123


next after Don Quixote the most popular of Cervantes'
works was the Exemplary Novels. By foreigners they
have been unduly neglected, falling as they do, with all
the other minor products of Cervantes' genius, under
the shadow thrown across the ages by his towering
masterpiece,,Don Quixote.l
The year following, in I614, Cervantes made a less
happy hit by his poem, The Voyage to Farnassus, or as
it should more properly be-the title of the original
being Viaje del Farnaso-A Tour in Parnassus.  It is a
poem in eight chapters, written in terza rima, the idea
as well as the title of which was borrowed by Cervantes
-a debt acknowledged in the opening line-from the
Vtaggio di Parnaso of Cesare Caporali, an   obscure
Italian poet of the preceding generation. Except the
leading idea, the title, and the metre (which last may be
said to be common property), Cervantes has taken
nothing from the Italian poet, who, with his works, is
now forgotten.   The chief interest of the Voyage to
Parnassus is in its autobiographical details, which are
fuller and more precise than any which Cervantes
had yet given to the world.    I cannot agree with
Ticknor, however, who sees "little merit" in the poem.
The leading idea-a battle between the good and bad
poets-has been used since by Swift in his Battle of the
Books. The bad poets having captured Parnassus, Apollo
calls upon Cervantes to consult him as to who should
1 The Exemzplary Novels have never been adequately translated
into English. There is a capital version, however, of six of them
by James Mabbe (1640), somewhat extravagantly praised by
Godwin as "perhaps the most perfect specimen of pure translation
in the language."




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LIFE OF


be enlisted to drive out the intruders. Mercury is sent
on this mission in a galley built of allegory and rigged
with verse-a conceit which affords the author a capital
subject for the exercise of his powers of fancy and invention. Unhappily the occasion is also such a one as calls
out all his weaknesses-especially his excessive goodnature, and that most uncommon of faults in a poet, an
over-weening estimate of the works of his friends. The
interminable roll-call of fifth-rate poetasters, most of
whom would have died but for this record, hardly
relieved by a passing stroke here and there of irony or
sarcasm, is a burden heavy enough to sink even a more
buoyant craft than that of Apollo's messenger-of which
the rigging is of seguidillas, the yards of couplets, and
the timbers of stanzas. Still there are scattered about
this uninviting poem many touches of grace and fancy,
which would be wonderful in an old man of sixty-seven,
were they not outdone by the proof of vigour still more
wonderful which he was soon to give. The chief value
of the Voyage to Parnassus lies in the third and fourth
chapters, in which the poet gives us a summary of his
own literary career, with pregnant hints as to his way of
life, his poverty and its causes. From these passages,
which are also among the pleasantest in the poem for
their gaiety and good humour, we learn some things
about Cervantes which are nowhere else to be found.
If for nothing else, the Voyage to Parnassus should be
precious to us for the Appendix or Adjunta, reading
which we are able to understand how it is that the booksellers of that age were of opinion, so naively repeated by
Cervantes himself, that " of his prose much was to be expected, but of his verse, nothing." This prose Appendix,




CER VANTES.


125


if only for the living figure of Pancracio de Roncesvalles, the young exquisite of the period with an ambition
to be poet, deserves to live among the best examples of
the peculiar Cervantic humour, with its mingling of grace,
wit, and high spirits. Not less delightful is the picture
which Cervantes gives us of himself and his occupations,
even introducing us within his house, which, we learn,
was at this time in the Calle de las Huertas, "facing the
houses where the Prince of Morocco used to live." 1 We
learn also how that his niece took in a letter, paying a
real for postage, which turned out to be a bad, dull
sonnet, without cleverness or point, in dispraise of Don
Quixote; and how that Cervantes himself had then six
comedies in hand, with as many farces, which he thought
of giving to the press, as the managers would not have
them, seeing that they had their own playwrights hanging
on them whom they were bound to employ.     We learn,
among other things, that there were some poets who were
discontented with the notice which they received in the
Voyage to Parnassus.   Among these was Manuel de
Villegas, the author of Las Eroticas, who, thinking that
his friend Bartolome de Argensola had not been praised
enough, therefore assailed Cervantes as "a bad poet
and Quixotist "-Villegas, being himself a dependant
on the Conde de Lemos, and therefore not disinterested
1 In June I609 Cervantes was living in the Calle de la Magdalena,
soon afterwards moving to behind the college of N. S. de Loreto. In
June I6io he occupied the house No. 9 in the Calle del Leon. In
1614, as we see above, he was living in the Calle de las Huertas,
returning to the Calle del Leon to No. 20, where he died.  All
these sites in Madrid are to be now easily identified, though the
streets have changed names and the houses their numbers.




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LIFE OF


in the vilification of Cervantes and in the exalting
of Argensola, the chief dispenser of his countship's
bounties.
The new Comedies and Interludes which Cervantes
spoke of in the Adjunfa a" Parnaso were brought out the
next year, eight of each in number. These, as has been
said, had never been played, and there is much reason
to doubt whether the Comedies at least were ever intended
for representation.  The Comedies are perhaps the
worst of all the things that Cervantes ever wrote,so bad that one Blas de Nasarre (the same foolish
person, Navarrete declares, who wrote the misleading
marginal note in the parish register of Alcazarl), who
reprinted these plays in 1749, with the sinister intent (as
Ticknor shrewdly surmises) of injuring the reputation of
their author, gravely starts the theory that Cervantes
made them purposely wild and irregular in order to
caricature the plays of Lope de Vega, just as he had
written Don Quixote to parody the old romances!-There
is no kind of foolish or malicious invention from which
Cervantes, during his life or after, has not suffered. Bad
as these Comedies were, a bookseller was found to buy
them, on the strength of Cervantes' reputation as a writer.
Cervantes himself gives a perfectly modest and straightforward account of the transaction. "I sold them to the
bookseller, who sent them to the press. He paid me a
reasonable sum for them; I took my money meekly,
without making account of the quirks and quibbles of the
players. I would they were the best in the world, or at
least of fair worth." The Comedies are certainly not


1 See ante, page 14.




CER VAVTES.


127


good, the author violating in them every one of those
excellent canons of art which he had himself laid down
in the forty-eighth chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote.
The Interludes, or Farces, however, are very much
superior to the longer plays in spirit and in style. The
Watchful Guardian (La Guarda Cuidadosa), where an old
soldier is introduced as standing sentry over a house where
his mistress lodges and keeping off his rivals by various
tricks, is alive with comic humour-full of bustle and
movement and of quips and cranks and double-entendres,
such as might qualify it for a Palais Royal audience.
Most of these shorter pieces have telling situations,
with smartness of dialogue and rapidity of action,
so that there is nothing to prevent them being acted
now, if the taste and fashion of the age would allow.
During all this period of active production, or at least
from i612, as may be gathered from patent hints in his
other works and palpable indications in the book itself,
Cervantes was engaged in the completion of his great
work by adding a Second Part to Don Quixote. That he
did not originally contemplate a Second Part, but intended
the first to be a perfect story in itself, is sufficiently
indicated by his division of the original publication of
I605 into four parts, in imitation of the books of Amadis.
That he afterwards changed his purpose and, even
before the original Don Quixote was completed, had
conceived the design of adding a Second Part, is distinctly
proved by his own words, or by the words he has put
into the mouth of Cid Hamet Benengeli, the presumed
Arabic author. The very last sentence in the first Don
Quixote, after the author has told us that certain verses
relating to the knight had been delivered to a university




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LIFE OF


scholar to be deciphered, goes on thus:-" We are
informed that he has done so at the cost of many night
vigils and much labour; and that he means to make them
public, giving us the hope of the third sally of Don
Quixote." I cannot see how any other meaning can be
attached to these words than that Cervantes himself
proposed some day to give the public an additional
volume of the adventures of Don Quixote. Yet there are
modern critics who pretend to discover evidence of
Cervantes' indifference to the fate of his book in the concluding line from Orlando Furioso, with which he takes
leave of his readers:
" Forse altri cantera con miglior plettro."
M. Germond de Lavigne, an ingenious paradoxist of the
school of Victor Hugo, who cherishes a curious antipathy
to Cervantes, even interprets the line as an invitation to
some one else to continue Don Quixote, holding that
inasmuch as the original author had dismissed his hero
in the same words as Ariosto had dismissed Medoro and
Angelica, so he had parted for ever with his right in
Don Quixote. In this interpretation I am sorry to find
that the eccentric Frenchman has been followed by a
sensible English writer and faithful Cervantist, Mr.
Ormsby, who appears to be possessed with the notion
that the sorrows of Cervantes have borne too deep an
emphasis; that he was not so badly treated as has been
thought, even in that passage of life to which I shall
presently come. Cervantes probably foresaw that what
had happened to others would happen to himself-that
some other person would venture to trade on the popularity
of Don Quixote by bringing out a Second Part. But that




CER VANTES.


129


he resigned his own right to do so is an extraordinary view
to take of his character, and but a poor compliment to
his insight. What does Cervantes himself say in the
beginning of his own Second Part?-"And does the
author, perchance, promise a Second Part?" inquired
Don Quixote.-" Yes, he promises it," answered Samson
Carrasco; "but he has not found it, nor does he know
who has it; and so we are in doubt whether it will come
out or not." This was written, let us remember, some
time in I 6 2, before Cervantes had any reason to suspect
any one else of venturing upon the task.  Meanwhile
the public had demanded a Second Part. "Let us have
more Quixoteries; let Don Quixote fall to, and Sancho
talk, and, come what will, we shall be content with
that." 1
1See Don Quixote, Part II., chap. iv.


9




CHAPTER XI.


WHILE Cervantes was engaged in completing the
work which he must have felt to be his chief
title to fame, the work to which his genius was
called, for which it was specially fitted, there happened
to him one of the severest crosses which he had yet
encountered in his long life of misfortune. This, as the
crowning incident of his literary career and a mystery in
which is involved so much of personal and historical
interest, it is necessary to dwell upon at some length.
The blow was to be dealt him by a secret hand in his
tenderest part. He had already announced, as we have
seen, that he was occupied with the Second Part of
Don Quixote. He had promised in his Prologue to
the Novels that he would bring out "fast and speedily
a continuation of the exploits of Don Quixote and the
pleasantries of Sancho Panza."  These words must
have been written, as we gather from the date of the
Dedication, about June 1613. Twelve months after, as
we see by the date of Sancho's letter to his wife, Cervantes must have half written his Second Part. He
was certainly known to be employed upon it; and as we
shall see afterwards, he must have communicated to
some of his friends-the circle, perhaps, of the Selvages
-some of the details of Don Quixote's third sally.
Meanwhile there appeared, published at Tarragona in




LIFE OF CERVANTES.


131


the summer of 1614, a book which claimed to be the
" Second Part of the Ingenious Gentleman, Don
Quixote," by the Licentiate Alonso de Fernandez de
Avellaneda, native of Tordesillas. The work was dedicated to the "Alcalde, regidors, and hidaZgos of the noble
city of Argamasilla, happy country of the gentlemanknight, Don Quixote," etc. Dr. Rafael Orthoneda lent
his approbation to the book as one which contained
"nothing immodest or forbidden." The Vicar-General
to the Archbishop of Tarragona gave a licence for the
printing under his own hand, in terms which justify the
suspicion, not only that the Vicar-General had a stomach
for things immodest as strong as the Doctor Orthoneda,
but that there was a kind of conspiracy among certain
ecclesiastics to bring out the book with as much despatch
and secrecy as possible, with a view to forestall Cervantes'
own Second Part. That there was a deliberate purpose
of fraud in this publication, apart from the malice contained within, is proved by the book being printed and
got up so as to correspond with one of the two issues of
the First Part, of Valencia, 1605. There can be no
doubt that the printer of the spurious Second Part
intended to pass it off as the true one, which had been
publicly announced and was expected.  As to Avellaneda, of course there was no such man. The native
of Tordesillas remains to this day undiscovered, as
discovered he would have been long ago had he been
any common person. Of this audacious attempt to rob
Cervantes of the glory of the authorship of Don Quixote
-at least, to deprive him of the further fame and
advantage he expected to derive from its continuation,
it is impossible for the true Cervantist to speak with




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patience. Not every one is possessed of the courage or
the sang-froid of a modern English translator, who affects
to be angry with Cervantes for not bearing this blow more
meekly; who has himself fortitude enough almost to
forgive the audacious forestaller; who reproves the true
knight for showing temper towards the false one; who
is even of opinion that we owe a debt to Avellaneda,
seeing that but for him Don Quixote would have remained
"a mere torso instead of a complete work."  But for
Avellaneda, Mr. Ormsby suggests, Cervantes would have
employed himself in other plans and projects-in turning
Don Quixote and Sancho into shepherds, so that "we
should never have made the acquaintance of the Duke
and Duchess, or gone with Sancho to Barataria."  But,
as I have already shown, Cervantes had finished more
than half the chapters of his Second Part, continuing
"the adventures of Don Quixote and the pleasantries
of Sancho," before he could have heard or dreamt of
Avellaneda. In July 1612, two years before the publication of the spurious Second Part, the true author had
reached his thirty-sixth chapter. By that time we had
already made the acquaintance of the Duke and Duchess,
and Sancho was already governor-elect of Barataria; so
that this service rendered by Avellaneda to Cervantes is
reduced to nothing.
On behalf of poor Cervantes it may be urged, in
mitigation of his offence in not bearing his injury with
greater fortitude (allowing that he lacked in anything
on this occasion which became a man of honour and
spirit), that no author before him had ever suffered as he


1 See Mr. Ormsby's edition of Don Quixote, vol. i. p. 45.




CER VANTES.


133


did. It is true that of Mateo Aleman's book, Guzman
de Alfarache, there had been also a spurious Second Part
before Aleman brought out his own Second Part, but
here the parallel ends. The continuator of Guzman de
Alfarache did his work in no spirit hostile to the author.
Though Aleman was quite as angry with him as Cervantes
with Avellaneda, there is nothing to show that Juan
Marti intended to degrade Guzman de Alfarache, still
less to punish the author for writing it. There is not
even anything to prove that Juan Marti knew of the
design of Mateo Aleman to continue his own story. In
the case of the Don Quixote we have positive evidence
of the malicious intent of the writer who called himself
Avellaneda. Imitators and continuators are not generally
wanting in reverence for their author. They imitate a
book because they think it good, nor in parodying it
do they necessarily mean to degrade it, still less to hurt
the author. Deliberately to spoil the characters and to
abuse the story, while professing to revive them and to
carry it on in the original spirit, without a thought of
humour or any burlesque intention, merely out of spite
to the author, this surely is what never was done before
or since. In Avellaneda's Second Part we see not only
a total insensibility to any feeling of romance or chivalry,
but a studied contempt of Cervantes' design; not only
a brutal incapacity to apprehend the spirit of the book,
but a malign intention to spoil the work because it is
Cervantes'-to drag the story in the mire and besmirch
it with filth. Avellaneda's Don Quixote is a common
lunatic who is shut up in a madhouse, emerging therefrom when cured to become a mendicant, on whom
Sancho bestows his charity. His Sancho is a vulgar




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3IFE OF


glutton, a booby without sense or humour. For the
witty and graceful Dorothea we have the foul drab
Barbara. All grace, all tenderness, all flavour have
vanished from the story, leaving as the residuum a dull,
dirty, obscene book, which is a scandal on the literature
of Spain.
The outrage on Cervantes would have been bad
enough had it ended here. But in the Prologue we
have nakedly revealed the true motive of the publication,
which is to injure Cervantes in character, and despoil
him, not only of the fame he had won by his Don Quixote,
but of the profit he expected from the Second Part, the
author thereby confessing that he knew there was a Second
Part soon to be published. This Prologue, with its fierce
and bitter tone of personal animosity, is a curiosity in
literature-unmatched in any story of the quarrels of
authors. Cervantes is reviled with a fury which, in its extravagance, becomes almost laughable. He is reproached
not only for his faults as an author, but for the defects
of his character and the infirmities of his body, even for
his wounds, his old age, and his poverty. He is called
" a cripple, a soldier old in years however youthful
in spirits, envious, discontented, a back-biter, a malefactor,
or at least a gaol-bird." He is likened in his ruined
state 4o the old castle of San Cervantes. He is charged
with having "more tongue than hands "-a double hit,
of incredible malignity, at Cervantes' thickness of speech
and to the hand disabled at Lepanto. In all the history
of letters there is no such venom shown as Avellaneda
pours upon Cervantes. He foams, he rages, he curses,
till, like a drab, he has "unpacked his heart with words"
and can blaspheme no more.




CE R VAVTES.


135


That even Cervantes' sweet nature was not wholly proof
against this last cowardly blow from an unseen hand
is evident enough from his Prologue to his own
Second Part, and from the frequent allusions to the
false pretender from this time forward in the true
Don Quixote.   He seems to have first learned of
Avellaneda while writing his own fifty-ninth chapter.
Up to that point Cervantes had intended to carry his
hero to Zaragoza, to take part in the jousts which were
annually held in that city. As Avellaneda, however, had
forestalled him in this intention (which proves that the
writer, whoever he was, was informed of Cervantes' plans,
and probably had actually seen the original manuscript,
which he has copied in the outline and the letter in several
places), Cervantes, as he tells us himself, changed his
purpose, carrying the knight to Barcelona. Thenceforward to the end of the book a constant stream of wit
and sarcasm is poured upon the false author and his
spurious inventions. There are some who have blamed
Cervantes for going out of his way to notice his adversary;
who pretend to think that the true Quixote has been
spoilt by the intrusion of the false image. He should
have dissembled his anger. He should have thought
more of his readers.  He should have done this, he
should have done the other; being especially reproached
in that he was deficient in that property of "silent
contempt" in which critics are ever rich. M. Germond
de Lavigne, the apologist of Avellaneda, is even angered
with Cervantes that he did not welcome this concurrent
to his bosom, and reproaches him with lodging in his
soul les petites passions de rivalite.
All this appears to me to be very childish and most




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ungrateful to Cervantes. He acted according to his
nature-a nature which, we fear, fell short of the standard
of the nineteenth century in philosophy. In his excuse,
if he needs any, let it be urged that this was no common
assault, of the sort which none knew so calmly how to
bear. This masked enemy had struck his coward's blow
with intent to spoil the one child of his genius which had
thriven. A felon-knight, who dared not show his face or
proclaim his name, had stolen across his path to filch
from him the one glory which he might well believe to
be destined for him-to rob him of the fruit of the
great emprise which by all patent signs was reserved
>          him aone, A personal libel Cervantes was, of all
/   men, best able to endure. His good nature, his fortitude, his patience, had been tried and conclusively
proved during a long life of unparalleled disaster.
To taunt him with his age, his wounds, his infirmities,
was but a clumsy malice, at which Cervantes might have
been contented to laugh. To disparage his book, or rail
at its success, was legitimate war, of which Cervantes
could not complain. But this false Don Quixote, with
its deliberate attempt to debase the work which it
pretended to continue-to daub it with filth and trail it
in the mud, with the view, openly avowed, of depriving
the author of the profit which he expected from it-was
an outrage which not even the magnanimous soul of
Miguel de Cervantes could be expected to pass. Nor
is there any good reason, I think, for his readers to
complain of the manner in which Cervantes took his
e ge. j From his fifty-fourth chapter to the end he
never letsgo of his veiled antagonist, but pummels him
with a skill and vigour which are not less surprising than




CER VANTES.


