VOL. IV., NO. 19.—OCTOBER, 1866.
ORIGINAL.
PROBLEMS OF THE AGE.
VII.
THE DOGMA OF CREATION—THE PRINCIPLE, ARCHETYPE, AND END OF THE CREATIVE ACT.
The next article of the creed is, "Creatorem coeli et terrae:" Creator of heaven and earth.
The mystery of the Trinity exhausts the idea of the activity of God within his own interior being, or ad intra. The dogma of creation expresses the idea of the activity of God without his own interior being, or ad extra. It is an explication of the primitive idea of reason which presents simultaneously to intelligence the absolute and the contingent in their necessary relation of the dependence of the contingent upon the absolute. Being an explication of the rational idea, it is rationally demonstrable, and does not, therefore, belong to the super-intelligible part of the revelation, or that which is believed simply on the veracity of God. That portion of the dogma of creation which is super-intelligible, or revealed truth in the highest sense, relates to the supernatural end to which the creation is determined by the decree of God. Nevertheless, although the idea of creation, once proposed, is demonstrable on purely rational principles, it is fairly and fully proposed to reason under an adequate and explicit conception adequately expressed, only by divine revelation. Wherever this adequate formula of revelation has been lost, the conception has been lost with it, and not even the highest philosophy has restored it. Plato's conception of the formation of the universe went no higher than the impression of divine ideas upon matter eternally self existent. In all philosophy which is not regulated by the principles of revelation, the ideas of necessary being and contingent existence and of the relation between them are more or less confused, and the dogma of creation is corrupted.
The pure, theistic conception gives at once the pure conception of creation.
Not that the idea of creation can be immediately perceived in the idea of God, which has been shown to be impossible; but that it can be perceived in the idea of God by the medium of the knowledge of finite existences given to the intellect together with the knowledge of infinite being, in the [{2}] primitive intuition. When the idea of infinite being is fully explicated and demonstrated in the perfect conception of God, the existence of real entities which are not God, and therefore not included in necessary being, being known, the relation of these things extrinsic to the being of God, to the being of God itself, becomes evident in the idea of God. It is evident that they have no necessary self-existence either out of the divine being or in the divine being, and therefore have been brought out of nonentity into entity by the act of God.
This creative act of God is that by which he reduces possibility to actuality. It is evident that this possibility of creation, or creability of finite existences extrinsic to the divine essence, is necessary and eternal. For God could not think of doing that which he does not think as possible, and his thoughts are eternal. The thought or idea of creation is therefore eternal in the divine mind. It is a divine and eternal archetype or ideal, which the externised, concrete reality copies and represents. The divine essence is the complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation.
It is, therefore, in his own essence that God must have beheld the eternal possibility of creation and the ground or reason of creability. It is the divine essence itself, therefore, which contains the archetype or ideal of a possible creation. As an archetype, it must contain that which is equivalent to finite essences, capable of being brought into concrete, actual existence by the divine power, and multiplied to an indefinite extent God's eternal knowledge of the possibility of creation is, therefore, his knowledge of his own essence, as an archetype of existences which he is capable of enduing with reality extrinsic to the reality of his own being, by his omnipotent power. The eternal possibility of creation, therefore, exists necessarily in the being and omnipotence of God. It is the imitability of the divine essence as archetype by finite essences, which are its real and extrinsic similitudes, and which are extrinsecated by an act of the divine will. The ideal or archetype of creation is evidently as necessary, as eternal, as unchangeable, as God himself. God cannot create except according to this archetype, and in creating must necessarily copy himself, to give extrinsic existence to something which is a concrete expression of the divine ideal in his own intelligence. This ideal which creation copies being, therefore, eternal in the divine intelligence, and the interior activity of the divine intelligence, or its interior ideal life, being inexplicable except in the relation of the three persons in God, creation is likewise inexplicable, except in relation to the distinct persons of the Trinity.
The Son, or Word, proceeds from the contemplation of his own divine essence by the Father, who thus reproduces the perfect and coequal image of himself. In this act of contemplation, the knowledge of the archetype of creation, or of the creability of essences resembling the divine essence, is necessarily included. The expressed ideal or archetype of all possible existences is therefore in the Word, as the personal image of the Father, and he contains in himself, in an eminent and equivalent manner, infinite similitudes or images capable of being reduced to act, and made to reflect himself in a countless variety of ways. The Son thus communicates with the Father in creative omnipotence. The spiration of the Holy Spirit, from the Father and the Son, consummating the act of contemplation by which the Son is generated in love, and thus completing the interior, intelligent, or spiritual life of God within himself, is perfectly correlated to the eternal generation of the Son. The complete essence of God is communicated by the Father and the Son to the Holy Spirit, and with it creative omnipotence as necessarily included in it. The object of volition in God is identical with the object of intelligence. The essence of God as being the archetype of a possible creation, [{3}] that is, the ideal of creation, or the idea which creation copies, being included in the term of the divine intelligence, or in the Word, is also included in the term of the divine love, or the Holy Spirit. The ideal of creation is therefore included in the object of the eternal, intelligent, living contemplation in which the three persons of the blessed Trinity are united. The power of illimitable creation according to the divine archetype is a necessary and eternal predicate of his divine being, which he contemplates with complacency. The idea of creation is therefore as eternal as God; it is coeval with him, and the object of the ineffable communications of the divine persons with each other from eternity. God has always been pleased with this idea, as the artist delights himself in the ideal of beauty, to which he feels himself capable of giving outward form and expression in sculpture, painting, or architecture.
The decree of God to reduce this possibility of creation to act, or the creative purpose, is likewise eternal; since all divine acts are in eternity, and there is no process of deliberation or progress from equilibrium to determination possible in the unchangeable God. God is actus purissimus, most pure act, and there is in him nothing potential or reducible to act which is not in act from eternity; since in him there is no past or future, and no succession, but tota, simul ac perfecta possessio vitae interminabilss, a complete, simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life.
The necessity of his own self-existent being does not determine him to the creative act, but merely to the exercise of supreme omnipotence in choosing freely between the contemplation of creation in its ideal archetype alone, and of creation in its ideal archetype determined to outward actual expression. The inward life of God is necessary, and the interior act of beatific contemplation is of the essence of the divine being. Nothing beyond this, or outside of the interior essence of God, can be necessary, and the creation cannot therefore be necessary, or it would be included in the idea of God, and be identical with the essence of God. God does not create, therefore, by necessity of nature, but by voluntary choice. It is the only exercise of voluntary choice possible to him. It is a choice, however, which though free is determined from eternity. He might have eternally chosen the contrary, that is, to leave the possible creation unactualized in its ideal archetype. He did eternally choose, however, to create.
The learned expositor of St. Thomas, F. Billuart, says that the purpose to create is communicated by the Father to the Word, concomitantly with the intelligence of the divine essence by which he is generated. [Footnote 1] Creation is no afterthought, no capricious or sportive play of omnipotence, like the jeu d'esprit which a poet throws off from a sudden impulse of fancy. The creative purpose has been the theme of the mysterious communications of the three persons of the blessed Trinity, from all eternity. In God, purpose and act, consultation and decree, are one. The decree of creation and the creative act are identical. The creative act, therefore, a parte Dei, is eternal. It is an illusion of the imagination to conceive of time as having existed before creation. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." That beginning was the first moment of time, which St. Thomas says God created when he created the universe. Time is a mere relation of finite entities to each other and to infinite being, arising from their limitation. The procession of created existences is necessarily in time, and could not have begun ab aeterno without a series actually infinite, which is impossible. Nevertheless, the first instant of created time had no created time behind it, and no series of instants behind it, intervening between it and eternity, but touched immediately on eternity.
[Footnote 1: Tract. De Trin. Diss. V. Art III. ]
The procession of created existences from God is a finite similitude of the procession of the Son and Holy Spirit from the Father. Creation is an expression of that archetype in finite form which is expressed in the infinite image of the Word. He is "the splendor of the glory, and the express image of the substance" [Footnote 2] of the Father; and creation is a reflection of this splendor, a reduplication in miniature of this image. It is an act of the same infinite intelligence by which the infinite Word is generated. For although finite itself, it is the similitude of an infinite archetype which only infinite intelligence can possess within itself. It is also an act of the same infinite love whose spiration is the Holy Spirit. The sanctity of the divine nature consists in the perfect conformity of intelligence and volition. Volition is love, a complacency in good. Love must therefore concur with intelligence in every divine act, that it may be holy. The Holy Spirit, or impersonated love, must concur with the Father and the Son, as principle and medium, to consummate or bring to its final end the creative act. Creation is therefore essentially an act of love; proceeding from intelligence and ordained for beatitude; proceeding from God as first cause, and returning to him as final cause. [Footnote 3]
[Footnote 2: Heb. i. 3.]
[Footnote 3: Final cause is the same as ultimate end. It is the cause or reason of the determination of God to create.]
The final cause of creation must be God, just as necessarily as its first cause must be God. The creative decree being eternal, all that constitutes its perfection, including its end and consummation, must be eternal, and must therefore be in God. He is the principle and consummation of his own act ad intra, and of his act ad extra, which imitates it perfectly. God creates, because he freely chooses to please himself by conferring the good of existence through the creative act on subjects distinct from himself. The adequate object of this volition of God is himself as the author of created good, or the term of the relation which created existences have to him as their creator. The possession of good by the creature is inseparable in the volition of God from the complacency which he has in the exercise of the power of bestowing good by creation. Although he is necessarily his own final end in creating, yet this does not prevent creation from being an act of pure and free love, but on the contrary makes it to be so; because it is as infinite love that God is the end of his creative act. A charitable man, who confers good upon another, is moved by a principle of love in himself, which causes him to take delight in the happiness of his fellow-creatures. This movement originates in himself, and returns back to himself, being consummated in the pure happiness which the exercise of love produces. Yet the possession of good by another is the real object which elicits the act of love, and it is therefore pure, disinterested charity. Love makes the good as given, and the good as received, one identical object, and unites the giver and receiver in one good. Selfishness is inordinate self-love, or a love of others merely so far as they serve as instruments of our own pleasure and advantage, and not as themselves subjects of happiness. But the just love of self and of others is identical in principle, proceeding from the amor entis, or love of being. The benignant father, prelate, or sovereign, the generous benefactor of his fellow-men, is not less disinterested in his acts on account of the pure happiness which comes back to himself, filling his heart with the purest happiness of which it is capable. Thus in God; his complacency in his creative act, or sovereign pleasure in creating, is the purest and most perfect love to the creature. That which he delights in as creator is the bestowal of existence, which participates in the infinite good of his own being.
