7 ([return])
That seems to have been the usual period for which a book was licensed in that age. The sum which Cervantes received for his copyright is not recorded.
8 ([return])
The Third Part of Don Florisel de Niquea was dedicated to a former Duque de Bejar. See Salva's Catalogo, vol. ii, p. 14.
9 ([return])
Cervantes is supposed to reflect on this meddlesome ecclesiastic in Part II, chap, xxxi, of Don Quixote, where there is a passage against those of the religious profession who "govern the houses of princes," written with a bitterness most unusual in our author.
10 ([return])
Those who are fond of dwelling on coincidences may find one here of singular interest. The year during which Don Quixote was being printed was also the year in which, according to the best authorities, Shakespeare was producing his perfected Hamlet. The two noblest works of human wit, their subjects bearing a curious affinity one to another, each the story of a mind disordered by the burden of setting the world right, were thus born in the same year.
11 ([return])
Con general aplauso de las gentes—he says in the Second Part of Don Quixote, speaking through the mouth of the Duchess. The legend, revived in the present age, that Don Quixote hung fire on the first publication, and that the author wrote anonymously a tract called El Buscapie (The Search-foot), in order to explain his story and its object, rests only upon the evidence of one Ruidiaz, and is contradicted by all the facts of the case. No such aid was necessary to push the sale of the book, whose purpose had been sufficiently explained by the author in his preface. The so-called Buscapie, published in 1848 by Adolfo de Castro, is an impudent forgery, which has imposed upon no one. It is the composition of Señor de Castro himself, who is a farceur, of some wit and more effrontery. Ticknor is even too serious in the attention which he bestows on Señor de Castro and his work, which an English publisher has thought worthy of a translation.