137


the good humour and perfect coolness with which the
punishment is inflicted.  He seems even to take a
boyish delight in the turning up of this unexpected
chance of a good fight. His own Don Quixote was
showing  palpable signs of weariness.  Adventures
were almost exhausted. The plan of taking the knight
to Zaragoza was not very promising. Even Sancho's
spirits were beginning to flag. At this period there fell
across Cervantes' way the new occasion of humour. The
art with which he turns his assailant into his service
-making of the forger an ally in passing off the true
coinage, converting the enemy's steel into his whetstone,
using the malicious intent for an aid to his own invention, and forcing the libeller's venom to heighten his
own wit, with the perfect good humour and coolness
with which he meets the unexpected assault-surely all
this, whether from the artistic or the moral side, can
never be praised enough. No less admirable, and even
rarer, is the spirit of simple dignity and calm manliness
in which he meets the attack which Avellaneda had
made on his person and his character, in the Prologue
to his own Second Part of Don Quixote:-" That which I
cannot help feeling is that he charges me with being old
and maimed, as though it had been in my power to
stop time from passing over me, or as though my
deformity had been produced in some tavern, and not
in the grandest manner which ages past or present have
seen or ages to come can hope to see. If my wounds
do not shine in the eyes of him who looks on them,
they are at least honoured in the estimation of those who
know where they were acquired. For the soldier looks
better dead in battle than safe and sound in flight. And




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LIFE OF


so much am I of this opinion, that if now I could devise
and bring about the impossible, I would rather be
present again in that wonderful action than now be
whole of my wounds, without having taken part therein.
Those the soldier shows in his face and in his breast are
stars which guide others to the heaven of honour and to
the coveting of praise deserved. And it should be considered that it is not with grey hairs one writes, but with
the understanding, which is wont to grow better with
years."
Nothing in Cervantes' life became him better than his
behaviour in this the occasion of his severest trial; and
indeed Avellaneda may almost be forgiven, as he is
forgotten, for he has helped to develop the work which
he tried to spoil, and to furnish us with fresh cause to
love and admire the man whom he slandered and tried
to wreck.
The inquiry as to who was Avellaneda is one which
we cannot avoid, even at the risk of dwelling too long
on this episode in the life of Cervantes-one of the most
curious chapters in the history of letters. The manner
in which the secret has been kept up to the present
time, in spite of all the attempts at piercing it, is itself
no small part of the mystery. That Avellaneda was an
assumed name is certain.  No one of that name is
known to have lived and written in that age. The very
character of the book-its whole tone and style, even if
we could leave out the Prologue, where the malignant
motive is openly avowed-indicates that it was written
in no sincere spirit of authorship. So much is proved
by internal evidence as that Avellaneda was an Aragonese,
a Dominican monk, a writer of plays, and very intimate




CER VAN7E S.


139


with Lope de Vega, with a perfect knowledge of all that
was in Lope's heart, and an extraordinary sympathy with
Lope's feelings. That he was an Aragonese, Cervantes
himself presumes, from his style, his dropping of the
article before the noun, his use of the infinitive for the
gerund, and certain other peculiarities for which the
writers of Aragon are noted. That he was a monk is
proved by his familiarity with monastic rules and
observances and his frequent references to them. That
he was a Dominican, and probably a preacher, was
suspected by his profuse display of ecclesiastical lore,
his quotations from the Fathers, and his partiality for
the Dominican order. That he was a writer of comedies
is evident from the personal offence he owns to taking
at Cervantes' criticisms of the drama. Lastly, that he
was one of Lope de Vega's very intimate friends-one
who knew him almost as well as Murdoch Campbell
knew the Marquis of Argyll, in Scott's legend-is clear
from his making it a capital offence against Cervantesin fact, charging upon Cervantes as the crown and sum
of his iniquities-that in Don Quixote he had treated
Lope de Vega with scant reverence-him, a holy person,
a Familiar of the Inquisition.
The theories as to the authorship 6f the false Don
Quixote are innumerable, and to deal with them at large
would furnish a volume. Among the persons suspected,
with more or less plausibility, are Luis de Aliaga, the
King's Confessor, who succeeded the good Archbishop
Sandoval as Inquisitor-General, and in that capacity
made himself odious to the nation; Bartolom6 de
Argensola, whom we have mentioned already as one of
the friends who had failed Cervantes, whose claims are




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favoured by M. Germond de Lavigne, Avellaneda's
eccentric defender; Andres Perez, the foul-minded
Dominican, who, under the pseudonym of Lopez de
Ubeda, wrote the dull and dirty Picara Justina;
Alarcon, the dramatist; Blanco de Paz, Cervantes' old
enemy of Algiers; besides others of more or less note.
All these may be dismissed as failing in some essential
conditions. Aliaga has the strongest case, as being one
who bore the nickname of Sancho Panza among his
contemporaries, who must therefore have hated Cervantes and his invention.  But then Aliaga hated
everybody of the literary profession, and was cordially
hated and ridiculed by them in return. There is a
curious passage in one of the last chapters of the Second
Part of Don Quixote, where, in the description of the
Knight's entrance into Barcelona, it is related that some
wicked boys of the city lifted the tails of Rozinante and
Dapple, and stuck under them branches of furze,
aliagas. This might have been intended as a sly hit at
Aliaga, but it is scarcely a proof that Cervantes took him
to be Avellaneda. I cannot believe that a person so
eminent and powerful as the King's Confessor, who had
been selected for that office by the Duke of Lerma, would
have condescended to employ himself in writing a continuation of Don Quixote. To him, as to all the others
whom the Spaniards have named, there is this fatal
objection, that none of them is proved to have had any
personal grudge against Cervantes on account of Don
Quixote. Who, then, could have been the secret enemy
who dealt Cervantes this foul blow? Who had motive
enough to hate him, and cause enough to resent his
success? Who had interest enough with archbishops and




CER VANTES.


141


the higher clergy to get his book published with their
approbation?  Who had his own personal reasons for
degrading Cervantes' work and destroying his influence?
It is curious that the hunt after a clue to Avellaneda, so
eagerly kept up in Spain until quite lately, has slackened
of late years, just when the search was getting "warm."
I cannot help suspecting that the native critics have lost
their zest for the search since it has dawned upon them
that perhaps they might find too much. There is but
one name which remains to be mentioned among those
likely to have written the spurious Don Quixote, which
good Spaniards seem afraid to utter. Some hints, indeed,
have from the first been dropped that when the mask
was lifted from Avellaneda it might disclose the features
of the "Phoenix of the Age" himself-the great Lope,
the lifelong rival and competitor of Cervantes-Lope de
Vega, who was noted for his hatred and jealousy of all
who came near his throne; whom his own pupil and
familiar friend called "the universal envier of the praises
given to others."' No one had so strong a ground of
complaint against Don Quixote as Lope de Vega. We
have seen that he took the very earliest opportunity of
disparaging the book. Even before it was published, he
wrote to the Duke of Sesa, his patron, that "there was
none so bad (poets) as Cervantes, or so stupid as to
praise Don Quixote." 2 Lope de Vega might well imagine
that Don Quixote was written specially against him, his
1 Alarcon, the dramatist, who spoke of Lope as
Envidioso universal
De los aplausos agenos.
2 The German, A. F. von Schack, who had access to the private
papers of the representative of the Dukes of Sesa, was the first to
bring this letter to the light in his History of Dramatic Literature




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LIFE OF


school, his profession, his influence. There was the
Prologue, wherein he was assailed with merciless ridicule
for his weaknesses and extravagances, his literary tricks
and conceits; and there were the Prefatory verses, which
made open mock of his own. There was that forty-eighth
chapter in which the Canon of Toledo has the temerity
to handle his comedies freely, and to denounce him as
the chief of those who degraded the dramatic art by
pandering to the tastes of the vulgar. Nay, the whole
tenor and purpose of Don Quixote were, directly and
indirectly, to bring discredit and contempt on all that
was sacred in Lope's eyes and in the eyes of his patrons.
On the part of Cervantes there is no evidence of the
existence of any feeling of enmity to Lope de Vega,
though it may be that he was sometimes tempted to repine
at a dispensation which placed a man whom he could
not regard as his superior, who had entered the arena
after him but had outrun him in the race, in a position
so far above his own in worldly esteem and in fortune.
In that bitter struggle for existence, however, I am not
aware of a single act or word of Cervantes which is
inconsistent with a friendly disposition towards Lope,
and a generous recognition of his powers. No one had
spoken so warmly and profusely in favour of Lope de
Vega. So early as I584, when Lope was a youth of
twenty-two and yet unknown, Cervantes had named
him as one of the rising poets of Spain and prophesied his greatness, in the Canto de Caliote. In 1598,
when he was himself in his greatest misery, he had
and Art in Stain. It is believed that there are other papers still
more compromising to Lope, preserved in private collections in
Spain, which, from patriotic motives, their owners will not publish.




CER VA NTES.


143


written a laudatory sonnet for Lope's Dragonlea.  In
the First Part of Don Quixote, whenever Lope is
directly mentioned, it is with abundant honour.  In
the forty-fifth chapter the Canon refers to "the infinite
number of plays composed by a most happy genius of
these kingdoms with so much glory, with so much grace,
such elegant verse, such choice language, with such
weighty sentiment,-finally, so rich in eloquence and
loftiness of style, that the world is filled by his renown."
Sometimes it may be that Cervantes spoke with his
tongue in his cheek, echoing rather the popular voice
than his own opinion, as when he quoted La Inratitud
Vengada as a specimen of plays that " sundry intelligent
poets have written for their fame and renown,"-this
being one of the most absurd and filthy of all Lope's
comedies-a picture in which, according to Clemencin,
is painted nothing but imundicia y estiercol. Ticknor
observes, what is quite true, that in what Cervantes says
of Lope de Vega there is "a tone of dignified reserve
and caution." There could not be much love between
men of natures so dissimilar. But even in the Prologue
to the Second Part, when answering the accusation of
Avellaneda that he had spoken lightly of "one whom
nations the most remote so justly honour, and to whom
our country owes so much for his innumerable stupendous comedies, written with all the vigour of art which
the world demands, and with the correctness and purity
to be expected from a minister of the Holy Office" (as
if the Holy Office were guardians of the literary art as
well as of the Faith)-Cervantes protests that he admires
Lope's works and genius, and "his application continuous and virtuous."




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LIFE OF


On the other hand, it can be shown that Lope followed every step that Cervantes took in the path to
literary fame, with a jealous persistence of which I know
no example in the history of letters. Cervantes wrote
Galatea, a pastoral; Lope wrote Dorotea, a pastoral;
in close imitation of his model. Cervantes wrote plays;
Lope wrote plays-here, by sheer force of productiveness, jostling his rival from the field. Cervantes wrote
Novels; Lope wrote Novels.   Then Cervantes wrote
Don Quixote; and here Lope's instinct must have told
him there was something he could not copy-which he
had therefore better crush before it put out Lope de
Vega and his art. Before this date, in return for all
the other's frequent and profuse eulogies, he had only
mentioned Cervantes twice during his lifetime, and then
slightingly, in the preface to Dorolea. After Cervantes'
death not one word was ever said by Lope in praise of
Don Quixote. In the Laurel de Apolo, published fourteen years after Cervantes' death, there are some lines
of what Ticknor calls "cold punning eulogy" of him,
but only as a poet. In one of his later plays, Amar sin
Saber a Quien, there is a passing reference to Don
Quixote, which "may God Cervantes pardon." No further evidence need be cited out of the mass of testimony
which, if it were worth while, I might adduce to prove
that Lope de Vega had no friendly feeling for Cervantes
-that he regarded Don Quixote as a personal offence,
and made war against it from its first appearance. No
one, as I think I have shown, had so powerful a combination of motives for injuring Cervantes through his
Don Quixote. As a priest, who detected that the book
boded his order no good; as a familiar of the Inquisition,




CE.R VANTES. S4


145


which holy system had been brought to shame, or at
least made subject for laughter; as a writer, whose works
had been held up to ridicule; as a dramatist, whose
plays had been condemned; lastly, as the leading star of
the literary firmament, whose lustre was threatened with
eclipse, it was Lope de Vega who, of all men then living,
was most likely to have written, singly or in. collaboration,
by his own hand or by another's, the false Don Quixote.
No direct testimony will perhaps ever be forthcoming to
clear up this mystery of Avellaneda; but the weight of
evidence clearly indicates Lope de Vega as the man who
dealt Cervantes this craven blow. I believe Cervantes
himself suspected it, if he did not know it; and that this
is the true explanation of the extraordinary zest with
which he fell upon the book as matter for his own and
his readers' entertainment.
This chapter would be incomplete if we did not record
the fact, which seems to be a fitting appendix to this
story of revenge and imposture, that not only has Avellaneda been justified in his act by certain critics, native
and foreign, but even with Cervantes' own Second Part
before them, there have been some who, from the first,
have preferred the imitation to the original-the coarse
burlesque, with its venomous intent, to the pure work of
the true man-the base coinage to the sterling metal.
Just as Shakespeare had his Greene and his Rymer, so
Cervantes has his Lesage and his Lavigne. Although at
the coming of the true Second Part the false one went
out and was no more read, an attempt was made to
resuscitate it during the reign of Philip V., the first of the
Bourbons-an emanation, it is said, of the Afrancesado
spirit, then dominant, which thought to find its interest
I0




146


LIFE OF


in depreciating the literary glories of the Golden Age of
Spain. In 1732 Avellaneda was reprinted, with a preface
by Blas de Nasarre (a foolish person of whom we have
heard before), disguised under the name of Isidro
Perales, declaring that the false Sancho was more
natural than the real one; charging Cervantes with
having borrowed his Second Part from Avellaneda, and
averring that the glory of the veiled second author was
the greater, for the droll reason that "it needs more
force of genius to add to first inventions than to make
them." Don Agustin Montiano, secretary to King
Philip V., in giving his approbation to the work, reproaches Cervantes for his harsh remarks on his competitor, defends Avellaneda from the charge of being
"cold and without mirth," and does not believe that any
judicious man would decide in favour of Cervantes. A
greater than any of these false Spaniards, sad to say
even Le Sage-who probably eyed Don Quixote with
the same disfavour as a small pirate might regard a rich
argosy too strong to plunder-gave Avellaneda an elegant French dress, trimming and combing him out of all
Spanish character, omitting the barbarities and all of the
bawdry which was merely gross, and could not be made
piquant According to this judge of what was knightly
and romantic, "Avellaneda has very well sustained the
character of Don Quixote; he has made a knight-errant
who is always grave, and all whose words are magnificent,
pompous, and flowery." The latest of this sect of odd,
perverse antipathists, who may be said to hold the same
place in regard to Cervantes as the disciples of the mad
Delia Bacon do to Shakespeare, is M. Germond de
Lavigne-an ingenious Frenchman, who grudges Spain




CER VANTES.


147


its glory in Cervantes. He has taken up the cause of
Avellaneda with singular warmth, and abuses everybody
who prefers the original Don Quixote to the imitation.
He has translated Avellaneda afresh (with the bad parts
left out), and in an elaborate introduction, full of undisciplined scholarship and misdirected energy, maintains
its superiority. He denies the grossness of Avellaneda
and the delicacy of Cervantes; insists that the copyist is
entitled to our respect by reason of his strict attention
to "the logical succession of the master's ideas;" with
a sublime audacity charges Cervantes with plagiarism
from his imitator; finally, pronounces sentence on
Cervantes, " un esprit leger, frivole, et vagabond / "
It is not easy to go beyond this; but Spain herself
may claim to have done so, in admitting Avellaneda's
work among the classics of the language-a place being
found in the Biblioteca de los Autores Espaiioles-the only
collection of the national literature-for the false Don
Quixote by the side of the true one.




CHAPTER XII.


A BOUT the time that his enemy's book reached him
Cervantes was engaged, with other of the leading poets of the age, to write an ode in honour
of the nun Teresa, on the occasion of her beatification by
Pope Paul V., which poem was printed the next year among
the select ones, and is as good as any of them-which is
no great praise. In July i615, in the dedication of his
new Comedies to the Conde de Lemos, Cervantes speaks
of Don Quixote as " waiting in the Second Part, booted
and spurred, to do him homage." The Approbation
prefixed to the Second Part was already written in February of this year by Marquez Torres, the Archbishop of
Toledo's chaplain, and is deserving of particular attention
as expressing the opinion of a cultivated man of that age
(who probably spoke the sentiments of his master the
Archbishop) upon the works of Cervantes, and containing a very interesting anecdote about the author, his
condition of life, and fame in foreign countries. After
speaking in terms of unusual warmth of Cervantes'
genius and character, and informing us that his works
had already become known and esteemed not only
throughout all Spain, but in France, Italy, Germany,
and Flanders, the excellent Torres goes on to tell this
capital story, which, strangely enough, is nearly always
omitted in the English translations of Don Quixote:



LIFE OF CER VANTES.


149


"On the 25th of February in this year I615, the very
illustrious Don Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, CardinalArchbishop of Toledo, my master, having gone to return
a visit which the Ambassador of France' had made to
his Excellency, who had come to treat of the marriage
of his Princes with those of Spain, several French gentlemen of those who came in the suite of the Ambassador,
as courteous as intelligent, and fond of polite letters,
came up to me and other chaplains of the Cardinal, my
lord, desiring to know what books of most worth were
current; and touching by chance on this which I was
then examining, scarce did they hear the name of Miguel
de Cervantes when they began to wag their tongues
(hacer lenguas), expatiating on the estimation in which
his works were held, not only in France but the
neighbouring countries-the Galatea, which one of
them had almost by heart, the First Part of this
(Don Quixote), and the Novels. Their commendations
ran so high that I offered to take them where they
might see the author, which offer they received with
a thousand demonstrations of lively eagerness. They
inquired very particularly as to his age, his pursuits, his
condition, and fortune. I was obliged to say that he
was an old man, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor; to
which one replied in these very words: ' But does not
Spain keep such a man rich, supported out of the public
exchequer?' Another of those gentlemen broke in with
1 This was the Duc de Mayenne, called by Spanish writers the
Duque de Umena, who was sent by the Regent Anne of Austria
to conclude the double marriage of the Prince of Asturias (afterwards Philip IV.) with Isabelle de Bourbon, and of Louis XIII. with
the infanta Anna.




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LIFE OF


this sentiment, saying with much acuteness, 'If it
is necessity obliges him to write, may God send he
may never have abundance, so that, poor himself, he
may enrich the whole world with his works."' Marquez
Torres, whose mode of expression is a little clumsy,
concludes by begging pardon of his readers for making
his "approbation " so long, and trusts that they may not
attribute the warmth of his eulogies of Miguel de Cervantes to any self-seeking motive, seeing that the homage
is " not paid to one who is able to cram the mouth of the
flatterer."
The licence to print the Second Part was not granted
until November 5th, i6I5; the dedication to the Conde
de Lemos being dated the last day of October. Here
the author speaks of his having made haste to publish,
in order to be rid of "the disgust and nausea" which
another Don Quixote had caused him. The publisher
and printer of the Second Part were, as of the First, ten
years before, Francisco de Robles and Juan de la Cuesta.
That Cervantes hurried over his last chapters, so as to
be face to face with his adversary as quickly as possible,
is obvious enough from many signs, but, except in
turning his hero away from the road to Zaragoza to take
that of Barcelona, and in the frequent digressions where
the false Quixote and the false Sancho are assailed,
always with excellent point, humour, and ingenuity, I do
not perceive that he materially altered the scheme and
course of his own Second Part. The denouement is
brought about in the sixty-fourth chapter, through the
overthrow of the Knight of the Lions by the Knight of
the White Moon, precisely as had been foreseen in
Chapter XV. It was led up to from the beginning of




CER VANTES.


