OF THL U N I VLR5 ITY Of ILLINOIS Tom Turner Collection 819 P 92. k I9S4 UNIVERSITY or AT i '^RARY 6C^Ao..-.CKS CENTRAL CIRCULATION AND BOOKSTACKS The person borrowing this material is responsible for its renewal or return before the Latest Date stamped below. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each non-returned or lost item. Theft, mutilation, or defacement of library materials can be causes for student disciplinary action. All materials owned by the University of Illinois Library are the property of the State of Illinois and are protected by Article 1 6B of Illinois Criminal Law and Procedure, TO RENEW, CALL (217) 333-8400. University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign eUliO/NG USE ONLy 0EC 30 2IC When renewing by phone, write new due date below previous due date. LI 62 * NOW KEADY, IN POST 8 VO. 7s. THE BALTIC, THE BLACK SEA AND THE CRIMEA. COMPRISING Travels in Russia, a Voyage down th.e Volga to Astrachan and a Tour through. Grim Tartary. BY CHARLES HENRY SCOTT. LONDON, RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. (Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.) CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL ESSAYS. BY' WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT, AUTHOR OF “the HISTORY OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA,” “the conquest of MEXICO,” ETC. THIRD EDITION. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET, iiublisfjer in 0rtJmarg to |§er IWlajests. 1854. LONDON : BR.VDBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS. Sl^ p?J>.h / S' s'*/ TO I GEOEGE TICKNOE, ESQUIEE, THIS VOLUME, / WHICH MAY REMIND HIM OF STUDIES PURSUED TOGETHER IN EARLIER DAYS, 5s affccttonatelj? IBeU (eaten BY HIS FRIEND, WILLIAM H. PEESCOTT. CONTENTS. CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN, THE AMERICAN NOVELIST ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND IRVINO’S CONQUEST OF GRANADA . , . . CERVANTES ........ SIR WALTER SCOTT ....... Chateaubriand’s English literature Bancroft’s united states MADAME Calderon’s life in Mexico MOLIERE ......... ITALIAN NARRATIVE POETRY POETRY AND ROMANCE OF THE ITALIANS . . . SCOTTISH SONG . DA PONTE ’S OBSERVATIONS TICKNOR’s HISTORY OF SPANISH LITERATURE PAGE 1 39 60 84 120 167 200 232 247 281 336 392 412 442 '' - J it i PREFACE. The following Essays, with a single exception, have been selected from contributions originally made to the North American Review. They are purely of a literary character ; and as they have little reference to local or temporary topics, and as the Journal in which they appeared, though the most considerable in the United States, is not widely circulated in Great Britain, it has been thought that a republication of the Articles might have some novelty and interest for the English reader. Several of the papers were written many years since ; and the Author is aware that they betray those crudities in the execution which belong to an unpractised writer, — while others of more recent date may be charged with the inaccuracies incident to rapid and, sometimes, careless composition. The more obvious blemishes he has endeavoured to correct, without attempting to reform the critical judgments^ which, in some cases, he could wish had been expressed in a more qualified and temperate manner ; and he dismisses the volume with the hope that, in submitting it to the British public, he may not be thought to have relied too far on that indulgence which has been so freely extended to his more elaborate efforts. Boston, March 30 , 1846 . ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION. ♦ The reception given to these Essays^^ has been sufficiently favourable to induce the Publisher to bring them out in a new edition, corresponding with that of the Author^s Historical Works ; and he takes this occasion to state, that in addition to the former papers, will now be found an article of considerable length, lately written on the History of Spanish Literature. London, September f 1850. h jmtv nt?7 ,:r ':s^rtns. But all these particulars, however pertinent to a philosophical his- tory, would have been entirely out of keeping in Mr. Irving’s, and might have produced a disagreeable discord- ance in the general harmony of his plan. Mr. Irving has seldom selected a subject better suited to his peculiar powers that the conquest of Granada. Indeed, it would hardly have been possible for one of his warm sensibilities to linger so long among the remains of Moorish magnificence, with which Spain is covered, without being interested in the fortunes of a people, whose memory has almost passed into oblivion, but who once preserved the “ sacred flame,” when it became extinct in every corner of Christendom, and whose influence is still visible on the intellectual culture of Modern Europe. It has been found no easy matter, however, to compile a satisfactory and authentic account of the Arabians, notwithstanding that the number of their historians, cited by D’Herbelot and Casiri, would appear to exceed that of any European nation. The despotic governments of the East have never been found propitious to that independence of opinion so essential to historical composition ; “ ubi sentire quse velis, et quae sentias dicere licet.” And their copious compilations, pro- lific in frivolous and barren detail, are too often wholly destitute of the sap and vitality of history. The social and moral institutions of Arabian Spain expe- rienced a considerable modification from her long intercourse with the Europeans ; and she offers a nobler field of research for the chronicler, than is to be found in any other country of the Moslem. Notwithstanding this, the Castilian scholars, until of late, have done little towards elucidating the national antiquities of their Saracen brethren ; and our most copious notices of their political history, until the recent posthumous publication of Conde, have been drawn from the extracts which M. Cardonne translated from the Arabic Manuscripts in the Royal Library at Paris.^ Since this article was written, the deficiency noticed in the text has HIVING ’s CONQUEST OF GRANADA. 75 The most interesting periods of the Saracen dominion in Spain, are that embraced by the Empire of the Omeyades of Cordova, between the years 755 and 1030, — and that of the Kingdom of Granada, extending from the middle of the thirteenth to the close of the fifteenth century. The inter- vening period of their existence in the peninsula offers only a spectacle of inextricable anarchy. The first of these periods was that in which the Arabs attained their meridian of opu- lence and power, and in which their general illumination affords a striking contrast with the deep barbarism of the rest of Europe. But it was that, too, in which their cha- racter, having been but little affected by contact with the Spaniards, retained most of its original Asiatic peculiarities. This has never been regarded, therefore, by European scholars, as a period of greatest interest in their history, nor has it ever, so far as we are aware, been selected for the purposes of romantic fiction. But when their territories became reduced within the limits of Granada, the Moors had insensibly submitted to the superior influences of their Christian neighbours. Their story, at this time, abounds in passages of uncommon beauty and interest. Their wars were marked by feats of personal prowess and romantic adve-nture, while the intervals of peace were abandoned to all the licence of luxurious revelry. Their character, there- fore, blending the various peculiarities of Oriental and European civilisation, offers a rich study for the poet and the novelist. As such, it has been liberally employed by the Spaniards, and has not been altogether neglected by the writers of other nations. Thus Florian, whose senti- ments, as well as his style, seem to be always floundering midway betwixt the regions of prose and poetry, has made out of the story of this people his popular romance of “ Gonsalvo of Cordova.” It also forms the burden of an Italian Epic, entitled, II Conquista di Granata by Girolamo Gratiani, a Florentine, — much lauded by his been supplied, by the translation into English of Al-Makkarf's “ Moham- medan Dynasties,” with copious notes and illustrations by Don Pascual de Gayangos, a scholar whose acute criticism has enabled him to rectify many of the errors of his laborious predecessors, and whose profound oriental learning sheds a flood of light on both the civil and literary history of the Spanish Arabs.] 