[162] This may be fairly suspected from the beginning of the 48th chapter of the First Part of Don Quixote.
[163] Once he intimates that it is a translation, but does not say from what language. (See opening of Book II.) An acute and elegant critic of our own time says, “Des naufrages, des déserts, des descentes par mer, et des ravissements, c’est donc toujours plus ou moins l’ancien roman d’Héliodore.” (Sainte Beuve, Critiques, Paris, 1839, 8vo, Tom. IV. p 173.) These words describe more than half of the Persiles and Sigismunda. Two imitations of the Persiles, or, at any rate, two imitations of the Greek romance which was the chief model of the Persiles, soon appeared in Spain. The first is the “Historia de Hipólito y Aminta” of Francisco de Quintana, (Madrid, 1627, 4to), divided into eight books, with a good deal of poetry intermixed. The other is “Eustorgio y Clorilene, Historia Moscovica,” by Enrique Suarez de Mendoza y Figueroa, (1629), in thirteen books, with a hint of a continuation; but my copy was printed Çaragoça, 1665, 4to. Both are written in bad taste, and have no value as fictions. The latter seems to have been plainly suggested by the Persiles.
[164] From the beginning of Book III., we find that the action of Persiles and Sigismunda is laid in the time of Philip II. or Philip III., when there was a Spanish viceroy in Lisbon, and the travels of the hero and heroine in the South of Spain and Italy seem to be, in fact, Cervantes’s own recollections of the journey he made through the same countries in his youth; while Chapters 10 and 11 of Book III. show bitter traces of his Algerine captivity. His familiarity with Portugal, as seen in this work, should also be noticed. Frequently, indeed, as in almost every thing else he wrote, we meet intimations and passages from his own life.
[165] My own experience in Spain fully corroborates the suggestion of Inglis, in his very pleasant book, (Rambles in the Footsteps of Don Quixote, London, 1837, 8vo, p. 26), that “no Spaniard is entirely ignorant of Cervantes.” At least, none I ever questioned on the subject—and their number was great in the lower conditions of society—seemed to be entirely ignorant what sort of personages were Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.
[166] He felt this himself as a dreary interval in his life, for he says in his Prólogo: “Al cabo de tantos años como ha, que duermo en el silencio del olvido,” etc. In fact, from 1584 till 1605 he had printed nothing except a few short poems of little value, and seems to have been wholly occupied in painful struggles to secure a subsistence.
[167] This idea is found partly developed by Bouterwek, (Geschichte der Poesie und Beredsamkeit, Göttingen, 1803, 8vo, Tom. III. pp. 335-337), and fully set forth and defended by Sismondi, with his accustomed eloquence. Littérature du Midi de l’Europe, Paris, 1813, 8vo, Tom. III. pp. 339-343.
[168] Many other interpretations have been given to the Don Quixote. One of the most absurd is that of Daniel De Foe, who declares it to be “an emblematic history of, and a just satire upon, the Duke de Medina Sidonia, a person very remarkable at that time in Spain.” (Wilson’s Life of De Foe, London, 1830, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 437, note.) The “Buscapié”—if there ever was such a publication—pretended that it set forth “some of the undertakings and gallantries of the Emperor Charles V.” See Appendix (D).
[169] In the Prólogo to the First Part, he says, “No mira á mas que á deshacer la autoridad y cabida, que en el mundo y en el vulgo tienen los libros de Caballerías”; and he ends the Second Part, ten years afterwards, with these remarkable words: “No ha sido otro mi deseo, que poner en aborrecimiento de los hombres las fingidas y disparatadas historias de los libros de Caballerías, que por las de mi verdadero Don Quixote van ya tropezando, y han de caer del todo sin duda alguna. Vale.” It seems really hard that a great man’s word of honor should thus be called in question by the spirit of an over-refined criticism, two centuries after his death. D. Vicente Salvá has partly, but not wholly, avoided this difficulty in an ingenious and pleasant essay on the question, “Whether the Don Quixote has yet been judged according to its merits”;—in which he maintains, that Cervantes did not intend to satirize the substance and essence of books of chivalry, but only to purge away their absurdities and improbabilities; and that, after all, he has given us only another romance of the same class which has ruined the fortunes of all its predecessors by being itself immensely in advance of them all. Ochoa, Apuntes para una Biblioteca, Paris, 1842, 8vo, Tom. II. pp. 723-740.
[170] Símbolo de la Fé, Parte II. cap. 17, near the end. Conversion de la Magdalena, 1592, Prólogo al Letor. Both are strong in their censures.
[171] “Vemos, que ya no se ocupan los hombres sino en leer libros que es affrenta nombrarlos, como son Amadis de Gaula, Tristan de Leonis, Primaleon,” etc. Argument to the Aviso de Privados, Obras de Ant. de Guevara, Valladolid, 1545, folio, f. clviii. b.