ADVERSARIA.
Don Quixote.
Sir,--Have the following contradictions in Cervantes' account of Sancho's ass "Dapple" ever been noticed or accounted for?
In Don Quixote, Part. I. chap. 23, we find Dapple's abduction at night by Gines de Passamonte; only a few lines afterwards, lo! Sancho is seated on her back, sideways, like a woman, eating his breakfast. In spite of which, chap. 25. proves that she is still missing. Sancho tacitly admits the fact, by invoking "blessings on the head of the man who had saved him the trouble of unharnessing her." Chap. 30. contains her rescue from Passamonte.
MELANION.
Doctor Dove, of Doncaster.
The names of "Doctor Dove, of Doncaster," and his steed "Nobbs," must be familiar to all the admirers, in another word, to all the readers, of Southey's Doctor.
Many years ago there was published at Canterbury a periodical work called The Kentish Register. In the No. for September, 1793, there is a ludicrous letter, signed "Agricola," addressed to Sir John Sinclair, then President of the Royal Agricultural Society; and in that letter there is frequent mention made of "Doctor Dobbs, of Doncaster, and his horse Nobbs." This coincidence appears to be too remarkable to have been merely accidental; and it seems probably that, in the course of his multifarious reading, Southey had met with the work in question, had been struck with the comical absurdity of these names, and had unconsciously retained them in his memory.
P.C.S.S.