151


Don Quixote's third sally, and arranged with such entire
accordance with the laws of therapeutics, as well as of
chivalry, that an admiring medical critic, the Doctor
Morejon, has written a tract to prove that in his treatment of mental diseases by moral remedies the author
was the equal of Hippocrates and the precursor of Pinel.
And here I cannot help noting the 'strange blunder
which Heine has made in that delightful essay of his,
which proves him otherwise to be in full sympathy
with Cervantes, when he dwells upon the last scene of
overwhelming pathos, where the poor, prostrate knight,
with his adversary's lance at his throat, cries with a
feeble and broken voice to his conqueror, "Dulcinea del
Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world, and
I the most unfortunate knight upon earth; and it is
not well that my weakness should discredit the truth.
Thrust home thy lance, knight, and rid me of life, since
thou hast bereft me of honour!"  Surely there is no
scene more moving in all the range of romance, no
debouement so true and perfect to any story or drama,
ancient and modern. But the remark of the romancemaster on this consummate finish to Cervantes' story is
unfortunate, in one who was all his life haunted as he
says by the shadow of Don Quixote and his squire:"Alas! this shining knight of the silver moon, who
overcame the bravest and noblest of men, was a
disguised barber! "-Alas, and alas, for the critic!
Cervantes knew his business better than this.  The
Knight of the White Moon is no barber disguised, but
the scholar and the wit Samson Carrasco, who undertakes
this adventure, and, being such a character as he is, is
happily fitted for the enterprise. No other person in the




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story would have been equal to the exploit, which for
Master Nicholas to have attempted would have been to
reduce the romance to buffoonery and degrade the pathos
to burlesque. To cure the madman through the very
means of his craze and to make the man of wit the
healer-this was of the very essence of Cervantes'
invention, the purpose of his story, steadily pursued to
the end. Being cured, there was nothing else for Alonso
Quixano, his wits being restored, than to die; and with
his death was taken away, as his creator declares, all
excuse for any other author than Cid Hamet Benengeli
to "resuscitate him and write interminable histories of
his deeds."
The Second Part of Don Quixote achieved as great
a popularity as the first, and from the circumstances
attending the publication, was probably welcomed with a
peculiar zest by his friends and admirers. The attempt
by another hand to spoil the work by continuing it in
another spirit had proved a signal failure. And though
the true author himself, through the mouth of Samson
Carrasco, avers that "second parts were never good," he
has been in this instance signally confuted. From that
time to this the great majority of critics have agreed that
the Second Part of Don Quixote, in the qualities that
make the merits of a book, is better than the First.
Charles Lamb is one of the lovers of Cervantes who is
of a contrary opinion, averring that in " that unfortunate
Second Part Cervantes sacrificed his instinct to his understanding."  Lamb's grudge was chiefly against "the
unworthy Duke and the most contemptible Duchess;"
but to abuse them for the parts they are made to take is
surely like Partridge at the play telling Queen Gertrude




CER VA4NES.       15S


153


to "go about her business, for she is a vile, wicked
wretch."  The Duke and Duchess are created but as
foils to Don Quixote, and their creator may be supposed
to know what he intended. Who would give them up
now, even though we are angry with the tricks they put
upon their guest? Cervantes had need of them in order
to enlarge the scene, and to exhibit his hero in his real
calling. And who would be without Barataria, which
Sancho would never have got without the Duke?-With
all the mischief they work upon him, the Duke and
Duchess are clearly meant to have an affection for the
Knight, as their order had for the romances of chivalry
which were chiefly composed for their pleasure.
That Cervantes changed the character of Don Quixote
in his Second Part, and possibly altered the design and K
tve of his story, may be admitted / That he did so
with any conscious sense of a change of purpose I do not
believe. The pen of genius, as Heine says, is always
greater than the writer himself. Don Quixote had grown
since he was first conceived into a larger and purer
nature. It is a process as delightful as it is natural, for
which we ought not to blame Cervantes.    Success
in a line which was entirely new and more than
perilous had made the author more daring in his
second attempt.  The First Part was an experiment
in an untried field; in the Second there is no longer
any doubt.  The writer is on firmer ground, and
sure of his purpose. The fable expands, as if from
within; the characters are more fully developed; the
action is quicker, larger, and more picturesque. The
author has fallen in love with his own creations, and
attends more carefully to their behaviour. Don Quixote




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is less the mmn out of his wits, and more the man of
understanding.  Above all, there is a difference in
Sancho, who plays a more important part in the piece,
growing in humour and in wisdom, and improving in
his manners, so as to attract even Don Quixote's notice
to his improvement. What can be more natural than
such a result of their association?  Sancho begins
by believing in Don Quixote's sincerity, being so
carried away by his master's superior nature, exhibited
even in his delusions, as to credit them in spite of the
evidence of his senses. But he ends by imposing his
own deception on his master, as he takes a better
measure of the other's weakness, and makes him an
accomplice, through his imagination, in his impudent
tricks. In all this the Second Part of Don Quixote is
but the legitimate and natural evolution from the First.
The new personages who are introduced, especially
Samson Carrasco, are not only interesting in themselves,
but necessary for the interest of the story. One notable
difference between the First and the Second Parts is that
the parody, of the old romances is, to a large extent,
tropped. Don Quixote no longer attends to the copying
of Amadis. There are fewer references to the books of
chivalries. Indeed, we might almost imagine that Cervantes half repents of the effectual way in which he had
done his work of destroying those foolish but beloved
books. His purpose accomplished, he sets himself to
provide the reader with an agreeable compensation.
Therefore he pours out all the resources of his genius
and his art in this Second Part. Adventure flows from
adventure in an amazing succession. There is a larger
invention; there is a firmer grasp of the story; there is,




CE le VAA 7'ES.


155


lastly, more human nature in the Second Part than in
the First. Something of a charm ineffable and unique
must, of course, ever reside in an original book which its
continuation must lack; and in this the First is better
than the Second, because it is the First. But the
story of the Second is better constructed, with more
humour between the parts, with more freedom in the
action, more skill in the development of the author's
design. For the reader the flow of delight is not interrupted by those interminable episodes which Cervantes
himself confessed to be a defect in his First Part. And
if we have lost something in the Second Part; if Don
Quixote becomes less romantic, the author more self-conscious, the story more artificial-is it no recompense to
have gained the new Sancho with his vastly increased
store of proverbs; the Governor of Barataria; the
adventure of the Lions; the descent into the Cave of
Montesinos; the flight of the Wooden Horse; Master
Peter and his puppet-show; the scourging of Sancho; the
letters of Sancho? There is, finally, the process of the
disenchantment of Dulcinea, which fits the story with so
perfect a motive, keeps up the interest just when it
begins to flag, and rounds it off so naturally and easily.
The marvel of all this is that this book, with its frolic
grace, its abundant wealth of humour and perpetual flow
of life and invention; so rich in blood and overflowing
with the sense of existence; so brimful of humanity, of
love, and of hope; should be the work of a man approaching the seventieth year of a life of trouble, of toil, of
privation, and of disappointment such as few men, and
among them no great writer, ever lived. The completion of his great work preceded but by a few months the




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close of Cervantes' career. Yet his gay and bold spirit,
now rejoicing perhaps for the first time in that which is
the author's chief solace and delight, the sense of a
responsive and sympathetic circle of readers, was still
projecting new schemes of books. In the dedication of
the Second Part of Don Quixote, Cervantes announced
to his patron that in four months his new romance,
Persiles and Sigismunda, would be ready, which was to
be "either the worst or the best of books of entertainment in our language."  He had spoken of the
Persiles two years before, in his prologue to the Novels,
as a book in which he was to enter into competition
with Heliodorus, and also of another work, The Weeks
of the Garden (Las Semanas del Jardin). In the dedication of his Comedies he had referred again to "the
great Persiles," to the Weeks of the Garden, and to the
Second Part of Galatea (which had been spoken of in
the First Part of Don Quixote) as forthcoming, " if my
old shoulders can carry so heavy a burden." Of these
projects the only one which Cervantes lived to carry out
was his romantic story of Persiles and Sigismunda, a
book of imaginary travels, after the style of Heliodorus,
though this was not published till after his death..In the
prologue to the Persiles there is a charming story told, in
Cervantes' own style, of which it is a perfect model, of a
little adventure which happened to him when returning
from his wife's town, Esquivias, whither he had gone for
change of air, to Madrid. This is so pleasant a sketch
of a cheerful old age, undimmed by time, care, or sickness, that, often as it has been quoted, I cannot refrain
from repeating it, being the last picture of himself which
Cervantes gives us from his own hand:



CER VAV lES.


157


"As it fell out, beloved reader, coming one day, I
and two friends of mine, from the famous town of
Esquivias, famous for a thousand things-one, for its
illustrious families, and another, for its most illustrious
wines-I was aware of one who came spurring in great
haste behind my back, wishing to come up with us-a
wish to which he gave voice, calling out to us not to
push on so fast. We waited for him, and there came
up on a little she-ass a grey student, for in grey was he
all attired-gaiters, shoes, and sword in brass-bound
scabbard-a shining Walloon collar, with pleats of equal
length, though, sooth to say, there were but two of them,
for the collar kept continually falling to one side, and he
catching it up with great care and pains to keep it
straight.  Coming up with us, said he: 'Sure, your
worships are bound for some office or benefice at Court,
since it is there that his most Illustrious Eminence of
Toledo is, and His Majesty as well, seeing the rate at
which you are travelling; and indeed my ass has won
the prize for his pace more than once.' To which one
of my companions replied: 'The nag of Seilor Miguel
de Cervantes is to blame for this, for he is a quick
stepper.' Scarce had the student heard the name Cervantes when, alighting from his mount, his pad falling
on one side, his valise on the other,-for in all this
splendour was he travelling,-he made for me, and
hastily seizing me by the left hand,' cried: 'Yes, yes! it
is he of the maimed hand, safe enough, the all-famous,
the merry writer, and indeed the joy of the Muses!'
To me, who in these brief terms saw of my praises the
1 Here is evidence that Cervantes had still a left hand remaining,
though mutilated and deformed.




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I IFE OF


grand compass, it seemed discourteous not to respond
to them, so, embracing him round the neck, whereby I
made entire havoc of the collar, I said: 'This is a
mistake in which many friends from ignorance have
fallen. Sir, I am Cervantes, but not the joy of the
Muses nor any of the fine things your worship has said.
Regain your ass and mount, and let us travel together in
pleasant talk for the rest of our short journey.' The
polite student did so; we reduced our speed a little,
and at a leisurely pace pursued our journey, in the
course of which my infirmity was touched upon. The
good student checked my mirth in a moment: 'This
malady is the dropsy, which not all the water of Ocean,
let it be ever so sweet-drinking, can cure. Let your
worship, Senior Cervantes, set bounds to your drink, not
forgetting to eat, for so, without other medicine, you will
do well.'-' That many have told me,' answered I; ' but
I can no more give up drinking for pleasure than if I
had been born for nothing else. My life is slipping
away, and by the diary my pulse is keeping, which at
the latest will end its reckoning this coming Sunday, I
have to close my life's account. Your worship has come
to know me in a rude moment, since there is no time
for me to show my gratitude for the good-will you have
shown me.' By this time we reached the Toledo bridge,
whither I betook myself-he turning aside to take the
road to Segovia."
The narrative, so characteristic of the gay good
humour of Cervantes, even in the near prospect of
death, ends with a farewell to all that had made life
sweet to him: "Good-bye, humours; good-bye, pleasant
fancies; good-bye, merry friends, for I perceive I am




CER VANTES.


159


dying, in the wish to see you happy in the other
life."
The readers of the best of biographies will remember
the affecting scene in the library at Abbotsford when
Lockhart read out this passage to Scott-always a great
lover and admirer of Cervantes-then stricken like him
with a mortal disease, and approaching the end of his
heroic days of strenuous labour.  "Sir Walter did not
remember the passage, and desired me to find it out in
the life by Pellicer, which was at hand, and translate it.
I did so, and he listened with lively and pensive interest."
Wordsworth was there, himself in his youth not unvisited
by dreams from "the groves of chivalry," who had in
visions
Harmonious tribute paid
To patient courage, and unblemished truth,
To firm devotion, zeal unquenchable.l
Allan, the historical painter, was one of the circle, and
told Lockhart, as he relates, that he "remembered
nothing he ever saw with so much sad pleasure as the
attitudes and aspect of Scott and Wordsworth as the
story went on."
The end was now approaching. Three weeks before his
death, lying sick in his own house, Cervantes made profession of the Third Order of St. Francis, whose habit he
had assumed at Alcala in I6I3. Too much emphasis
has been laid on this act, which is evidence rather of
poverty than of piety, proving only that Cervantes died
as he had lived, in conformity with the faith of a true
Spaniard. In that age it was not possible for a man to


1 See the Introduction to the Prelu/e.




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LIFE OF


die decently, or at least to be sure of decent burial, who
was not enrolled in one of the religious orders. To be
a good Catholic was then identical with being a good
Spaniard, and Cervantes did what every man of sense
was bound to do, not dreaming to cheat God and "to
be sure of Paradise," by passing disguised, according
to the Miltonian sarcasm, in Franciscan weeds, but in
obedience to what was then a universal rule of good
dying, to secure for his bones in the only mannerly
way a safe resting-place, and his family polite consideration. Of the desperate condition of his fortunes, even
in those last days, when he had reached the top of his
fame, and was a popular author, whose books sold as none
up to that time ever did, we have sad evidence in the
pathetic letter written to his true friend and kind patron
the Archbishop of Toledo, dated the 26th of March
1616, which is the last piece of writing extant in Cervantes' hand, running thus in English:"MY VERY ILLUSTRIOUS LORD,-A few days since I received
your most Illustrious Lordship's letter, and with it new proofs of
your bounty. If for the malady which affects me there could be
any relief, the repeated marks of favour and protection which your
Illustrious Person bestows on me would be sufficient to relieve me;
but indeed it increases so greatly that I think it will make an end
of me, although not of my gratitude. The Lord God preserve you
as the executor of saintly deeds, so that you may taste of the fruit of
them there in his holy glory, as fervently desires your humble servant,
who kisses your most exalted hand.
"MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA."
The letter, of which I have a facsimile before me, is
written in a firm, clear hand, showing no sign of age.
Three weeks after writing it, Cervantes, who was then on




CER VANTES.


161


his death-bed, penned the last of his dedications-of
Persiles and Sigismmunda-to his other patron, the Conde
de Lemos, then on his return to Spain from Naples.
Even to this point his courage is unshaken, and his
spirits "as moving delicate and full of life" as when in
his prime of manhood. Quoting the words of an old
poem, and turning them to fit his own case, "with one
foot in the stirrup, waiting the call of Death," he tells the
Count:-" Yesterday they gave me Extreme Unction,
and to-day I am writing. The time is short; my agonies
increase; my hopes diminish." He repeats his assurances of regard and love for his Excellency, and enlarges,
like a prodigal as he is ever of good-nature, on the
bounties of which he has been the recipient. His mind
is still occupied with his books. If by a miracle he survives, he purposes to leave to the world as relics of himself his Weeks of the Garden (which never appeared);
"the famous Bernardo" (now for the first time mentioned, and never heard of again); and the sequel to the
Galatea-that first-born of his youth, ever tenderly loved,
of which he knows the Count to be an admirer. And so,
with a last prayer for God's blessing on him, he ends, on
the I[9th of April i 6 i6. Four days afterwards he died;
as those who are curious in coincidences have noted, on
the same day, the 23rd of April, as Shakespeare. But
the dates are only nominally identical, seeing that
England had not then adopted the calendar of Gregory.
Shakespeare, a younger man by seventeen years, outlived Cervantes by some ten days.
Cervantes was borne to his humble grave "with his
face uncovered," we are told, according to the Franciscan
ceremonial. No ceremonies else are recorded as taking
II




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place at his funeral.  Thirty years afterwards, when
Lope de Vega followed him-always more fortunate than
his lifelong rival-he was attended to the grave by an
immense crowd, three bishops officiating at the rites,
grandees bearing his coffin, amidst the tears of the
populace; the funeral an affair of state, which lasted
over nine days. The circling wheel of Time has redressed the balance.  To-day it is the fame of the
author of Don Quixote which lives in every tongue,
while the name of Lope, once, according to Cervantes
himself, a synonym for all that is good, is little else than
a literary tradition.
By Cervantes' will-lost by his countrymen like almost
everything else which was a memorial of him-his wife
Doiia Catalina and the Licentiate Francisco Nunez, a
lodger in his house, were appointed executors, their only
direction being that they were to bury him in the graveyard of the Trinitarian Convent in the Calle del Humilladero. The choice of this spot is a touching proof of
Cervantes' constant gratefulness to those who had redeemed him from his captivity-the good Father Juan
Gil, the Redemptorist, having been a Trinitarian. It
was, moreover, of this religious house that Cervantes'
only child Isabel was an inmate. In the same ground
were interred afterwards his wife, who died in 1626, and
this same daughter, and other members of the family.
No stone or inscription marked the spot where the great
writer was laid. In 1635 the Trinitarian sisters moved
into another convent in the Calle de Cantaranas (SingFrogs Street), exhuming, as the custom was, the bones of
all the members of their order and friends, and transporting them to their new abode. There, mixed with




CER VANTES.


163


remains of the meaner kind, and undistinguishable from
the others, now rest what is mortal of MIGUEL DE
CERVANTES.
His grateful country has since set up a bust of him
(modelled after the fancy portrait by Kent) with appropriate attributes in the facade of the Trinitarian Convent
in the Calle de Cantaranas, with a suitable inscription.
On the house which Cervantes last occupied and where
he died, at the corner of the Calle de Leon, abutting on
the Calle de Francos, there was affixed by order of
Ferdinand VII., a trophy, with poetical and military
devices, enclosing a medallion (also fancy) portraitthe Calle de Francos having been more lately renamed
the Calle de Cervantes.  These-with the mean and
common-looking bronze statue by Sola in the Plaza
de Cortes, where El Mianco de Leptanto is portrayed
with the conventional hooked nose, and a too conscious
expression of success in hiding his maimed left hand
under the folds of his cloak-make up the sum of all
that Spain has contributed, in solid brass or stone, to
the acknowledgment of her debt to Miguel de Cervantes.
The Persiles and Sigismunda, which occupied his last
thoughts, was published by his widow in I617, with an
approbation signed Josef de Valdivieso, assuring the
reader that "of the many books written by Cervantes
none is more ingenious, more cultured, or more entertaining." But neither is it the best nor the worst book
in the world, as the author himself had predicted. This
child of his old age is a romance written in professed
imitation of the Theogenes and Chariclea of Heliodorus,
and equally extravagant and insipid; in an elegant,
refined, and graceful style, superior in correctness




164


LIFE OF CER VANTES.


to that of Don Quixote, but so different from that book
as to make it a wonder that one hand should have
written them both. The Persiles, strange to say, is a
reversion to much of that old, artificial type of romance
which Cervantes himself had exploded. A pair of lovers,
under disguised names, set out on their travels and meet
with various adventures. They tell a great many stories,
and have a great many told to them; and after encountering shipwreck, captivity, ravishment, and every kind
of peril by land and sea, from robbers, pirates, savages,
and alguazils, turn up at Rome, where the gentleman is
proved to be heir of the "King of Thule," and the lady
own daughter of the "Queen of Friesland." They are
blessed by the Pope, and live happy and have a large
and virtuous family.
By few but the most fervent of Cervantists can
Persiles now be read, and these few find their chief
reward in unexpected bits detached from the author's
own experience-a fight with Algerine corsairs (probably
a reminiscence of the Sol), a sarcastic reference to the
Alcalde and Regidors of some town unnamed, which may
be Argamasilla, and numerous stories, told with Cervantes'
old art of raconteur, which are a fruitful mine which
dramatists and story-tellers of all countries since, such as
our English Fletcher, for one, in his Customn of the
Country, have worked with profit.




CHAPTER XIII.


O the world Cervantes is a name for ever connected
with Don Quixote.  Book and author are so
closely related that it is not possible to study
them apart. Just as Don Quixote was the reflection of
the man Cervantes, so it is in the record of the life of
Cervantes that we may find the true interpretation of the
story of Don Quixote.  What need of a key to the
mystery which has exercised a thousand pens, native
and foreign-namely, the object with which Don Quixote
was written-when we have before us the open chapter of
the life of Cervantes? What need of any mystery at all,
when the author so distinctly declares that his book is so
clear that children, grown men, and greybeards equally
love, comprehend, and enjoy it? Let those who insist
upon a secret purpose, who will not believe the author
in his express declaration that he meant only a book of
entertainment, continue to hug their theories of a recondite inner meaning. That Don Quixote is a "satire"
a great many are convinced-of the immortal herd of
those who cannot conceive how any man should be guilty
of humour and yet intend no malice. Charles V., Philip
II., the Duke of Lerma, Ignatius Loyola, down to the
recalcitrant cousin of Dofa Catalina, and the crazy
hidalgo of Argamasilla, these are among the originals
whom the shrewder sort of interpreters, from the Jesuit




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Rapin down to the late Consul Rawdon Brown, of
Venice, have detected in Cervantes' story. Of such
theories it is only needful to say that those who can
suppose that Cervantes meant, in painting Don Quixote,
to revenge himself on any enemy, are beyond the reach
of conversion. Scarcely less extravagant have been some
of the later theories, which aim at the exaltation of Cervantes' work, and are founded on the idea that Don Quixote
is too lightly appraised as a mere book of humour. The
excellentLieutenant-Colonel of Engineers, Don Vicente de
Los Rios-whose introductory "analysis "of Don Quixoteis
worthy of honour as being the first grave and formal recognition of Cervantes in Spain as a classic-declared that the
author of Don Quixote had proposed to imitate Homer in
his Iliad, and that he was guided by the same rules
in framing his story as Virgil had been in his Eneid. Don
Nicolas de Benjumea, in our days, has discovered in the
Don Quixote " a vast and profound allegory "-the strife of
the new spirit of the age with the past, the eternal combat between Ormuz and Ahriman, between Typhon and
Osiris, etc.; finding in Dulcinea "the soul of Quixano
objectivised," the name being an exact anagram of dina
luce (the divine light)-the Dama Lux of Guinicelli, the
Dama Filosofia of Dante, together with Ariosto's Angelica,
the Yseult of the Armorican legendists, etc.  These
extravagances, which recall some of the flights of the
poor crazed knight himself, are paralleled by some of the
things which have been said of the man Cervantes.
That he was a Social Reformer; that he was an Evangelist who came to preach a new dispensation, political and
religious; that he hid his zeal for Purity under the cloak
of humour; that he had "a mission," which for greater




CER VANTES.


