Could their congenial spirits witness the tribute posterity pay to their talents, how would they be gratified! Large as is their portion of fame, they were little favoured by fortune. Hogarth, after a long life of persevering industry, died comparatively poor. As to the maimed hero of Spain, when the learned Don Gregorio Mayans y Siscar, at the request of Lord Carteret, collected materials for his life, he could neither learn where he was born nor where he died. Sevilla, Madrid, Esquivias, Toledo, Lucena, and Alcazor de San Juan, contended for the honour of his birth, whom living they had suffered to languish in a prison.
He was born in Alcala de Henares, in the year 1547, and died at Madrid, April 23, 1616, on the same nominal day with Shakspeare; so that Spain and England lost their two great luminaries at the same period, nor have succeeding centuries produced a successor worthy of ascending either of their vacant thrones.
From the similarity of their genius, it was reasonable to expect that Hogarth would excel in delineating the scenes described by Cervantes; and though our great painter of nature succeeded better in subjects drawn from the rich storehouse of his own mind than in those described by others, yet in the portraits of the knight, and knight companions, he has adhered very closely to their leading characteristics, which are thus depicted by Cervantes:—
"The age of our gentleman bordered upon fifty years; he was of a robust constitution, spare-bodied, of a meagre visage, and a very keen sportsman.
"Rozinanté was so long and lank, so thin and lean, so like one labouring with an incurable consumption, as did clearly show with what propriety his master so entitled him. Sancho Panza, or Canzas, was so called, because he had a great belly, a short stature, and thick legs."[117]
To attempt a description of the nine following prints in any other words than those of Cervantes, would be absurd and vain; to suppose that the greatest part of my readers had not perused Don Quixote, would be an insult on their taste. I will therefore take it for granted that the following scenes are in their recollection. The few that have not read this admirable romance have a pleasure to come; as an inducement to their embracing it, I will insert little more than a reference to the page in Shelton, whose quaint old English has perhaps more serious Cervantic humour than either Jarvis' or Smollett's modern translations. My edition is that of 1675.
PLATE I.
THE FIRST SALLY IN QUEST OF ADVENTURES.
