A more skilful pen would, doubtless, have invested the narrative with that graceful colouring which its subject so well deserves; but, whilst fully conscious of her own deficiencies, the writer of the following Life feels that she may claim the merit of having industriously put together a number of curious and well authenticated facts relative to Cervantes;—facts the more interesting, inasmuch as they have hitherto been only very partially known.
London,
December 1, 1848.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] It has been conjectured, though without any satisfactory ground, that Cervantes wrote his Don Quixote as a satire upon the Emperor Charles V. and the Duke de Lerma, the favourite of Philip III.
[2] “The very pleasant little book called Buscapié, in which, besides its excellent doctrine, are unfolded all those things which are hidden, and not declared in the History of the ingenious Knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha, written by one De Cervantes Saavedra.”
[3] “This was copied from another copy in the year 1606, in Madrid, 27th of February of the same year, by the Señor Agustin de Argota, son of the most noble Señor, (now in glory) Gonzalo Zatieco de Molina, a gentleman of Seville.”
[4] “From the library of the Duke de Lafôes.”