167


deception of the unrighteous he veiled from the curious
eyes of the period, but ineffectually from sharper ones
of the present day-what absurdity is too great to repel
some of the critics? It remained for M. Germond de
Lavigne, the champion of the spurious Don Quixote, to
cap all these crazes, native and foreign-even the
discovery of the ingenious priest of Toledo, Father
Sbarbi, who makes Cervantes out to be a perfect theologian-by announcing that Cervantes was a member of
the party of the Federal Republic.'
It is necessary for us to defend Cervantes against these
imputations, for his countrymen have been as careless of
his fame as a great author as he was himself. Not until a
century and a half had passed after his death did Spain
recognise the worth of Don Quixote as a book of anything more than   passing entertainment.  Although
popular, as we have seen, from the first, and delighting
the multitude as no book of the first class ever did,
before or since, it was a long time before Spaniards could
be got to acknowledge that the work of El Manco de
Lepanto was a lasting honour to their country and to
their literature. There is ample proof, in the careless
style in which the book was printed, on vilest song-book
paper, with wretched type and ghastly "sculptures," with
even the title altered to suit the vulgar taste-that Don
Quixote was regarded as little better than a chap-booka collection of drolleries which even some good Spaniards
regarded askance as scandalous, being a caricature of
some of the prominent vices of the national character.
A good deal of the sneaking kindness which was bestowed
1 M. Lavigne wrote an essay to sustain this thesis in a Madrid
newspaper, La Discusion, in I868.




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LIFE OF


on the false Quixote of Avellaneda at the time, and is still
extended to that vile, malicious libel in Spain, I have no
doubt is to be accounted for by the spirit of exaggerated
nationalism, which suspected Cervantes of laughing at
his own country. There was a feeling, which the priestly
caste were early to foment, that Cervantes had carried
his victory too far, even over the old romantic books,
which, after all, were very Spanish-that his real design
was to ridicule the weaknesses and superstitions of his
countrymen, of whose taste for rodomontade and extravagance the romances were a faithful reflex. When Blas
de Nasarre reprinted Cervantes' unlucky budget of unacted plays in I749, an anonymous poet expressed what
I suspect was the prevailing feeling, especially among the
persons of culture, in some lines of bitter reproach
against Cervantes, whose work Spain was declared to
have applauded, "not seeing the poison hidden among
those flowers of wit." It was of Spanish honour that
the author was " the executioner."  He had made a
mock of "the dreaded valour of Spain."   He had
vilipended her institutions. His book, going among
strangers, had given them entertainment at the expense
of the country. This was the cause, the poet wrote, why
Don Quixote was so well received throughout Europereprinted and translated, adorned with pictures, worked
into tapestry, moulded into sculpture, and engraven on
stone. "Fools! in this mirror ye see yourselves. This
is what ye are and have been." In the same vein writes
one Zavaleta, the author of a book published anonymously in 1750, in which, after a glowing eulogy of Lope
de Vega and of Calderon, he launches out into a furious
attack on Don Quixote on account of its unnational




CER VANTES.


169


spirit. Foreigners, we are told here, relish and praise
Don Quixote-a book "dry, poor, dreamy, and, in fine,
directed but to declare to the world the fatuous valour
of a frantic madman "-because they find in it a picture
of the Spanish character, with its tendency to vaingloriousness and fanfaronade. And this, of the man who had
fought and bled at Lepanto-who had written La
Numrancia!
The feeling is not yet extinct in Spain, and perhaps
we may detect it in the last outrage which has been paid
to the author of Don Quixote-namely, the inclusion of
Avellaneda's foul and malignant parody in the Biblioteca
de los Autores EspaZioles, the collection of national literature published by Rivadeneyra. Of late years, indeed, it
must be acknowledged that there has been a revival of
sympathy for Cervantes in Spain, which has even grown
into a kind of worship, in which the chaunting is out of
proportion to the offering. They have run wild over
The Joy of the Muses, The Prince of Wits, The Maimed
One of Lepanto, whom they neglected and nearly starved
in his lifetime. Yet for all this tardy enthusiasm, which
finds expression chiefly in ode and acrostic, in mutual
congratulations on his birthday, and flowering speeches
in his praise, the jealous champions of the national
honour whom we have quoted were so far right as that it
is indubitably true that the fame of Don Quixote was first
made in foreign countries. It was not until the homage
of the nations had been paid that Spaniards, or at least
the cultured portion of them, discovered that they had
produced a genius equal to the greatest. England may
fairly claim the chief honour for the recognition of
Cervantes as one of the world's great writers. England




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10  LFE OF


was the first to give him welcome-Shakespeare being yet
alive-and an English dress. In English was Don
Quixote first translated, in Shelton's rude but picturesque
language, so that the author of Hamlet might have read
Don Quixote before he died. England was also the first
of all nations, Spain not excepted, to give the book a
proper dress as became a classic, in Spanish, with a
biography, hitherto wanting, of the author.1 Lastly,
England was the first of all nations to furnish Don Quixote
with a commentary-that of the devout and laborious
Bowles, which, much neglected at the time, has since
been duly appreciated by Spanish scholars, who have
never ceased to pay it homage by pilfering from it all the
learning and much of the critical apparatus.
To criticise a book which has for more than two centuries and a half passed into a world's possession
is a kind of impertinence. There is no kindred
soul, among the many who have written upon Don
Quixote, who has failed to pay tribute to the
genius of Cervantes. Spirits the most diverse-the
most finely touched and the solidest-from the manly
and whole-souled Walter Scott, who found here a kindred
nature and an inspiration, to Heine, arch-mocker and praeromanticist, who bubbles with enthusiasm over this whom
he falsely calls the anti-enthusiast; from the great master
of English wit, the transcendent anti-humanist, author of
Gulliver, to the gentle Lamb, with whom Cervantes was
a prime favourite; from the misty and mystic Coleridge
to Sainte-Beuve, gracefulest of French workmen in
the technics of criticism-the great writers of many
I The life by Mayans y Siscar appended to the magnificent edition
of the text published in London, 1738.




CER VAN7TES.


171


countries have united in rendering homage to the work
of Cervantes. Those who praise nothing else praise
Don Quixote; and there are some among those who read
it who read nothing else. As a product of man's wit, it
must be pronounced supreme among the children of the
imagination. And this is the essence of the wonderful
feat that Cervantes has achieved, that upon a theme of
passing interest he has written a book of perennial attraction and value. The book of Spain has become the
common propertyof mankind. The prophecy of Cervantes
himself has been more than fulfilled: "There shall be no
nation nor tongue without a translation." Every language
has its Don Quixote, as it has its Bible. This, indeed,
has been well called the "Bible of Humanity." This child
of Cervantes' genius has been received by adoption into
every family of mankind. There is no language but has
borrowed from it some of its vocabulary.  Quixote,
Rozinante, Sancho Panza, Dulcinea, Maritornes-they are
words in every tongue. It has been said that Don
Quixote is untranslatable, which is but to say that it
retains its full flavour only in the original. But no book
has been oftener translated, into a greater number of
tongues. And this is the best proof of its original and
unique goodness, that, however roughly treated by the
translator, in the driest and baldest version, it never loses
all its charm or ceases to be readable. The grace and
the spirit which abide in the letter cannot be "done,"
of course, into any other language. The characteristic
Cervantes' flavour-the delicate play of words-the everflowing under-current of humour-the subtle half-meanings and double-meanings-the charm which resides in
the careless simplicity of the original-this no translator




172


LIFE OF


can hope to preserve. But all is not lost, even in those
ribald versions, like that of Motteux in English, which,
treating Don Quixote as a quarry of precious though
hidden ore, sought to invest it with "the humour of the
times "-sparing no pains to make him diverting-pour
metIre ce vieux comique a la mode, as dealt an old
French translator with Plautus.
What is not lost-can never be lost, is the art which
underlies this incomparable story-the interest which
grows with each succeeding adventure-the perpetual
flow of human nature-the healthy, open-air spirit of
life-the humour, which is closely interwoven with the
whole texture of the fable, with its lining of pathos.
The art, unlike anything in literature, is so consummate
as well as so original that we are apt to under-estimate
the greatness of the miracle which Cervantes wrought.
Who could predict a success for a book built of
materials so slight-born of a fancy which seemed so
evanescent? A gentleman of La Mancha, whose wits
have been turned by the reading of romances of
chivalry, going about in quest of adventures in company
with a village boor through that unloveliest and least
romantic of regions-what was there here to provide
entertainment for all mankind for ages to come? It
is difficult to imagine how, out of stuff so slender,
a work was to be made which is equally delightful
to the Englishman and the Frenchman, the Greek,
the Hungarian, the Dutchman, and the Pole. The
secret of the perennial freshness of Don Quixote is
but partially revealed in the story itself. The art, indeed,
is in its kind, exquisite. As a mere story-teller, there is
none to be matched with Cervantes. He is the best, as




CER VANTES.


173


he was the first, of all moderns in a kind of work more
often attempted, perhaps, than any other. Of the invention, what is to be said which is not an echo of a
thousand voices? Don Quixote and Sancho have been
the models, singly and in association, which the world
has never tired of copying. The " errant star of knighthood, made more tender by eclipse," is still the type of
all true chivalry. The courtesy, the kindliness of heart,
the simplicity, the dignity, the fine sense of honour and
of truth-which shine through all his grotesque deeds
and ignoble surroundings, which survive through all his
buffetings, his reverses, his crazes, so that we never
cease to love and are almost ashamed to pity him, make
up a picture of "a very perfect gentle knight," such as
lives for ever, to give the world assurance of what was
in the soul of the old chivalry, after all the knights are
laid in the dust and the romances dead and forgotten.
Such a picture must have been drawn with the heart and
not with the hand. To suppose that the painter drew
it as a caricature of knighthood, or as a parody of some
living man, or as a satire upon a public enemy, or as a
missionary tract-whose subtle purpose was the reform
of morals, the purgation of society, or the destruction of
Popery,-and there is none of these preposterous theories
which has not been maintained by bearded men,
in and out of Spain, -is grievously to misread the
book and to mistake the writer.  Had it been any
of these things, Don Quixote would have died when it
achieved its purpose. What has made the fortune of the
book and endowed it with its singular gift of possessing a
charm for humanity for all time to come, as popular out
of Spain as among Spaniards, though steeped in the very




174


LIFE OF


essence of Espanolismo, is that Cervantes had real material
in his own life to furnish his imagination. He drew from
his own experience when he pictured the man full of the
romantic ideal, with a soul thirsting for the redress of
wrongs and fired with visions of the old chivalry, entering upon the field of life in search of adventures. Don
Quixote is but the image of his creator, as his wanderings in quest of wrongs to redress, in imitation of the
ancient knights-errant, are but a pale reflex of the strange
career of trouble, disaster, and humiliation which was
lived by Cervantes himself in the pursuit of honour and
all noble and manly purpose. To that ardent spirit,
entering life with his imagination stored, as we know that
it was, with the images of the old romances, in an age
when his country seemed to be at the head of the worldhimself destined to take a part in a scene which recalled
the glories of the fabled chivalry, when Don John, himself a living embodiment of Amadis and Palmerin, and in
person and character most what the ideal knight-errant
should be, stepped a galliard with his noble captains on
the quarter-deck of the admiral's galley in pure joy of
heart at the advancing host of the Paynim-to the young
Cervantes it might well appear that the old order had
come again. It was only in his old age that he understood that this was but a passing illusion-that the period
was one fatal to romance and to enthusiasm; and of this
sad later conviction the fruit was Don Quixote.
He has been ever since the progenitor of a
numerous race, of which Hudibras and Uncle Toby,
Colonel Newcome and Mr. Pickwick, are some of
the members; but the Knight of La Mancha still overtops all his descendants as Amadis overtopped in worth




CER VANTES.


175


and valour his children and grandchildren.  It is
Cervantes' peculiar glory-a glory shared by Shakespeare
alone among the sons of men-to have given permanence and immortality to an image of his own making.
Nor are his subordinate characters less admirable, both
for themselves as living individual creatures, and as accessories in the picture and aids to the development of the
fable. Sancho Panza is the perpetual counterfoil of his
master-the man of vulgar reason without romance,
opposed to the man of fine understanding warped by
imagination.  These two characters possess the world
between them, as Coleridge has said; and it is Cervantes'
peculiar happiness that he has been enabled to exhibit
them in action, making of the individual creature a
permanent type, and so elevating the Manchegan peasant
as that he serves, like his master, as the denominator for
a whole species. By a subtle stroke of art, which reaches
to the profoundest depth of human nature, the victory
only remains with the unimaginative, practical man of
reason when the enthusiast, the man of intelligence,
recovers his wits.
These two, the master and man, have absorbed so
much of our interest that the minor characters of the
fable, each fitted so perfectly to its part that they seem
not to have been specially provided but picked up on the
way, have scarcely received their due meed of applause.
And yet each has life, as though it lived indeed, and the
talk of each is as real and natural as though we had heard
it. The Housekeeper and the Niece appear but seldom,
and say but a very few words; but we have them moving
in the flesh before us-the ama with her fussy household
loyalty to her master; the sobrina-a pert young hussy




176


LIFE OF


who is not afraid to chaff her uncle while in awe of his
humours. Could she have been drawn from Constanza, the
daughter of Andrea, Cervantes' sister, who was a constant
inmate of her uncle's modest home? The Priest, with
his genial tact and keen good sense; Master Nicholas,
the Barber, a maladroit and blundering vulgar person, are
portraits which might have figured on the canvas of
Velasquez.  The various travellers met on the road
-the irascible Biscayan-the pursey  silk-merchants
of Toledo-the shrewd and witty Vivaldo-the friars,
the shepherds, the goatherds, the students, with all
the company at the various inns, and at Camacho's
wedding - Gines de Pasamonte, that pleasant rogue,
and Roque Guinart, the robber of milder mood-Ricote,
the Morisco-Don Diego de Miranda, the superior
country-gentleman, with the rest of the higher quality,
including the somewhat heartless and selfish though
courteous Duke and his laughter-loving Duchess-not to
speak of Samson Carrasco, the student and wit of the
larger intelligence, who plays so important a role in the
dispelling of Don Quixote's craze; and the womenkind, Maritornes the tender-hearted-the too precise
and sententious Marcela-Dorothea, the beautiful and
discreet -Sancho's wife and daughter, with, finally,
Aldonza Lorenzo, that sturdy lass, able, according to
Sancho, to "pitch a bar as well as the stoutest lad in the
parish," who is elected to be Dulcinea-they have all
and each a distinct individuality, being more real than
any creatures of flesh and blood. And then the innkeepers-what varied entertainment do they furnish!
There are five of them, and no two are alike, from the
canting rogue who falls into Don Quixote's humour and




CER VANTES.


177


dubs him knight, to Juan Palomeque, the sulky and
left-handed, who has Sancho tossed in the blanket.
By a few touches they come into life; and are not so
much made as creatures always existing, who are casually
met in the process of the story. 'It is an early ploughman plodding to the field, chanting as he goes the
ballad of Roncesvalles; or it is the cheery young
soldier, with his bundle slung by his sword on his
shoulder, singing that he is bound to the wars for want
of pence and had he a penny he wouldn't go hence.
Slight as the episode is, and of no apparent connection
with the story, we should have missed it had it not been
there, to give a gleam of light and colour on a scene
which, from its nature, is inclined to be monotonous.
The people talk, not as if they wanted to be reported,
but as they actually did talk and had been overheard.
Other humorists are fain to call attention to the
comedy by making either some of the puppets explain
that they are there to make sport, or by the showman
intruding his person among them, as Master Peter's
boy did, at the famous show of Don Gaiferos and the
Fair Melisendra. But Cervantes is content to let his
creatures talk and act as they list, moved only by internal
impulse. Let us take, as a capital instance of his power,
the scene at Don Quixote's house-door, when Sancho is
trying to push his way in and the niece and housekeeper
are stoutly resisting. The clamour of female tongues is
distinctly heard, and we can see the two women holding
the door against Sancho, who is shouting " Housekeeper
of Satan!" and demanding his governorship. Or let us
intrude upon the circle at the castle where Sancho is
seated with the Duchess and her damsels, who has
12




178


LIFE OF


asked him some delicate questions about his master and
Dulcinea. Do we not see him, with his finger on his
lips, and stealthy steps, as he cautiously feels along the
hangings to see if there is any one listening before he
answers?
The medium through which his effects are produced
is admirably fitted to Cervantes' purpose. The contrast
between the knight's lofty designs and their commonplace
or sordid surroundings becomes heightened by the use
of a language of inimitable- simplicity, clearness, and
directness. Cervantes was not one of those who are
infected by what Bacon has called that "first distemper
of learning, when men study words and not matter." He
had no vanity of style, but used language merely to
express his thoughts, without caring to attract attention
for the children of his wit by their fine clothing. While
master of a style of infinite fascination, flexible, graceful,
picturesque, fit clothing for every noble thought and
human fancy, and able to wield the Castilian so that it
became a new power-assuming a nobility of tone and
compactness of structure such as it never possessed
before or has had since-Cervantes disdains, except with
the deliberate intention of ridiculing, the usual tricks and
artifices of the "stylist." He is not "precious " of speech.
He does not seek to invest common ideas with a false air of
price by giving them uncommon expression. Rather it is
his uncommon ideas which are heightened by common
words. No great writer is perhaps habitually so careless
of rhetorical effect as Cervantes, and in none of his
works is this carelessness carried so far as in his masterpiece. Although abounding in passages of beauty and
eloquence, such as exhibit the resources of the Spanish




CER VA NTES.


179


language in their highest perfection, he is the despair of
exact critics like Seior Clemencin, his unrelenting and
ample commentator. He is better in the Second Part
than in the First, which he evidently launched into the
current without being quite sure of where it would be
carried; but generally the language of Don Quixote is,
for a classic, loose, irregular, and incorrect. Sometimes
a sentence is left in the air, with the predicate wanting.
Sometimes the parts do not join, or there is a confusion
of relatives, or a discord of antecedents. But never is
the writer false, or affected, or vain with the vanity of
the pen, except in the way of burlesque, and to suit the
character speaking or the situation.
Such as it is, no great work was ever achieved by the
pen which can fairly be set against this book of Cervantes; nor among the great writers who have contributed to the everlasting delight and entertainment of the
world is there any with a claim higher upon the gratitude
of mankind than he, the story of whose romantic and
adventurous life I have endeavoured to tell.




I




INDEX...4


A.
Acquaviva, Cardinal, 21, 22
Alarcon, the dramatist, 140, 141
(note)
Alcala de Henares, 13, I4, 15,
18, 59, 159
Alcazar de San Juan, 14, 8, 82
Alfonso, Nuiio, ancestor of
Cervantes, 16
Algiers, Cervantes' captivity in,
30-45
Aliaga, Luis de, I39, 140
Arco, Alonso del, his alleged
portrait of Cervantes, 48, 49
Argamasilla, 19, 81-85
Argensola, Bartolomeand Lupercio, 112, II3, I39
Aribau, his edition of Cervantes'
works, 19
Asensio, Don Jose Maria, 50-52
Astudillo, Diego de, I I
Avellaneda, the author of the
spurious second part of Don
Quixote, 27, 53 (note), I II,
130-147, I68, I69
B.
Barajas, 15
Bejar, the Duke of, 87-89
Benjumea, Don Nicolas de,
quoted, I66
Bernardo, I 6
Bouterwek, quoted, 70
Bowles, his edition of Don
Quixote, 170
Brown, Consul Rawdon, I66


C.
Calderon, his admiration of Don
Quixote, 92
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, ii
Carteret, Lord, his edition of
Don Quixote, 47-49
Cervantes, Andrea de, sister of
Cervantes, I6, 41, 63, I o,
II8
Cervantes, Catalina de, Cervantes' wife, 60, 6i, 62, II0,
ii8, 162, 163
Cervantes, Juan de, ancestor of
Cervantes, I6
Cervantes, Juan de, grandfather
of Cervantes, I6
Cervantes, Leonor de, mother
of Cervantes, 15, 41
Cervantes, Luisa de, sister of
Cervantes, 16
Cervantes, Miguel de, popular
errors as to the facts of his
life, Ix, 12; the circumstances
in which he wrote Don Quixote,
I2, I3; birth, 13-I5; parents
and ancestors, 15-17; early
years and education, I7, I8;
early poetical efforts, I9, 20;
enters the service of Cardinal
Acquaviva, 21, 22; enlists as
a soldier for the crusade against
the Turks, 22; takes part in
and is wounded at the battle of
Lepanto, 23-28; further military service, 28; on his return
to Spain he is captured by
corsairs and taken to Algiers




182


INDEX.


