[125] “Viéndose pues tan falto de dineros y aun no con muchos amigos, se acogió al remedio á que otros muchos perdidos en aquella ciudad [Sevilla] se acogen; que es, el pasarse á las Indias, refugio y amparo de los desesperados de España, iglesia de los alzados, salvo conducto de los homicidas, pala y cubierta de los jugadores, añagaza general de mugeres libres, engaño comun de muchos y remedio particular de pocos.” El Zeloso Estremeño, Novelas, Tom. II. p. 1.
[126] These verses may be found in Navarrete, Vida, pp. 444, 445.
[127] Pellicer, Vida, ed. Don Quixote, (Madrid, 1797, 8vo, Tom. I. p. lxxxv.), gives the sonnet.
[128] Sedano, Parnaso Español, Tom. IX. p. 193. In the “Viage al Parnaso,” c. 4, he calls it “Honra principal de mis escritos.” But he was mistaken, or he jested,—I rather think the last. For an account of the indecent uproar Cervantes ridiculed, and needful to explain this sonnet, see Semanario Pintoresco, Madrid, 1842, p. 177.
[129] “Se engendró en una cárcel.” Avellaneda says the same thing in his Preface, but says it contemptuously: “Pero disculpan los yerros de su Primera Parte en esta materia, el haberse escrito entre los de una cárcel,” etc. A base insinuation seems implied in the use of the relative article los.
[130] Pellicer’s Life, pp. cxvi.-cxxxi.
[131] One of the witnesses in the preceding criminal inquiry says that Cervantes was visited by different persons, “por ser hombre que escribe y trata negocios.”
[132] Laurel de Apolo, Silva 8, where he is praised only as a poet.
[133] Most of the materials for forming a judgment on this point in Cervantes’s character are to be found in Navarrete, (Vida, pp. 457-475), who maintains that Cervantes and Lope were sincere friends, and in Huerta, (Leccion Crítica, Madrid, 1786, 12mo, pp. 33-47), who maintains that Cervantes was an envious rival of Lope. As I cannot adopt either of these results, and think the last particularly unjust, I will venture to add one or two considerations.
Lope was fifteen years younger than Cervantes, and was forty-three years old when the First Part of the Don Quixote was published; but from that time till the death of Cervantes, a period of eleven years, he does not, that I am aware, once allude to him. The five passages in the immense mass of Lope’s works, in which alone, so far as I know, he speaks of Cervantes are,—1. In the “Dorothea,” 1598, twice slightly and without praise. 2. In the Preface to his own Tales, 1621, still more slightly, and even, I think, coldly. 3. In the “Laurel de Apolo,” 1630, where there is a somewhat stiff eulogy of him, fourteen years after his death. 4. In his play, “El Premio del Bien Hablar,” printed in Madrid, 1635, where Cervantes is barely mentioned (Comedias, 4to, Tom. XXI. f. 162). And 5. In “Amar sin Saber á Quien,” (Comedias, Madrid, Tom. XXII., 1635), where (Jornada primera) Leonarda, one of the principal ladies, says to her maid, who had just cited a ballad of Audalla and Xarifa to her,—