The best Spanish editions of Don Quixote are that of the Spanish Academy, in four vols. 4to., 1788; the edition by Don Juan Antonio Pellicer, with a good life of Cervantes, five vols. 8vo., 1798; and the edition by Don Martin F. de Navarrete, five vols. 8vo., 1819. The edition published by the Rev. J. Bowle, six volumes in three, 4to. London, 1781, contains a valuable commentary, explanatory of idioms, proverbs, &c. Of the English translations, the oldest by Skelton is still much esteemed; there are also versions by Motteux, Jarvis, and Smollet. A new translation was made for the splendid London edition of 1818, four vols. 4to., enriched with engravings from pictures by Smirke. Le Sage translated Don Quixote into French; but with omissions and interpolations which render this a very unfaithful version.
Next to Don Quixote, Cervantes’ best works are his ‘Novelas.’ They have been translated into English. The language of Cervantes is pure Castilian, and is esteemed by learned Spaniards to be one of the best models for prose composition.
Don Agustin Garcia de Arrieta published in 1814 an inedited comic novel of Cervantes, styled ‘La Tia Fingida,’ or ‘The Feigned Aunt,’ to which he added a dissertation on the spirit of Cervantes and his works. The best biographers of Cervantes are Pellicer and Navarrete, already mentioned.
[Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. From one of a series of designs by Vanderbanck.]
Engraved by E. Scriven.
FREDERICK II.
From the original by Carlo Vanloo
in the Private Collection of the King of the French.
Under the Superintendance of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.
London. Published by Charles Knight, Ludgate Street.
FREDERIC II.
The celebrated King of Prussia was in no respect indebted for his personal greatness to the virtues or example of his immediate progenitors. His grandfather Frederic I., the first of the House of Brandenburg who assumed the title of King, was a weak and empty prince, whose character was taken by his own wife to exemplify the idea of infinite littleness. His father, Frederic William, was a man of a violent and brutal disposition, eccentric and intemperate, whose principal, and almost sole pleasure and pursuit, was the training and daily superintendence of an army disproportionately greater than the extent of his dominions seemed to warrant. It is however to the credit of Frederic William as a ruler, that, notwithstanding this expensive taste, his finances on the whole were well and economically administered; so that on his death he left a quiet and happy, though not wealthy country, a treasure of nine millions of crowns, amounting to more than a year’s revenue, and a well-disciplined army of 76,000 men. Thus on his accession, Frederic II. (or as, in consequence of the ambiguity of his father’s name, he is sometimes called, Frederic III.) found, ready prepared, men and money, the instruments of war; and for this alone was he indebted to his father. He was born January 24, 1712. From Frederic William, parental tenderness was not to be expected. His treatment of his whole family, wife and children, was brutal: but he showed a particular antipathy to his eldest son, from the age of fourteen upwards, for which no reason can be assigned, except that the young prince manifested a taste for literature, and preferred books and music to the routine of military exercises. From this age, his life was embittered by continual contradiction, insult, and even personal violence. In 1730, he endeavoured to escape by flight from his father’s control: but this intention being revealed, he was arrested, tried as a deserter, and condemned to death by an obedient court-martial; and the sentence, to all appearance, would have been carried into effect, had it not been for the interference of the Emperor of Germany, Charles VI. of Austria. The king yielded to his urgent entreaties, but with much reluctance, saying, “Austria will some day perceive what a serpent she warms in her bosom.” In 1732, Frederic procured a remission of this ill treatment by contracting, much against his will, a marriage with Elizabeth Christina, a princess of the house of Brunswick. Domestic happiness he neither sought nor found; for it appears that he never lived with his wife. Her endowments, mental and personal, were not such as to win the affections of so fastidious a man, but her moral qualities and conduct are highly commended; and, except in the resolute avoidance of her society, her husband through life treated her with high respect. From the time of his marriage to his accession, Frederic resided at Rheinsberg, a village some leagues north-east of Berlin. In 1734, he made his first campaign with Prince Eugene, but without displaying, or finding opportunity to display, the military talents by which he was distinguished in after-life. From 1732 however to 1740, his time was principally devoted to literary amusements and society. Several of his published works were written during this period, and among them the ‘Anti-Machiavel’ and ‘Considerations on the Character of Charles XII.:’ he also devoted some portion of his time to the study of tactics. His favourite companions were chiefly Frenchmen: and for French manners, language, cookery and philosophy, he displayed through life a very decided preference.