The mode and degree in which existences participate in this infinite good which God distributes from the plenitude of his own being, specificates and determines their relation to him as final cause, and constitutes the ultimate term to which their creation is directed. This ultimate term or final end of creation as a whole, includes the ends for which each part taken singly is intended, and the common end to which these minor and less principal ends are all subordinated in the universal creative design. The end of a particular portion of the creation, taken singly, is attained, when it makes the final and complete explication of that similitude to the divine perfections which constitutes it in its own particular grade of existence. The end of the universe of existences is attained, when they collectively reach the maximum of excellence which God proposed to himself in creating. That is, when the similitude of the perfections of God is expressed in the universe in that variety of distinct grades, and raised to that altitude in the series of possible states of existence, which God prefixed in the beginning as the ultimate term of the creative act. Whatever the maximum of created good may be, whatever may be the predetermined limits of the universe of existence, whatever may be the highest point of elevation to which it is destined, it is evident that the accomplishment of the creative act brings the creation back to God as final cause. It has its final end in God, wherever that finality may have been fixed by the eternal will of God. This is very plain and obvious. But it leads into one of the most abstruse and, at the same time, one of the most unavoidable questions of philosophy, that which relates to the end of creation metaphysically final. What is the end of creation, or the relation of the universe of created existences to the final cause, which is metaphysically final? How far ought the actual end of created existences to coincide, or does it really coincide with the end metaphysically final?
VIII.
THE END OF CREATION METAPHYSICALLY FINAL—THE ASCENDING SERIES OF GRADES IN EXISTENCE—THE SUMMIT OF THIS SERIES IS A NATURE HYPOSTATICALLY UNITED TO THE DIVINE NATURE OF THE WORD—THE INCARNATION, THE CREATIVE ACT CARRIED TO THE APEX OF POSSIBILITY—THE SUPERNATURAL END TO WHICH THE UNIVERSE IS DESTINED COMPLETED IN THE INCARNATION.
By the end of creation metaphysically final, is meant a relation of the universe to God as final cause which is final in the divine idea, or the one which God beholds in his own infinite intelligence as the ultimatum to which his omnipotence can carry the creative act. It is a relation which brings the creature to the closest union and similitude to the creator in the good of being which the nature of the infinite and of the finite will admit.
We have already established the doctrine that God is by nature free to create or not to create, and eternally determines himself to creation by his own sovereign will to confer the pure boon of existence. We have also established, that since God determines himself from eternity to create, he necessarily creates in accordance with his own nature or essence, in accordance with the eternal archetype and idea reflected in the person of the Word; and for his own glory, or for an end in himself to which the creature is related, and which he must attain if he accomplishes his destiny. But we must inquire further, whether in determining himself to create according to the archetype contained in his own essence, he necessarily carries out this idea to the most perfect and complete actualization in the real universe? That is, does he necessarily create for an end metaphysically final, and carry the creative act to its apex, or the summit of possibility? Or is there any degree of existence or [{6}] grade of resemblance and relation to God as archetype which must be supposed in order to conceive of an end accomplished by creation which is worthy of the divine wisdom and goodness? Or, on the contrary, is it just as free to God to determine any limit, however low, as the term of creation, as it is to abstain from creating? For instance, can we suppose it consistent with the divine wisdom to create only a grain of sand? On the one hand, it may be said that creation being a free act, the creation of a grain of sand does not take away the liberty of the divine will to abstain from creating anything else. On the other hand, God, as being in his very essence the infinite wisdom, must have an adequate end in view, even in creating a grain of sand. It may be said that the creation of a grain of sand is truly an infinite act, and that a grain of sand represents the omnipotence of God as truly as the universe itself. Yet, it is difficult to see any reason why Almighty God should make such a representation merely for his own contemplation. For the same reason, it is equally difficult to suppose any adequate motive for the creation of a merely material universe, however extensive. The wisdom and power of God are manifested, but manifested to himself alone. The very end of such a manifestation appears to be to manifest the attributes of God to intelligent minds capable of apprehending it. Suppose the material universe filled with sentient creatures, and, although its end is thus partially fulfilled, by the enjoyment which they are capable of receiving from it, its adaptation to the manifestation of the divine attributes to intelligence is still apparently without an object. The sentient creation itself manifests the wisdom and goodness of God in such a way that it seems to require an intelligent nature to apprehend it, in order that God may be glorified in his works, and that the love which is the essential consummating principle of the creative act may be reflected back from the creation to the creator, and thus furnish an adequate term of the divine complacency. This complacency of God in himself as creator, as we have seen, is complacency in the communication of good, or pure, disinterested love delighting in the distribution of its own infinite plenitude. The material creation can only be the recipient of this love in transitu or as the instrument and means of conveying it to a subject capable of apprehending it. The sentient creation can only be the recipient of it as its most imperfect term, and as an end most inadequate to the means employed. The wisdom and goodness of God in the creative act cannot therefore be made intelligible to us, except as we consider it as including the creation of intelligent natures, capable of sharing in the intelligent life of God. As soon as the mind makes this point, it is able to perceive an adequate motive for the creation, for it apprehends a good in the finite order resembling the infinite good which is necessary and uncreated. It is approaching to a finality, for it apprehends that the rational nature is that nature in which the finality must be situated, or in which the ultimate relation of the universe to the final cause must exist. In other words, it apprehends that God has created a universe, including all generic grades of existence explicated into a vast extent and variety of subordinate genera and species multiplied in a countless number of individuals, all subordinate to a common order, and culminating in intelligent life. It apprehends the correspondence of the actual creation to its ideal archetype, or the realization in act of the highest possible nature which omnipotence can create after the resemblance of his own essence impersonated in the Word, and of every inferior nature necessary to the constitution of a universe, or a world of composite order and harmony comprising all the essential forms of existence whose infinite equivalent is in the divine idea.
It is evidently befitting the wisdom and grandeur of Almighty God, that the created universe should represent to created intelligence an adequate and universal similitude of his being and perfections; that its vast extent and variety, the multiplicity of distinct existences which it contains, its complicated relations and harmonies, the sublimity and beauty of its forms, the superabundance of its sentient life and enjoyment, the excellence and perfection of its intelligent creatures, should be adapted to overwhelm the mind with admiration of the might and majesty, the wisdom and glory, the goodness and love of the Creator; that, as far as possible, the procession of the divine persons within the essence of God should be copied in the procession of created existences; that the ineffable object of the divine contemplation, or the Word going forth from the infinite intelligence of the Father and returning to him in the Holy Spirit, should be represented in created similitudes by the communication of being, life, and intelligence, in every possible grade, and the completion of these in the most sublime manner of union to God of which finite nature is capable. This consummation of the creative act is worthy of the wisdom of God; for it is the most perfect act of the divine intelligence ad extra, or extrinsic to the actus purissimus by which the Word is generated in the unity of his eternal being, which is possible. It is worthy of the goodness of God; for it is the most perfect act of love ad extra, or extrinsic to the actus purissimus of the spiration of the Holy Spirit, consummating the interior life of God in eternal, self-sufficing beatitude, which omnipotence can produce.
Let us now analyse the composite order of the universe, and examine its component parts singly, in reference to the final end to which this order is determined. We will then proceed to examine more closely the mode by which the end of the universe is attained in the rational nature, and the relation of this rational nature to the end metaphysically final.
Theologians distinguish in the divine nature esse, vivere, and intelligere, or being, life, and intelligence, as constituting the archetype of the inanimate, animated, and rational orders of creation respectively.
The inanimate order, composed of the aggregate of material substances, imitates the divine esse, considered as concrete and real imply; prescinding the idea of vital movement. It imitates the divine being in the lowest and most imperfect manner. The good that is in it can only be apprehended and made to contribute to the happiness of conscious existence when a higher order of existence is created. God loves it only as an artist loves an aqueduct, a building, or a statue, as the medium of contributing to the well-being or pleasure of his creatures. Its hidden essence is impervious to our intelligence. The utmost that we can distinctly conceive of its nature is that it is a vis activa, an active force, producing sensible effects or phenomena. This appears to be the opinion which is more common and gaining ground both among physical and metaphysical philosophers. [Footnote 4] By active force is meant a simple, indivisible substance, which exists in perpetual activity. It is material substance, because its activity is blind, unconscious, and wholly mechanical, producing by physical necessity sensible effects, such as extension, resistance, etc. Though not manifest to intelligence in its hidden nature and operation, it is apprehensible by the intelligence through the effects which it operates, as something intelligible. Its sensible [{8}] phenomena are not illusions, or mere subjective forms of the sensibility, but are objectively real. Nevertheless, our conception of them must be corrected and sublimated by pure reason, in order to correspond to the reality or substance which stands under them. Our imaginary conceptions [Footnote 5] represent only the complex of phenomena presented to the senses. They represent matter as composite, because it is only through composition, or the interaction of distinct material substances upon each other, that the effects and phenomena are produced which the senses present to the imagination. The substance, or active force which stands under them, is concluded by a judgment of the reason. Reason cannot arrest itself at the composite as something ultimate. The common, crude conception of extended bulk as the ultimate material reality, is like the child's conception of the surface of the earth as the floor of the universe having nothing below it, and of the sky as its roof; or like the Indian conception of an elephant supporting the world, who stands himself on the back of a tortoise, who is on the absolute mud lying at the bottom of all things. It is the essential operation of reason to penetrate to the altissima causa, or deepest cause of things, and not to stop at anything as its term which implies something else as the reason or principle of its existence. It cannot therefore stop at anything short of the altissima causa, in the order of material second causes, any more than it can stop short of the cause of all causes, or the absolute first cause. That which is ultimate in the composite must be simple and indivisible in itself, and divided from everything else, or it cannot be an original and primary component. For, however far the analysis of a composite may be carried, it may be carried further, unless it has been analysed to its simple constituent parts which are not themselves composite, and therefore simple. It is of no avail to take refuge in the notion of the infinite divisibility of matter. For, apart from the absurdity of the infinite series contained in this notion, one of these infinitesimal entities could certainly be divided from all others by the power of God and made intelligible to the human understanding. And the very question under discussion is, What is the intelligible essence of this ultimate entity?
[Footnote 4: The philosophical works of Leibnitz may be consulted for a thorough exposition of this doctrine. Also the Philosophical Manuals of F. Rothenflue, S.J., and the Abbé Branchereau of the Society of St. Sulpice. The philosophical articles of Dr. Brownson in his Review contain some incidental arguments of great value on the same topic. P. Dalgairns of the London Oratory, also treats, with the ability and clearness which characterize all his writings, of this subject, at considerable length, in his work on the Holy Communion.]
[Footnote 5: By "imaginary conceptions" is not meant fanciful, unreal conceptions, but conceptions of the imaginative as and intellectual facility which reflects the real.]
Another proof that material substance is something intelligible and not something sensible, is, that it has a relation to spiritual substance, and therefore something cognate to spirit in its essence. The Abbé Branchereau defines relation: "Proprietatem qua duo aut plura entia ita se habeat ad invicem, ut unius conceptus conceptum alterius includat aut supponat." "A property by which two or more entities are so constituted in reference to one another, that the conception of one includes or suppose the conception of the other." [Footnote 6]
[Footnote 6: Praelect. Philos. De Relat. Entis. Num. 108, 8.]
