Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.”
[156] The only case I recollect at all parallel is that of the graceful Dedication of Addison’s works to his friend and successor in office, Secretary Craggs, which is dated June 4, 1719; thirteen days before his death. But the Dedication of Cervantes is much more genial and spirited.
[157] Bowle says, (Anotaciones á Don Quixote, Salisbury, 1781, 4to, Prólogo ix., note), that Cervantes died on the same day with Shakspeare; but this is a mistake, the calendar not having then been altered in England, and there being, therefore, a difference between that and the Spanish calendar of ten days.
[158] Nor was any monument raised to Cervantes, in Spain, until 1835, when a bronze statue of him larger than life, cast at Rome by Solá of Barcelona, was placed in the Plaza del Estamento at Madrid. (See El Artista, a journal published at Madrid, 1834, 1835, Tom. I. p. 205; Tom. II. p. 12; and Semanario Pintoresco, 1836, p. 249.) Before this I believe there was nothing that approached nearer to a monument in honor of Cervantes throughout the world than an ordinary medal of him, struck in 1818, at Paris, as one of a large series which would have been absurdly incomplete without it; and a small medallion or bust, that was placed in 1834, at the expense of an individual, over the door of the house in the Calle de los Francos, where he died. But, in saying this, I ought to add,—whether in praise or censure,—that I believe the statue of Cervantes was the first erected in Spain to honor a man of letters or science.
[159] At the time of his death Cervantes seems to have had the following works more or less prepared for the press, namely: “Las Semanas del Jardin,” announced as early as 1613;—the Second Part of “Galatea,” announced in 1615;—the “Bernardo,” mentioned in the Dedication of “Persiles,” just before he died;—and several plays, referred to in the Preface to those he published, and in the Appendix to the “Viage al Parnaso.” All these works are now probably lost.
[160] The first edition of Persiles y Sigismunda was printed with the following title: “Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Historia Setentrional, por M. de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigida,” etc., Madrid, 1617, 8vo, por Juan de la Cuesta; and reprints of it appeared in Valencia, Pamplona, Barcelona, and Brussels, the same year. I have a copy of the first edition; but the most agreeable one is that of Madrid, 1802, 8vo, 2 tom. There is an English translation by M. L., published 1619, which I have never seen; but from which I doubt not Fletcher borrowed the materials for that part of the Persiles which he has used, or rather abused, in his “Custom of the Country,” acted as early as 1628, but not printed till 1647; the very names of the personages being sometimes the same. See Persiles, Book I. c. 12 and 13; and compare Book II. c. 4 with the English play, Act IV. scene 3, and Book III. c. 6, etc., with Act II. scene 4, etc. Sometimes we have almost literal translations, like the following:—
“Sois Castellano?” me preguntó en su lengua Portuguesa. “No, Señora,” le respondí yo, “sino forastero, y bien lejos de esta tierra.” “Pues aunque fuerades mil veces Castellano,” replicó ella, “os librara yo, si pudiera, y os libraré si puedo; subid por cima deste lecho, y éntraos debaxo de este tapiz, y éntraos en un hueco que aquí hallareis, y no os movais, que si la justicia viniere, me tendrá respeto, y creerá lo que yo quisiere decirles.” Persiles, Lib. III. cap. 6.
In Fletcher we have it as follows:—
Guiomar.