76 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. countrymen. The ground, however, before the appearance of Mr. Irving, had not been occupied by any writer of emi- nence, in the English language, for the purposes either of romance or history. The conquest of Granada, to which Mr. Irving has con- fined himself, so disastrous to the Moors, was one of the most brilliant achievements in the most brilliant period of Spanish history. Nothing is more usual than overweening commendations of antiquity ; the “ good old times,” whose harsher features, like those of a rugged landscape, lose all their asperity in the distance. But the period of which we are speaking, embracing the reigns of Ferdinand and Isa- bella, at the close of the fifteenth and beginning of the six- teenth centuries, was undoubtedly that in which the Spanish nation displayed the fulness of its moral and physical energies, when, escaping from the licence of a youthful age, it seems to have reached the prime of manhood, and the perfect development of those faculties, whose overstrained exertions were soon to be followed by exhaustion and pre- mature decrepitude. The remnant of Spaniards, who, retreating to the moun- tains of the north, escaped the overwhelming inundation of the Saracens at the beginning of the eighth century, con- tinued to cherish the free institutions of their Gothic ancestors. The “ Fuero Juzgo,” the ancient Visi-Gothic code, was still retained by the people of Castile and Leon, and may be said to form the basis of all their subsequent legislation. While in Aragon the dissolution of the primi- tive monarchy opened the way for even more liberal and equitable forms of government. The independence of cha- racter thus fostered by the peculiar constitutions of these petty states, was still further promoted by the circumstances of their situation. Their uninterrupted wars with the ^ infidel, — the necessity of winning back from him inch by inch, as it were, the conquered soil, required the active co- operation of every class of the community, and gave to the mass of the people an intrepidity, a personal consequence, and an extent of immunities, such as were not enjoyed by them in any other country of Europe. The free cities acquired considerable tracts of the reconquered territory with rights of jurisdiction over them, and sent their repre- Irving’s conquest of granaua. 77 sentatives to Cortes, near a century before a similar privi- lege was conceded to them in England. Even the peasantry, so degraded, at this period, throughout the rest of Europe, assumed under this state of things a conscious dignity and importance, which are visible in their manners at this day ; and it was in this class, during the late French invasions, that the fire of ancient patriotism revived with greatest force, when it seemed almost extinct in the breasts of the degenerate nobles. The religious feeling which mingled in their wars with the infidels, gave to their character a tinge of lofty enthu- siasm. And the irregular nature of this warfare suggested abundant topics for that popular minstrelsy which acts so powerfully on the passions of a people. The poem of “ The Cid,” which appeared, according to Sanchez, before the middle of the twelfth century, contributed in no slight degree, hy calling up the most inspiring national recollections, to keep alive the generous glow of patriotism. This influence is not imaginary. Heeren pronounces the “ poems of Homer to have been the principal bond which united the Grecian States.’’ And every one knows the influence exercised over the Scottish peasantry by the Border minstrelsy. Many anecdotes might be quoted to show the veneration univer- sally entertained by the Spaniards, broken, as they were, into as many discordant states as ever swarmed over Greece, for their favourite hero of romance and history. Among others, Mariana relates one of a king of Navarre, who, making an incursion into Castile about a century after the warrior’s death, was carrying off a rich booty, when he was met by an abbot of a neighbouring convent, with his monks, bearing aloft the standard of the Cid, who implored him to restore the plunder to the inhabitants from whom he had ravished it. And the monarch, moved by the sight of the sacred relic, after complying with his request, escorted back the banner in solemn procession with his whole army to the place of its deposit. But while all these circumstances conspired to give an uncommon elevation to the character of the ancient Spaniard, even of the humblest rank, and while the prerogative of the monarch was more precisely as well as narrowly defined, than in most of the other nations of Christendom, the 78 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. aristocracy of the country was insensibly extending its privi- leges, and laying the foundation of a power that eventually overshadowed the throne and well nigh subverted the liber- ties of the state. In addition to the usual enormous immu- nities claimed by this order in feudal governments (although there is no reason to believe that the system of feudal tenure obtained in Castile, as it certainly did in Aragon), they enjoyed a constitutional privilege of withckawing their alle- giance from their sovereign on sending him a formal notice of such renunciation ; and the sovereign, on his part, was obliged to provide for the security of their estates and fami- lies as long as they might choose to continue in sucJi overt rebellion. These anarchical provisions in their constitution did not remain a dead letter, and repeated examples of their pernicious application are enumerated both by the historians of Aragon and Castile. The long minorities, with which the latter country was afflicted, moreover, contributed still further to swell the overgrown power of the privileged orders ; and the violent revolution, which, in 1368, placed the house of Trastamarre upon the throne, by impairing the revenues, and, consequently, the authority of the Crown, opened the way for the wild uproar which reigned throughout the king- dom during the succeeding century. Alonso de Palencia, a contemporary chronicler, dwells with melancholy minuteness on the calamities of this unhappy period ; when the whole country was split into factions of the nobles, the monarch openly contemned, the commons trodden in the dust, the court become a brothel, the treasury bankrupt, public faith a jest, and private morals too loose and audacious to court even the veil of hypocrisy. The wise administration of Ferdinand and Isabella could alone have saved the state in this hour of peril. It effected, indeed, a change on the face of things as magical as that produced by the wand of an enchanter in some Eastern tale. Their reign wears a more glorious aspect from its contrast with the turbulent period which preceded it, as the landscape glows with redoubled brilliancy when the sunshine has scat- tered the tempest. We shall briefly notice some of the features of the policy by which they effected this change. They obtained from the Cortes an act for the resumption of the improvident grants made by their predecessor ; by Irving’s conquest of granada. 79 which means an immense accession of revenue, which had been squandered upon unworthy favourites, was brought back to the royal treasury. They compelled many of the nobility to resign, in favour of the Crown, such of its pos- sessions as they had acquired by force, fraud, or intrigue during the late season of anarchy. The son of that gallant Marquis Duke of Cadiz, for instance, with whom the reader has become so familiar in Mr. Irving’s Chronicle, was stripped of his patrimony of Cadiz, and compelled to exchange it for the humbler territory of Arcos, from which the family hence- forth derived their title. By all these expedients, the reve- nues of the state, at the demise of Isabella, were increased twelve-fold beyond what they had been at the time of her accession. They re-organised the ancient institution of the “ Hermandad,” — a very different association under their hands from the “ Holy Brotherhood,” which Ave meet with in Gil Bias. Every hundred householders were obliged to equip and maintain a horseman at their joint expense ; and this corps furnished a vigilant police in civil emergencies, and an effectual aid in war. It was found, moreover, of especial service in suppressing the insurrections and disor- ders of the nobility. They were particularly solicitous to abolish the right and usage of private war, claimed by this haughty order, compelling them, on all occasions, to refer their disputes to the constituted tribunals of justice. But it was a capital feature in the policy of the Catholic sove- reigns to counterbalance the authority of the aristocracy, by exalting, as far as prudent, that of the commons, In the various convocations of the national legislature, or Cortes, in this reign, no instance occurs of any city having lost its pre- scriptive right of furnishing representatives, as had frequently happened under preceding monarchs, who, from negligence or policy, had omitted to summon them. But it would be tedious to go into all the details of the system employed by Ferdinand and Isabella for the regene- ration of the decayed fabric of government ; — of their whole- some regulations for the encouragement of industry ; of their organisation of a national militia and an eflScient marine ; of the severe decorum which they introduced within the corrupt precincts of the court ; of the temporary economy by which they controlled the public expenditures ; and of the munificent 80 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. patronage which they, or rather their almoner on this occasion, that most enlightened of bigots, Cardinal Ximenes, dispensed to science and letters. In short, their sagacious provisions were not merely remedial of former abuses, hut were intended to call forth all the latent energies of the Spanish character, and, with these excellent materials, to erect a constitution of government which should secure to the nation tranquillity at home, and enable it to go forward in its ambitious career of discovery and conquest. The results were certainly equal to the wisdom of the preparations. The first of the series of brilliant enterprises was the conquest of the Moorish kingdom of Granada ; — those rich and lovely regions of the Peninsula, the last retreat of the infidel, and which he