The conception of spirit must contain the equivalent of the conception of matter, and the conception of matter must contain something the equivalent of which is contained in spirit. Else, they must be related as total opposites, which leads to the absurd conclusion that in the essence of God, which is the equivalent of all finite essences, total opposites and contradictions are contained. The same is affirmed by F. Billuart after the scholastic principles of the Thomists. "Supremum autem naturae inferioris attingitur a natura superiori." "The summit of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature." [Footnote 7] Everything copies the essence of God and exists by its participation in his being. There is no reason therefore for any other distinction in creatures except the distinction of gradation in a series, or the distinction of a more or less intense grade of participation in being. God cannot create anything totally [{9}] dissimilar to himself, because the sole archetype imitable in the creative act, whose similitude is externised in creation, is himself. All things therefore being similar to his essence are similar to the essence of one another, each to each, each grade in the ascending series containing the equivalent of all below it.
[Footnote 7: De Augelis. Diss. II. Art. I.]
The material creation represents the real being of God, as distinguishable in thought from his life and intelligence, in an express and distinct manner. The being of God is the archetype of the material creation, and contains a reason why the material order was necessary to perfect the universe. All geometrical principles are intuitively seen by the reason to be eternal truths. As eternal and necessary they are included in the object of the divine contemplation. The complete and adequate object of the divine contemplation is the divine essence. It is therefore in his own essence that God sees these necessary geometrical truths, not as we see them, but as identical with the truth of his own being in some way above our human understanding. These eternal geometrical principles are the principles which lie at the basis of the structure of the material universe, which therefore represents something in the divine essence not immediately and distinctly represented by the spiritual world.
Without pretending to define precisely what the material universe represents as equivalently and eminently contained in the divine essence, we are only uttering a truism when we affirm that what man in his present state principally apprehends through it, is the idea of the immensity of the divine being. The material universe, which has a quasi infinitude to our feeble and limited imagination, is an image of God as possessing boundless infinitude, and including an immeasurable ocean of perfections. It is only when the mind becomes so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the creation as to forget its relation to the creator, that its judgment is erroneous. And the error of judgment does not consist in appreciating the material universe too highly, but in appreciating it too little, that is, in not appreciating its highest relation to the spiritual order, with which it is cognate in its essence. The physical, visible world is not to be despised. It is no illusion, no temporary phase of reality, no perishable substance, but real, indestructible, and of endless duration. Its essence and its relation to the final cause are incomprehensible. Its essence is, however, so far intelligible that we can understand it to be a real entity, bearing a similitude to the divine nature, endued with active force as a physical second cause, through which wonderful phenomena are produced in which the divine perfections are manifested. Its end is also intelligible as subordinated to the higher grades of existence and to the grand composite order of the universe.
The next grade of existence is that which represents the vivere of the divine essence, or presents an animated and living similitude of the life of God. The distinct type of this grade is in the animal world, but it is connected with the inanimate creation by an intermediate link, namely, that which is constituted by the world of vegetative life. This world of vegetative life represents the principle of life in an inchoate form, and ministers to the higher life of sentient existences, by furnishing them with the sustenance and food of their physical life, and contributing to their enjoyment by the beauty of its forms.
Thus far, the creation is merely good as means to an end, or as the substratum of that order of existence which is capable of apprehending and enjoying good. In the sentient creation, existence becomes a good in itself, or a good capable of terminating the divine will. The countless multitudes of sentient creatures are created that they may enjoy life, and attain their particular end in this enjoyment. Nevertheless this [{10}] particular end is a minor and less principal end in reference to the general end of the created universe. To this more general end the sentient order contributes, by increasing the beauty and perfection of the whole, and ministering to the happiness of the higher, intelligent order.
This third and highest grade of existence represents the divine intelligere. It includes all rational natures, or intelligent spirits, created after the similitude of that in the divine essence which is the highest archetype imitable in finite existences. According to the regular series of gradation, man comes next in order above the animal world, and should be first considered. There is a particular reason, however, which will appear hereafter, for considering the angels first.
The angels represent most perfectly the order of pure intelligence as distinct from the irrational creation. By their nature they are at the summit of existence, and participate in the most immediate and elevated mode which can be connatural to any created essence, in the divine perfections. The perfection of the universe requires that it should contain a grade of existence imitating that which is highest in the essence of God so far as it is an archetype of a possible creation. There is nothing conceivable in the divine essence higher than its intelligence or pure spirituality. The divine life is consummated in the most pure act of intelligent spirit, which is the procession of the Word and Holy Spirit from the Father. This divine procession within the divine essence being the archetype of the procession of created existences without it, the latter ought to imitate the former by producing that which represents the intelligent act of God as closely as possible. This intelligent act of God being consummated in love, or complacency in that infinite good which is the object of intelligence, creation, which imitates and represents it, ought to contain existences which are the recipients of love and are capable of its exercise in the highest possible manner which can be essential to a created nature. The creative act would therefore be most imperfect and incomplete if it stopped short with the material or even the sentient creation. Supposing that God determines to carry out his creative act by creating a universe or a world in which the potential is actualized in a universal manner by representing the esse, vivere, and intelligere of the divine essence in every generic mode, this universe must evidently contain intelligent spirits. Intelligent spirit alone can apprehend the image of God in creation, apprehend itself as made in the image of God, apprehend the infinite attributes of God by the intuition of reason, and become fully conscious of the good of existence, capable of enjoying it, and of returning to the creator an act of love, worship, and glorification, for his great boon of goodness conferred in creation. Creation is an overflow of the plenitude of good in the divine being proceeding from the complacency of God in the communication of this good. This communication can be made in a manner which appears to our reason in any way adequate to terminate the divine complacency, only by the communication of intelligence.
The type of intelligent nature is most perfectly actualized in the angels, whose essence and operation are purely spiritual, so far as created, finite nature and operation can be purely spiritual. Whatever is intelligible or conceivable of finite, intellectual activity as connatural, or intrinsically included in the essence of created spirit, is to be attributed to them.
The notion of any composition of nature in the angels, or hypostatic union of their pure, spiritual substance with another material substance distinct from it, is wholly gratuitous. It destroys the distinctive type of the angelic nature and the specific difference between it and human nature. It has no foundation in reason except the baseless supposition that a distinct [{11}] corporeal organization is necessary to the exercise of created intelligence. Nor has it any solid support from tradition or extrinsic authority.
Some of the fathers are cited as maintaining it. Their language is, however, for the most part explained by the best theologians as indicating not the union of the angelic spirit to a distinct subtle corporeity, but the existence of something analogous to matter in the angelic spirit itself. The angels are called corporeal existences, because their essence is extrinsic to the divine essence, and extrinsecation attains its extreme limit in matter; also because their potentiality is not completely reduced to act, and their operation is limited by time and space. This appears to be also the notion advocated by Leibnitz, and the exposition of the nature of material substance given above, in accordance with his philosophy, removes all difficulty from the subject.
The conception of the angelic essence as completely free from all composition with a distinct material substance, is also at least more evidently in harmony with the decree Firmiter of the Fourth Council of Lateran, than any other. "Firmiter credimus et simpliciter confitemur, quod unus est solus verus Deus aeternus. . . . . qui sua omnipotenti virtute simul ab initio temporis, utramque de nihilo condidit creaturam, spiritualem et corporalem, angelicam videlicet et mundanam; ac deinde humanam quasi communem ex spiritu et corpore constitutam."
"We firmly believe and confess with simplicity, that there is one only true eternal God . . . . who by his own almighty power simultaneously from the beginning of time made out of nothing both parts of the creation, the spiritual and the corporeal, that is, the angelical and the mundane: and afterwards the human creature, as it were of a nature in common with both, constituted from spirit and body."
Nevertheless, by the principle of the Thomist philosophy above cited, that the lowest point of any nature touches the highest of the nature beneath it, there may be something even in the spiritual operation of the angels cognate to material operation, and coming within the sphere of the sensible. We will venture to give a little sample of scholastic theology on this head from Billuart.
"It may be said with reason that the angels operate two things in the celestial empyrean. The first is the illumination by which the intrinsic splendor of the empyrean is perfected, according to St. Thomas and various testimonies of Holy Scripture in which certain places are said to have been sensibly illuminated by the angels. For although an angel cannot immediately produce alterative qualities, as heat or cold, he can produce light, because light is a celestial quality and the highest of corporeal qualities, and the summit of the inferior nature is touched by the superior nature.
"In the second place, the angels operate on the empyrean heaven, so that it may more perfectly and efficaciously communicate a suitable perpetuity and stability to all inferior things. For as the supreme angels who are permanently stationed there have an influence over the intermediate and lowest angels who are sent forth, although they themselves are not sent forth, so the empyrean heaven, although it is itself motionless, communicates to those things which are in motion the requisite stability and permanence in their being. And that this may be done more efficaciously and permanently the angels aid by their operation in it. For, the whole universe is one in unity of order; and this unity of order consists in that by a certain arrangement corporeal things are regulated by those which are spiritual, and inferior bodies by the superior; therefore, as this order demands that the empyrean spheres influence the inferior ones, it demands also that the angels influence the empyrean sphere." [Footnote 8]
[Footnote 8: De Angelis. Diss. IL Art. I.]
Whatever may be thought of this as philosophy, it is certainly brilliantly poetical, as is the whole treatise of the learned Dominican from which it is extracted. The physical theory of the universe maintained by the scholastics was a magnificent conception, although it has been supplanted by a sounder scientific hypothesis. There appears to be no reason, however, for rejecting the notion of angelic influence over the movement of the universe. The modern hypothesis of a central point of revolution for the universe being substituted for the ancient one of the empyrean, the entire scholastic theory of the influence of the angels upon the exterior order of the universe may remain untouched in its intrinsic probability.
The consideration of man has been reserved, because, although he is inferior to the angels in intelligence, he sums up in himself the three grades of existence, and therefore the consideration of the three as distinct ought to precede the consideration of their composition in the complex human nature. The human nature includes in itself the material, vegetative, animal, and intelligent natures, which represent respectively the divine esse, vivere, and intelligere. For this reason man is called a microcosm or universe in miniature. In certain special perfections of the material, sentient, and intelligent natures, he is inferior to each; but the combination of all gives him a peculiar excellence and completeness, and qualifies him to stand in the most immediate relation to the final cause of the universe, or to the consummation of its end.
