THE NEW QUIXOTE.
Fragments from a forthcoming Romance of (Political) Chivalry and (Party) Knight-Errantry.
The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years. He was of a strong constitution, spare-bodied, of a keen, not to say hatchet-like visage, a very early (and rapid) riser, and a lover of the orchid.
His judgment being somewhat obscured, he was seized with one of the strangest fancies that ever entered the head of any naturally astute person. This was a belief that it behoved him, as well for the advancement of his own glory as the service of his country, to become a knight-errant (though, indeed, there was, perhaps, about him more of the errant than the knightly), and traverse the northern parts of Hibernia, armed and mounted, in quest of adventures, redressing every species of grievance save such as were not found in his own list, or “programme,” which latter, indeed, he would by no means admit to be “grievances” at all. The poor gentleman imagined himself to be at least crowned Autocrat of Orangeia by the valour of his arm; and thus wrapt in these agreeable illusions, and borne away by the extraordinary pleasure he found in them, he hastened to put his design into execution.
The first thing he did was to scour up some rusty armour which had done service in the time of his great-grandfather, and had lain many years neglected in a corner. This he cleaned and furbished up as well as he could, but he found one great defect—it would not in any part stand one stroke from modern steel, much less one shot from modern gun. However, as he was rather fired with the yearning to attack than impressed with the necessity for defence, this deficiency troubled him but little.
In the next place he visited his steed, which though but a hobby of wooden aspect and no paces, yet in his eyes it surpassed any charger that the Achilles of Hawarden ever bestrode, or the Automedon of Derby ever handled. Many days was he deliberating upon what name he should give it; for, as he said to himself, it would be very improper that a horse so excellent appertaining to a Knight so famous should be without an appropriate name; he therefore endeavoured to find one that should express what he had been before he belonged to a knight-errant, and also what he now was; nothing could, indeed, be more reasonable than that, when the master changed his state, the horse should likewise change his name, and assume one pompous and high-sounding, as became the new order he now professed. Failing in this endeavour, he called his hobby, provisionally at least, Ne Plus Ulster, a name which if it suggested a sorry joke, was so far fitting that it was bestowed upon a sorry nag.
In the meantime our knight-errant had brought his persuasive powers to bear upon a humble labourer in the fields which he himself had lately left, a neighbour of his, some said of his own distant kin, and an honest man, but somewhat shallow-brained and self-important. In short, he said so much, used so many arguments, that the poor fellow resolved to sally out with him, and serve him in the capacity of a Squire. Among other things, Don Quixote told him that he ought to be very glad to accompany him, for such an adventure might some time or the other occur, that, by one stroke, an Island might be won, where it was within the bounds of possibility that he, the Squire, might one day become Governor, or at least Viceroy. With this and other promises Sancho Panza (for that was the rustic’s name) left his well-beloved three acres at home, not to name a favourite cow, for a time at least, and engaged himself as Squire to his ambitious neighbour.
Engaged in friendly discourse, they came in sight of eighty-five or eighty-six windmills; and as Don Quixote espied them he said to his Squire, “Fortune favours us. Look yonder, friend Jesse—I mean Sancho—where thou mayest discover some more than eighty disloyal giants, and monsters of sedition, whom I intend to encounter and slay.” “What giants?” said Sancho Panza. “These thou seest yonder,” answered his master, “with their long and far-reaching arms, for some are wont to have them of the full length of a league. Fly not, ye cowards, and vile caitiffs!” he cried, “for it is a single Knight who assaults ye! Although ye should have more arms than the giant Briareus, ye shall pay for it!”
And the story, so far as it has gone (it is “to be continued”), leaves Don Quixote making a prodigiously plucky assault upon the League-limbed “giants,” with what result the sequel will show.