had held for nearly eight centuries. This, together with the subsequent occu- pation of Navarre by the crafty Ferdinand, consolidated the various principalities of Spain into one monarchy, and, by extending its boundaries in the Peninsula to their present dimensions, raised it from a subordinate situation to the first class of European powers. The Italian wars, under the conduct of the “ Great Captain,” secured to Spain the more specious, but less useful acquisition of Naples ; and formed that invincible infantry which enabled Charles the Fifth to dictate laws to Europe for nearly half a century. And, lastly, as if the old world could not afford a theatre sufficiently vast for their ambition, Columbus gave a new world to Castile and Leon. Such was the attitude assumed by the nation under the Catholic Kings, as they were called ; it was the season of hope and youthful enterprise, when the nation seemed to he renewing its ancient energies, and to prepare like a giant to run its course. The modern Spaniard, who casts his eye over the long interval that has since elapsed, during the first half of which the nation seemed to waste itself on schemes of mad ambition or fierce fanaticism, and in the latter half to sink into a state of paralytic torpor, — the Spaniard, we say, who casts a melancholy glance over this dreary interval, will turn with satisfaction to the close of the fifteenth century, as the most glorious epoch in the annals of his country. This is the period to which Mr. Irving has intro- duced us in his late work. And if his portraiture of the Irving’s conquest of granada. 81 Castilian of that day wears somewhat of a romantic and, it may be, incredible aspect to those who contrast it with the present, they must remember, that he is only reviving the tints which had faded on the canvas of history. But it is time that we should return from this long digression, into which we have been led by the desire of exhibiting in stronger relief some peculiarities in the situation and spirit of the nation, at the period from which Mr. Irving has selected the materials of his last, indeed his last two publications. Our author, in his “ Chronicle of Granada,” has been but slightly indebted to Arabic authorities. Neither Conde nor Cardonne has expended more than fifty or sixty pages on, this humiliating topic. But ample amends have been ofiered in the copious prolixity of the Castilian writers. The Spaniards can boast a succession of Chronicles from the period of the great Saracen invasion. Those of a more early date, compiled in rude Latin, are sufficiently meagre and unsatisfactory. But from the middle of the thirteenth century, the stream of history runs full and clear ; and their Chronicles, composed in the vernacular, exhibit a richness and picturesque variety of incident that give them inesti- mable value as a body of genuine historical documents. The reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella were particularly fruitful in these sources of information. History then, like most of the other departments of literature, seemed to be in a state of transition, — when the fashions of its more antiquated costume began to mingle insensibly with the peculiarities of the modern ; when, in short, the garrulous graces of narration were beginning to be tempered by the tone of grave and philosophical reflection. We will briefly notice a few of the eminent sources from which Mr. Irving has drawn his account of the “ Conquest of Granada.” The first of these is the Epistles of Peter Martyr, an Italian savant, who, having passed over with the Spanish ambassador into Spain, and being introduced into the court of Isabella, was employed by her in some important embassies. He was personally present at several campaigns of this war. In his “Letters,” he occasionally smiles at the caprice which had led him to exchange the pen for the sword ; while his speculations on the events passing before a 82 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. him, being those of a scholar rather than of a soldier, afford in their moral complexion a pleasing contrast to the dreary details of blood and battle. Another authority is the Chronicle of Bernaldez, a worthy ecclesiastic of that period, whose bulky manuscript, like that of many a better writer, lies still engulfed in the dust of some Spanish library, having never been admitted to the honours of the press. Copies of it, however, are freely circulated. It is one of those good-natured gossiping memorials of an antique age, abounding equally in curious and common- place incident, told in a way sufficiently prolix, but not without considerable interest. The testimony of this writer is of particular value, moreover, on this occasion, from the proximity of his residence in Andalusia to those scenes which were the seat of the war. His style overflows with that religious loyalty, with which Mr. Irving has liberally seasoned the effusions of Fray Antonio Agapida. Hernando del Pulgar, another contemporary historian, was the Secretary and Counsellor of their Catholic majesties, and appointed by them to the post of national Chronicler ; an office familiar both to the courts of Castile and Aragon, in which latter country, especially, it has been occupied by some of its most distinguished historians. Pulgar’s long residence at court, his practical acquaintance with affairs, and above all, the access which he obtained, by means of his official station, to the best sources of information, have enabled him to make his work a rich repository of facts relating to the general resources of government, the policy of its adminis- tration, and, more particularly, the conduct of the military operations in the closing war of Granada, of which he was himself an eye-witness. In addition to these writers, this period has been illumined by the labours of the most cele- brated historians of Castile and Aragon, Mariana and Zurita ; both of whom conclude their narratives with it ; the last expanding the biography of Ferdinand alone into two volumes folio. Besides these, Mr. Irving has derived collateral lights from many sources of inferior celebrity, but not less unsuspicious credit. So that, in conclusion, not- withstanding a certain dramatic colouring which Fray Agapida’ s “ Chronicle ” occasionally wears, and notwith- standing the romantic forms of a style which, to borrow Irving’s conquest of granada. 83 the language of Cicero, seems “ to flow, as it were, from the very lips of the Muses,” we may honestly recommend it as substantially an authentic record of one of the most interesting, and, as far as English scholars are concerned, one of the most untravelled portions of Spanish history. 84 CERVANTES.* July, 1837. The publication, in this country, of an important Spanish classic in the original, with a valuable commentary, is an event of some moment in our literary annals, and indicates a familiarity, rapidly increasing, with the beautiful literature to which it belongs. It may be received as an omen favour- able to the cause of modern literature in general, the study of which, in all its varieties, may be urged on substantially the same grounds. The growing importance attached to this branch of education is visible in other countries, quite as much as in our own. It is the natural, or rather neces- sary, result of the changes which have taken place in the social relations of man, in this revolutionary age. Formerly a nation, pent up within its own barriers, knew less of its neighbours than we now know of what is going on in Siam or Japan. A river, a chain of mountains, an imaginary line even, parted them as far asunder as if oceans had rolled between. To speak correctly, it was their imperfect civi- lisation, their ignorance of the means and the subjects of communication, which thus kept them asunder. Now, on the contrary, a change in the domestic institutions of one country can hardly be effected without a corresponding Agitation in those of its neighbours. A treaty of alliance fan scarcely be adjusted without the intervention of a general congress. The sword cannot be unsheathed in one * “ El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, compuesto por Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Nueva Edicion Clasica, illustrada con Notas Histdricas, Grainmaticales y Cnticas, por la Academia Espanola, siis Tndividuos de Ndmero Pellicer, Arrieta, y Clemencin. Enmendada y cor- regida por Francisco Sales, A.M., Instructor de Frances y Espanol en la Universidad de Harvard, en Cambrigia, Estado de Massachusetts, Norte America.” 2 vols. 12mo. Boston, 1836. CERV4NTES. 8 .