What this end is, we must now more closely examine. It is plain at first sight that this end must be attained by creation through its intelligent portion, or through the angelic and human natures. As God is final cause as well as first cause; of necessity, these intelligent natures in themselves, and all inferior natures through them, must, in some way, terminate on God as their ultimate end. God is final cause as the supreme good participated in and attained to by the creation, through the overflow of the plenitude of the divine being. The divine complacency in this voluntary overflow of the fount of being and good was the ultimate and determining motive to the creative act. The good of being thus given is a similitude of the divine esse, vivere, and intelligere. As it is real, or existence in act, it must copy, as far as its grade of existence permits, the most pure act of God in the blessed Trinity. That is, the creature must reflect from its own essence an image of the divine essence, or a created similitude of the uncreated Word, in which its existence is completed and its act consummated. In the material world this is a mere dead image, like the representation of a living form made by a statue or picture. In the sentient world, so far as we can understand this most inscrutable and baffling of all parts of the creation, there is an apprehension by the sensitive soul of a kind of shadow of the intelligible object in sensible forms, and the imperfect resemblance of the life and felicity of an intelligent nature which corresponds to this imperfect apprehension. In the intelligent creature, its spiritual essence, by virtue of the rationality in which it is created, and is its constitutive principle, reflects an image of the divine Word in the contemplation of which its intelligent life is completed. So far as intelligent nature is merely potential, it is potential to this act of intelligent life; and when its potentiality is reduced to act, so as to produce the nearest similitude to the divine intelligence in act, which God has determined to create, intelligent nature, and in it all nature, has attained its finality. Intelligent nature has attained the highest good attainable; and, the different intelligent species and individuals existing together in due order and harmony in the participation of the common good, with all inferior grades of existence subordinated to them, the universe has unity and is determined to a common final end.
Thus, creation returns back to the principle from which it proceeded by the consummation of the creative act. As the Father is united to the Word in the Holy Spirit, or in love and complacency, so the creation is united to God by the possession of good and the complacency of God in this good. It is actualized in the intelligent nature capable of knowing and loving God, and therefore having a similitude to the Son or Word. When it is ascertained what the highest union to the Father, or that approaching nearest to the union of the Son to him of which created nature is capable, is, it will be ascertained what is the end metaphysically final to which created nature can attain, if God wills to bring it to the summit of possibility. When it is ascertained what this summit of possibility is, it is ascertained what the end of creation is which is metaphysically final; and when it is ascertained how far toward this summit God has actually determined to elevate his creation, it is ascertained what is the end of creation actually final, and how far it coincides with the end metaphysically final.
This knowledge cannot be deduced from any first principle given to reason. It is communicated by revelation, and by this revelation we learn that God has determined to bring the creation to the end metaphysically final in the incarnation of the Word.
The revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation is concomitant with the revelation of the mystery of the Trinity; therefore, in the creed, the same terms which propose the dogma that the Word is of God and is God, propose the dogma that the Word is incarnate in human nature. The name given to the Second Person in the Trinity, in the creed, Jesus Christ, is the name which he assumed with his human nature. "Et in unum Dominum nostrum, Jesum Christum Filium Dei unigenitum, Deum de Deo, Lumen de Lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero, genitum non factum, consubstantialem Patri, per quern omnia facta sunt. Qui propter nos homines et propter nostram salutem descendit de coelis, et incarnatus est etiam pro nobis de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine, et homo factus est."
"And in one Jesus Christ our Lord, the only begotten Son of God, God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father, by whom all things were made. Who, for us men, and for our salvation, descended from heaven, and was incarnate also for us by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man."
The mystery of the incarnation presents to us the idea, that the Word has assumed human nature, not by assuming all the individuals of the race, but by assuming humanity individuated in one perfect soul and body into a union with his divine nature, in which it terminates upon his divine person as the final complement of its existence, without any confusion of its distinct essence with the divine essence to which it is united. By this union, the Word is a theandric person, or one divine person in two natures, divine and human, really distinct from each other in essence and existence, but with one common principle of imputability to which their attributes and operation are to be ascribed. This is the union, called in theological language hypostatic, of the creature to the Creator, which is metaphysically final, or final to the divine intelligence and power; beyond which there is no idea in God of a possible act ad extra, and which is next in order to the procession of the divine persons ad intra. Through this hypostatic union, created nature participates with the uncreated nature impersonated in the Son in the relation to the Father as principle, and the Holy Spirit as consummation, of intelligence and love; that is, in the divine life and beatitude. The incarnation having been in the view and purpose of Almighty God from eternity, [{14}] as the ultimatum of his wisdom and omnipotence, is the apex of the creative act, or the terminus at which the creative act reaches the summit of possibility. In it the creation returns to God as final cause, from whom it proceeds as first cause, in a mode which is metaphysically final. It is therefore certain that God, in his eternal, creative purpose, determined the universe to an end metaphysically final; and that this end is attained in the incarnation, or the union of created with uncreated nature in the person of the Word.
From The Dublin University Magazine.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Y SAAVEDRA.
Notwithstanding the value of the precious metals extracted from the American mines, the Spanish exchequer had not been in a satisfactory condition for a long time. War had scourged the kingdom since the conquest by the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella had indeed dislodged them and their unlucky King Boabdil from their little paradise in Granada and Andaluçia, about a century before the poor Don made his first sally; but it was at a dread sacrifice of money and men's lives. Charles V. was engaged in ruinous wars during the greater part of his reign, and Philip II., his successor (unwillingly indeed), was put to trouble and expense while uniting with other Christian powers to prevent the ferocious sultan from bringing all Europe under the Mussulman yoke. The victory of Lepanto, gained by his half-brother, Don John, somewhat crippled the Sublime Porte and the terrible renegade Uchali, but did not prevent the Algerine and other African pirates from doing infinite mischief to all the Christian states bordering the Mediterranean. Ceaselessly they intercepted their merchant vessels, made booty of the freight and slaves of the crew, and obliged all in the rank of merchants or gentlemen to find heavy ransoms. Now what should have prevented Spain and France and the Italian kingdoms from collecting a large fleet and army at any one time, and battering down the strongholds of these ruthless plunderers, and effectually putting it out of their power to annoy their Christian neighbors? Philip was often urged to co-operate in such a good work, but he preferred to expend time and money, and his subjects' blood and property, on other projects.
An extract from the work mentioned below, [Footnote 9] in reference to the state of Spain toward the latter years of Philip II., is well worth transcribing. The author is speaking of Cervantes in prison, some time between 1598 and 1603:
[Footnote 9: Michel de Cervantes, sa Vie, son Temps, son OEuvre Politique et Littéraire. Par Émile Chasles. Paris: Didier et Cie.]
"He distinctly perceived, through the splendor and apparent unity of the Spanish monarchy, a muttering and stormy confusion, a thousand strange and opposed groupings;—politicians who in fact were mere favorites, austere gentlemen mixed with galant writers,—grave inquisitors condemning errant Bohemians, applying a barbarous law to barbarous hordes, and cauterizing but not curing wounds. Through this assemblage of contrasts he could see a wide separation between the social classes. Two distinct groups existed united by any common idea or sympathy, extra-social world of Gitanos (gipsies), rogues, and mystics, whose lives were independent, and that of the alcaids and corregidors.
"Between these two camps hovered a mixed population so frequently treated of in Spanish letters,—the alguazil, the sacristan, the deserter, the refugee, a hybrid people attached to the law or the church, but affiliated to the hampa (illegal bond of union) by character, by nature, by origin, or by interest.
"In a country where poverty was every day increasing, necessity threw thousands every day on a career of adventure. It depopulated Spain in exiling to the Indies her best soldiers. It flung away innumerable renegades to the coast of Africa. It decimated that nobility erewhile so valiant, so full of pride and patriotism. Impoverished gentlemen soon formed a large class of honorable paupers. They endured, with a stoicism purely Spanish, the exigencies of honor and poverty, along with the necessity of living and dying useless to their country."
Let pity be awarded to the poor gentlemen who took his promenade toothpick in hand, to impress on his world that he had dined. Cervantes had no need to go beyond his family recollections for materials for this sketch:
"Behold the hidalgo coming out of his house with unquiet eye. His suspicious humor inclines him to believe that every one knows his shoes are pieced, that perspiration has left marks on his hat, that his cloak is threadbare, and that his stomach is empty. He has taken a draught of water within closed doors, and just come forth displaying his hypocritical toothpick,—dolorous and deceptive exhibition, which has grown into a fashion."
Political principles and social institutions prevalent during the long wars between the Christians and the Moors were still in vigor at the end of the sixteenth century, when the circumstances of the country had undergone a thorough change.
"During the the centuries when Spain was struggling against the Arabs, the she condition of the nationality was the purity of blood and the Christian faith. The Old Christian (Christiano Viejo), the irreproachable Castilian alone, could be intrusted with the defense of the soil or the government of the country. And now when the enemy was expelled the usage remained. The alcaid (magistrate) did not know the law, perhaps he could not read, but 'he had,' as he said, 'four inches of the fat of an Old Christian on his ribs, and that was sufficient.'"
In the interlude of the Election of the Alcaids of Daganzo, Cervantes specifies the personal gifts sufficient to qualify for the post. An elector proposing Juan Verrouil, thus dwells on his good qualities:
"At all events Juan Verrouil possesses the most delicate discernment. The other day, taking a cup of wine with me, he observed that it smacked of wood, of leather, and of iron. Well, when we got to the bottom of the pitcher, what did we discover but a key fastened by a strap of leather to a piece of wood!
"Secretary.—Wonderful ability, rare genius. Such a man might rule Alanis, Cazalla, ay even Esquivias."
Francis de Humillos is considered fit for the magistracy because of his nearness in soling a shoe. Michael Jarret is voted worthy, as he shoots an arrow like any eagle. Peter the Frog knows every word of the ballad of the "Dog of Alva" without missing one, but Humillos stands the examination with rather more credit than the rest; he knows the four prayers, and says them four or five times per week.
The number of wandering gipsies and brigands and thieves of all description was out of all rational proportion with the honest and respectable population. These were united under the hampa, and it was a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain information against any delinquent from a brother of the order.
Little is said about the mercantile or manufacturing classes in books connected with the time of Cervantes. Enough is told of the pride, and luxury, and generally perverted tastes of the great, and hints are given of the kind and considerate demeanor of the nobility residing on their estates to their dependents.
DON QUIXOTE'S PREDECESSORS.
