Do el General faltaba,
Y á Don Juan se llevaron para serlo.
[150] See the early part of the “Prólogo del que hace imprimir.” I am not certain that Blas de Nasarre was perfectly fair in all this; for he printed, in 1732, an edition of Avellaneda’s continuation of Don Quixote, in the Preface to which he says that he thinks the character of Avellaneda’s Sancho is more natural than that of Cervantes’s Sancho; that the Second Part of Cervantes’s Don Quixote is taken from Avellaneda’s; and that, in its essential merits, the work of Avellaneda is equal to that of Cervantes. “No se puede disputar,” he says, “la gloria de la invencion de Cervantes, aunque no es inferior la de la imitacion de Avellaneda”; to which he adds afterwards, “Es cierto que es necesario mayor esfuerzo de ingenio para añadir á las primeras invenciones, que para hacerlas.” (See Avellaneda, Don Quixote, Madrid, 1805, 12mo, Tom. I. p. 34.) Now, the Juicio, or Preface, from which these opinions are taken, and which is really the work of Nasarre, is announced by him, not as his own, but as the work of an anonymous friend, precisely as if he were not willing to avow such opinions under his own name. (Pellicer’s Vida de Cervantes, ed. Don Quixote, I. p. clxvi.) In this way a disingenuous look is given to what would otherwise have been only an absurdity; and what, taken in connection with this reprint of Cervantes’s poor dramas and the Preface to them, seems like a willingness to let down the reputation of a genius that Nasarre could not comprehend.
It is intimated, in an anonymous pamphlet, called “Exámen Crítico del Tomo Primero del Antiquixote,” (Madrid, 1806, 12mo), that Nasarre had sympathies with Avellaneda as an Aragonese; and the pamphlet in question being understood to be the work of J. A. Pellicer, the editor of Don Quixote, this intimation deserves notice. It may be added, that Nasarre belonged to the French school of the eighteenth century in Spain;—a school that saw little merit in the older Spanish drama.
[151] The extravagant opinion, that these plays of Cervantes were written to discredit the plays then in fashion on the stage, just as the Don Quixote was written to discredit the fashionable books of chivalry, did not pass uncontradicted at the time. The year after it was published, a pamphlet appeared, entitled “La Sinrazon impugnada y Beata de Lavapies, Coloquio Crítico apuntado al disparatado Prólogo que sirve de delantal (segun nos dice su Autor) á las Comedias de Miguel de Cervantes, compuesto por Don Joseph Carillo” (Madrid, 1750, 4to, pp. 25). It is a spirited little tract, chiefly devoted to a defence of Lope and of Calderon, though the point about Cervantes is not forgotten (pp. 13-15.) But in the same year a more formidable work appeared on the same side, called “Discurso Crítico sobre el Orígen, Calidad, y Estado presente de las Comedias de España, contra el Dictámen que las supone corrompidas, etc., por un Ingenio de esta Corte” (Madrid, 1750, 4to, pp. 285). The author was a lawyer in Madrid, D. Thomas Zavaleta, and he writes with as little philosophy and judgment as the other Spanish critics of his time; but he treats Blas de Nasarre with small ceremony.
[152] “Ensayo Histórico-apologético de la Literatura Española,” Madrid, 1789, 8vo, Tom. VI. pp. 170, etc. “Suprimiendo las que verdaderamente eran de él,” are the bold words of the critic.
[153] There can be little doubt, I think, that this was the case, if we compare the opinions expressed by the canon on the subject of the drama in the 48th chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote, 1605, and the opinions in the opening of the third jornada of the “Baños de Argel,” 1615.
[154] It has been generally conceded that the Count de Lemos and the Archbishop of Toledo favored and assisted Cervantes; the most agreeable proof of which is to be found in the Dedication of the Second Part of Don Quixote. I am afraid, however, that their favor was a little too much in the nature of alms. Indeed, it is called limosna the only time it is known to be mentioned by any contemporary of Cervantes. See Salas Barbadillo, in the Dedication of the “Estafeta del Dios Momo,” Madrid, 1627, 12mo.
“Who, to be sure of Paradise,