28-30; his Algerian captivity
-attempts at escape, and
ransom, 31-44; effect upon his
life and works, 44, 45; returns
to Spain, 46; his appearance
-no authentic portrait, the
counterfeit likenesses, 46-53;
his prospects on returning to
Spain, 53, 54; re-enlists and
takes part in the war with
Portugal, 55-58; birth of his
daughter Isabel, 58; publication of Galatea, his first
acknowledged work, 59-61;
his marriage, 6I, 62; adopts
literature as a profession, and
settles at Madrid, 62, 63; his
early struggles as a writer
and his dramatic effortsNumancia   and  El   Trato
de Argel, 67-73; gives up
dramatic writing on the appearance of Lope de Vega
and moves to Seville, 73, 74;
appointed commissary, 75;
and rate collector, 76; literary
work at Seville, 76 77; his
dislike of Philip II. and his
policy, 78-80; his first and
unpleasant experience of La
Mancha -the originals of
Don Quixote, 81-85; follows
the court to Valladolid, 85;
the writing and publication of
the first part of Don Quixote,
85-87; his quest of a patron,
87-89; the popularity and
purpose of Don Quixote, 90 -105; continued poverty and
ill fortune-his troubles and
mode of life at Valladolid,
Io6-I I; returns to Madrid,
ii; his patrons, 112-115;
revises Don Quixote for its
second edition, I15 I17; life
at Madrid, II8; the Novelas
Exemplares, 119-123; the
Viaje del Parnaso, 123-126;
the Comedies and Interludes,
126-127; the second part of
Don Quixote commenced,
127-129; an unknown enemy


I


publishes  in  advance  a
spurious and hostile second
part, I30-I47; the genuine
second part, I48-156; his last
days, death, and burial, I56 -163; his Persiles and Sigismunda (posthumous), 163,
164; his supposed secret
purpose  in  writing  Don
Quixote, 165-167; tardy recognition of his genius in
Spain, 167-170; the worldwide homage now paid to him
and his great qualities, 170 -179
Cervantes, Rodrigo de, brother
of Cervantes, 15, i6, 34, 35,
57
Cervantes, Rodrigo de, father of
Cervantes, 15, 24, 35, 41
Clemencin, Senor, quoted, 79,
I43, 179
Coleridge, Samuel, 170, 175
Comedies and Interludes, The,
126, 127; quoted, 17, 69, 73
Constanza, Cervantes' niece, 63,
IIo, 176
Consuegra, 14
Cortinas, Leonor de. See Cervantes, Leonor de
Cuesta, Juan de la, printer of
Don Quixote, 86, 87, 93, 94,
150
D.
Don Quixote de la Mancha,
the circumstances in which it
was written-its undertone of
sadness, 12, I3; the originals
of, 81-85; the writing and
publication of the first part,
85-89; its popularity, 90-96;
its purpose, 96-1I5; small
effect of its success upon
Cervantes' fortunes, I06, I07;
the second edition, 115-117;
the second part commenced,
127-129; a hostile and spurious second part published
by an enemy, 130-147; the
genuine secondpart published,
148-150; its qualities and




INDEX.


183


success, 150-156; the supposed secret purpose of Don
Quixote, 165-167; tardy recognition in Spain of its great
merits, 167-170; its worldwide popularity, I70-I72; its
great and lasting qualities,
172-174; its characters, I74 -178; its style, 178, 179; its
pre-eminence, 179; quoted,
I4, 27, 33, 34, 36, 94, I04,
105, io6, ii6, I29, I37, I38,
151, I52
E.
Esquivias, 14, 6I, 62, 156, 157
Ezpeleta, Don Gaspar de, the
affair of, o09, IIo
F.
Figueroa, Don Lope de, 55, 56
Filena, 19
G.
Galatea, Cervantes' first work
of importance, 59-61, 68, 90,
149, 156, i6I
Gayangos, Don Pascual de,
quoted, 93, 98, IOI, 110, III
Gibson, Mr. J. Y., his translation of the works of Cervantes,
19 (note), 25, 38 (note), 72
(note)
Gil, Father Juan, the Redemptorist Father, 42, 43, I62
G6ngora, Luis de, his feeling for
Don Quixote and Cervantes,
90, 107-109
Guerra y Orbe, Sefior, I I I
H.
Haedo, Father, his Topography
of Algiers quoted, 14, 32, 33,
36, 38, 40, 41
Hallam, quoted, 71
Hartzenbusch, Seiior, I9, Io8,
I 5; quoted, 88
Hassan Pasha, Viceroy of
Algiers, 33-42


IHeine, quoted, 151, 152, 153,
170
Hoyos, Lopez de, i8, 19
I.
Iriarte, Juan de, I5
J.
Jaureguy, Juan de, his portrait
of Cervantes, 46, 52
Juan of Austria, Don, 23, 24,
26, 27, 28, 29, 54
K.
Kent, William, his fanciful portrait of Cervantes, 47-49
L.
La Mancha, 81-84
Lamb, Charles, quoted, I52, 170
Lavigne, M. Germond de, I28,
135, I40, 145, I46, I47, I67
Lemos, the Conde de, I12, 113,
I19, I50, i6i
Lepanto, Battle of, 23-27
Lerma, Duke of, 85, 86, i65
Le Sage, I45, 146
Lombardy, 28
Los Rios, Don Vicente de,
quoted, 88, I66
Lucena, 14
M.
Madrid, 14, I8, 22, 62, 64, 66,
68, 74, 86, I I, I I8
Mami, Arnaut, 30
Mami, Deli, 30, 34, 35, 37
Mayans y Siscar, his life of
Cervantes, I70 (note)
Messina, 23, 27, 28
Montiana, Don Agustin, 146
Morejon, Dr., quoted, 151
N.
Naples, 22, 23, 28
Nasarre, Blas de, Ia6, I46, I68




184


INDEX.


Navarrete, his Vida de Cervantes
quoted, 17 (note), I8, 20, 21
(note), 25 (note), 28, 44 (note),
86, I 8, 126
2Novelas Exemjplares, The, 119 -123, 149; quoted, 52
Numancia, 70-72, 79
Nufiez, Francisco, 162
0.
Oldfield, Dr., quoted, 47
Ormsby, Mr. John, 115, 128,
132 and note
Orthoneda, Dr. Rafael, I31
P.
Pacheco, Francisco, his portrait
of Cervantes, 46, 50-52
Pacheco, Rodrigo de, 6i, 81, 84
Palacios y Salazar, Catalina de.
See Cervantes, Catalina de
Paz, Blanco de, 39, 40, 42, 43,
140
Pedrosa, Luis de, quoted, 40
Pellicer, Io8, Io9(note); quoted,
70
Perez, Andres, 140
Persiles and Sikismunda, 58,
156, i6i, 163, 164
Philip II. of Spain, 38, 39, 54,
64-66, 78-80
Portugal, Cervantes' affection
for, 58
Q.
Quevedo, his admiration of Don
Quixote, 91, 92
R.
Rapin, the Jesuit, x66
Robles, Francisco de, publisher
of Don Quixote, 86, 150
Rome, 22
Rueda, Lope de, 17, 70
S.
Saavedra, Isabel de, Cervantes'
daughter, 58, 63, IIo, 162


Saavedra, Juan Bernabe de, a
relative of Cervantes, 82
Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes,
author of Don Quixote, 17.
See also Cervantes, Miguel de
Saavedra, Miguel de Cervantes,
cousin of Cervantes, 14, 15
Sainte-Beuve, quoted, 94, 170
Salamanca, Cervantes and the
University of, I8
Sandoval y Rojas, Don Bernardo,
112-114, 148, i6o
Santa Cruz, the Marquess of, 57
Sardinia, 28
Sarmiento, Father, 15
Sbarbi, Father, quoted, 167
Schack, A. F. von, 141 (note)
Schlegel, quoted, 70, 72
Scott, Sir Walter, 159, 170
Second Part of the Ingenious
Gentleman, Don Quixote, the
spurious Second Part, 130-147,
I68, 169
Semanas del Jardin, Las, 156,
I6I
Sesa, Duke of, 28, 41
Seville, 14, 74-77, III, 112
Sotomayor, Magdalena de, nIo
Spain under Philip II., 64-67
Swift, Dean, 170
T.
Tellez, Gabriel, 122
Ticknor, quoted, 18, 70, 71, 104,
123, 126, 143, 144
Toledo, 14
Toledo, Archbishop of. See
Sandoval y Rojas
Torres, Marquez, 148-150
7Trato de Argel, El, 34, 70, 72,
92 (note)
Tunis, 27, 28
V.
Valladolid, 85, 86, io6-1II
Vasquez,  Mateo,   Cervantes'
poetical letter to, quoted, 25,
26, 37-39, 53 (note)




INDEX.


185


Vega, Lope de, 56, 67, 69, 70,
73, 74, 86, go, 91, 92 (note),
109, I22, 139-I45, i62
Viaje del Parnaso, El, I9 and
note, 123-126; quoted, 27, 53
(note), 67, 68, 69, 7o, 75, 76
(note), 8o, 96, 113
Villegas, Manuel de, I25, 126


W.
Wordsworth, 159
Z.
Zavaleta, quoted, i68, 169




I




BIBLIOGRAPHY.
BY
JOHN P. ANDERSON
(British Museum).


I. WORKS.
II. COLLECTIONS OF WORKS.
III. DRAMATIC WORKS.
IV. POEMS.
V. DON QUIXOTE-Spanish.,,,,    English.,,    Abridgments.,,    Extracts.,,   Appendix.
VI. GALATEA.
VII. NOVELAS-Spanishl.,,    English.


VIII. TRABAJOS DE   PERSILES  Y
SIGISMUNDA.
IX. VIAGB DEL PARNASO.
X. EXTRACTS.
XI. SUPPOSITITIOUS WORKS.
XII. APPENDIXBiography, Criticism, etc.
Magazine Articles, etc.
XIII. CHRONOLOGICAL   LIST   OF
WORKS.


I. WORKS.
Obras. 16 vols. Madrid, 1803-5,
8vo.
Obras escogidas. Nueva edicion
clAsica, arreglada, corregida e
ilustrada con notas por D.
Augustin Garcia de Arrieta.
(Vida de M. de Cervantes Saavedra. Por D. Martin Fernandez de Navarretc. Analisis, 6
juicio critico del Quijote. Por
D. Augustin Garcia de Arrieta.)
10 tom. Paris, 1827, 16mo.
Obras escogidas.  11 tom. Ma.
drid, 1829, 8vo.


Obras.   Segunda edicion.  Madrid, 1849, 8vo.
Tom. i. of the "Biblioteca de
Autores Espafoles," by B. C.
Aribau.
Obras Completas de Cervantes.
[Edited, with notes, by J. E.
Hartzenbusch and C. Rosell.]
(Vida de M. de C. S. escrita por
B. C. Aribau. Nuevas investigaciones aoerca de la vida y
obras de Cervantes por C. A.
de la Barrera.-Notas a las
Nuevas Investigaciones, etc.)
12 tom. Madrid, Argamasilla
de Alba, 1863, 1864, 8vo.




ii
14


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


II. COLLECTIONS OF
WORKS.
La Galatea. Va aiadido el Viage
del Parnaso, etc.   2 parts.
Madrid, 1614, 4to.
La Galatea, dividida en seis libros.
Va afiadido El Viage del Parnaso. 2 parts. Madrid, 1736,
4to.
--  Another edition.   Madrid,
1772, 4to.
Viage al Parnaso compuesto por M.
de Cervantes. Publicanse ahora
de nuevo una tragedia y una
comedia ineditas del mismo;
aquella intitulada la Numancia,
este el Trato de Argel. Madrid,
1784, 8vo.
Galatea, el Viage al Parnaso, y
Obras Dramaticas. Nueva edicion. (Por D. M. F. de Navarrete.) Paris, 1841, 8vo.
Tom. xxv. of the "Coleccion de
los mejores autores Espafloles."
Varias obras in6ditas de Cervantes, sacadas de c6dices de la
Biblioteca  Colombina,   con
nuevas ilustraciones sobre la
vida del autor y el Quijote, por
A. de Castro. Madrid, 1874,
8vo.
The Voyage to Parnassus; Numantis, a tragedy; the Commerce of Algiers. By Cervantes.
Translated from the Spanish by
G. W. J. Gyll. London, 1870,
8vo.
One of A. Murray's Reprints.
III. DRAMATIC WORKS.
Ocho Comedias, y ocho Entremeses nuevos, nunca representados. Madrid, 1615, 4to.
First edition, and very rare.


Comedias y Entremeses; con una
dissertacion o prologo sobre las
comedias de EspaTa.   2 tom.
Madrid, 1749, 8vo.
Ocho entremeses de M. de Cervantes Saavedra. Tercera impresion. Cadiz, 1816, 12mo.
Los Entremeses de M. de Cervantes Saavedra.   Ilustrados
con preciosas viietas. Madrid,
1868, 8vo.
Comedias y Entremeses. Numancia. La Entretenida. El Juez
de los divorcios.  El Rufian
viudo llmado Trampagos. Eleccion de los Alcaldes de Daganzo.
La Guarda Cuidadosa y el Vizcaino Fingido. Precedidas de
una introduccion.    Madrid,
1875, 4to.
Numantia: a tragedy translated
from the Spanish, with introduction and notes, by James Y.
Gibson. London, 1885, 8vo.
IV. POEMS.
Cervantes esclavo y cantor del
Santisimo Sacremento. (Poesias
ineditas de Cervantes.) MS. de
la Bib. Floreciana de la Real
Academia de la Historia, y
articulo del Sr. D. A. Fernandez Guerra y Orbe. De la
Revista Agustiniana. Valladolid, 1882, 8vo.
V. DON QUIXOTE-Spanish.
El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote
de la Mancha. Compuesto por
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,
etc. Juan de la Cuesta: Madrid, 1605, 4to.
This is the first edition of Don
Quixote. 'Ihe licence is dated the




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


iii


26th of September 1604; and the
certificate for errata December 1,
1604.
Second edition. Juan de la
Cuesta: Madrid, 1605, 4to.
The Privilege is dated 9th February 1605.
-   Another edition. Jorge Rodriguez: Lisboa, 1605, 4to.
"Aprobacion" and licence dated
Lisbon, February 26 and March 1,
1605.
-   Another edition.  P. Crasbeeck: Lisboa, 1605, 8vo.
Licensed March 27 and 29.
--  Another edition. PP.. Mey:
Valencia, 1605, 8vo.
The "Aprobacion" is dated July
18,1605. Another edition, according
to SalvA y Mallen, was issued from
the Mey press in 1605.
- Another edition.  R. Vulpius: Brusselas, 1607, 12mo.
Another edition. Juan de la
Cuesta: Madrid, 1608, 4to.
The true second edition; com.
monly called the third edition.
-Another edition. P. Locarni
y J. B. Bidello: Milan, 1610,
8vo.
— Another edition. R. Vulpius
y H. Antonio: Brucelas, 1611,
8vo.
-   Another edition.   Huberto
Antonio: Brucelas, 1617, 8vo.
Segunda Parte del Ingenioso
Cavallero Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Juan de la Cuesta:
Madrid, 1615, 4to.
This is the first edition of Cervantes' Second Part.
-   Another edition. P. P. Mey:
Valencia, 1616, 8vo.
Another edition.     Huberto
Antonio: Brueelas, 1616, 8vo.
-   Another edition. Jorge Rodriguez: Lisboa, 1617, 4to.
--  El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha. Segunda


parte del Ingenioso Cavallero
Don Quixote de la Mancha, etc.
Barcelona, 1617, 8vo.
The first complete edition of the
two parts, according to Salvd.
-Prinera y segunda parte del
Ingenioso Hidalgo, etc. 2 vols.
Franciscd Martinez: Madrid,
1637, 4to.
The first complete edition, according to Navarrete.
-   Primera y segunda parte del
Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote
de la Mancha. En la Imprenta
Real: Madrid, 1647, 4to.
A reprint of the preceding.
-   Primera y segunda parte, etc.
Melchor Sanchez: Madrid, 1655,
4to.
-   Parte primera y segunda del
ingenioso hidalgo D. Quixote de
la Mancha. Madrid, 1662, 4to.
-   Vida y hechos del Ingenioso
Cavallero Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Nueva edicion, coregida y ilustrada con differentes
estampas.  2 parts.  Bruselas,
1662, 8vo.
First illustrated edition, as also
the first in which the title was
altered to Vida y Hechos, etc.
-   Parte primera y segunda, etc.
Madrid, 1668, 4to.
The Second Part bears the date
1662.
-   Vida y hechos del ingenioso
cavallero, etc. 2vols. Bruselas,
1671, 8vo.
-   Vida y Hechos del ingenioso
Cavallero Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Nueva edicion, corregida y illustrada con 32 estampas. 2 pts. Amberes, 1673-72,
8vo.
-   Another   edition.  2  pts.
Madrid, 1674, 4to.
-   Nueva edicion, corregida y
ilustrada con 32 differentes




iv


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


estampas.  2 pts.  Amberes,
1697, 8vo.
-  Another edition.   2 vols.
Barcelona, 1704, 4to.
-   Another edition.   2 tom.
Madrid, 1706, 4to.
A reprint of the Madrid edition of
1674.
-   Nueva edicion corregida e
ilustrada con treinta y cinco
laminas, etc. 2 tom. Madrid,
1714, 4to.
-Nueva edicion, etc.    2 pts.
Amberes, 1719, 8vo.
-   Another  edition.  2  pts.
Madrid, 1723, 4to.
-Nueva edicion corregida, etc.
2 tom. Madrid, 1730, 4to.
-   Another edition.  2 tom.
Madrid, 1735, 4to.
-  Another edition.  2 tom.
Leon de Francia (Lyons), 1736,
8vo.
— Another edition. (Advertencias de J. Oldfield sobre las
estampas. Vida de Cervantes
Saavedra, autor Don G. Mayans
i Siscar.) [Edited by P. Pineda.]
4 tom. Londres, 1738, 4to.
The first critical edition.
Another edition.     2 tom.
Madrid, 1741, 4to.
— Another edition.   Con muy
bellas estampas. (Vida de M.
de Cervantes Saavedra. Autor
Don G. Mayans i Siscar.) 4 tom.
Haia, 1744, 8vo.
— Nueva edicion, corregida,
ilustrada, y aiadida con quarenta y quatro laminas, etc. 2
tom. Madrid, 1750, 8vo.
Another edition.    2 tom.
Madrid, 1750, 4to.
--  Another edition.  2 tom.
Madrid, 1751, 4to.