Spain is not the only country which for a time has set an extravagant estimate on some books or class of books. Even in our own days and in those of the last generation, have not literary furors prevailed for picturesque banditti, and feudal castles, and caverns, and awful noises in vast and dimly lighted bedchambers, for poetry beckoning its victims to despair and suicide, for novels stamped with the silver fork of high life, and lastly, for those which enlarge on the physiology of forbidden fruit? M. Chasles will pleasantly explain the literary penchants of the peninsula two hundred and sixty odd years since:
"We have seen the France of the seventeenth century enthusiastic for the Astrea and the Clelia, [Footnote 10] and the England of the eighteenth assume shield and spear for Clarissa Harlowe, [Footnote 11] but in 1598 and in Spain, the extraordinary popularity of the Amadises resembled a brain fever at which no one dared laugh. One day a certain nobleman coming home found his wife in tears. 'What is the matter? What bad news have you heard?' 'My dear, Amadis is dead.' They could not suffer the writers to put their heroes to death. The infant Don Alonzo personally interceded with the author of the Portuguese Amadis to rewrite the chapter in which the Signora Briolana was sacrificed. These creatures of the imagination assumed a personal reality among the people of that era in the mind of every one. Every one was convinced that Arthur of Britain would one day return among men. Julian of Castile, who wrote in 1587, affirmed (could we believe him) that when Philip II. espoused Mary of England, he was obliged to reserve the claims of King Arthur, and engage to yield him the throne when he returned. Chivalric fictions became an article of faith. A certain gentleman, Simon de Silveyra, swore one day on the Holy Gospel that he held the history of Amadis de Gaul [Footnote 12] for true and certain."
[Footnote 10: For information concerning these slow romances and their contemporaries, and the great Honore d'Urfy. see University Magazine for February, 1844.]
[Footnote 11: A school of simple and warm-hearted working-class folk nightly assembled at a forge in Windsor to hear the perilous trials of Pamela read out to them. They watched with unflagging interest her progress through her ticklish trials, and showed their joy in her final triumph by running in a body to the church and ringing the bells.]
[Footnote 12: This first and best of the chivalric romances was composed by Vasco de Lobeira of Oporto, who died in 1406. It was written between 1342 and 1367, and first printed between 1492 and 1500. There is some uncertainty concerning the given dates.]
Such were a few characteristics of Spanish life when Cervantes thought of writing his Don Quixote. In his numerous works he had it in purpose to improve the state of things in his native country, and to correct this or that abuse, but he obtained no striking success till the publication of this his greatest work. Alas! while it established his character as master in literature, it excited enmities and troubles in abundance.
YOUTH OF CERVANTES.
Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was born in 1547 at Alcala de Hénarès. His parents, both of gentle birth, were Rodrigo de Cervantes and Leonor de Cortinas. Their other children born before Michael were Rodrigo, Andrea, and Luisa. His family belonged to the class of impoverished gentlefolk, poor but intensely proud of their descent from one of those hardy mountaineers the Saavedras, who, five centuries before, so heroically defended the northern portion of Spain against the Moors. While the hereditary possessions were growing less and less, the heads of the family would endeavor to compensate for present privations, by relating to their children the noble deeds and the great estates of their ancestors.
Cervantes' paternal roof was probably surrounded by some of the paternal fields, and it is likely that the domestic economy was similar to that described in the first chapter of Don Quixote, where translators have still left us at a loss as to the Saturday's fare, duelos y quebrantos (griefs and groans), some, guessing it to be eggs and bacon; others, a dish of lentils; others, brains fried in oil; others, the giblets of fowl.
Alcala de Hénarès [Footnote 13] was worthy to be the birthplace of Spain's best writer. The archbishops of Toledo owned a palace there, and there the great Cardinal Ximenes, an ex-student of its [{17}] college, returned when somewhat under a cloud, and prepared his world-famous polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. From the date when the great scholar and statesman made the town his permanent residence it aimed to become, and did eventually become, the intellectual Metropolis of the native country of Cervantes. It possessed a University, nineteen colleges, thirty-eight churches, and works of art in profusion.
[Footnote 13: "From the Arabic At-Cala-d'el-Nahr, the chateau by the river.">[
Whether debarred by poverty or negligence, the last an unlikely supposition, Cervantes did not graduate in the University of Alcala or in any other, a circumstance that occasioned him much fortification in his manhood and advanced age. Émile Chasles thus expresses himself on this subject:
"The graduated took their revenge. When Cervantes acquired celebrity they recollected that he had taken no degree. When he thought an employ they applied to him by way of iron brand the epithet, Ingenio Lego, 'He is not of ours,' said they; 'he is not a cleric.' The day when he attracted the attention of all Europe their anger was excessive towards the writer who possessed talent without permission, and genius without a diploma. Cervantes gaily replied, that he admired their pedantic learning, their books bristling with quotations, the complements they paid each other in Greek, their erudition, their marginal notes, their doctors' degrees, but that he himself was naturally lazy, and did not care to search in authors for what he was able to say without them; and finally, that when there is a dull or foolish thing to be expressed, it will do in Spanish as well in Latin."
He was smarting under the contempt of the learned asses of his day when writing the preface to his Don Quixote:
"Alas, the story of Don Quixote is as bare has a rush! Ah, if the author could do as others,—cite at the head of the book a litany of authorities in alphabetic order, commencing with Aristotle and ending with Xenophon or Zoilus! But the poor Cervantes can find nothing of all this. There he sits, paper before him, the pen behind his ear, his elbow on the table, his cheek in his hand, and himself all unable to discover pertinent sentences or ingenious trifles to adorn his subject. Happily a humorous and intelligent friend enters and brings relief. 'Quote,' said he, 'and continue to quote; the first sentence that comes to hand will answer. "Pallida mors aequo pede" is as good as another. Horace will come in well anywhere, and you can even make use of the Holy Scriptures. The giant Golias or Goliath was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with a stone from a sling in the valley of Terebinthus, as is related in the Book of Kings in the chapter where it is to be found.'"
THE FIRST PLAYS AT WHICH HE ASSISTED.
The earliest instructors of our brave romancer and poet were the excellent clergyman Juan Lopez de Hoyos, who took pride and pleasure in expanding the intellects of clear-headed pupils, and the talented strolling actor, Lope de Rueda, who at a time (middle of sixteenth century) when neither Alcala nor even Madrid could boast a suitably appointed theatre, went from town to town, and amused the inhabitants from his rudely contrived stage. This consisted of a platform of loose planks supported by trestles, and a curtain as respectable as could be afforded, doing duty as permanent scene, and affording a hiding-place behind it to the actors when not performing, and to the few musicians who occasionally chanted some romantic ballad.
Rueda had been in his youth a gold-beater at Seville, whence, finding in himself a strong vocation for the mimetic art, he made his escape, carrying some of the popular satiric stories in his head, and moulding them into farces. His troupe consisted of three or four male actors, one or two occasionally presenting female characters, and these were found sufficient to present a simple story in action, the manager himself being an actor of rare ability. These open air performances took a very strong hold on Cervantes' imagination. An outline is given of one of these acted fables, the precursors of the voluminous repertory furnished some years later by Lope de Vega.
Rueda himself, presenting an old laborer, tired and wet, and carrying a fagot, appears before his door, and calls on his wife, who should have his supper ready. His daughter (represented by [{18}] a beardless youth) acquaints him that she is helping a neighbor at her skeins of silk. She is called, and a fierce scolding match ensues, he demanding his supper and vaunting the severity of his labor, she vilifying the fagot he has brought home. By-and-by the discourse falls on a little plantation of olive trees which he has just put down, and the Signora Aguéda de Toruegano forgets her anger in the anticipation of the large profits to accrue from her seedlings:
"Wife.—Do you know, my dear, what I've been just thinking? In six or seven years our little plantation will produce four or five fanèques (about fifteen barrels) of olives, and putting down a plant now and again, we shall have a noble field all in full bearing in twenty-five or thirty years.
"Husband.—Nothing more likely; it will be a wonder in the neighborhood.
"Wife.—I'll gather the fruit, you'll take them to market on the ass, and Menciguela (the daughter) will sell them; but mind what I tell you, girl! you must not sell them a maravedi less than two reals of Castile the celemin (bushel).
"Husband.—Two reals of Castile! O conscience! a real and a half [Footnote 14] will be a fair price.
[Footnote 14: This has been substituted for fifteen deniers, about three farthings, the amount in M. Chasles' version.]
"Wife—Ah, hold your tongue! They are the very best kind—olives of Cordova.
"Husband.—Even so, a real and a half is quite enough.
"Wife.—Ah, don't bother my head! Daughter, you have heard me; two reals of Castile, no less.
"Husband.—Come here, child. What will you ask—the bushel?
"Daughter.—Whatever you please, father.
"Husband.—Just a real and a half.
"Daughter.—Yes, father.
"Mother.—Yes, father! Come here to me. How will you sell them the bushel?
"Daughter.—Whatever you say, mother.
"Father.—I promise you, my lass, two hundred stripes of the stirrup leathers, if you don't mind my directions. Now what'll be the price?
"Daughter.—Whatever you like, father.
"Mother.—How! Ah, here's for your 'whatever you like.' (She beats her.) Take that, and maybe it'll teach you to disobey me.
"Father.—Let the child alone.
"Daughter.—Ah, mother, mother, don't kill me! (Cries out; a neighbor enters.)
"Neighbor.—What's this, what's this? Why do you beat the little girl?
"Wife.—Ah, sir, it's this wasteall that wants to give away all we have for nothing. He'll put us out of house and home. Olives as large as walnuts!
"Husband.—I swear by the bones of my ancestors that they are no bigger than grains of millet.
"Wife.—I say they are.
"Husband.—I say they're not.
"Neighbor.—Will you please, ma'am, to go inside? I undertake to make all right (She enters the house.) Now, my friend, explain this matter. Let us see your olives. If you have twenty fanèques, I will purchase all.
"Father.—You don't exactly comprehend. The fact is—do you see?—and to tell the honest truth, the olives are not just in the house, though they are ours.
"Neighbor.—No matter. Sure it's easy to get them brought here. I'll buy them at a fair price.
"Daughter.—My mother says she must get two reals [Footnote 15] the bushel.
[Footnote 15: The Spaniards keep their accounts in piastres, reals, and marvedis, the first-named being worth about 8s. 6d. of our money. Thirty-four marvedis make a real, eight reals a piastre. The real mentioned in the text was probably a piece of eight or piastre.]
"Neighbor.—That's rather dear.
"Father.—Now isn't it, sir?
"Daughter.—My father only asks a real and a half.
"Neighbor.—Let us see a sample.
"Husband.—Ah, don't ask to talk about it farther. I have to-day put down a small plot of olives. My wife says that within seven or eight years we'll be able to gather four or five fanèques of fruit from them. She is to collect them, I to take them on the ass to market, and our daughter to sell them, and she must not take less than two reals. She says yes, I say no, and that's the whole of it.
"Neighbor.—A nice a fair, by my faith! The olives are hardly planted, and yet your daughter has been made to cry and roar about them.
"Daughter.—Very true indeed, sir, what you say.
"Father.—Don't cry any more, Menciguela. Neighbor, this little body is worth her weight in gold. Go, lay the table, child. You must have an apron out of the very first money I get for the olives.
"Neighbor.—Good-by, my friend; go in and be agreeable with your wife.
"Father.—Good-by, sir. (He and his daughter go in.)
