Hereunto the writer adds reminiscences of slavery, picaresque scenes observed during his vagabond life as tax-gatherer, tales of Italian intrigue re-echoed from Bandello, flouts at Lope de Vega, a treasure of adventures and experience, a strain of mockery both individual and general. Small wonder if the world received Don Quixote with delight! There was nothing like unto it before: there has been nothing to eclipse it since. It ends one epoch and begins another: it intones the dirge of the mediæval novel: it announces the arrival of the new generations, and it belongs to both the past and the coming ages. At the point where the paths diverge, Don Quixote stands, dominating the entire landscape of fiction. Time has failed to wither its variety or to lessen its force, and posterity accepts it as a masterpiece of humoristic fancy, of complete observation and unsurpassed invention. It ceases, in effect, to belong to Spain as a mere local possession, though nothing can deprive her of the glory of producing it. Cervantes ranks with Shakespeare and with Homer as a citizen of the world, a man of all times and countries, and Don Quixote, with Hamlet and the Iliad, belongs to universal literature, and is become an eternal pleasaunce of the mind for all the nations.
Cervantes had his immediate reward in general acceptance. Reprints of his book followed in Spain, and in 1607 the original was reproduced at Brussels. The French teacher of Spanish, César Oudin, interpolated the tale of the Curious Impertinent between the covers of Julio Iñíguez de Medrano's Silva Curiosa, published for the second time at Paris in 1608; in the same year Jean Baudouin did this story into French, and in 1609 an anonymous arrangement of Marcela's story was Gallicised as Le Meurtre de la Fidélité et la Défense de l'Honneur. This sufficed for fame: yet Cervantes made no instant attempt to repeat his triumph. For eight years he was silent, save for occasional copies of verse. The baptism of the future Felipe IV., and the embassy of Lord Nottingham—best known as Howard of Effingham, the admiral in command against the Invincible Armada—are recorded in courtly fashion by the anonymous writer of a pamphlet entitled Relación de lo sucedido en la Ciudad de Valladolid. Góngora, who dealt with both subjects, flouts Cervantes as the pamphleteer; but the authorship is doubtful. Cervantes is next heard of in custody on suspicion of knowing more than he chose to tell concerning the death of Gaspar de Ezpeleta, in June 1605. Legend makes Ezpeleta the lover of Cervantes' natural daughter, Isabel de Saavedra: "the point of honour" at once suggests itself, and the incident has inspired both dramatists and novelists. A conspiracy of silence on the part of biographers has done Cervantes much wrong, and is responsible for exaggerated stories of his guilt. He was discharged after inquiry, and seems to have been entirely innocent of contriving Ezpeleta's end. Many romantic stories have gathered about the personality of Isabel: she has been passed upon us as the daughter of a Portuguese "lady of high quality," and the prop of her father's declining days. These are idolatrous inventions: we now know for certain that her mother's name was Ana Franca de Rojas, a poor woman married to Alonso Rodríguez, and that the girl herself (who in 1605 was unable to read and write) was indentured as general servant to Cervantes' sister, Magdalena de Sotomayor, in August 1599.[19] Thence she passed to Cervantes' household, and it is even alleged that she was twice married in her father's lifetime. She has been so picturesquely presented by imaginative "Cervantophils," that it is necessary to state the humble truth here and now, for the first time in English. Thus the grotesque travesty of Cervantes as a plaster saint returns to the Father of Lies, who begat it. Confirmation of his exploits as a loose liver in gaming-houses is afforded by the Memorias de Valladolid, now among the manuscripts in the British Museum.[20]
Such diversions as these left him scant time for literature. The space between 1605 and 1608 yields the pitiful show of three sonnets in four years: To a Hermit, To the Conde de Saldaña, To a Braggart turned Beggar. Even this last is sometimes referred to Quevedo. It should hardly seem that prosperity suited Cervantes. Meanwhile, his womenfolk gained their bread by taking in the Marqués de Villafranca's sewing. Still, he made no sign: the author of Don Quixote sank lower and lower, writing letters for illiterates at a small fee. The Letter to Don Diego de Astudillo Carrillo, the Story of what happens in Seville Gaol (a sequel to Cristóbal de Chaves' sketch made twenty years before), the Dialogue between Sillenia and Selanio, the three entremeses entitled Doña Justina y Calahorra, Los Mirones, and Los Refranes—all these are of doubtful authenticity. In April 1609, Cervantes took a thought and mended: he joined Fray Alonso de la Purificación's new Confraternity of the Blessed Sacrament, and in 1610 wrote his sonnet in memory of Diego Hurtado de Mendoza. In 1611 he entered the Academia Selvaje, founded by that Francisco de Silva whose praises were sung later in the Viaje del Parnaso, and he prepared that unique compound of fact and fancy, the rarest humour and the most curious experience—his twelve Novelas Exemplares, which were licensed on August 8, 1612, and appeared in 1613.
These short tales were written at long intervals of time, as the internal evidence shows. In the forty-seventh chapter of Don Quixote there is mention by name of Rinconete y Cortadillo, a picaresque story of extraordinary brilliancy and point included among the Exemplary Novels; and a companion piece is the Coloquio de los Perros, no less a masterpiece in little. Monipodio, master of a school for thieves; his pious jackal, Ganchuelo, who never steals on Friday; the tipsy Pipota, who reels as she lights her votive candle—these are triumphs in the art of portraiture. Not even Sancho Panza is wittier in reflection than the dog Berganza, who reviews his many masters in the light of humorous criticism. No less distinguished is the presentation, in El Casamiento Engañoso, of the picaroons Campuzano and Estefanía de Caicedo; and as an exercise in fantastic transcription of mania the Licenciado Vidriera lags not behind Don Quixote. So striking is the resemblance that some have held the Licentiate for the first sketch of the Knight; but an attentive reading shows that he was not conceived till after Don Quixote was in print. In 1814, Agustín García Arrieta included La Tía fingida (The Mock Aunt) among Cervantes' novels, and, in a more complete form, it now finds place in all editions. Admirable as the story is, the circumstance of its late appearance throws doubt on its authenticity; yet who but Cervantes could have written it? Perhaps the surest sign of his success is afforded by the quality and number of his northern imitators.
"The land that cast out Philip and his God
Grew gladly subject where Cervantes trod."
Despite assertions to the contrary, his Gitanilla is no original conception, for the character of his gipsy, Preciosa, is developed from that of Tarsiana in the Apolonio; yet from Cervantes' rendering of her, which
"Gave the glad watchword of the gipsies' life,
Where fear took hope and grief took joy to wife,"
and from his tale entitled La Fuerza de la Sangre, Middleton's Spanish Gipsy derives. From Cervantes, too, Weber takes his opera Preciosa, and from Cervantes comes Hugo's Esmeralda. In Las dos Doncellas Fletcher, who had already used Don Quixote in the Knight of the Burning Pestle, finds the root of Love's Pilgrimage; from El Casamiento Engañoso he takes his Rule a Wife and Have a Wife; and from La Señora Cornelia he borrows his Chances. And, as Fielding had rejoiced to own his debt to Cervantes, so Sir Walter has confessed that "the Novelas of that author had first inspired him with the ambition of excelling in fiction."