- Another edition.   4 tom.
Amsterdam, 1755, 12mo.
A reprint of the Hague edition.
Another edition.     4 tom.
Barcelona, 1755, 8vo.
Another edition.     4 tom.
Tarragona, 1757, 8vo.
-   Nueva edicion, corregida, e
ilustrada con quarenta y quatro
laminas. (Vida de M. de Cervantes Saavedra. Su autor G.
Mayans i Siscar.)    2 tom.
Madrid, 1764-65, 4to.
-   Another edition.   4 vols.
Madrid, 1765, 8vo.
--  Another edition.   4 tom.
Madrid, 1771, 8vo.
-Nueva edicion, corregida, y
ilustrada con vArias laminas, y
la vida del autor [by G. Mayans
y Siscar].  4 tom.   Madrid,
1777, 8vo.
-   Nueva edicion, corregida por
la Real Academia Espatiola.
(Vida de Cervantes y analisis
del Quixote [by V. de los Rios].)
4 tom. Madrid, 1780, 4to.
The first critical edition printed
in Spain.
Another edition. Con annotaciones, indices y varias lecciones por el Reverendo J.
Bowle. 6 tom.    Londres and
Salisbury, 1781, 4to.
-   Nueva edicion, corregida por
la Real Academia Espaftola.
(Vida de Cervantes y analysis
del Quixote [by V. de los Rios].)
4 tom. Madrid, 1782, 8vo.
Second Academy edition.
-   Vida y hechos del Ingenioso
Hidalgo, etc. 4 tom. Madrid,
1782, 8vo.
-   El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha. Tercera
edicion, corregida por la Real




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


v


Academia Espaliola.  6 tom.
Madrid, 1787, 8vo.
-   Another edition.  6 tom.
Madrid, 1797-98, 16mo.
-   Nueva edicion, corregida denuevo; con nuevas notas, con
nuevas estampas, con nuevo
analisis, y con la vida de el
autor nuevamente aumentada
por J. A. Pellicer. 7 tom. in 6.
Madrid, 1797-98, 8vo.
Six copies of this edition were
printed on vellum.
-   Another edition.  Corregido
de nuevo, con nuevas notas, con
nuevas vinetas por J. A. Pellicer.
9 tom.   Madrid, 1798-1800,
12mo.
Another edition.    6 vols.
Leipzig, 1800, 12mo.
Another edition.    4 tom.
Burdeos, 1804, 12mo.
— Vida y hechos del Ingenioso
e caballero D. Quijote de la
Mancha. 6 tom. Madrid, 1804,
8vo.
-   Another edition.  (Vida de
M. de Cervantes Saavedra escrita
por D. J. A. Pellicer.-Notas.)
[Edited by C. L. Ideler.] 6 tom.
Berlin, 1804-5, 8vo.
-   El Ingenioso  hidalgo  D.
Quijote de la Mancha. 4 tom.
Londres, 1808, 18mo.
-   Another edition.  Historia
del ingenioso hidalgo Don
Quixote de la Mancha. 6 tom.
Barcelona, 1808-14, 12mo.
-   Another edition.  Vida y
hechos, etc. 4 vols. Madrid,
1808, 8vo.
-Another edition. El Ingenioso
Hidalgo, etc. 4 vols. Lyons,
1810, 12mo.
-   Another edition.  6 vols.
Paris, 1814, 8vo.




-   Another edition. El Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Nueva edicion corregida por F. Fernandez. 4 tom.
London, 1814, 12mo.
A reprint of the 1808 edition.
Another edition.     4 tom.
Burdeos, 1815, 12mo.
-   El Ingenioso Hidalgo, etc.
6 vols. Leipzig, 1818, 8vo.
A reprint of the Leipzig edition
of 1800.
-   Cuarta edicion corregida por
la Real Academia Espaniola.
(Con vida por Navarrete.) 5
tom. Madrid, 1819, 8vo.
Another     edition.  4 vols.
Paris, 1825, 12mo.
Another edition.     2 vols.
Madrid, 1826, 12mo.
-Edicion en miniatura enteramente conforme & la ultima
corregida y publicada por la
Real   Academia    Espaiola.
[Edited by J. M. de Ferrer.]
Paris, 1827, 12mo.
Another edition.     6 vols.
Paris, 1827, 12mo.
-  Another  edition.  2 tom.
Zaragoza, 1831, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   4 vols.
Madrid, 1831, 16mo.
-Another edition.      4 vols.
Barcelona, 1832, 8vo.
A reprint of the Academy edition of 1819.
-Another edition. Paris, 1832,
32mo.
--  Another edition. Comentado
por D. Clemencin.    6 tom.
Madrid, 1833-39, 4to.
-Another     edition.  Con   el
elogio de Cervantes por D. J.
Mor de Fuentes. Paris, 1835,
8vo.
Tom. i. of the "Coleccion de los
mejores Autores Espatoles."




vi


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Don Quixote.  Another edition.
Boston, 1836, 8vo.
A third edition appeared in 1842.
-   Another edition.   4 vols.
Paris, 1838, 16mo.
-   Another edition.   Con   la
vida de Cervantes por M. F. de
Navarrete. Paris, 1840, 8vo.
Tom. i. of the "Coleccion de los
mejores Autores Espafloles."
Edicion adornada con laminas.
Segunda edicion. 2 tom. Barcelona, 1840, 4to.
-Another edition.      2 vols.
Mexico, 1842, 8vo.
Another edition.     2 vols.
Barcelona, 1848, 8vo.
-   Novisima   edicion  clAsica,
ilustrada con notas historicas
ramaticales y criticas, segun
las de la Academia Espaiola
y sus ildividuos de numero
Pellicer, Arrieta, Clemencin, y
por F. Sales. Aumentada con
el Buscapie, anotado por A. de
Castro. (Apendice contiene observaciones criticas [by J. E.
Hartzenbusch]. Vida de M. de
Cervantes.) Madrid, 1850, 8vo.
--  Another edition.   2 vols.
Paris, 1850, 8vo.
— Another edition. New York,
1853, 12mo.
-Another edition. Paris, 1855,
8vo.
-   Another edition. Don Quijote
de la Mancha. Nueva edicion.
Ilustrada, etc. 2tom. Madrid,
1855-56, 8vo.
-Another edition.      Madrid,
1855, 8vo.
-   El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don
Quijote de la Mancha. [Illustrated edition.] 2 pts.  Bar.
celona, 1859, fol.


Another edition.     3 vols.
Madrid, 1862-63, fol.
-   Edicion corregida con especial
estudio de la primera, por D.
J. E. Hartzenbusch. 4 tom.
Argamasilla de Alba, 1863,
8vo.
-   Novisima edicion, con notas
historicas  de  la  Academia
Espafola,  Pellicer,  Arrieta.
Aumentada     del   Buscapie,
anotado por A. de Castro.
Adornado con 300 grabados y
el retrato del autor. Madrid,
1865, 8vo.
-Another edition. 2pts. Leipzig, 1866, 8vo.
Tom. iii., iv. of the " Coleccion de
Autores Espafloles."
-   Another edition.  Tom. 1.
Madrid, 1868, 8vo.
No more published.
— La     primera   edicion  del
Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote
de la Mancha, reproducida en
facsimile por la foto-tipografia,
y publicada por F. Lopez
F&bra. [With notes by J. E.
Hartzenbusch.]  2 pts.  Barcelona, 1871-74, 4to.
Edicion conforme & la ultima
corregida  por  la  Academia
Espalola, con notas, etc. Paris,
1873, 8vo.
-Vida de M. de Cervantes por
R. Leon Mainez. (El Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quijote de la
Mancha   publicado  bajo  la
direccion de R. Leon Mainez.)
Tom. 1-5. CAdiz, 1876-77, etc.,
8vo.
El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don
Quijote de la Mancha. Sevilla,
1879, 16mo.
Another edition.     2 tom.
Madrid, 1880, 16mo.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Vii


Don Quixote. Nueva edicion, con
notas sobre el texto, del puio y
letra del autor, en el ejemplar
prueba de correccion de la la
edicion de 1605, etc. [Edited by
F. Ortego Aguirrebeia.] 2 tom.
Palencia, 1884(-83), 8vo.
An impudent forgery.
Novisima edici6n aumentado
con E1 Buscapi. Adornado con
grabados. Madrid, 1887, 8vo.
DON QUIXOTE-English.
Shelton's TranslationThe History of Don Quichote.
[Translated from the Spanish
by T. Shelton.] 2 pts.    G.
Blounte: London, 1620, 4to.
Part i. has no title-page. The
date 1620 appears on the title-page
of Part ii. Mr. Watts has discovered
that the first edition has a titlepage to Part i. with the date 1612,
and he says he only knows of one
existing copy.
--  Another edition.   London,
1652, fol.
--  Another edition.   London,
1675, fol.
-Another edition. The History of the most Ingenious
Knight Don Quixote de la
Mancha. Formerly made English by T. Shelton: now revised
and partly new translated by
J. Stevens. Second edition. 2
vols. London, 1706, 8vo.
— Another edition. Translated
into English by T. Shelton, and
now printed verbatim from the
4to edition of 1620.  With cuts
from the French of Coypel. 4
vols. London, 1725, 12mo.
Philips's TranslationThe History of Don Quixote of


Mancha: and his trusty Squire
Sancho Pancha.   Now made
English, and adorned with
several copper plates.  By J.
P(hilips). London, 1687, fol.
Motteux's TranslationThe History of the renowned Don
Quixote. Translated by several
hands, and publish'd by P. Motteux. 4 vols. London, 1701,
12mo.
-The History of the renowned
Don Quixote. Translated by
several hands, and publish'd by
P. Motteux.   Adorn'd  with
sculptures. The third edition.
4 vols. London, 1712, 12mo.
-Fourth edition, revised by J.
Ozell. 4 vols. London, 1719,
12mo.
-Fifth edition. 4 vols. London, 1725, 12mo.
-   Another edition, revised anew
by Mr. Ozell. With explanatory notes. 4 vols. Edinburgh,
1766, 12mo.
Another edition.    4 vols.
Edinburgh, 1803, 12mo.
-   Another edition.  The History of the Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote de la Mancha. A
new edition, with copious notes;
and an essay on the life and
writings of Cervantes [by J. G.
Lockhart]. 5 vols. Edinburgh,
1822, 8vo.
-Another edition. The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha. A new edition, divested
of cumbrous matter and revised
for general reading. To which is
prefixed a sketch of the life and
writings of the author.  Lon.
don, 1847, 12mo.
-Another edition. Adventures
of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
13




viii


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


New and revised edition. London [1877], 8vo.
Part of the " Chandos Classics."
-   Another edition. The History of the Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote of la Mancha, etc.
[With a life of the author, and
notes by J. G. Lockhart, and
with etchings by A. Lalauze.]
4 vols. Edinburgh, 1879-84,
8vo.
Another edition. The History of Don Quixote of la Mancha. Edited, with notes and
memoir, by J. G. Lockhart,
preceded by a short notice of
Motteux, by H. Van Laun.
With etchings by R. de los Rios.
4 vols. London, 1880-81, 8vo.
-Anotheredition. TheAchievements of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha.
A translation based on that of
P. A. Motteux, with the memoir
and notes of J. G. Lockhart.
Edited by E. Bell. 2 vols.
London, 1882, 8vo.
Part of "Bohn's Standard Library."
Ward's TranslationThe Life and Adventures of Don
Quixote translated into Hudibrastick Verse, by E. Ward.
2 vols. London, 1711-12, 8vo.
Jarvis's TranslationThe Life and Exploits of the
Ingenious  Gentleman,   Don
Quixote of La Mancha. Translated by Charles Jarvis. 2 vols.
London, 1742, 4to.
-   Second edition. 2 vols. London, 1749, 8vo.
-   Third edition. 2 vols. London, 1756, 4to.
-   Another edition. Now carefully revised and corrected;


with a new translation of the
Spanish Poetry: to which is
prefixed a new life of Cervantes;
including a critique on the
Quixote: also a chronological
plan of the work; embellished
with new  engravings, and a
map of Spain. 4 vols. London, 1801, 8vo.
-   Another edition.  4 vols.
London, 1809, 16mo.
-  Another edition.  With engravings.  4 vols.  London,
1819, 8vo.
-   Another edition. The Life
and Adventures of Don Quixote
de la Mancha. A new edition,
with engravings from designs by
R. Westall. 4 vols. London,
1820, 8vo.
— Another edition. The Life
and Exploits of Don Quixote de
la Mancha. 4 vols. London,
1821, 12mo.
-Another edition. The Life
and Exploits of Don Quixote de
la Mancha. Translated by C.
Jarvis. (Illustrated by 24 designs by Cruickshank.) 2 vols.
London, 1831, 12mo.
-   Another edition. Carefully
revised and corrected. Illustrated by Tony Johannot.  3
vols. London, 1837-39, 8vo.
Another edition. Adventures
of Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Carefully revised and corrected.
Illustrated by Tony Johannot.
2 vols. London [1852], 8vo.
-   Another edition.  London,
1856, 8vo.
-   Another edition. The History
of Don Quixote. (The English
text is that of Jarvis, with
occasional  corrections  from
Motteux's translations.)  The




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


ix


text edited by J. W. Clark, and
a biographical notice of Cervantes, by T. T. Shore. Illustrated by G. Dore.   London
[1864-67], 4to.
-   Another edition. The Adventures of Don Quixote de la
Mancha. With a memoir of the
author.  Illustrated by Tony
Johannot.  10 pts.   London
[1864-65], 8vo.
No more published.
Another edition. With illustrations. London, 1866 [1865],
8vo.
-   Another edition. With illustrations by A. B. Houghton,
engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. London, 1866, 8vo.
-   Another edition.  Carefully
revised and corrected.  Illustrated  by  Tony  Johannot.
London [1870], 8vo.
Part of "Beeton's Boy's Own
Library."
-   Another  edition,  London
[1870-72], 4to.
Re-issued in 1876-78.
--  Another edition. Illustrated
by Tony Johannot. London
[1879], 8vo.
— Another    edition.  London
[1880], 4to.
--  Another  edition.  London
[1881], 8vo.
Part of the " Excelsior Series."
-   People's edition.  2  pts.
London [1882], 4to.
-   Another edition.  El  Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de
la Mancha. With an introduction by H. Morley.   2 vols.
London, 1885, 8vo.
Vol. xxv. of "Morley's Universal
Library."
--  Another edition.   El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de


la Mancha.  Translated by C.
Jarvis. With an introduction
by H. Morley. 2 pts. London, 1890 [1889], 8vo.
Part of "Routledge's Popular
Library." A stereotyped reprint of
the edition published in " Morley's
Universal Library" in 1885.
Smollett's TranslationThe History and Adventures of Don
Quixote. To which is prefixed
some account of the author's
life. By T. Smollett.  Illustrated with twenty-eight new
copperplates  designed   by
Hayman, etc. 2 vols. London,
1755, 4to.
-   Second  edition.  4 vols.
London, 1761, 8vo.
--  Another edition.  4 vols.
London, 1782, 8vo.
-   Fifth edition, corrected. 4
vols. London, 1782, 12mo.
— Sixth edition. 4 vols. London, 1792, 12mo.
-   Sixth edition. 4 vols. London, 1793, 12mo.
--  Another edition.   4 vols.
Dublin, 1796, 8vo.
-   Cooke's edition.   5 vols.
London [1799], 12mo.
Miscellaneous TranslationsThe delightful history of Don
Quixot.   Also the  Comical
Humours of his facetious Squire
Sancho Panza, etc. [An abridged
translation by E. S.] London,
1689, 12mo.
-   The history of the renowned
Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Translated into English by G.
Kelly, Esq.   To which are
added notes, with copperplates.
4 vols. London, 1769, 12mo.
-   Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Translated from the Spanish
[by M. Smirke]. Embellished




x


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


with engravings from pictures
painted by R. Smirke,Esq.,R. A.
4 vols. London, 1818, 4to.
-   Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Translated from the Spanish [or
rather compiled for the most
part from previous translations.
With plates.] London, 1877,
8vo.
-   The Ingenious Knight, Don
Quixote de la Mancha. A new
translation from the originals
of 1605 and 1608, by A. J.
Duffield, with some of the notes
of J. Bowle, J. A. Pellicer, D.
Clemencin, and   other commentators.  3 vols, London,
1881 [1880], 8vo.
-   DonQuixote,from the Spanish,
with 30 Illustrations by Sir John
Gilbert, Tony Johannot, and
others. London, 1882, 8vo.
Part of "Routledge's Sixpenny
Series."
--  The Ingenious Gentleman,
Don Quixote of la Mancha. A
translation, with introduction
and notes, by John Ormsby.
4 vols. London, 1885, 8vo.
-   The Ingenious Gentleman,
Don Quixote of La Mancha. A
new edition; done into English,
with notes, originaland selected,
and a new life of the author. By
H. E. Watts. 5 vols. London,
1888, 4to.
DON QUIXOTE-A bridgments.
El Quijote de los Niaos y para
el Pueblo. Abreviado por un
entusiasta de su Autor. Madrid,
1856, 16mo.
El Quijote para Todos, abreviado
y anotado por un Entusiasta de
su Autor. Madrid, 1856, 8vo.


The much esteemed History of
Don Quixote de la Mancha
(contracted from the original).
London, 1699, 12mo.
The History of the ever-renowned
Knight Don    Quixote,  etc.
[Abridged from  the work of
Cervantes.]  London [1700?],
4to.
A Chap-book.
The much-esteemed History of
Don Quixote de la Mancha, etc.
2 pts. London, 1716, 12mo.
The most admirable and delightful History of the atchievements
of Don Quixote de la Mancha,
etc. London, 1721, 12mo.
The life and exploits of Don
Quixote de la Mancha abridged.
London, 1778, 12mo.
The history of Don Quixote; with
an account of his exploits.
Abridged [from Smollett's translation]. Halifax, 1839, 16mo.
The Story of Don Quixote and his
Squire Sancho Panza. By M.
Jones.  [With  illustrations.]
London, 1871, 8vo.
The Wonderful Adventures of Don
Quixote de la Mancha. Abridged
and adapted to youthful capacities by Sir Marvellous Crackjoke.  With illustrations by
K. Meadows and J. Gilbert.
London [1872], 4to.
The Adventures of Don Quixote
adapted for young readers, and
illustrated with coloured pictures. London [1883], 4to.
DON QUIxoTE —Extracts.
Manuel Alfabdtico de Quijote, 6
coleccion de pensamientos de
Cervantes en su immortal obra,




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


on


ordenados con algunas notas por
Don [Mariano] de R[ementeria?].
Madrid, 1838, 16mo.
Sentencias de Don Quijote y
Agudezas de Sancho. Maximas
y pensamientos mas notables
contenidos en la obra de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la
Mancha. Madrid, 1863, 16mo.
Cervantes as a novelist; from a
selection of the episodes and
incidents of the popular romance
of Don Quixote. [With coloured
plates.] London, 1822, 8vo.
Stories and chapters from Don
Quixoteversified. London[1830],
12mo.
Sancho Panza's Proverbs, and
others which occur in Don
Quixote; with a literal English
translation, notes, and an introduction by U. R. Burke. London, 1872, 8vo.
Only 36 copies privately printed.
-   Another edition.  Spanish
Salt, a collection of all the proverbs which are to be found in
DonQuixote. London,1877, 8vo.
Wit and Wisdom of Don Quixote.
New York, 1867, 12mo.
Another edition.    With a
biographicalsketch of Cervantes,
by Emma Thompson. Boston,
1882, 8vo.
The Adventures of Don Quixote.
(A selection.  The engravings
are borrowed from the edition
illustrated by Gustave Dord.)
London, 1885, 8vo.
The poetry of the " Don Quixote"
of Don Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra done into English by
J[ames]   Y[oung]  G[ibson],
Scotus. (In vol. 2 of " The Cid
Ballads," by J. Y. Gibson,
London, 1887.)


DON QUIXOTE-Appendix.
Aguilar, P. de.-Memorias del
Cantivo en la Goleta de Tunez,
el Alf6rez P. de Aguilar [men.
tioned by Cervantes in chaps.
39-41 of Part I. of Don Quixote].
Madrid, 1875, 8vo.
Published by the "Sociedad de
Bibliofilos Espailolas."
Ahmad Benengeli.-Adiciones &
la   Historia  del  Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quixote do la
Mancha. Madrid [1770?], 8vo.
Alcides.-El Alcides de la Mancha,
el famoso Don Quixote. De un
ingenio de esta corte. Comedia.
Madrid, 1750, 4to.
Almar, George.-Don Quixote;
or, the Knight of the Woeful
Countenance. Amusicaldrama,
in two acts. London [1833?],
12mo.
In vol. xiv. of "Cumberland's
Minor Theatre."
Antequera,    Ramon. -   Juicio
Analitico del Quijote, escrito
en Argamasillade Alba. Madrid,
1863, 8vo.
Anzarena,C. de.-Viday empressas
literarias  del  ingeniosissimo
caballero Don Quixote de la
Manchuela.   Parte  primera.
Sevilla [1767], 8vo.
No more published.
Armengol, A. C. —E "Quijote"
en Boston. Madrid, 1874, 8vo.
Baretti,  Joseph. -  Tolondron.
Speeches to John Bowle about
his edition of Don Quixote, etc.
London, 1786, 8vo.
Beneke, Juan   Basilico. -  Colleccion de vocablos, y frases
difficiles que occurren en Don
Quixote de la Mancha, etc.
Leipsique, 1808, 16mo.