"Neighbor, alone.—It must be owned that some things happen here below beyond belief. Ouf! quarrel about olives before they're in existence!"
The reader will easily recognize the "Maid with the milking pail" at the bottom of this illustration. Before the production of any of the regular pieces of De Vega, or Calderon, or Alarcon, or Tirso de Molina, the easily pleased folk of country or town were thoroughly satisfied with Rueda's repertory. When the talented stroller died in 1567, he was honored with a costly funeral, and solemnly interred in the cathedral of Cordova. Strange contrast between his posthumous fortune and that of Molière!
The impression made on Cervantes by the performances on Rueda's platform was strong and lasting. He ever retained a high respect for the talent of observation, the native genius and the good sense of Lope de Rueda.
In the preface to his own plays, Cervantes left an inventory of the theatrical properties of the strolling establishments in his youth:
"All the materials of representation were contained in a sack. They were made up of four jackets of sheepskin, laced with gilt leather, four beards, as many wigs, four shepherd's crooks. The comedies consisted of eclogues or colloquies between two or three shepherds and one shepherdess. They prolonged the entertainments by means of interludes, such as that of the Negress, the Ruffian, the Fool, or that of the Biscayan,—four personages played by Lope as well as many others, and all with the greatest perfection and the happiest natural ability that can be imagined."
One evening in the old age of Cervantes, the company around him were discussing the living actors and the present condition of the theatre. Among other things they treated of the infancy of the Spanish stage, and the artist who first essayed to make it something better than a platform for tumbling. Cervantes at once brought forward the claims of his early master:
"I remember having seen play the great comedian Lope de Rueda, a man distinguished for his intelligence and his style of acting. He excelled in pastoral poetry. In that department no one then or since has shown himself his superior. Though then a child, and unable to appreciate the merit of his verses, nevertheless when I occasionally repeat some couplets that have remained in my memory, I find that my impression of his ability is correct."
HIS FIRST STEP IN LIFE.
The young admirer of Lope de Rueda exhibited in his temperament and appearance more of the soldier than the poet. With his high forehead, his arched eyebrows, his hair flung behind, his firm-set mouth, he seemed to present little of the imaginative dreamer. However, there was that in the delicate contours of the countenance, in the searching look, in the fire of the large dark eyes, which betrayed the ironical powers of the observant man of genius. No doubt he had the literary instincts somewhat developed by the practical lessons of Rueda, but military aspirations had the ascendant for the time. Though his brother Rodrigo had departed for the war in Flanders, and it seemed as if he was destined to remain at home with his family, fate and inclination were against this arrangement. However, the first step he took in life was not in the direction of the battle-field. An Italian cardinal took him to Rome in quality of secretary. The brave Don John, half-brother of Philip II., was appointed general of the league arming against the Grand Turk at the same time, and the young and ardent Miguel eagerly took arms under him, and was present at the memorable naval engagement of Lepanto. Philip did not enter with much good-will into this strife, and prevented any advantages that might result from the glorious victory by shortly withdrawing his brother from the command of the allied forces of Christendom. The enthusiastic young soldier received three wounds as well as a broken arm in the fight. This was in the year 1571, and until 1575 we find Cervantes attending Don John in his contentions with the Mohammedan powers on the coast of Africa, in which the chivalric commander was hampered by the ill-will of his brother, Philip II. He went into the Low Countries much against his will, and after several victories met a premature death there in 1578, when only thirty-two years old.
CAPTIVE IN ALGIERS.
Cervantes received from his great-souled commander written testimonials of his valiant conduct and moral worth, and sailed for Spain from Naples in the year 1578. On the voyage the vessel was attacked by three Turkish galliots; those who fell not in the engagement were made prisoners, and our hero became the slave of a lame renegade called the "Cripple," in Arabic, Dali Mami.
The Algerians, rigid Mussulmans as they were, killed as few Christians in these attacks as they could. Slaves and ransoms were the cherished objects of their quests, and as soon as could be after the landing in Algiers, the classification was made of "gentles and commons." The captors were cunning in their generation, and this was the process adapted for the enhancement of their live property.
The captive's owner proceeded with wonderful skill to raise the value of his goods. While the slave declared his poverty, and lowered his station in order to lower the terms of his ransom, the master affected to treat his victim with the greatest respect. He gave him almost enough of nourishment, and professed he was ruining himself for the other's advantage through pure deference and good-will; and slipped in a word as to his hopes of being repaid for his outlay. The prisoner might undervalue himself as much as he chose, "he was merely a private soldier." Ah, his master knew better; the man of the ranks was a general, the man before the mast a caballero, the simple priest an archbishop.
"As for me,' said the captive Dr. Sosa, 'who am but a poor clerk, the need me bishop by their own proper authority, and in plenitudine potestatis. Afterward they appointed me the private and confidential secretary of the Pope. They assured me that I had been for eight days closeted with His holiness in a chamber, where we discussed in the most profound secrecy the entire affairs of Christendom. Then they created me cardinal, afterwards governor of Castel Nuovo at Naples; and at this present moment I am confessor to Her Majesty the Queen of Spain.' In vain Dr. Sosa renounced these honors. They produced witnesses, both Christian and Turks, who swore to having seen him officiating as cardinal governor."
The letters of of Don John of Austria having been found on Cervantes, the poor soldier of Lepanto became at once a great lord, from whom a large ransom might be expected. They began with genuflexions, and frequently ended with the scourge, not in his case, however. Many poor wretches, to save themselves from the horrible treatment they endured, or expected to endure, became Mohammedans, on which they immediately obtained their liberty, were set on horseback, with fifty Janissaries on foot, serving as cortège, the king defraying the expense of the ceremony, bestowing wives on the hopeful converts, and offering them places among his Janissaries.
Cervantes became the centre, round which the hopes of many poor captives were grouped. He made several attempts at evasion, and, strange to say, was not in any instance punished by his otherwise cruel master.
Several Christians enjoying the benefit of safe conduct were free to come and go among these Algerines, and the Redemptorist Fathers enjoyed thorough freedom, as through them the ransoms were chiefly effected. A Spanish gentleman being set at liberty, carried a letter from our hero home to his family, and in consequence the brave old hidalgo, his father, mortgaged his little estate, took the dowries of his two daughters, and forwarded all to his son for the liberation of himself and his brother, who was also in captivity. When he presented himself to Dali Mami with his sum in his hands the renegade cripple only laughed at him. He and Rodrigo were men of too much importance to be ransomed for so trifling a sum.
The cruel viceroy of Algiers having spent his allotted time in charge of that nest of vultures, was replaced by a governor still more cruel, under whom Cervantes made a desperate effort to escape, and carry off forty or fifty fellow-captives with him. He paid his brother's ransom, and he, when set at liberty, managed to send a vessel near the spot where Miguel had his companions in safety in a grotto of a certain garden. Through some mismanagement the descent failed, and the hiding-place was revealed by the treachery of a trusted individual. All were brought before the new Viceroy Hassan, and Cervantes avowed himself the chief and only plotter among them. Hassan used flattery, promises, and threats to induce the intrepid Spaniard to criminate a certain brother Redemptorist as privy to the plot, in order that he might come at a much coveted sum of money which he knew to be in his possession. All was in vain. Cervantes was not to be turned from the path of loyalty, and when every one expected sentence of death to be pronounced on him at the moment, Hassan became suddenly cool, and merely ordered him to be removed.
The bagnio of Hassan was a sufficiently wretched place, but while our hero sojourned there, he made it as cheerful as he could by composing poetical pieces and reciting them, and getting up a Spanish comedy. There were forty priests in it at the time, and these performed their clerical duties as if at liberty. They celebrated mass, administered holy communion, and preached every Sunday. When Christmas approached, he arranged a mystery, such as he had seen performed in his native Alcala under the direction of the ingenious Lope de Rueda. All were prepared,—the shepherds' dresses, the crib, the stable, etc.; the guardian admitting outsiders at a small charge, and a shepherd reciting the opening verses of the entertainment, when a Moor entered in hot haste, and shouted out to all to look to their safety, as the Janissaries were rushing through the streets, and killing the Christians. Some clouds on the northern horizon had been taken for the Christian fleet under Don John, and the terrible guards determined to put it out of the Christian captives' power to aid the attack. The massacre ceased on the clearing away of the vapors.
About that time, Philip II. was collecting a large naval force in the Mediterranean for the ostensible purpose of storming Algiers, though in reality his intent was merely to seize on the kingdom of Portugal. Its romantic sovereign, Don Sebastian, the hero of one of Miss Porter's romances, had just been slain in Morocco, and his successor Henry, whose days were numbered, was unable to cross his projects. The report of Philip's meditated descent inspired Cervantes with a project of a general rising of the slaves. He even addressed to the sombre king, through his secretary Mateo Vasquez, a remonstrance and encouragement, of which we present a few extracts:
"High and powerful lord, let the wrath of thy soul be enkindled. Here the garrison is numerous, but without strength, without ramparts, without shelter. Every Christian is on the alert; every Mussulman is watching for the appearance of the fleet as the signal for flight. Twenty thousand Christians are in this prison, the key of which is in your hands. We all, with clasped hands, on bended knees, and with stifled sobs, and under severe tortures, beseech thee, puissant lord, to turn your pitying looks towards us, your born subjects, who lie groaning here. Let the work courageously begun by your much loved father be achieved by your hand."
Hassan employed the slaves in building fortifications for his garrison, but he kept Cervantes strictly guarded. "When my disabled Spaniard," said he, "is under guard, I am sure of the city, the prisoners, and the port." But though well watched, the restless captive made three other attempts at escape, for each of which he was to receive, but did not, two thousand bastinadoes. In the fourth attempt, two merchants who were compromised, and feared he might betray them under the torture, offered to pay his ransom, and thus secure his departure, but he did not accept the terms. He braved the examination, and would [{22}] not reveal the names of any accomplices except four who were already out of danger. Strange to say, even this time he escaped without punishment. A renegade, Maltrapillo, high in Hassan's confidence, and who seems to have entertained great esteem for the fearless and generous character of Cervantes, probably saved his back sundry stripes on these different occasions. On this subject we quote some lines from M. Chasles:
"Either through the interference of Maltrapillo or the influence exercised by the noble character of Cervantes on all around him, this time again he was spared by Hassan. How was he enabled to many times to escape his master's rage? In following his fortunes through these years of trial, I am struck by the mysterious influence of his noble character on the events and the persons by whom he was surrounded. In the mixed of a diverse population incessantly changing, among a crowd of soldiers and captive doctors, he occupied an exceptional station. Brothers of Mercy, Christian merchants, renegades, all recognize in him a moral superiority. 'Every one,' says the eye-witness Pedrosa, 'admired his courage and his disposition.'"