^ part of Christendom, without thousands leaping from their scabbards in every other. The whole system is bound together by as nice sympathies as if animated by a common pulse ; and the remotest countries of Europe are brought into contiguity as intimate as were in ancient times the provinces of a single monarchy. This intimate association has been prodigiously increased, of late years, by the unprecedented discoveries which science has made for facilitating intercommunication. The inha- bitant of Great Britain, that “ ultima Thule ” of the ancients, can now run down to the extremity of Italy, in less time than it took Horace to go from Rome to Brundusium. A steamboat of fashionable tourists will touch at all the places of note in the Iliad and Odyssey, in fewer weeks than it would have cost years to an ancient Argonaut, or a crusader of the Middle Ages. Every one, of course, travels, and almost every capital and noted watering-place on the conti- nent swarms with its thousands, and Paris with its tens of thousands of itinerant Cockneys, many of whom, perhaps, have not wandered beyond the sound of Bow bells, in their own little island. Few of these adventurers are so dull as not to be quick- ened into something like curiosity, respecting the language and institutions of the strange people among whom they are thrown ; while the better sort, and more intelligent, are led to study more carefully the new forms, whether in arts or letters, under which human genius is unveiled to them. The effect of all this is especially visible, in the reforms introduced into the modern systems of education. In both the universities recently established in London, the appa- ratus for instruction, instead of being limited to the ancient tongues, is extended to the whole circle of modern literature; and the editorial labours of many of the professors show that they do not sleep on their posts. Periodicals, under the management of the ablest writers, furnish valuable contri- butions of foreign criticism and intelligence ; and regular histories of the various continental literatures, a department in which the English are singularly barren, are understood to be now in actual preparation. But, although barren of literary, the English have made important contributions to the political history of the conti- 86 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. nental nations. That of Spain has employed some of their best writers, wlio, it must he admitted, however, have con- fined themselves so far to the foreign relations of the country, as to have left the domestic in comparative obscurity. Thus, Robertson’s great work is quite as much the history of Europe, as of Spain, under Charles the Fifth ; and Watson’s “ Reign of Philip the Second ” might with equal propriety be styled “The War of the Netherlands,” which is its principal burden. A few works recently published in the United States, have shed far more light on the interior organisation and intellectual culture of the Spanish nation. Such, for example, are the writings of Irving, whose gorgeous colour- ing reflects so clearly the chivalrous splendours of the fifteenth century ; and the travels of Lieut. Slidell, pre- senting sketches equally animated of the social aspect of that most picturesque of all lands, in the present century. In Mr. Cushing’s “Reminiscences of Spain,” we find, mingled with much characteristic fiction, some very labo- rious inquiries into curious and recondite points of history. In the purely literary department, Mr. Ticknor’s beautiful lectures before the classes of Harvard University, still in manuscript, embrace a far more extensive range of criticism than is to be found in any Spanish work ; and display, at the same time, a degree of thoroughness and research, which the comparative paucity of materials will compel us to look for in vain in Bouterwek, or Sismondi. Mr. Ticknor’s successor. Professor Longfellow, favourably known by other compositions, has enriched our language with a noble version of the “ Coplas de Manrique,” the finest gem, beyond all comparison, in the Castilian verse of the fifteenth century. We have also read with pleasure a clever translation of Quevedo’s “Visions,” no very easy achievement, by Mr. Elliot, of Philadelphia ; though the translator is wrong in supposing his the first English version. The first is as old as Queen Anne’s time, and was made by the famous Sir Roger TE strange. To close the account, Mr. Sales, the venerable instructer in Harvard College, has now given, for the first time in the New World, an elaborate edition of the prince of Castilian classics, in a form which may claim, to a certain extent, the merit of originality. CERVANTES. 87 We shall postpone the few remarks we have to make on this edition, to the close of our article ; and, in the mean time, we propose, not to give the life of Cervantes, but to notice such points as are least familiar in his literary history, and especially in regard to the composition and publication of his great work, the Don Quixote ; a work which, from its wide and long-established popularity, may he said to constitute part of the literature, not merely of Spain, but of every country in Europe. The age of Cervantes was that of Philip the Second, when the Spanish monarchy, declining somewhat from its palmy state, was still making extraordinary efforts to main- tain, and even to extend its already overgrown empire. Its navies were on every sea, and its armies in every quarter of the Old World, and in the New. Arms was the only pro- fession worthy of a gentleman ; and there was scarcely a writer of any eminence, certainly no bard, of the age, who, if he were not in orders, had not borne arms, at some period, in the service of his country. Cervantes, who, though poor, was born of an ancient family (it must go hard with a Castilian, who cannot make out a pedigree for himself), had a full measure of this chivalrous spirit, and, during the first half of his life, we find him in the midst of all the stormy and disastrous scenes of the iron trade of war. His love of the military profession, even after the loss of his hand, or of the use of it, for it is uncertain which, is sufficient proof of his adventurous spirit. In the course of his checkered career, he visited the principal countries in the Mediterranean, and passed five years in melancholy captivity at Algiers. The time was not lost, however, which furnished his keen eye with those glowing pictures of Moslem luxury and magnificence, with which he has enriched his pages. After a life of unprecedented hardship, he returned to his own country, covered with laurels and scars, with very little money in his pocket, but with plenty of that experience which, regarding him as a novelist, might he considered his stock in trade. The poet may draw from the depths of his own fancy ; the scholar from his library ; hut the proper study of the dramatic writer, whether in verse or in prose, is man ; — man, as he exists in society. He who would faithfully 88 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. depict human character, cannot study it too nearly and variously. He must sit down, like Scott, by the fireside of the peasant, and listen to the “ auld wife’s ” tale ; he must preside with Fielding at a petty justice sessions, or share with some Squire Western in the glorious hazards of a fox hunt ; he must, like Smollett and Cooper, study the mysteries of the deep, and mingle on the stormy element itself with the singular beings whose destinies he is to describe ; or, like Cervantes, he must wander among other races and in other climes, before his pencil can give those chameleon touches which reflect the shifting many-coloured hues of actual life. He may, indeed, like Rousseau, if it were possible to imagine another Rousseau, turn his thoughts inward, and draw from the depths of his own soul ; but he would see there only his own individual passions and preju- dices ; and the portraits he might sketch, however various in subordinate details, would be, in their characteristic features, only the reproduction of himself. He might, in short, he a poet, a philosopher, but not a painter of life and manners. Cervantes had ample means for pursuing the study of human character, after his return to Spain, in the active life which engaged him in various parts of the country. In Andalusia he might have found the models of the sprightly wit, and delicate irony, with which he has seasoned his fictions ; in Seville, in particular, he was brought in contact with the fry of small sharpers and pickpockets, who make so respectable a figure in his picaresco novels ; and in La Mancha, he not only found the geography of his Don Quixote, but that whimsical contrast of pride and poverty in the natives, which has furnished the outlines of many a broad caricature to the comic writers of Spain. During all this while, he had made himself known only by his pastoral fiction, the “ Galatea,” a beautiful specimen of an insipid class ; which, with all its literary merits, afforded no scope for the power of depicting human character, which he possessed, perhaps unknown to himself. He wrote, also, a good number of plays, all of which except two, and these recovered only at the close of the last century, have perished. One of these, “ The Siege of Numantia,” displays that truth of drawing, and strength of CERVANTES. 