favours, the Duke of Lerma? But the people who hazarded such wild guesses must have failed to detect the subtle delicacy and nobility of the knight’s nature, and the loving sympathy with which Cervantes dwells upon the wisdom and sterling merit of his hero. Could a man satirise an enemy with such gentleness and affection? Could a genius like Cervantes so far overshoot his bolt as to make not only the other characters in the book, but all the reading world, honour and love the figure that he purposed to hold up to ridicule?
If Cervantes, in writing Don Quixote, was laughing away Spain’s chivalry, as Lord Byron erroneously declared, then he was the target of his own destructive cynicism, for the story of his career is that of a man who practised a chivalry which was already extinct in Spain, and maintained unswervingly a code of honour which had fallen into desuetude. If Montesquieu’s similarly extravagant comment that “the Spaniards have but one book—that which has made all the others ridiculous” comes nearer to the truth, it must be conceded that the romances which Cervantes exterminated were scarcely worth preserving. But the book affords also another proof that truth surpasses fiction in strangeness, since the popularity of Don Quixote, its effect, and its immortality surprised no one so much as its author. Having disposed of his rights in the publication to Francisco de Robles—the sum he obtained for them is nowhere mentioned, but it may be surmised that it was all too small for his need—Cervantes proceeded about his daily task of providing bread for his family, and left this “child of his sterile, ill-cultured wit” to its fate. He remained in Valladolid while his book was being printed at Madrid, and the number of glaring and absurd errors that marred the first edition is proof positive that he did not see a single sheet. Many of these more palpable blunders were absent from the 1608 edition which was revised by the author, who was then resident in the capital.
Mr. Watts, who has evidently made a close and scholarly study of the old romances of chivalry which Don Quixote brought into such sudden disfavour, has endeavoured, as I think, with much plausibility, to demonstrate Cervantes’ precise attitude towards this class of literature. Having traced the romantic vein from its genesis to the time when the author of Galatea employed it as his model, and eulogised in high terms such examples of the genre as Amadis of Gaul and Palmerin of England, Mr. Watts points out that Cervantes carefully differentiated between the romances of merit and the nautiating imitations; that he was one of the most omniverious readers of such books in that age, and the most deeply-imbued with their spirit. He specially and enthusiastically praises the good volumes among the bad in Don Quixote’s library; he praises again, through the mouth of the Canon of Toledo, the feeling of romances of chivalry, and lays down the rules on which such a history should be written. If he had
any other object in composing Don Quixote than to “write out of the fulness of his own heart,” it was to check the perpetration of fatuous and mischievous stories which were bringing into disrepute and ridicule his old and well-loved stories of chivalry and romance. The secret of the enduring success of Don Quixote, Mr. Watts concludes, is not to be found in its motive, but in the fact that the romance was drawn from the story of the author’s own life. “The hero himself, the enthusiast, nursed on visions of chivalry, who is ever mocked by fortune; the reviver of the old knighthood, who is buffeted by clowns and made sport of by the baser sort; who, in spite of the frequent blows, jeers, reverses, and indignities he receives, never ceases to command our love and sympathy—who is he but the man of Lepanto himself, whose life is a romance at least as various, eventful, and arduous; as full of hardships, troubles, and sadness; as prolific of surprising adventures and strange accidents as the immortal story he has written? This is the key to Don Quixote, which, unless we use, we shall not reach the heart of the mystery.”
Let us linger for awhile with Cervantes in the great square and broad streets of Valladolid. To-day, Valladolid, “the Rich,” is a fallen city. Here still stand the old Royal Palace, upon which Cervantes’ eyes must so often have rested—a ruin. The great Cathedral, an imposing mass of granite, which was begun in 1585, is still unfinished. Here still stand the house in the Calle de Colon, in which Columbus died; and Cervantes’ own lodging at No. 14, Calle de Rastro; and the huge Plaza Major where, on October 7th, 1559, Philip II. celebrated the first memorable Auto de Fé, and which was, in Cervantes’ day, the meeting place of all the poets and soldiers, the historians and savants, who haunted the Court of His Most Religious Majesty. Here Cervantes remained while his work circulated throughout the country, and overflowed into every country in Europe.
Would you know the social conditions that prevailed in Spain in the latter half of the sixteenth century? You can obtain the information in “The Life and Achievement of Don Quixote de la Mancha.” If you would have wit and wisdom, or if you would take humanity to be your study, you have only to turn to this same work. If you seek to realise the condition under which a man bore arms, or wielded a pen, under that royal barbarian, Philip II., you must have resource to this history. Would you understand Cervantes’ own experience in arms and in letters? Turn to Chapter xxxi. of the First Part of Don Quixote. What higher ideal ever had any man, both for the soldier and the writer? Listen to the Don in what Cervantes assures his readers is his hero’s most rational and logical humour: “Now the end and design of letters,” he says, “is to regulate distributive justice, and give to every man his due; to institute good laws, and cause