The acts of kindness done by the renegades to the captives were not small nor few. Nearly all of them had conformed through the immediate prospect of promotion, or fear of punishment, and there was scarcely a conscientious Mussulman among every hundred of them. In general they were anxious to obtain from the captives about to be ransomed certificates of their own good offices towards them. These were intended to be available for some possible future contingencies.
The poor sorrowful father continued to make unavailing efforts for his ransom. He even disturbed the court officials with representations of his son's services and sufferings; but "circumlocution" was a word understood even in Madrid and in the days of Philip II. The afflicted and impoverished gentleman died in dragging his suit through the lazy and unpatriotic officials, and if ever a death resulted from heartbreak his was one. Still his mother, his brother Rodrigo and his sister Andrea exerted themselves, and dispatched to Algiers 300 crowns. A strong representations at the court insured in addition the amount of a cargo then consigned to Algiers, which produced only 60 ducats, say £30. These sums were not sufficient, and the heart sick captive would have been carried by Hassan to Constantinople, his viceroyalty having expired, only for the deficiency being made up by the Brothers of Mercy, Christian merchants, etc., who were "tightly targed" for that purpose by the good-hearted and zealous brother superior, Gil. This providential redemption occurred in 1580.
Before he quitted his abode of little ease he had the forethought to demand a public scrutiny of his conduct by the Christian authorities. Witnesses in great number came forward to testify to his worth. The following facts were irrevocably established. He had rescued one man from slavery only for the treachery of Blanco. The pure morality of his life was attested by a gentleman of high standing. Others proved his many acts of charity to the unfortunate and to children, all done as secretly as possible. He had contrived the escape of five captives. A gentleman, Don Diego (James) de Benavides, furnished this testimony:
"On coming here from Constantinople, I asked if there were in the city any gentlemen by birth, I was told there was one in particular—a man of honor, noble, virtuous, well-born, the friend of caballeroes, to wit, Michael de Cervantes. I paid him a visit. He shared with me his chamber, his clothes, his money. In him I have found a father and a mother."
The declarations of Brother Gil and of Rev. Dr. Sosa solemnly confirmed the facts brought forward by numerous captives. Sosa wrote his declaration while still in irons, and avowed with a mixture of dignity and feeling that his principles would have prevented him from allowing himself such [{23}] intimacy with Cervantes, had he not considered him in the light of an earnest Christian, liable to martyrdom at any moment.
A scrutiny was also made in Spain at the request of the elder Cervantes, in 1578, and both the justifying documents, signed by notaries, are still in existence.
"Ah!" says Haedo (himself an eye-witness of the sufferings of the Christians in that vulture's nest), "it had been a fortunate thing for the Christians if Michael Cervantes had not been betrayed by his own companions. He kept up the courage and hopes of the captives at the risk of his own life, which he imperilled four times. He was threatened with death by impaling, by hanging, and by burning alive; and dared all to restore his fellow-sufferers to liberty. If his courage, his ability, his plans, had been seconded by fortune, Algiers at this day would belong to us, for he aimed at nothing less."
Cervantes did not put his own adventures in writing. The captive in Don Quixote said with reference to them, "I might indeed tell you some strange things done by a soldier named Saavedra. They would interest and surprise you, but to return to my own story." The disinterested hero had more at heart the downfall of Islamism than his own glorification.
HIS RESTITUTION TO HIS NATIVE LAND.
Cervantes touched his native land again with no very brilliant prospect before him. His father was dead; his mother could barely support herself, his brother was with the army, and his friends dispersed. Still the first step on his beloved Spain gave him great joy, afterwards expressed through the mouth of the captive in Don Quixote:
"We went down on our knees and kissed our native soil, and then with eyes bathed in tears of sweet emotion we gave thanks to God. The sight of our Spanish land made us forget all our troubles and sufferings. It seemed as if they had been endured by others than ourselves, so sweet it is to recover lost liberty."
At the time of his arrival king and court were at Badajos, watching the progress of the annexation of Portugal. He joined the army, and during the years 1581, '2, '3, shared in the battles between Philip and the Prior Antonio de Ocrato, the latter being assisted by the French and English. In one of these fights the Spanish admiral ordered the brave Strozzi, wounded and a prisoner, to be flung into the sea. At the engagement of the Azores, Rodrigo Cervantes and another captain flung themselves into the sea, and were the first to scale the fortifications, thus giving their soldiers a noble example.
MARRIAGE AND SUBSEQUENT TROUBLES.
He lived in Lisbon a short time and composed his Galatea there. Next year he returned to Madrid, and married the lady Dona Catalina de Palacios y Salazar y Vomediano. She was of a noble family, but her dowry consisted of a few acres of land. In the marriage contract, signed in presence of Master Alonzo de Aguilera, and still in existence, mention is made of half a dozen fowl forming part of the fortune brought by her to the soldier and poet. The marriage was celebrated 12th December, 1584, at the bride's residence, Esquivias, a little town in the neighborhood of the capital.
He now betook himself seriously to literature, published the Galatea, and began to write for the theater. At first he was very successful, but on a sudden Lope de Vega came on the scene, and exhibited such dramatic aptitude and genius and mental fertility, that managers and actors and audience had no ears for any other aspirant to dramatic reputation, and poor Cervantes found his prospect of fame and independence all at once clouded. The pride of the Spanish hidalgo and "Old Christian" [Footnote 16] had been much [{24}] modified by his life in the army and bagnio, and his good common sense told him that it was his duty to seek to support his family by some civil occupation rather than indulge his family pride, and suffer them and himself to starve.
[Footnote 16: One unsuspected of having Moorish or Jewish blood in his veins.]
But oh, Apollo and his nine blue stockings! what was the occupation dropped over our soldier-poet's head, and doing all in its power to extinguish his imaginative and poetic faculties? Nothing more nor less than the anti-romantic duties of a commissary. Well, well, Spain was no more prosaic than other countries, and Cervantes had brothers in his mechanical occupations. Charles Lamb's days were spent in adding up columns of "long tots." Burns gauged whiskey casks and kept an eye on private stills; Shakespeare adjusted the contentions of actors, and saw that their exits and entrances did not occur at the wrong sides; perhaps the life of the mill-slave Plautus furnished as much happiness as any of the others. The mill-stones got an occasional rest, and he was in enjoyment for the time, when reading comic scenes from his tablets or scrolls, and listening to the outbursts of laughter that came from the open throats of his sister and brother drudges.
The Invincible Armada, while preparing to make a hearty meal on England, had need meantime of provender while crossing the rough Biscayan sea, and four commissaries were appointed to collect provisions for that great monster, and for the behoof of the Indian fleets. Cervantes was one of the four, Seville appointed his headquarters, and his time most unpoetically employed collecting imposts in kind from all tax-paying folk.
The regular clergy (houses of friars and monks) were at the time at deadly feud with his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip II., and refused to pay him tribute. They founded their refusal on a papal bull; and on the other aide, the alcaids produced the royal warrant. Between the contending powers the author of Galatea found himself sufficiently embarrassed.
For some years Cervantes endured a troubled and wretched existence in such employment as the above, in purchasing corn for the use of the galleys, and in making trips to Morocco on public business. He solicited the government for an office in the Indies, and was on the point of obtaining it when some influence now unknown frustrated his hopes. He describes his condition and that of many other footballs of fortune in the Jealous Estremaduran:
"In the great city of Seville he found opportunities of spending the little he had left. Finding himself destitute of money, and not better provided with friends, he tried the means adopted by all the idle hangers-on in that city, namely, a passage to the Indies, the refuge of the outcasts of Europe, the sanctuary of bankrupts, the inviolable asylum of homicides, paradise of gamblers who are there sure to gain, resort of women of loose lives, where the many have a prospect, and the few a subsistence."
Our poet not being born with an instinct for regular accounts and being charged to collect arrears of tax in Granada to the amount of two millions of maravedis, say £1,500, found his task difficult among people who were slow in committing to memory the rights of the crown. His greatest mistake was the intrusting of a considerable sum to a merchant named Simon Freire de Luna in order to be deposited in the treasury at Madrid. Simon became bankrupt, and Cervantes was cast into prison for the deficiency in his accounts. He was soon set at liberty, but the different appearances he was obliged to make before the courts of Seville, Madrid, and Valladolid were sufficient to turn his hair grey before its time. The judges reproached him for his deficit, the people gave him no praise. The alcaids of Argamasilla in La Mancha gave him particularly bad treatment. Perhaps he recollected it when writing his romance.
Subjected to the interrogatories of the royal councillors, judges, and even alcaids, a servant to all merely for means to live, and always moving about, poor Cervantes appears at last to have given way. From 1594, when sent to collect arrears in Granada, to 1598, little can be gathered concerning him, but from this last date till 1603 nothing whatever is known of his fortunes. The probability is that he spent part of the time in a prison of Andaluçia or La Mancha, and there meditated on the vanity of human expectations, and wrote the first part of Don Quixote.
HIS LITERARY LIFE.
Wherever he spent this interval his brain had not been idle—he had passed in review the defects of the Spanish government and of the Spanish character. He had been unable to rouse the king to crush the power of the Algerine pirates, either by the memorials he had consigned to his friend the secretary, or by the vigorous pictures he had presented on the stage (after his return from captivity) of the cruelties inflicted by them on their unhappy captives. He had failed in his great and cherished object, but there remained one reformation yet to be made, namely, of taste among those Spaniards, ladies and gentlemen, to whom reading was a pleasure, and who could afford to purchase books. To substitute a relish for healthier studies was a darling object of our much worried poet for years. It was cherished in prisons, and the first part of his great work written, or nearly so, at the time when we find him again mixing with society in Valladolid, where Philip II. held his court. This was in the year 1603. The following extract concerning his residence and his mode of life in that city, is taken from the work of M. Chasles:
"There is at Valladolid a poor looking house, narrow and low, hemmed in among the taverns of a suburb, and near the deep and empty bed of a torrent called Esguéva. There Cervantes came to live in 1603, in the fifty-seventh year of his age. With an emotion which I cannot express I hare visited this dwelling, which stands outside the city, and which remains unmarked by stone or inscription. A well-used staircase conducts to the two modest chambers used by Cervantes. One, in which he slept, no doubt, is a square room with a low ceiling supported by beams. The other, a sort of ill-lighted kitchen looking on to the neighboring roofs, still holds his cantarelo or stone with three round hollows to hold water jars. Here lived with him his wife, Dona Catalina, his daughter Isabelle, now twenty years old, his sister Dona Andrea, his niece Constanza, and a relation named Dona Magdalena. A housekeeper increased the family. Where did all sleep? However that was arranged, they all did their work together. The ladies earned money by embroidering the court-dresses. Valladolid, adopted for abode by the new king and by the Duke of Lerma, was then incumbered, as was Versailles afterwards, with gentlemen, with the grandees, and with generals. Our impoverished family was supported by this affluence. The Marquis of Villafranca, returning from Algiers to the court, got his gala-suit made by the family of the soldier-poet, with whom he had erewhile been acquainted. Cervantes was occupied either with keeping the books of people in business, or regulating the accounts of some people of quality, or striving to bring his long lawsuit with the government lo a close.