Xii


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Biedermann, F. B. F. - Don
Quichotte, et la tfche de ses
traducteurs, etc. Paris, 1837,
8vo.
Bowle, John.-A Letter to the
Rev. Dr. Percy, concerning a
new and classical edition of Don
Quixote de la Mancha, etc.
London, 1777, 8vo.
Caballero,F. A.-Pericia geografica
de Miguel de Cervantes, demostrada con la historia de Don
Quijote de la Mancha. Madrid,
1840, 8vo.
Calderon, Juan.-Cervantes vindicado en ciento y quince pasajes
del texto del Ingenioso Hidalgo
D. Quijote de la Mancha
Madrid, 1854, 8vo.
Cervantes, Miguel de. - Don
Quixote de la Manche; Comedie
(founded on the work of Cervantes). Paris, 1640, 4to.
-Der Spannische Waghalss:
oder des vom Lieb bezauberten
Ritters  Don   Quixote   von
Quixada gantz neue Auschweiffung, etc. [A spurious continuation of Don Quixote.]  Nirnberg, 1696, 8vo.
-   Les principales avantures de
Don Quichotte, represent6es en
figures par Coypel, Picart et
antres habiles Maitres; avec
les  explications  des  xxxi.
planches tirees de l'original
Espagnol. C la Haie, 1746, 4to.
[The principal adventures of
Don Quixote engraved after
designs by C. A. Coypel.]
London [1775?], obl. 4to.
These engravings are copies on a
larger scale of the plates in the
preceding work. There are some
engravings here not contained in
the preceding work, and vice versd.
— Remarks on     the proposals


lately published [by T. Smollett]
for a new translation of Don
Quixote, in which will be considered the design of Cervantes
in writing the original, and
some new lights given relative
to his life and adventures. In
a letter from a gentleman in
the country [i.e., Col. W.
Windham]. London, 1755, 8vo.
-   Remarks on the extraordinary
conduct of the Knight of the
Ten Stars, and his Italian
Esquire, to the Editor of Don
Quixote.   In a letter to the
Rev.J. S., D.D. London, 1785,
8vo.
A vindication by the Rev. J.
Bowle of his edition of Don Quixote
against Baretti.
--  Instrucciones  econ6micas y
politicas dadas por el famoso
Sancho Panza, gobernador do la
insula Barataria, A un hijo suyo.
Madrid, 1791, 8vo.
Historia    del mas   famoso
escudero Sancho Panza desde la
gloriosa muerte de Don Quixote
le la Mancha, etc. [A continuation of the Don Quixote.] 2
parts. Madrid, 1793-98, 8vo.
El        Buscapi6.   Opdscolo
inedito, quo en defensa de la
primera   parte  del Quijote
escribib M. de Cervantes Saavedra [i].  Con notas historicas, criticas, i bibliograficas
por A. de Castro. Cadiz, 1848,
12mo.
— El Buscapie. With the illustrative notes of A. de Castro.
Translated from the Spanish.
With a life of the author and
some account of his works, by
Thomasina   Ross.    London,
1849, 12mo.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Xiii


-   The "Squib" or Searchfoot,
an unedited little work which
M. de Cervantes Saavedra wrote
in defence of the First Part of
the Quijote [?].  Published by
A. de Castro, 1847. Translated
by a member of the University
of  Cambridge.    Cambridge,
1849, 16mo.
A     los  Profanadores  del
ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote
de la Mancha. Critica y algo
mas, por el Diablo con antiparras. Madrid, 1861, 16mo.
-   Iconografia de Don Quijote.
Reproduccion  heliogrifica  y
loto-tipogrifica de 100 laminas
elegidas entre las 60 ediciones,
diversamente ilustradas, que se
han publicado durante 257 afios
en Barcelona, Paris, Venecia
destinadas A la primera edicion
de Don Quijote reproducida por
lo foto-tipografia por F. Lopez
FAbra. Barcelona, 1879, 4to.
Clemencin, Diego.-Indice de las
notas de D. Diego Clemencin
en su edici6n de 61 Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quijote de la
Mancha. Por Carlos F. Bradford. Madrid, 1885, 8vo.
Coleridge,  Samuel   T. -  The
Literary Remains of Samuel
Taylor  Coleridge.   4  vols.
London, 1836-39, 8vo.
Don Quixote, vol. i., pp. 113-131.
Coil y Vehi, Jos6.-Los Refranes
del  Quijote  ordenados  por
materias y glosados. Barcelona,
1874, 8vo.
Dawson, George. - Shakespeare
and other lectures, etc. London,
1888, 8vo.
Don Quixote, pp. 128-138.
Delgado, J. M.-Adiciones A la
historia del ingenioso hidalgo


Don Quixote de la Mancha.
Madrid [1770? ], 8vo.
Diaz  de  Benjumea,   U. -La
Estafeta de Urganda: 6 aviso
sobre el desencanto del Quijote.
Londres, 1861, 8vo.
-   El Correo de Alquife, 6
segundo aviso sobre el desencanto del Quijote.  Barcelona,
1866, 8vo.
-ElMensagede Merlin, 6 tercer
aviso sobre el desencanto del
Quijote. Londres, 1875, 8vo.
-   La Vendad sobre el Quijote.
Madrid, 1878, 8vo.
Droap, M., pseud. - Epistolas
Droapianas. Siete cantas sobre
Cervantes y el Quixote. Cadiz,
1868, 8vo.
Duffield, A. J.-Don Quixote, his
critics and his commentators.
With a brief account of the
minor works of Cervantes.
London, 1881, 8vo.
Dunlop, J. C.-History of Prose
Fiction. A new edition. 2 vols.
London, 1888, 8vo.
Don Quixote, vol. ii., pp. 313-323.
D'Urfey, Thomas.-The Comical
History of Don Quixote. Part I.
London, 1694, 4to.
--  Part the Second.  London,
1694, 4to.
-The Third Part.      London,
1696, 4to.
E. T.-Observaciones sobrealgunos
puntos de la obra de Don
Quixote. [Londres, 1807] 8vo.
Eximeno, A.-Apologia de Miguel
de Cervantes sobre los yerros
que se la han notado en el
Quixote. Madrid, 1806, 4to.
Fernandez de Avellaneda, A.,
pseud.-Segundo tomo del Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote
de la Mancha que contiene su




xiv


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


tercera salida; y es la quinta
parte de sus aventuras, compuesto por el licenciado A. F.
de  Avellaneda.   Tarragona,
1614, 8vo.
-Vida y Hechos del Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quixote de la
Mancha,   etc.   Nuevamente
anadido por J. Perales y Torres.
Madrid, 1732, 4to.
- Nueva edicion. 2 tom. Ma.
drid, 1805, 8vo.
-   Another edition.  Madrid,
1851, 8vo.
Tom. xviii. of Aribau's " Biblioteca
de Autores Espafoles."
-A Continuation of the Comical
History of the most Ingenious
Knight, Don Quixote de la
Mancha. By A. F. de Avellaneda. Being a third volume.
Translated [from the French
version of A. R. le Sage] by J.
Stevens. London, 1705, 8vo.
-The History of the Life and
Adventures of Don Quixote de
la Mancha continued. Now first
translated from the original
Spanish by Mr. Baker. With
cuts. 2 vols. London, 1745,
12mo.
-A Continuation of the History and Adventures of Don
Quixote de la Mancha. Translated into English [from the
French version of A. R. le
Sage] by W. A. Yardley. 2
vols. London, 1784, 8vo.
--  The Life and Exploits of Don
Quixote de la Mancha, containing his fourth sally, and the
fifth part of his adventures
written by the licentiate A. F.
de Avellaneda, with illustrations and corrections by Don I.
Perales y Torres. And now first


translated from the Spanish.
Swaffham, 1805, 8vo.
Gayton,Edmund.-Pleasant Notes
upon Don Quixot. London,
1654, fol.
-   Festivous Notes on the history and adventures of the renowned Don Quixote. London,
1768, 12mo.
Hernandez, Morejon A. - Historia Bibliografica de la Medecina Espanola, etc.  7 tom.
Madrid, 1842-52, 8vo.
Bellezas de Medicina prActica descubiertas en la obra de Cervantes,
tom. ii., pp. 166-180.
- Etude medico- psychologique
sur l'histoire de Don Quichotte.
Paris, 1858, 8vo.
Inglis, Henry D.-Rambles in the
Footsteps of Don Quixote. With
illustrations by George Cruickshank. London, 1837, 12mo.
Michaelis, C. T.-Lessings Minna
von Barnhelm und Cervantes'
Don Quijote. Berlin, 1883, 8vo.
Montegut, Emile.-Types Litteraires et Fantaises Esth6tiques.
Paris, 1882, 8vo.
Don Quichotte, pp. 43-92.
Noriega, F. de Paule.-Critique
et defense de Don Quichotte,
suivies de chapitres choisies de
l'ingenieux Hidalgo, etc. Paris,
1846, 18mo.
Pardo de Figueroa, M.-Droapiana
del ano 1869.   Octava carta
sobre Cervantes y el Quijote.
Madrid, 1869, 8vo.
Pellicer, J. A.-ExAmen critico
del tomo primero de el AntiQuixote  por Nicolas Perez.
Madrid, 1806, 12mo.
Perez, N.-El Anti-Quixote. Tom.
1. Madrid, 1805, 8vo.
No more published.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


XV


Piernas y Hurtado, Jose M.Ideas y noticias del Quijote.
Estudio de la obra de Cervantes.
Madrid, 1874, 8vo.
Piguenit, D. J.-Don Quixote,
an entertainment for music.
[By D. J. Piguenit.] London,
1774, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   London,
1776, 8vo.
Pinelli, B.-Le azioni pill celebrate  del  famoso   cavaliere
errante Don Chisciotto della
Mancha, inventate ed incise da
B. Pinelli. Roma [1834?] obl.
fol.
Pi y Molist, E.-Primores del Don
Quijote, en el concepto medicopsicologico,  etc.  Barcelona,
1886, 8vo.
Sainte-Bouve, C. A.-Nouveaux
Lundis.  Paris, 1867, 12mo.
Don Quichotte, tom. viii., pp. 1-65.
Saint-Victor, P}aul de. —IHommes
et Dieux. Etudes, etc. Paris,
1867, 8vo.
Don Quichotte, pp. 441-456.
Salva, V.-Ha sido juzgado el D.
Quijote segun esta obra merece?
Paris, 1840, 8vo.
Sbarbi, Jos6 Maria.-Intraducibilidad del Quijote, pasatiempo
literario, etc. Madrid, 1876,
8vo.
Tom. vi. of "El Refranero General
Espaftol."
Scherer, Edmond. - tudes critiques de Litterature.  Paris,
1876, 8vo.
Don Quichotte, toni. vii., pp. 84-97.
Sinerez, J. F. - El Quijote del
siglo xviii. 4 tom. Madrid,
1836, 8vo.
Tubino, Francisco M.-E1 Quijote
y La Estafeta de Urganda [de
Nicolas Diaz de Benjumea].
Sevilla, 1862, 8vo.


-   Cervantes y el Quijote, Estudios Criticos. Madrid, 1872,
8vo.
Valera, Juan.-Sobre el Quijote
y sobre las diferentes maneras
de comentarle y juzgarle. Madrid, 1864, 8vo.
Vidart, Luis.-El Quijoto y la
clasificacion de las obras literarias, etc. Madrid, 1882, 8vo.
-   Los Bi6grafos de Cervantes en
el siglo xviii., etc.  Madrid,
1886, 8vo.
Wildgoose, Geoffrey.-The Spiritual Quixote; or, the summer's
ramble of Mr. Geoffrey Wildgoose. A comic romance. [By
R. Graves.] 3 vols. London,
1773, 12mo.
-   Another edition.   2 vols.
Dublin, 1774, 12mo.
Y. T.-Don Quijote de la Mancha en el siglo xix.   Cadiz,
1861, 8vo.
VI. GALATEA.
Primera parte de la Galatea, dividida en  seys libros.   Juan
Gracian: Alcala, 1585, 8vo.
Extremely rare; only one copy
known.
-   Another   edition.   Gilles
Robinot: Paris, 1611, 8vo.
Primera parte de la Galatea,
dividida en seys libros. Valladolid, 1617, 8vo.
-   Los seys libros de la Galatea.
Barcelona, 1618, 8vo.
-   Another edition. Corregida
e ilustrada con laminas finas. 2
tom. Madrid, 1784, 8vo.
Another edition.     3 vols.
Madrid, 1805, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   3 vols.
Madrid, 1805, 8vo.
I3-!




xvi


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


-Los seis libros de la Galatea.
(Edicion diamante.) Madrid,
1883, 12mo.
-   Galatea. A pastoral romance,
literally translated from the
Spanish by G. W. J. Gyll.
London, 1867, 8vo.
VII. NOVELAS-Spanish.
Novelas exemplares.  J. de la
Cuesta: Madrid, 1613, 4to.
First edition. SalvA in his catalogue says this edition is very scarce.
Second edition. J. de Cuesta:
Madrid, 1614, 4to.
SalvA says this edition is even
rarer than the first.
— Third edition. N. de Assiayn:
Pamplona, 1614, 8vo.
-Fourth edition.     R. Velpio
y H. Antonio. Brusselas, 1614,
8vo.
- Another   edition.  N. de
Assiayn. Pamplona, 1615, 8vo.
Another edition. J. B. Bidelo.
Milan, 1615, 24mo.
-   Another edition.  Venecia,
1616, 12mo.
-   Another edition.    Lisboa,
1617, 4to.
-   Another edition. Pamplona,
1617, 8vo.
-Another     edition.  Madrid,
1622, 8vo.
-Another     edition.  Sevilla,
1624, 8vo.
-   Another edition. Brusselas,
1625, 8vo.
-   Another edition. Barcelona,
1631, 8vo.
Another     edition.  Sevilla,
1648, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   Madrid,
1655, 8vo.


-  Another edition.  Madrid,
1664, 4to.
Another edition.     Sevilla,
1664, 4to.
-   Another edition.   Madrid,
1722, 4to.
Another edition. Barcelona,
1722, 4to.
-Another edition. Afadido un
indice de libros de novelas,
patranas, cuentos, hecho por
un curioso. Madrid, 1732, 4to.
-   Ultima impression.   Adornadas de muy bellas estampas.
[Edited by P. Pineda.] 2 tom.
Haya, 1739, 8vo.
-   Nueva impression corregida
y adornada con laminas. 2 tom.
Madrid, 1783, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   2 vols.
Valencia, 1797, 8vo.
-Another edition.      3 tom.
Madrid, 1799, 12mo.
Another edition.     3 vols.
Madrid, 1803, 8vo.
-   Nueva impression corregida
y adornada con laminas. 2 tom.
Perpinan, 1816, 12mo.
-   Another edition.   2 vols.
Madrid, 1821, 8vo.
-   Nueva impression, etc.   2
vols. Paris, 1825, 12mo.
-   Cervantes  Novelas  Ejemplares.  Mit kritischen  und
grammatischen Anmerkungen,
nebst einem Worterbuche von
P. A. F. Possart.    Leipzig,
1833, 8vo.
— Nueva edicion. Paris, 1835,
8vo.
Tom. ii. of the "Coleccion de los
mejores Autores Espafioles."
Another edition.     2 vols.
Barcelona, 1844, 8vo.
-   Another edition.   Madrid,
1881, 16mo.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


i..
XVII


Novelas exemplares. Rinconete y
Cortadillo.  Edicion ilustrada,
etc. Madrid, 1846, 8vo.
-     - Novelas    Ejemplares.
(Rinconete y Cortadillo.  El
Celoso Extrermeio.  Las Dos
Doncellas.)  Madrid,   1873,
16mo.
Tom. ix. of the "Biblioteca
Universal."
NOVELAs-English.
Exemplarie Novells; in sixe
books.  The Two Damosels.
The   Ladie  Cornelia.  The
Liberall Lover. The Force of
Bloud. The Spanish Ladie.
The Jealous Husband. Turned
into English by Don Diego
Puede-Ser [i.e., James Mabbe].
London, 1640, fol.
A collection of select novels,
written originally in Castillian
by  Don   Miguel   Cervantes
Saavedra.  Made English by
H. Bridges. Bristol, 1728, 8vo.
Instructive  and   entertaining
novels.  Translated from the
original Spanish by T. Shelton.
With an account of the work,
by a gentleman of the Inner
Temple. London, 1742, 12mo.
--  Another edition.   Dublin,
1747, 12mo.
The Exemplary Novels of M. de
Cervantes Saavedra.  2 vols.
London, 1822, 12mo.
The Exemplary Novels of M. de
Cervantes Saavedra, to which
are added El Buscapie, or the
Serpent; and La Tia Fingida,
or the Pretended Aunt. Translated by W. K. Kelly. London, 1855, 8vo.
Bohn's Extra Volume Series.


The Exemplary Novels of Mignel
de Cervantes Saavedra. Translated by W. K. Kelly. London,
1881, 8vo.
Part of "Bohn's Standard Library."
El Zeloso Estremeno: the Jealous
Estremaduran; a novel done
from the Spanish by J. Ozell.
London [1710?], 8vo.
A dialogue between Scipio and
Bergansa, two dogs belonging to
Toledo. To which is annexed
the history of Rincon and Cortado.  Now   first  translated
from  the Spanish.  London,
1767, 12mo.
The Force of Blood. A novel.
Translated from the Spanish of
M. de Cervantes Saavedra.
London, 1800, 12mo.
Rinconete and Cortadillo.-The
Pretended Aunt.-El Amante
Liberal. [Translated from the
Spanish.] London, 1832, 8vo.
Part of Roscoe's " Spanish Novelists."
VIII. TRABAJOS DE PERSILES Y SIGISMUNDA.
Los Trabaios de Persiles y Sigismunda, historia setentrional.
J. de la Cuesta: Madrid, 1617,
4to.
-   Another edition.  J. de la
Cuesta: Madrid, 1617, 8vo.
-   Another   edition.  N.  de
Assiayn: Pamplona, 1617, 8vo.
-Another     edition.  Estevan
Richer: Paris, 1617, 8vo.
-   Another edition. B. Sorita:
Barcelona, 1617, 8vo.
-   Another edition. P. P. Mey:
Valencia, 1617, 8vo.
-   Another edition. Los traba.




xviu


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


jos de Persiles y Sigismunda,
historia septentrional. Madrid,
1617 [1750? ], 4to.
A counterfeit reprint.
-Another edition.     Brucclas,
1618, 8vo.
Another edition. Historia de
los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda corregida, etc. Barcelona, 1734, 4to.
--    Another  edition.  Nuevamente corregida en esta ultima
impression.  Barcelona, 1768,
4to.
--   Another edition. Trabajos
de Persiles y Sigismunda, etc.
2 tom. Madrid, 1781, 8vo.
-   Another   edition. 2  tom.
Madrid, 1799, 12mo.
-   Another edition.   2  tom.
Madrid, 1802, 8vo.
-   Another   edition.  3 vols.
Madrid, 1805, 8vo.
-Nueva edicion. (Por D. M.
F. de Navarrete.) Paris, 1841,
8vo.
Tom. xxvi. of the "Coleccion de
los mejores Autores Espafioles."
-   Another   edition.  Madrid,
1880, 16mo.
-   The Travels of Persiles and
Sigismunda.   Translated into
French and now into English.
London, 1619, 4to.
-   The Wanderings of Persiles
and Sigismunda. [Translated
byL.D.S.-i.e.,LouisaDorothea
Stanley.] London, 1854 [1853],
8vo.
IX. VIAGE DEL PARNASO.
Viage del Parnaso. Por la viuda
de A. Martin: Madrid, 1614,
8vo.


