[192] Conde, the learned author of the “Dominacion de los Árabes en España,” undertakes, in a pamphlet published in conjunction with J. A. Pellicer, to show that the name of this pretended Arabic author, Cid Hamete Benengeli, is a combination of Arabic words, meaning noble, satirical, and unhappy. (Carta en Castellano, etc., Madrid, 1800, 12mo, pp. 16-27.) It may be so; but it is not in character for Cervantes to seek such refinements, or to make such a display of his little learning, which does not seem to have extended beyond a knowledge of the vulgar Arabic spoken in Barbary, the Latin, the Italian, and the Portuguese. Like Shakspeare, however, Cervantes had read and remembered nearly all that had been printed in his own language, and constantly makes the most felicitous allusions to the large stores of his knowledge of this sort.
[193] Don Quixote, Parte II. c. 54.
[194] The criticism on Avellaneda begins, as we have said, Parte II. c. 59.
[195] Parte I. c. 46.
[196] “Llegaba ya la noche,” he says in c. 42 of Parte I., when all that had occurred from the middle of c. 37 had happened after they were set down to supper.
[197] Cervantes calls Sancho’s wife by three or four different names (Parte I. c. 7 and 52, and Parte II. c. 5 and 59); and Avellaneda having, in some degree, imitated him, Cervantes makes himself very merry at the confusion; not noticing that the mistake was really his own.
[198] The facts referred to are these. Gines de Passamonte, in the 23d chapter of Part First, (ed. 1605, f. 108), steals Sancho’s ass. But hardly three leaves farther on, in the same edition, we find Sancho riding again, as usual, on the poor beast, which reappears yet six other times out of all reason. In the edition of 1608, Cervantes corrected two of these careless mistakes on leaves 109 and 112; but left the five others just as they stood before; and in Chapters 3 and 27 of the Second Part, (ed. 1615), jests about the whole matter, but shows no disposition to attempt further corrections.
[199] Having expressed so strong an opinion of Cervantes’s merits, I cannot refuse myself the pleasure of citing the words of the modest and wise Sir William Temple, who, when speaking of works of satire, and rebuking Rabelais for his indecency and profaneness, says: “The matchless writer of Don Quixote is much more to be admired for having made up so excellent a composition of satire or ridicule without those ingredients; and seems to be the best and highest strain that ever has or will be reached by that vein.” Works, London, 1814, 8vo, Vol. III. p. 436. See Appendix (E).
[200] There is a life of Lope de Vega, which was first published in a single volume, by the third Lord Holland, in 1806, and again, with the addition of a life of Guillen de Castro, in two volumes, 8vo, London, 1817. It is a pleasant book, and contains a good notice of both its subjects, and judicious criticisms on their works; but it is quite as interesting for the glimpses it gives of the fine accomplishments and generous spirit of its author, who spent some time in Spain when he was about thirty years old, and never afterwards ceased to take an interest in its affairs and literature. He was much connected with Jovellanos, Blanco White, and other distinguished Spaniards; not a few of whom, in the days of disaster that fell on their country during the French invasion, and the subsequent misgovernment of Ferdinand VII., enjoyed the princely hospitality of Holland House, where the benignant and frank kindliness of its noble master shed a charm and a grace over what was most intellectual and elevated in European society that could be given by nothing else.
Lope’s own account of his origin and birth, in a poetical epistle to a Peruvian lady, who addressed him in verse, under the name of “Amarylis,” is curious. The correspondence is found in the first volume of his Obras Sueltas, (Madrid, 1776-1779, 21 tom. 4to), Epístolas XV. and XVI.; and was first printed by Lope, if I mistake not, in 1624. It is now referred to for the following important lines:—