"In the evening, while the needles of the women flew through the stuffs, he held the pen, and on the corner of the table he put his thoughts in writing. There it was he composed the prologue of that work which had been a labor of love in the composition, and in which he employed all the force of his genius. In bringing it with him to Valladolid, he experienced alternations of hope and fear, being fully sensible that it was his masterpiece. 'Idle reader,' said he in the first page, 'you may credit my word, for I have no need to take oath, that I wish this book, child of my brain, were the most beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most witty that any one could imagine.' He had published nothing since the Galatea, which had appeared twenty years before and was an amiable apology for the taste of the times. The book about to be printed was a flagrant attack on the same literature."
Those who despise the old books of chivalry, and have probably never opened one, are too ready to undervalue Cervantes' apprehension about bringing out his book, and the service it eventually rendered to society and literature. We recommend an indifferent individual of this way of thinking to peruse about the eighth of the contents of one of the condemned [{26}] volumes of Don Quixote's library, and work himself into the conviction that the body of the Spanish readers of 1603, ladies and gentlemen, not only admired such compositions more than living readers admire the most popular writings of our times, but in many instances believed the contents to be true.
Let us hope that there is some mistake about the non-accommodation afforded to the seven individuals of Cervantes' family, six of whom were of gentle blood. It is easy to imagine what delightful evenings they would have enjoyed if tolerably comfortable with regard to furniture and space, the soldier-poet reading out some passages from the Don, or the Exemplary Novels, or one of his plays, and the well-bred women plying their needles, listening with interest, and occasionally breaking out into silvery laughs at the comic misfortunes of the knight, or the naive pieces of roguery of the squire.
We can readily imagine the desolation of Cervantes' spirit during the troubled years of his official wanderings, his superiors urging him to grind the faces of his countrymen and fellow-subjects, and these entertaining most unfriendly feelings toward himself. The ladies of his family—where were they during this nomadic life of his, and how were they situated? Separation from their society and anxiety about their privations must have added much to the present suffering, and forebodings of things still worse, the companions of his lonely hours.
A pleasant interruption to the monotony and privations of the family life must have been the appearance of the first part of the Don in 1604, and the popularity it soon attained.
HIS LABORERS AND THEIR REQUITAL.
Some who merely neglected the author till found by fame, were soon ready to do him disservice by passing censure on the execution of the great work, and even searching for subjects of blame in his past career. Lope de Vega, as we have seen, had put it out of his power to turn his dramatic talents to account. Further, he did not act in a kind manner towards him in private, though outwardly friendly. But Lope's friends and admirers so deeply resented an honest and judicious criticism on the works of the prolific dramatist by Cervantes, that they ceased not during the remaining dozen years of his life to do him every unfriendly act in their power. One was so full of malice and so unprincipled, that towards the end of Cervantes' life he wrote a second part of the Adventures of Don Quixote, distinguished by coarseness, dullness, and inability to make the personages of the first part of the story act and speak in character. The impudent and talentless writer called himself Don Avellaneda of some town in La Mancha, but one of De Vega's admirers was supposed to be the real culprit. Suspicions fell on several, but the greater number centered in Pere Luis de Aliaga, a favorite of the Duke of Lerma, and the confessor of Philip III. He was call, meagre, and dark-complexioned, and had got the sobriquet of Sancho Panza, by antithesis.
The wretched attack, for it was no better, was published in 1614, two years before the death of Cervantes, Though suffering from illness, and overshadowed by the expectation of approaching death, the appearance of the impudent and worthless production acted on him as the bugle on the nerves of the old battle-steed. In the order of Providence good is extracted from mere human evil, and to the false Avellaneda the world is indirectly indebted for the second part of Don Quixote, the wedding of Gamacho, the wise though unsuccessful government of Barataria by Sancho, the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and all the delightful adventures and conferences that had place at the ducal chateau, province unknown.
But between the publishing of the first part of Don Quixote in 1605, and the second in 1614, how had the great heart and head been occupied? Probably with little pleasure to himself. On his return from the wars of Portugal in 1584, he had the pleasure and profit of seeing several of his plays acted, some expressly written to direct public spirit towards a crusade on the Algerines. [Footnote 17] Of these he thus speaks in the prologue to his dramatic works, published 1613:
[Footnote 17: Between the days of Lope de Rueda and those of Cervantes' debut, Naharra of Toledo had made considerable improvement in the mechanics of the art. The sack was rejected, and chests and trunks held the properties. The musicians came from behind their blanket, and faced their customers. He rejected the beards except in the case of disguisements, and invented or adopted thunder, lightning, clouds, challenges, and fights. He himself was a capital personator of cowardly bullies.]
"In all the playhouses of Madrid were acted some plays of my composing, such as the Humors of Algiers, the Destruction of Numantia, and the Naval Battle, wherein I took the liberty of reducing plays to three acts which before consisted of five. I showed, or, to speak better, I was the first that represented the imaginations and secret thoughts of the soul, exhibiting moral characters to public view to the entire satisfaction of the audience. I composed at that time thirty plays at least, all of which were acted without anybody's interrupting the players by flinging cucumbers or any other trash at them. They ran their race without any hissing, cat-calling, or any other disorder. But happening to be taken up with other things, I laid aside play-writing, and then came on that prodigy of nature, that marvellous man, the great Lope de Vega, who raised himself to be supreme monarch of the stage. He subdued all the players, and made them obedient to his will. He filled the world with theatrical pieces, finely and happily devised, and full of good sense, and so numerous that they take up above ten thousand sheets of paper all of his own writing, and, which is a most wonderful thing to relate, he saw them all acted or at least had the satisfaction to hear they were all acted."
Good-hearted, generous Cervantes, who could so dwell on that success in a rival which condemned himself to the wretched life of an inland revenue officer, to the hatred of non-payers of tax, to prosecutions, and to the discomforts of an Andaluçian or Manchegan dungeon, and separation from his niece, sister, daughter, and wife, whom, in absence of data to the contrary, we take to be amiable and affectionate women.
When the court returned to Madrid he and his family followed it, but we find no employment given by him to the printing presses of that city from 1604 to 1613, when he got published the collection of plays and interludes before mentioned. In the same year he published his twelve Exemplary Novels, [Footnote 18] dedicating them to his patron, Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, count of Lemos. This nobleman, in conjunction with Archbishop Sandoval, and the actor, Pedro de Morales, had succeeded (let us hope) in cheering the poet's latter years. In the preface he gives a portrait of himself in his sixty-sixth year, distinguished by his own charming style, always redolent of resignation, good-will, and good-nature. He pretends that a friend was to have got his portrait engraved to serve as frontispiece, but, owing to his negligence, he himself is obliged to supply one in pen and ink:
[Footnote 18: The Lady Cornelia, Rinconete and Cortadillo, Doctor Glass-case, the Deceitful Marriage, the Dialogue of the Dogs Scipio and Berganza, the Little Gipsy Girl, the Generous Lover, the Spanish-English Lady, the Force of Blood, the Jealous Estremaduran, the Illustrious Scullery-Maid, and the Two Damsels.]
"My friend might have written under the portrait—This person whom you see here, with an oval visage, chestnut hair, smooth open forehead, lively eyes, a hooked but well-proportioned nose, a silvery beard that, twenty years ago, was golden, large moustaches, a small mouth, teeth not much to speak of, for he has but six, all in bad condition and worse placed, no two of them corresponding to each other; a figure between the two extremes, neither tall nor short, a vivid complexion, rather fair than dark, somewhat stooped in the shoulders, and not very light-footed: this I say is the author of Galatea, Don Quixote de la Mancha, . . . commonly called Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. He was for many years a soldier, and for five years and a half in captivity, where he learned to have patience in adversity. He lost his left hand by a musket-shot in the battle of Lepanto, and ugly as this wound may appear, he regards it as beautiful, having received it [{28}] on the most memorable and sublime occasion which passed times have ever scene, or future times can hope to equal, fighting under the victorious banners of the son of that thunderbolt of war, Charles V. of blessed memory. Should the friend of whom I complain have no more to say of me than this, I would myself have composed a couple of dozen of eulogiums, and communicated them to him in secret," etc.
THE CLOSING SCENE.
Cervantes' Voyage to Parnassus, in which he complains to Apollo for not being furnished even with a stool in that poets' elysium, was published in 1614, the second part of Don Quixote in 1615, and that was the last book whose proofs he had the pleasure to correct. He was employed on his Troubles of Persiles and Sigismunda, [Footnote 19] and wrote its preface, and the dedication to his patron the Count of Lemos, while suffering under his final complaint, the dropsy, and having only a few day to live. From the preface to the Persiles he appears to have received extreme unction before the last word of it was written. From the forgiving, and patient, and tranquil spirit of his writing, even when annoyed by much unkindness and injustice on the part of the Madrid coteries, from the spirit of religion and morality that pervades his writings, and the care he appears to have taken to meet his summons as a sincere Christian, we may reasonably hope that his sorrows and troubles for time and eternity ended on 23d April, 1616 the day on which a kindred spirit breathed his last at Stratford-on-Avon.
[Footnote 19: It was published by his widow, Dona Catalina, la 1617.]
And indeed in our meditations on the characteristics of the author and man in Cervantes, we have always mentally associated him with Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott. We find in all the same versatility of genius, the same grasp and breadth of intellect, the same gifts of genial humor and the same largeness of sympathy. The life of Cervantes will be always an interesting and edifying study in connexion with the literature and the great events of his time. We find him conscientiously doing his duty in every phase of his diversified existence, and effecting all the good in his power. When he feels the need of filling a very disagreeable office in order to afford necessary support to his family, he bends the stubborn pride of the hidalgo to his irksome duties—and it is not easy for us to realize the rigidity of that quality which he inherited by birth, and which became a second nature in every gentleman of his nation. In advanced years he still vigorously exerts his faculties, and endures privations and disappointments in a resigned and patient spirit; and when complaints are wrung from him they are neither bitter nor ill-natured. Even his harmless vanity has something amiable and cordial about it. When he has just reached his sixtieth year he effects a salutary revolution in the corrupt literary taste of his countrymen and countrywomen, and save a few coarse expressions separable from the literature of his day, a deathbed examination would have found few passages in his numerous writings which it would be desirous to find omitted. He closed an anxious and industrious life by a Christian death.
NOTE.
Towards the end of Cervantes' life he belonged to the third order of Trinitarian monks, and was buried in their church with his face uncovered. These brothers having quitted their convent in 1633, the site of the interment could not be discovered when a search was afterwards made. The house he occupied in Madrid being pulled down about twenty years since, his bust has been placed in a niche in front of the new building.