89 colour, which mark the consummate artist. It was not until he had reached his fifty-seventh year, that he completed the First Part of his great work, the Don Quixote. The most celebrated novels, unlike most works of imagination, seem to have been the production of the later period of life. Fielding was between forty and fifty, when he wrote “ Tom Jones.” Richardson was sixty, or very near it, when he wrote “ Clarissa.” And Scott was some years over forty, when he began the series of the Waverley novels. The world, the school of the novelist, cannot he run through like the terms of a university, and the knowledge of its manifold varieties must he the result of long and diligent training. The First Part of the Quixote was begun, as the author tells us, in a prison ; to which he had been brought, not by crime or debt, but by some offence, probably, to the worthy people of La Mancha. It is not the only work of genius, which has struggled into being in such unfavourable quarters. “ The Pilgrim’s Progress,” the most popular, probably, of English fictions, was composed under similar circumstances. But we doubt if such brilliant fancies, and such flashes of humour ever lighted up the walls of the prison-house, before the time of Cervantes. The First Part of the Don Quixote was given to the public in 1605. Cervantes, when the time arrived for launching his satire against the old deep-rooted prejudices of his countrymen, probably regarded it, as well he might, as little less rash than his own hero’s tilt against the wind- mills. He sought, accordingly, to shield himself under the cover of a powerful name, and asked leave to dedicate the book to a Castilian Grandee, the Duke de Bejar. The duke, it is said, whether ignorant of the design, or doubting the success of the work, would have declined ; but Cervantes urged him first to peruse a single chapter. The audience summoned to sit in judgment, were so delighted with the first pages, that they would not abandon the novel, till they had heard the whole of it. The duke, of course, without further hesitation, condescended to allow his name to be inserted in this passport to immortality. There is nothing very improbable in the story. It reminds one of a similar experiment by St. Pierre, who submitted his manuscript of “Paul and Virginia” to a 90 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. circle of French litterateurs, Mons. and Mad. Necker, the Abbe Galiani, Thomas, BulFon, and some others, all wits of the first water in the metropolis. Hear the result, in the words of his biographer, or rather his agreeable translator : “At first the author was heard in silence, bj degrees the attention grew languid, they began to whisper, to gape, and listened no longer. M. de Bufibn looked at his watch, and called for his horses. Those near the door slipped out ; Thomas went to sleep ; M. Necker laughed to see the ladies weep ; and the ladies, ashamed of their tears, did not dare to confess that they had been interested. The reading being finished, nothing was praised. Mad. Necker alone citicised the conversation of Paul and the old man. This moral appeared to her tedious and common-place ; it broke the action, chilled the reader, and was a sort of glass of iced water, M. de St. Pierre retired in a state of inde- scribable depression. He regarded what had passed as his sentence of death. The effect of his work on an audience like that to which he had read it, left him no hope for the future.” Yet this work was “ Paul and Virginia,” one of the most popular books in the French language, So much for criticism ! The truth seems to be, that the judgment of no private circle, however well qualified by taste and talent, can afford a sure prognostic of that of the great public. If the manu- script to be criticised is our friend’s, of course the verdict is made up before perusal. If some great man modestly sues for our approbation, our self-complacency has been too much flattered for us to withhold it. If it be a little man (and St. Pierre was but a little man at that time), our prejudices, the prejudices of poor human nature, will be very apt to take an opposite direction. Be the cause what it may, whoever rests his hopes of public favour on the smiles of a coterie, runs the risk of finding himself very unpleasantly undeceived. Many a trim bark, whfch has flaunted gaily in a summer lake, has gone to pieces amid the billows and breakers of the rude ocean. The prognostic in the case of Cervantes, however, proved more correct. His work produced an instantaneous effect on the community. He had struck a note which found an echo in every bosom. Four editions were published in the CERVANTES. 91 course of the first year ; two in Madrid, one at Valencia, and another at Lisbon. This success, almost unexampled in any age, was still more extraordinary in one in which the reading public was comparatively limited. That the book found its way speedily into the very highest circles in the kingdom, is evident from the well-known exclamation of Philip the Third, when he saw a student laughing immoderately over some volume : “ The man must be either out of his wits, or reading Don Quixote.” Notwithstanding this, its author felt none of that sunshine of royal favour, which would have been so grateful in his necessities. The period was that of the golden prime of Castilian literature. But the monarch on the throne, one of the ill-starred dynasty of Austria, would have been better suited to the darkest of the Middle Ages. His hours, divided between his devotions and his debaucheries, left nothing to spare for letters ; and his minister, the arrogant Duke of Lerma, was too much absorbed by his own selfish, though shallow schemes of policy, to trouble himself with romance writers, or their satirist. Cervantes, however, had entered on a career which, as he intimates in some of his verses, might lead to fame, but not to fortune. Happily he did hot compromise his fame, by precipitating the execution of his works from motives of temporary profit. It was not till several years after the publication of the Don Quixote, that he gave to the world his Exemplary Novels, as he called them ; fictions which, differing from anything before known, not only in the Castilian, but, in some respects, in any other literature, gave ample scope to his dramatic talent, in the contrivance of situations, and the nice delinea- tion of character. These works, whose diction was uncom- monly rich and attractive, were popular from the first. One cannot but be led to inquire, why, with such success as an author, he continued to be so straitened in his cir- cumstances, as he plainly intimates was the case, more than once in his writings. From the Don Quixote, notwithstanding its great run, he probably received little, since he had parted with the entire copyright before publication, when the work was regarded as an experiment, the result of which was quite doubtful. It is not easy to explain the difficulty, 92 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. when his success as an author had been so completely established. Cervantes intimates bis dissatisfaction, in more than one place in his writings, with the booksellers themselves. “What, sir!” replies an author introduced into his Don Quixote, “ would you have me sell the profit of my labour to a bookseller, for three maravedis a sheet ? for that is the most they will bid, nay, and expect, too, I should thank them for the offer.” This burden of lamenta- tion, the alleged illiberality of the publisher towards the poor author, is as old as the art of bookmaking itself. But the public receive the account from the party aggrieved only. If the bookseller reported his own case, we should, no doubt, have a different version. If Cervantes was in the right, the trade in Castile showed a degree of dexterity in their proceedings, which richly entitled them to the pillory. In one of his tales, we find a certain licentiate complaining of “ the tricks and deceptions they put upon an author, when they buy a copyright from him ; and still more, the manner in which they cheat him, if he prints the book at his own charges ; since nothing is more common than for them to agree for fifteen hundred, and have privily perhaps as many as three thousand thrown off, one half, at the least, of which they sell, not for his profit, but their own,” The writings of Cervantes appear to have gained him, however, two substantial friends in Cabra, Count of Lemos, and the Archbishop of Toledo, of the ancient family of Rojas ; and the patronage of these illustrious individuals has been nobly recompensed, by having their names for ever associated with the imperishable productions of genius. There was still one kind of patronage wanting in this early age ; that of a great enlightened community ; the only patronage which can be received, without some sense of degradation, by a generous mind. There was, indeed, one golden channel of public favour, and that was the theatre. The drama has usually flourished most at the period when a nation is beginning to taste the sweets of literary culture. Such was the early part of the seventeenth century in Europe ; the age of Shakspeare, Jonson, and Fletcher in England ; of Ariosto, Machiavelli, and the wits who first successfully wooed the comic muse of Italy ; of the great Corneille, some years later, in France ; and of that miracle. CERVANTES. 