El Buscapié

by Adolfo de Castro

The History of Literature records numberless instances in which genius, regarded with indifference in its own time, has received only from after generations the tribute of just appreciation. Of this sort of contemporary neglect, and posthumous honour, Cervantes is a remarkable example; for even the popularity of Don Quixote which, on its first appearance, met with unparalleled success, did not materially better the circumstances or elevate the position of its author.

It is not very easy to reconcile this literary success with the poverty with which Cervantes struggled even to the latest period of his life, and of which he oftener than once complains in his writings; for it is a well-known fact that though Don Quixote, in the lifetime of its author, attracted an extraordinary share of public attention, yet Cervantes remained poor and neglected. Whilst the book was universally read and admired, the author would appear to have been a person of so little note, that his early biographers did not even think it worth while to put on record the name of his birth-place.

As if anxious to escape from the reproach of knowing little or nothing of the man who shed such lustre over their literature, the Spaniards of the last century entered upon diligent researches, with the view of elucidating every fact connected with the life of Cervantes. These investigations resulted in the collection of a mass of interesting and curious information, which De los Ríos, Pellicer, and Navarrete have severally embodied in their lives of the great writer. The warm discussions which have at various times arisen out of the doubtful question of Cervantes’ place of nativity have been likened to the disputes of the seven Greek cities, when contending for the honour of having given birth to Homer. Madrid, Seville, Valladolid and Esquivias by turns claimed Cervantes as their own, until the question was finally set at rest by his latest and most trustworthy biographers. On the authority of indisputable evidence it appears that Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born at Alcalá de Henares, in the year 1547. The day of his birth is not known; but it has been ascertained that he was baptized on the 9th of October.

The family of Cervantes was of noble descent, Father Sarmiento[5] states, that its earliest members were settled in Gallicia, and that their place of residence was within the Bishoprick of Lugo. Their rank was that of Ricoshombres, (grandees). Subsequently, a branch of the family removed to Castile, and, in the Spanish annals of the beginning of the thirteenth century, the names Cervates and Cervantes are frequently mentioned with honourable distinction. Gonzalo de Cervantes, the founder of the branch whence the great writer was descended, fought gallantly at the storming of Seville, under Ferdinand III., and was endowed with some estates on the partition of the territories wrested from the Moors. A descendant of Gonzalo de Cervantes married a daughter of the house of Saavedra, from which circumstance some members of the Cervantes family added the name Saavedra to their own. On the invasion of South America by the Spaniards, the name of Cervantes was carried to the New World by the emigration of several members of the family.

In the beginning of the sixteenth century we find a Juan de Cervantes filling the post of Corregidor in the town of Ossuna. He had a son named Rodrigo, who, in the year 1540, married Doña Leonora de Cortinas, the daughter of a noble family residing in Barajas.[6] Four children were the issue of this marriage. The eldest was a son named Rodrigo; the second and third, two daughters, named Andrea and Luisa; and the fourth and youngest child was Miguel, who subsequently became illustrious in the annals of literature.

Miguel de Cervantes received from nature a combination of mental endowments such as rarely falls to the share of one individual. To a lively fancy, and great power of inventive genius, he united an extraordinary amount of sound and discriminating judgment. Such was his inherent fondness for reading, that in his very earliest boyhood he was accustomed to pick up all the little scraps of paper he might find in the streets, and to employ himself in perusing whatever happened to be written on them. His gay and humorous disposition was tempered by refined taste; and, to quote the remark of his biographer, Antonio Pellicer, the character of his mind altogether resembled that ascribed by Horace to Lucilius.

Of the boyhood of Cervantes little is known, beyond the few particulars here and there scattered through his writings. Alluding to his early taste for poetry, he says, in the Journey to Parnassus:—“Even from my earliest years, I loved the sweet art of graceful poesy.”[7] In another of his works he tells us how, when a boy, he was taken to a theatre, where he saw Lope de Rueda act. That the performance of that celebrated comedian and dramatist made a powerful impression on his mind is evidently shewn in his maturer years: it is not impossible that his taste for dramatic literature received its first impulse from the acting of Lope de Rueda.

It would seem that Cervantes was destined for one of the learned professions, and on attaining a suitable age, he was sent by his parents to the University of Salamanca, where he remained for the space of two years. Some of the lights and shades of his student life are interwoven in the Novelas exemplares,[8] and also in the second part of Don Quixote. The comic interlude, called La Cueva de Salamanca, seems also to have been suggested by some of the author’s college adventures.

The first person who observed and fostered the dawning talent of Cervantes in poetic composition, was Juan López de Hoyos, who had been his tutor before he entered the University. It happened that Hoyos was commissioned to compose a funeral poem on the occasion of the death of Queen Isabel de Valois, the Consort of Philip II.; and he transferred some portions of this task to his pupils.