-   Journey to Parnassus, translated into English tercets, with
preface and illustrative notes,
by J. Y. Gibson. To which are
subjoined the antique text and
translation of the letter of Cervantes to M. Vazquez. London,
1883, 8vo.
X. EXTRACTS.
El espiritu de M. de Cervantes y
Saavedra, 6 la filosofia de este
grande ingenio presentada en
maximas, reflexiones, moralidades y agudezas sacadas do
sus obras, y distribuidas por
orden alfabdtico de materias,
etc. Madrid, 1814, 8vo.
-   Nueva edicion. Madrid, 1885,
12mo.
Aniversario cclx. de la Muerta
de M. de Cervantes Saavedra.
Album  literario dedicado A la
Memoria del Rey de los Ingenios
Espanolas. Publicalo la Redaccion de la Revista Literaria
"Cervantes."  Madrid, 1876,
8vo.
XI. SUPPOSITITIOUS WORKS.
Comedia de la Soberana Virgen de
Guadalupe, y sus Milagros, y
Grandezas de Espana. Sevilla,
1868, 8vo.
Published by the "Sociedad de
Bibli6filas Andaluces."
The troublesome and hard adven.
tures in love.  Lively setting
forth the feavers, the dangers,
and the jealousies of lovers.
Written in Spanish by that
excellent and famous gentleman




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


xix


Michael Cervantes; and exactly
translated into English by R.
C[odtington], Gent. London,
1652, 4to.
The diverting works of the famous
Michael de Cervantes;   Now
first translated from theSpanish.
With an introduction by the
author of the London Spy [E.
Ward; or rather, translated by
him from the "Para todos" of
J. Perez de Montalban]. London, 1709, 8vo.
A fabrication by Ward.
XII. APPENDIX.
BIOGRAPHY, CRITICISM, ETC.
Arboli, S.-Oracion funebre que
por encargo de la Real Academia Espalola y en las honras
de Miguel de Cervantes, etc.
Madrid, 1876, 8vo.
Arnesen-Kall, B.-Den Spanske
Trilogi. Studie, etc. Kpbenhavn, 1884, 8vo.
Cervantes, pp. 12-46.
Asensio y Toledo, Jos6 Maria.Nuevos documentos para ilustrar la vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, etc. Sevilla,
1864, 4to.
-El Conde de Lemos, protector
de Cervantes.   Estudio  hist6rico, etc. Madrid, 1880, 8vo.
Baumstark,Reinhold. -Cervantes.
Ein   spanisches  Lebensbild.
Freiburg im  Breisgau, 1875,
8vo.
Benavides y Navarrete, F. de P.
-Oracion funebre que por encargo de la Real Academia
Espanola y en las honras de
Miguel   de  Cervantes,  etc.
Madrid, 1863, 8vo.


Bouterwek, Frederick.-History
of Spanish and Portuguese
Literature.   Translated   by
Thomasina    Ross.   2   vols.
London, 1823, 8vo.
Cervantes, vol. L, pp. 327-358.
Bragge, W.-Brief Hand List of
the Cervantes Collection presented to the Birmingham Free
Library. [Birmingham, 1874],
8vo.
Casenave, J. M.-El Ayer y el
Hoy de Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra.   Valladolid,  1877,
8vo.
Cervantes, Miguel de.-Aparicion
nocturna de Miguel de Cervantes
a Don F. Caballero, por el
Corresponsal de los Muertos.
Madrid, 1841, 8vo.
Real Academia Sevillana do
Buenas    Letras.   CertSmen
Poetica para commemorar el
Aniversario cclvii. de la Muerte
de Cervantes.   Sevilla, 1873,
8vo.
-   Aniversario  de   Cervantes.
Fiesta Literaria verificada en el
Instituto de Cadiz para commemorar la muerte del Principe
de nuestros Ingenios.  2 pts.
Cadiz, 1874-5, 8vo.
Real Academia Sevillana de
BuenasLetras. Commemoracion
del Aniversario cclxi. de la
Muerte de Cervantes en el dia
23 Abril de 1877. Sevilla, 1877
8vo.
Aniversario    cclxii.  de  la
muerte de Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra.   Libro  compuesto
para honrar la memoria del
principe   de   los   ingenios
Espalolas por sus admiradores
de Chile. Santiago de Chile,
1878, 8vo.




XX


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Chasles,   Emile. - Michel   do
Cervantes, sa vie, son temps,
son ceuvre politique et litteraire.
Paris, 1866, 8vo.
Dorer, Edmund.-Cervantes und
seine Werke nach deutschen
Urtheilen. Mit einem Anhange:
Die Cervantes Bibliographie.
Leipzig, 1881, 8vo.
Entremes. -  El   Entremes   de
Refranes. i Es de Cervantes?
Estudio critico-literario por 0.
Cayetano Vidal de Valenciano.
Barcelona, 1883, 8vo.
Espino,   R.   A. -  Miscelanea
Literaria.  Burgos, 1886, 8vo.
Un entremes de Cervantes, pp.
189-205; Otro entremes de CervAntes,
pp. 207-227.
Fernandez, C.-Oracion funebre
que por encargo de la Real
Academia Espanola y en las
honras de Miguel de Cervantes,
etc. Madrid, 1867, 8vo.
Fernandez ne Navarrete, M.-Vida
de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra,
escrita e ilustrada por D. M.
Fernandez de Navarrete, etc.
Madrid, 1819, 8vo.
Feuilleret, H. - Le Captif, ou
Aventures de Michel Cervantes.
Paris, 1859, 8vo.
Foronda, Manual (le.-Cervantes
viajero, etc.  Madrid, 1880,
8vo.
Gallardo y Victor, M.-Memoria
escrita sobre el rescate de Cervantes, etc. Cadiz, 1876, 8vo.
Giles, Henry. - Illustrations of
Genius, etc. Boston, 1854, 8vo.
Cervantes, pp. 7-29; Don Quixote,
pp. 30-65.
Hagberg, Charles A.-Cervantes
et Walter Scott, parallPle litteraire, etc. Lund, 1838, 8vo.
Honeywater, Ricardo Don.-The
Cornutor of Seventy-five. Being


a genuine narrative of the life,
adventures, and amours of Don
R. Honeywater. Written originally in Spanish, by the author
of Don Quixote (Cervantes, or
rather by John Douglas), etc.
London [1748], 8vo.
Second     edition.  London
[1748?], 8vo.
Igartuburu, L. de.-Dicionario de
tropos y figuras de retorica, con
ejemplos de Cervantes.   Madrid, 1842, 8vo.
Jimenez, F. de Paula.-Oracion
funebre que por encargo de la
Real Academia Espanola, y en
las honras de Miguel de Cervantes, etc. Madrid, 1864, 8vo.
King, Alice.-A Cluster of Lives.
Second edition. London, 1874,
8vo.
Cervantes, pp. 215-229.
Langford, John A.-Prison Books
and their authors.   London,
1861, 8vo.
Cervantes, pp. 58-82.
Latour, Antoine de.-iEtudes sur
l'Espagne, etc.  Paris, 1855,
8vo.
Cervantes B Seville, tor. i., pp.
253-291.
Louveau, E.-De Manie dans Cervantes. These, etc. Montpellier, 1876, 4to.
Mainez, R. L.-Cartas literarias
por el bachiller Cervantico.
Cadiz, 1868, 8vo.
Mayans y Siscar, G.-Vida de
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.
Briga-Real, 1737, 8vo.
-Vida de Miguel de Cervantes
Saavedra, etc. Quinta Impression. Madrid, 1750, 8vo.
The Life of Michael de Cervantes Saavedra. Translated by
Mr. Ozell. London, 1738, 4to.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


xxi


Moran, Jer6nimo.-Vida de Mi-      referentes a la literatura precep.
guel de Cervantes Saavedra.     tiva, etc. Madrid, 1878. 8vo.
Madrid, 1863, 4to.            Watts, H. E.-Cervantes. (EnMuret, Th. - Michel Cervantes,    cyclopedia Britannica. Ninth
drame en vers.   Paris, 1856,   edition, vol. v.) London, 1876,
12mo.                           4to;
Oliphant, M. O. - Cervantes.
Edinburgh, 1880, 8vo.              MAGAZINE ARTICLES.
Part of the " Foreign Classics for
English Readers."             Cervantes, Miguel de. Semanario
Picatoste y Rodriguez, F. - Le    Pintoresco, by J. de La Revilla,
casa de Cervantes en Vallado-   1840, pp. 329-332.-Bentley's
lid. Madrid, 1888, 8vo.         Miscellany, vol. 24, 1848, pp.
Prescott, W. H. -Biographical     626, 627. —Dublin University
and Critical Essays. London,    Magazine, vol. 68, 1866, pp.
1855, 8vo.                      123-138; same article, Catholic
Cervantes, pp. 67-94.         World, vol. 4, 1867, pp. 14-28.
Rementeria y Fica, M.-Honores     -Month, vol. 7, 1867, pp. 50 -tributados a la niemoria  de    62.-Argosy, by Alice King,
Miguel Cervantes Saavedra en    vol. 7, 1869, pp. 117-122.-La
la capital de Espagne en el     Ilustracion Espafiola, by F. M.
primer aio   del reinado  de    Tubino, 1872, pp. 250, 251.Isabel II., etc. Madrid, 1834,  All the Year Round, vol. 37,
8vo.                            N.S., 1886, pp. 534-539.
Roscoc, Thomas.-The Lifo and -      and Beaumont and Fletcher.
Writings of Miguel de Cervantes  Fraser's  Magazine, vol. 91,
Saavedra, etc. London, 1839,    1875, pp. 592-597.
12mo.                         -   and his Writings. American
No. 39 of the "Family Library."  Monthly Magazine, vol. 7, 1836,
Compiled from Navarrete.        pp. 342-354.
Segovia,  A.   M. -  Cervantes. -   and Lope de Vega. Sharpe's
Nueva   Utopia,   monumento     London Journal, by F. Lawnacional de eterna gloria imagi-  rence, vol. 11, p. 228.
nado en honra del principe de -El Buscapid. Dublin Review,
los ingenios.  Madrid, 1861,    vol. 26, 1849, pp. 137-152.
8vo.                          -   Caractre historique et moral
Ticknor, George. -  History of    dau Don Quichotte. Revue des
Spanish Literature.  3 vols.    Deux Mondes, by Emile MonBoston, 1872, 8vo.              tegut, tom. 50, 1864, pp. 170 -Cervantes, vol. ii., pp. 107-179, etc.  195.
Urdaneta, A. -Cervantes y la -      Cervantes fug 6 no poeta?
critica. Caracas, 1877, 8vo.    Semanario Pintoresco, by A. de
Vidart, Luis.- Cervantes, poeta   Castro, 1851, pp. 354, 355.
6pico. Apuntes criticos. Ma- -La      Cocina del Quijote. La
drid, 1877, 8vo.                Ilustracion Espanol, 1872, pp.
--  Algunas ideas de Cervantes    533-539, 554, 555, 566-570.




XXl1


BIBLIOGRAPHY.


Cervantes, Miguel de.
-   Comentarios  filos6ficos  del
Quijote.  Cronica   HispanoAmericana, by N. D. Benjumea,
1859, Nos. 14, 15, 16, 17, 18,
19, 20.
-   Congeturas sobre el fundamento que pudo tener la idea que
did origen d la patracla de el
Buscapid. Revista de Ciencias,
Literatura y Artes, by C. A. de
la Barrera, tom. 2, 1856, pp.
731-741.
-   Decouverte du veritable portrait de Cervantes. Revue lIritannique, by A. de Latour, 9
Serie, 1865, pp. 471-485.
-   Don   Quixote.  Blackwood's
Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 11,
1822, pp.   657-668. - North
American Review, by W. 1H.
Prescott, vol. 45, 1837, pp.
1-34.-Revue Franiaise, by A.
Nisard, vol. 7, 1838, pp. 299 -327.-Knickerbocker, by    R.
J. de Cordova, vol. 38, 1851,
pp. 189-203.-Westminster Review, vol. 33, N.S., 1868, pp.
299-327; same article, Eclectic
Magazine, vol. 8, N.S., pp. 909 -925.-Cornhill Magazine, vol.
30, 1874, pp. 595-616.
--       and Gil Bias.    Penn
Monthly, by C. H. Drew, vol.
3, 1872, pp. 555-564.
-     — DIuffeld's  Translation.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, vol. 130, 1881, pp. 4ti9 -490.
-     -- Episodes of Don Quixote.
London Magazine, vol. 6, N.S.,
1826, pp. 557-566; vol. 7, N.S.,
1827, pp. 11-19.
-     --  eine on Don Quixote.
Temple Bar, vol. 48, 1876, pp.
235-249.


Cervantes, Miguel de.
-   -  Jarvis's Translation of
Don Quixote. Monthly Review,
vol. 3, N.S., 1837, pp. 230-240.
-     -  Library of Don Quixote.
Fraser's Magazine, vol. 7, 1833,
pp. 324-331, 565-577.
-     -- Ormsby's Translation of
Don Quixote.   Quarterly Review, vol. 162, 1886, pp. 43-79.
-Saturday Review, June 13,
1885, pp. 794, 795.-Nation,
vol. 41, 1885, pp. 513, 514, 535 -537.
--     - Rambles in the Footsteps
of Don Quixote. Dublin University Magazine, vol. 11, 1838,
pp. 574-581.
-   Drama    of.    Gentleman's
Magazine, by J. Mew, vol. 23,
N.S., 1879, pp. 446-470.
-   Educacion cientifica de Cervantes. El Museo Universal, by
N. D. Benjumea, tom. 13, 1869,
pp. 19-22, 38, 39.
Entremeses.   Gentleman's
Magazine, by James Mew, 1881,
pp. 451-469.
-Estatua de Cervantes. Semanario Pintoresco, 1836, pp. 249 -253.
-   Galatea. Gentleman's Magazine, by James Mew, 1880, pp.
670-690.
-   Life of. United States Literary Gazette, vol. 2, 1827, pp.
415-427.-Monthly Review, vol.
2, N.S., 1834, pp. 383-395.North American Review, by E.
Wigglesworth, vol. 38, 1834,
pp. 277-307.-North American
Review, by W. H. Prescott,
vol. 45, 1837, pp. 1-34.
-Nota     de las Personas que
intervienen en la Historia del
Ingeniosa Hidalgo Don Quijote.




BIBLIOGRAPHY.


XXIIi


Cervantes, Miguel de.
Semanario Pintoresco, by R.
Salomon, 1850, pp. 129-134.
Notas d la Vida de Cervantes.
Revista de Ciencias, Literatura y Artes, by C. A. de la
Barrera, tom. 3, 1856, pp. 468 -478.
-   Novels.  Gentleman's Magazine, by James Mew, 1878, pp.
358-372; 1879, pp. 95-110.
-   Observaciones sobre las Ediciones primitivas del Ingenioso
Hidalgo Don Quijote de la
Mancha. Revista de Espana,
by Jos4 Maria Asensio, tom. 9,
1869, pp. 367-376.
- Un Paseo d la Patria de Don
Quijote. Semanario Pintoresco,
by J. Jimenez-Serrano, 1848,
pp. 19-22, 35-37, 41-43, 109-111,
131-133.
--  Le Portrait de    Cervantes.
Revue Germanique, by J. M.


Cervantes, Miguel de.
Guardia, tom. 38, 1866, pp.
300-314.
-Recuerdos de Cervantes. SemanarioPintoresco, by J. JiminezSerrano, 1848, pp. 161-163.
--   esumenpororden cronologico,
de las principales aventuras del
Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote.
Semanario Pintoresco, by R.
Salomon, 1850, pp. 148-151.
--  Significacion histdrica de Cervantes. Cronica Hispano-Americana, by N. Benjumea, tom. 3,
1859, pp. 8, 9.
— La Tia Fingida. El Criticon,
by B. J. Gallardo, No. 1, 1835.
--  Viage de Cervantes d Italia.
El Museo Universal, by N. D.
Benjumea, tom. 13, 1869, pp.
102, 103, 110.
-   Voyage to Parnassis. Gentleman's Magazine, by James
Mew, 1880, pp. 81-93.


XIII. CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF WORKS.


Galatea
Don QuixoteFirst Part
Second Part
Novelas Exemplares
Viage del Parnaso
Ocho Comedias.


1585 Los Trabajos de Persiles y
Sigismunda
1605 La Numancia1615         First printed.
1613 El Trato de Argel1614         First printed.
1615


1617
1784
1784


THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.








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LIFE OF THACKERAY. By Herman Merivale and Frank
T. Marzials.
Library Edition of " Great Writers," )Demy 8vo, 2s. 6d.
London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.




MM Ganteepbupy Poels
EDITED BY WILLIAM SHARP. IN I/- MONTHLY VOLUMES.
Cloth, Red Edges  -    Is.    Red Roan, Gilt Edges 2s. 6d.
Cloth, Uncut Edges -   is.    Pad. Morocco, Gilt Edges - 5s.


KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR.
COLERIDGE.      Ed. by J. Skipsey.
LONGFELLOW. Ed. by E. Hope.
CAMPBELL. Ed. by J. Hogben.
SHELLEY. Edited by J. Skipsey.
WORDSWORTH.
Edited by A. J. Symington.
BLAKE. Ed. by Joseph Skipsey.
WHITTIER.       Ed. by Eva Hope.
POE.     Edited by Joseph Skipsey.
CHATTERTON. By J. Richmond.
BURNS. Poems        Edited by
BURNS. Songs     Joseph Skipsey.
MARLOWE. Ed. by P.E.Pinkerton.
KEATS. Edited by John Hogben.
HERBERT. Edited by E. Rhys.
HUGO. Trans. by Dean Carrington.
COWPER.      Edited by Eva Hope.
SHAKESPEARE'S Poems, etc.
Edited by William Sharp.
EMERSON. Edited by W. Lewin.
SONNETS of this CENTURY.
Edited by William Sharp.
WHITMAN.       Edited by E. Rhys.
SCOTT. Marmion, etc.
SCOTT. Lady of the Lake, etc.
Edited by William Sharp.
PRAED. Edited by Fred. Cooper.
HOGG. Byhis Daughter,Mrs. Garden.
GOLDSMITH. Ed. by W. Tirebuck.
MACKAY'S LOVE LETTERS.
SPENSER. Edited byHon. R. Noel.
CHILDREN OF THE POETS.
Edited by Eric S. Roberteon.
JONSON. EditedbyJ. A. Symonds.
BYRON (2 Vols.) Ed.byM.Blind.
THE SONNETS OF EUROPE.
Edited hy S. Waddington.
RAMSAY. Ed. byJ. L. Robertson.
DOBELL.     Edited by Mrs. Dobell.
DAYS OF THE YEAR.
With Introduction by Win. Sharp.
POPE.      Edited by John Hogben.
HEINE. Edited by Mra Kroeker.
BEAUMONT & FLETCHER.
Edited by J. S. Fletcher.
BOWLES LAMB &o.
Edited by William Tirebuck.
EARLY ENGLISH POETRY.
Edited by H. Macaulay Fitzglbbon.
SEA MUSIC. Edited by Mrs Sharp.
HERRICK. Edited by EraestRhys.


BALLADES AND RONDEAUS
Edited by J. Gleeson White.
IRISH MINSTRELSY.
Edited by H. Halliday Sparling.
MILTON'S PARADISE LOST.
Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D.
JACOBITE     BALLADS.
Edited by G. S. Macquoid.
AUSTRALIAN BALLADS.
Edited by D. B. W. Sladen, B.A.
MOORE. Edited by John Dorrian
BORDER BALLADS.
Edited by Graham R. Tomson.
SONG-TIDE. By P. B. Marston,
ODES OF HORACE.
Translations by Sir S. de Vere, Bt.
OSSIAN.     Edited by G. E. Todd.
ELFIN MUSIC. Ed. by A. Waite.
SOUTHEY. Ed. byS. R. Thompson.
CHAUCER. Edited by F. N. Paton.
POEMS OF WILD LIFE.
Edited by Chas. G. D. Roberts, M.A.
PARADISE REGAINED.
Edited by J. Bradshaw, M.A., LL.D.
CRABBE. Edited byE. Lamplough.
DORA GREENWELL.
Edited by William Dorling.
FAUST. Edited by E. Craigmyle.
AMERICAN SONNETS.
Edited by William Sharp.
LANDOR'S POEMS.
Selected and Edited by E. Radford.
GREEK ANTHOLOGY.
Edited by Graham R. Tomson.
HUNT AND HOOD.
Edited by J. Harwood Panting.
HUMOROUS POEMS.
Edited by Ralph H. Caine.
LYTTON'S PLAYS.
Edited by R. F. Sharp.
GREAT ODES. Ed. by Wm. Sharp.
MEREDITH'S POEMS.
Edited by M. Betham-Edwards.
PAINTER-POETS.
Edited by Kineton Parkes.
WOMEN POETS.
Edited by Mrs. Sharp.
LOVE LYRICS.
Edited by Percy Hulburd.
AMERICAN HUMOROUS
VERSE.      Edited by Jais. Barr.
MINOR SCOTCH LYRICS.
Edited by Sir George Douglas.


London: WALTER SCOTT, 24 Warwick Lane, Paternoster Row.








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