93 or rather ‘‘ monster of nature,” as Cervantes styled him, Lope de Vega, in Spain. Theatrical exhibitions are a com- bination of the material with the intellectual ; at which the ordinary spectator derives less pleasure, probably, from the beautiful creations of the poet, than from the scenic decora- tions, music, and other accessories which address themselves to the senses. The fondness for spectacle is characteristic of an early period of society ; and the theatre is the most brilliant of pageants. With the progress of education and refinement, men become less open to, or, at least, less de- pendent on the pleasures of sense, and seek their enjoy- ment in more elevated and purer sources. Thus it is that, instead of ‘‘ Sweating in the crowded theatre, squeezed And bored with elbow-points through both our sides,” as the sad minstrel of nature sings, we sit quietly at home, enjoying the pleasures of fiction around our own firesides, and the poem or the novel takes the place of the acted drama. The decline of dramatic writing may justly be lamented, as that of one of the most beautiful varieties in the garden of literature. But it must be admitted to be both a symptom and a necessary consequence of the advance of civilisation. The popularity of the stage at the period of which we are speaking, in Spain, was greatly augmented by the personal influence and reputation of Lope de Vega, the idol of his countrymen, who threw off the various inventions of his genius with a rapidity and profusion that almost staggers credibility. It is impossible to state the results of his labours in any form that will not powerfully strike the ima- gination. Thus, he has left 21,300,000 verses in print, besides a mass of manuscript. He furnished the theatre, according to the statement of his intimate friend, Montalvan, with 1 800 regular plays, and 400 autos or religious dramas — all acted. He composed, according to his own statement, more than 100 comedies in the almost incredible space of twenty- four hours each ; and a comedy averaged between two and three thousand verses, great part of them rhymed, and interspersed with sonnets, and other more difiicult forms of 94 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. versification. He lived seventy -two years ; and supposing him to have employed fifty of that period in composition, although he filled a variety of engrossing vocations during that time, he must have averaged a play a week, to say nothing of twenty-one volumes quarto, of miscellaneous works, including live epics, written in his leisure moments, and all now in print ! The only achievements we can recall in literary history, hearing any resemblance to, though falling far short of this, are those of our illustrious contemporary. Sir Walter Scott. The complete edition of his works, recently advertised by Murray, with the addition of two volumes, of which Murray has not the copyright, probably contains ninety volumes small octavo. To these should further be added a large supply of matter for “ The Edinburgh Annual Register, ” as well as other anonymous contributions. Of these, forty- eight volumes of novels, and twenty-one of history and biography, were produced between 1814 and 1831, or in seventeen years. These would give an average of four volumes a year, or one for every three months during the whole of that period ; to which must be added twenty-one volumes of poetry and prose, previously published. The mere mechanical execution of so much work, both in his case and Lope de Vega’s, would seem to be scarcely possible in the limits assigned. Scott, too, was as variously occu- pied in other ways as his Spanish rival ; and probably, from the social hospitality of his life, spent a much larger portion of his time in no literary occunation at all. Notwithstanding we have amused ourselves at the expense of the reader’s patience perhaps, with these calculations, this certainly is not the standard by which we should recom- mend to estimate works of genius. Wit is not to be measured, like broadcloth, by the yard. Easy writing, as the adage says, and as we all know, is apt to be very hard reading. This brings to our recollection a conversation, in the presence of Captain Basil Hall, in which some allusion having been made to the astonishing amount of Scott’s daily composition, the literary Argonaut remarked, “ There was nothing astonishing in all that ; and that he did as much himself, nearly every day, before breakfast.” Some one of the company unkindly asked, “ whether he thought the CERVANTES. 95 quality was the same.” It is the quality, undoubtedly, which makes the difference ; and, in this view, Lope de Vega’s miracles lose much of their effect. Of all his multi* tudinous dramas, oife or two only retain possession of the stage ; and few, very few, are now even read. His facility of composition was like that of an Italian improvisatore, whose fertile fancy easily clothes itself in verse, in a lan- guage the vowel terminations of which afford such a plenitude of rhymes. The Castilian presents even greater facilities for this than the Italian. Lope de Vega was an improvisatore. With all his negligences and defects, however, Lope’s interesting intrigues, easy sprightly dialogue, infinite variety of inventions, and the breathless rapidity with which they followed one another, so dazzled and bewildered the imagi- nation, that he completely controlled the public^ and became, in the words of Cervantes, “ sole monarch of the stage.” The public repaid him with such substantial gratitude as has never been shown, probably, to any other of its favourites. His fortune, at one time, although he was careless of his expenses, amounted to one hundred thousand ducats, equal, probably, to between seven and eight hundred thousand dollars of the present day. In the same street in which dwelt this spoiled child of fortune, who, amidst the caresses of the great, and the lavish smiles of the public, could complain that his merits were neglected, lived Cervantes, struggling under adversity, or at least earning a painful subsistence by the labours of his immortal pen. What a contrast do these pictures present to the imagination ! If the suffrages of a coterie, as we have said, afford no warrant for those of the public, the example before us proves that the award of one’s contemporaries is quite as likely to be set aside by posterity. Lope de Vega, who gave his name to his age, has now fallen into neglect, even among his coun- trymen ; while the fame of Cervantes, gathering strength with time, has become the pride of his own nation, as his works still continue to he the delight of the whole civilised world. However stinted may have been the recompense of his deserts at home, it is gratifying to observe how widely his fame was diffused in his own lifetime, and that in foreign 96 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. countries at least he enjoyed the full consideration to which he was entitled. An interesting anecdote, illustrating this, is recorded, which, as we have never seen it in Eng- lish, we will lay before the reader. On occasion of a visit made by the Archbishop of Toledo to the French ambas- sador, resident at Madrid, the prelate ^s suite fell into conversation with the attendants of the minister, in the course of which Cervantes was mentioned. The French gentlemen expressed their unqualified admiration of his writings, specifying the Galatea, Don Quixote, and the Novels, which, they said, were read in all the countries round, and in France particularly, where there were some who might be said to know them actually by heart. They intimated their desire to become personally acquainted with so eminent a man, and asked many questions respecting his present occupations, his circumstances, and way of life. To all this the Castilians could only reply, that he had borne arms in the service of his country, and was noAV old and poor. “ What ! exclaimed one of the strangers, “ is Senor Cervantes not in good circumstances ? Why is he not maintained, then, out of the public treasury ? ” “ Heaven forbid,*’ rejoined another, “that his necessities should be ever relieved, if it is these which make him write ; since it is his poverty that makes the world rich.” There are other evidences, though not of so pleasing a character, of the eminence which he had reached at home, in the jealousy and ill will of his brother poets. The Cas- tilian poets of that day seem to have possessed a full measure of that irritability which has been laid at the dour of all their tribe, since the days of Horace ; and the freedom of Cervantes’s literary criticisms, in his Don Quixote and other writings, though never personal in their character, brought down on his head a storm of arrows, some of which, if not sent with much force, were at least well steeped in venom. Lope de Vega is even said to have appeared among the assailants ; and a sonnet, still preserved, is currently imputed to him, in which, after much eulogy on himself, he predicts that the works of his rival will find their way into the kennel. But the author of this bad prophecy, and worse poetry, could never have been the great Lope, who showed, on all occasions, a generous spirit. CERVANTES. 97 and whose literary success must have made such an assault unnecessary, and in the highest degree unmanly. On the contrary, we have evidence of a very different feeling, in the homage which he renders to the merits of his illustrious contemporary, in more than one passage of his acknow- ledged works; especially in his “Laurel de Apolo,” in which he concludes his poetical panegyric with the following touching conceit : Porque se diga que una mano herida, Pudo dar a su dueno eterna vida.” This poem was published by Lope in 1630, fourteen years after the death of his rival ; notwithstanding, Mr. Lockhart informs his readers, in his biographical preface to the Don Quixote, that “ Lope de Vega was dead (1615,) there was no one to divide with Cervantes the literary empire of his country.’’ In the dedication of his ill-fated comedies, 1615, (for Cervantes, like most other celebrated novelists, found it difficult to concentrate his expansive vein within the com- pass of dramatic rules,) the public was informed that “ Don Quixote was already booted,” and preparing for another sally. It may seem strange, that the author, considering the great popularity of his hero, had not sent him on his adventures before. But he had probably regarded them as already terminated ; and he had good reason to do so, since every incident in the First Part, as it has been styled only since the publication of the Second, is complete in itself, and the Don, although not actually killed on the stage, is noticed as dead, and his epitaph transcribed for the reader. However this may be, the immediate execution of his purpose, so long delayed, was precipitated by an event, equally unwelcome and unexpected. This was the continu- ation of his work by another hand. The author’s name, his nom de guerre, was Avellaneda, a native of Tordesillas. Adopting the original idea of Cervantes, he goes forward, with the same characters, through similar scenes of comic extravagance, in the course of which he perpetrates sundry plagiarisms from the First Part, and has some incidents so much resembling those in 98 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. the Second Part, already written by Cervantes, that it has been supposed he must have had access to his manuscript. It is more probable, as the resemblance is but general, that he obtained his knowledge through hints which may have fallen, in conversation, from Cervantes, in the progress of his own work. The spurious continuation had some little merit, and attracted, probably, some interest, as any work, conducted under so popular a name, could not have failed to do. It was, however, on the whole, a vulgar perform- ance, thickly sprinkled with such gross scurrility and indecency, as was too strong, even for the palate of that not very fastidious age. The public feeling may be gathered from the fact, that the author did not dare to depart from his incognito, and claim the honours of a triumph. The most diligent inquiries have established nothing further than that he was an Aragonese, judging from his diction, and from the complexion of certain passages in the work prob- ably an ecclesiastic, and one of the swarm of small drama- tists, who felt themselves rudely handled by the criticism of Cervantes. The work was subsequently translated, or rather paraphrased, by Le Sage, who has more than once given a substantial value to gems of little price in Castilian literature, by the brilliancy of his setting. The original work of Avellaneda, always deriving an interest from the circumstances of its production, has been reprinted in the present century, and is not diflScult to he met with. To have thus coolly invaded an author’s own property, to have filched from him the splendid, though unfinished creations of his genius, before his own face, and while, as was pub- licly known, he was in the very process of completing them, must be admitted to he an act of unblushing effrontery, not surpassed in the annals of literature. Cervantes was much annoyed, it appears, by the circum- stance. The continuation of Avellaneda reached him, probably, when on the fifty-ninth chapter of his Second Part. At least, from that time, he begins to discharge his gall on the head of the offender, who, it should he added, had consummated his impudence by sneering, in his intro- duction, at the qualifications of Cervantes. The best retort of the latter, however, was the publication of his own book, which followed at the close of 1615. CERVANTES. 99 The English novelist, Richardson, experienced a treat- ment not unlike that of the Castilian. His popular story of Pamela was continued by another and very inferior hand, under the title of “Pamela in High Life.” The circum- stance prompted Richardson to undertake the continuation himself ; and it turned out, like most others, a decided failure. Indeed, a skilful continuation seems to be the most difficult work of art. The first effort of the author breaks, as it were, unexpectedly on the public, taking their judgments by surprise, and by its very success creating a standard, by which the author himself is subsequently to be tried. Before, he was compared with others. He is now to be compared with himself. The public expectation has been raised. A degree of excellence, which might have found favour at first, will now scarcely be tolerated. It will not even suffice for him to maintain his own level. He must rise above himself. The reader, in the mean- while, has naturally filled up the blank, and insensibly con- ducted the characters and the story to a termination, in his own way. As the reality seldom keeps pace with the ideal, the author’s execution will hardly come up to the imaginations of his readers ; at any rate, it will differ from them, and so far be displeasing. We experience something of this disappointment, in the dramas borrowed from popular novels, where the development of the characters by the dramatic author, and the new direction given to the original story in his hands, rarely fail to offend the taste and pre- conceived ideas of the spectator. To feel the force of this, it is only necessary to see the Guy Mannering, Rob Roy, and other plays, dramatised from the Waverley Novels. Some part of the failure of such continuations is, no doubt, fairly chargeable, in most instances, on the author himself, who goes to his new task with little of his primitive buoy- ancy and vigour. He no longer feels the same interest in his own labours, which, losing their freshness, have become as familiar to his imagination as a thrice-told tale. The new composition has, of course, a different complexion from the former, cold, stiff, and disjointed, like a bronze statue, whose parts have been separately put together, instead of being cast in one mould, when the whole metal was in a state of fusion. h2 100 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. The continuation of Cervantes forms a splendid exception to the general rule. The popularity of his First Part had drawn forth abundance of criticism, and he availed himself of it, to correct some material blemishes in the design of the Second ; while an assiduous culture of the Castilian enabled him to enrich his style with greater variety and beauty. He had now reached the zenith of his fame ; and the profits of his continuation may have relieved the pecuniary embarrassments under which he had struggled. But he was not long to enjoy his triumph. Before his death, which took place in the following year, he completed his romance of “ Persiles and Sigismunda,” the dedication to which, written a few days before his death, is strongly characteris- tic of its writer. It is addressed to his old patron, the Conde de Lemos, then absent from the country. After saying, in the words of the old Spanish proverb, that be bad one foot in the stirrup,’^ in allusion to tbe distant journey, on which he was soon to set out, he adds, “ Yester- day I received the extreme unction, but now that the shadows of death are closing around me, I still cling to life, from the love of it, as well as from the desire to behold you again. But if it is decreed otherwise, (and the will of Heaven be done,) your Excellency will at least feel assured, there was one person, whose wish to serve you was greater than the love of life itself.” After these reminiscences of his benefactor, he expresses his own purpose, should life be spared, to complete several works he had already begun. Such were the last words of this illustrious man ; breath- ing the same generous sensibility, the same ardent love of letters, and beautiful serenity of temper, which distinguished him through life. He died a few days after, on the 23rd of April, 1616. His remains were laid, without funeral pomp, in the monastery of the Holy Trinity at Madrid. No memorial points out the spot to the eye of the traveller, nor is it known at this day. And, while many a costly con- struction has been piled on the ashes of the little great, to the shame of Spain be it spoken, no monument has yet been erected in honour of the greatest genius she has pro- duced. Pie has built, however, a monument for himself, more durable than brass or sculptured marble. Don Quixote is too familiar to the reader to require any CERVANTES. 101 analysis ; but we will enlarge on a few circumstances attending its composition, but little known to the English scholar, which may enable him to form a better judgment for himself. The age of chivalry, as depicted in romances, could never, of course, have had any real existence. But the sentiments which are described as animating that age have been found more or less operative in different coun- tries and different periods of society. In Spain, especially, this influence is to be discerned from a very early date. Its inhabitants may be said to have lived in a romantic atmosphere, in which all the extravagances of chivalry were nourished by their peculiar situation. Their hostile relations with the Moslem kept alive the full glow of religious and patriotic feeling. Their history is one interminable cru- sade. An enemy always on the borders, invited perpetual displays of personal daring and adventure. The refinement and magnificence of the Spanish Arabs throw a lustre over these contests, such as could not be reflected from the rude skirmishes with their Christian neighbours. Lofty senti- ments, embellished by the softer refinements of courtesy, wer^ blended in the martial bosom of the Spaniard, and Spain became emphatically the land of romantic chivalry. The very laws themselves, conceived in this spirit, con- tributed greatly to foster it. The ancient code of Alfonso the Tenth, in the thirteenth century, after many minute regulations for the deportment of the good knight, enjoins on him to “ invoke the name of his mistress in the fight, that it may infuse new ardour into his soul, and preserve him from the commission of unknightly actions.’’ Such laws were not a dead letter. The history of Spain shows that the sentiment of romantic gallantry penetrated the nation more deeply, and continued longer, than in any other quarter of Christendom. Foreign chroniclers, as well as domestic, of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, notice the frequent appearance of Spanish knights in different courts of Europe, whither they had travelled, in the language of an old writer, “to seek honour and reverence ” by their feats of arms. In the Paston Letters written in the time of Henry the Sixth, of England, we find a notice of a Castilian knight, who pre- sented himself before the court, and, with his mistress’s 102 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. favour around his arm, challenged the English cavaliers “to run a course of sharp spears with him, for his sovereign lady’s sake/’ Pulgar, a Spanish chronicler of the close of the sixteenth century, speaks of this roving knight-errantry, as a thing of familar occurrence among the young cavaliers of his day. And Oviedo, who lived somewhat later, notices the necessity, under which every true knight found himself, of being in love, or feigning to he so, in order to give a suitable lustre and incentive to his achievements. But the most singular proof of the extravagant pitch to which these romantic feelings were carried in Spain, occurs in the account of the jousts appended to the fine old chronicle of Alvaro de Luna, published by the Academy in 1784. The principal champion was named Sueno de Quenoiies, who, with nine companions in arms, defended a pass at Orhigo, not far from the shrine of Compostella, against all comers, in the presence of King John the Second, and his court. The object of this passage of arms, as it was called, was to release the knight from the obligation, imposed on him by his mistress, of publicly wearing an iron collar round his neck every Thursday. The jousts continued for thirty days, and the doughty champions fought without shield or target, with weapons bearing points of Milan steel. Six hundred and twenty-seven encounters took place, and one hundred and sixty-six lances were broken, when the emprise was declared to be fairly achieved. The whole affair is narrated, with becoming gravity, by an eye-witness, and the reader may fancy himself perusing the adventures of a Launcelot, or an Amadis. The particulars of this tourney are detailed at length, in Mills’s Chivalry, (Vol. ii. chap. 5,) where, however, the author has defrauded the successful champions of their full honours, by incorrectly reporting the number of lances broken, as only sixty-six. The taste for these romantic extravagances naturally fostered a corresponding taste for the perusal of tales of chivalry. Indeed, they acted reciprocally on each other. These chimerical legends had once also beguiled the long evenings of our Norman ancestors ; but, in the progress of civilisation, had gradually given way to other and more natural forms of composition. They still maintained their ground in Italy, whither they had passed later, and where CERVANTES. 103 they were consecrated hy the hand of genius. But Italy was not the true soil of chivalry, and the inimitable fictions of Boiardo, Pulci, and Ariosto, were composed with that lurking smile of half-suppressed mirth, which, far from a serious tone, could raise only a corresponding smile of incredulity in the reader. In Spain, however, the marvels of romance were all taken in perfect good tfaith. Not that they were received as literally true, but the reader surrendered himself up to the illusion, and was moved to admiration by the recital of deeds, which, viewed in any other light than as a wild frolic of imagination, would he supremely ridiculous. For these tales had not the merit of a seductive style and melodious versification to relieve them. They were, for the most part, an ill-digested mass of incongruities, in which there was as little keeping and probability in the characters, as in the incidents ; while the whole was told in that stilted “ Hercles’ vein,” and with that licentiousness of allusion and imagery, which could not fail to debauch both the taste and the morals of the youthful reader. The mind familiarised with these monstrous, over-coloured pictures, lost all relish for thn chaste and sober productions of art. The love of the gigantic and the marvellous indisposed the reader for the simple delineations of truth in real history. The feelings expressed by a sensible Spaniard of the sixteenth century, the anonymous author of the “ Dialogo de las Lenguas,” probably represent those of many of his contemporaries. ‘‘ Ten of the best years of my life,” says he, “ were spent no more profitably than in devouring these lies, which I did even while eating my meals ; and the consequence of this depraved appetite was, that if I took in hand any true book of history, or one that passed for such, I was unable to wade through it.” The influence of this meretricious taste was nearly as fatal on the historian himself as on his readers ; since he felt compelled to minister to the public appetite such a mixture of the marvellous in all its narrations, as materially discredited the veracity of his writings. Every hero became a demigod, who put the labours of Hercules to shame ; and every monk or old hermit, was converted into a saint, who wrought more miracles, before and after death, than would 104 BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL MISCELLANIES. have sufficed to canonise a monastery. The fabulous ages of Greece are scarcely more fabulous than the close of the Middle Ages in Spanish history, which compares very dis- creditably, in this particular, with similar periods in most European countries. The confusion of fact and fiction con- tinues to a very late age ; and as one gropes his way through the twilight of tradition, he is at a loss whether the dim objects are men or shadows, The most splendid names in Castilian annals, names incorporated with the glorious achievements of the land, and embalmed alike in the page of the chronicler and the song of the minstrel, names asso- ciated with the most stirring, patriotic recollections, are now found to have been the mere coinage of fancy. There seems to be no more reason for believing in the real existence of Bernardo del Carpio, of whom so much has been said and sung, than in that of Charlemagne’s paladins, or of the knights of the Round Table. Even the Cid, the national hero of Spain, is contended, by some of the shrewdest native critics of our own times, to be an imaginary being ; and it is certain, that the splendid fabric of his exploits, familiar as household words to every Spaniard, has crumbled to pieces under the rude touch of modern criticism. — These heroes, it is true, fiomdshed before the introduction of romances of chivalry. But the legends of their prowess have been multiplied beyond bounds, in consequence of the taste created by these romances, and an easy faith accorded to them at the same time, such as would never have been conceded in any other civilised nation. In short, the elements of truth and falsehood became so blended, that history was converted into romance, and romance received the credit due only to history. These mischievous consequences drew down the animad- versions of thinking men, and at length provoked the interference of government itself. In 1543, Charles the Fifth, by an edict, prohibited books of chivalry from being imported into his American colonies, or being printed, or even read there. The legislation for America proceeded from the crown alone, which had always regarded the New World as its own exclusive property. In 1555, however, the Cortes of the kingdom presented a petition, (which re- quires only the royal signature to become at once the law,) CERVANTES. 105 setting forth the manifold evils resulting from these romances. There is an air at once both of simplicity and solemnity in the language of this instrument, which may amuse the reader. “ Moreover, we say that it is very notorious what mischief has been done to young men and maidens, and other persons, by the perusal of books full of lies and vanities, like Amadis, and works of that description ; since young people, especially, from their natural idleness, resort to this kind of reading, and becoming enamoured of passages of love or arms, or other nonsense which they find set forth therein, when situations at all analogous offer, are led to act much more extravagantly than they otherwise would have done. And many times the daughter, when her mother has locked her up safely at home, amuses herself with read- ing these books, which do her more hurt than she would have received from going abroad. All which redounds, not only to the dishonour of individuals, but to the great detri- ment of conscience, by diverting the affections from holy, true, and Christian doctrine, to those wicked vanities, with which the wits, as we have intimated, are completely bewil- dered. To remedy this, we entreat your Majesty that no book treating of such matters be henceforth permitted to be read, that those now printed be collected and burned, and that none be published hereafter, without special license. By which measures, your Majesty will render great service to God, as well as to these kingdoms,” &c.,