ALFRED GATTY
CONTRADICTIONS IN DON QUIXOTE; AND QUERY AS TO THE BUSCAPIÉ.
In answer to the question of "MELANION" (in No. 5 p. 73.), it may be sufficient to refer him to the Spanish editions with notes, viz. that of Pellicer in 1800; the 4th edition of the Spanish Academy in 1819; and that of D. Diego Clemencin in 1833, where he will find the discrepancies he mentions pointed out. In the first edition of 1605 there was another instance in the same chapter, which Cervantes corrected in the edition of 1608, but overlooked the other two. It was one of those lapses, quas incuria fudit, which great writers as well as small are subject to. Clemencin laughs at De los Rios for thinking it a chracteristic of great geniuses so to mistake; and at the enthusiasm of some one else, who said that he preferred the Don Quixote with the defects to the Don Quixote without them.
Having answered one query, I presume I may be permitted to propose one, in which I feel much interested.
Is the recently published BUSCAPIÉ the work of Cervantes? We have now been favoured with two translations, one by Thomasina Ross, the other by a member of the University of Cambridge, under the title of The Squib, or Searchfoot; the latter I have read with some attention, but not having been able to procure the Spanish original, I should be glad to have the opinion of some competent Spanish scholar who has read it, as to its genuineness. My own impression is that it will prove an ingenious (perhaps innocent?) imposture. The story of its discovery in a collection of books sold by auction at Cadiz, and its publication there by Don Adolfo de Castro, in the first place, rather excites suspicion. My impression, however, is formed from the evident artificial structure of the whole. Still, not having seen the original, I confess myself an imperfect judge, and hope that this may meet the eye of one competent to decide.
S.W. SINGER