THE LIFE OF
CERVANTES.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE LIFE OF
CERVANTES.

JOHN   LANE,   THE   BODLEY   HEAD,
LONDON AND NEW YORK, MDCCCCV.

E. Goodman and Son, Phœnix Printing Works, Taunton.

PREFACE.

But while the career of Cervantes forms as eventful and varied a history as that of the Knight-errant of La Mancha himself—Don Quixote might even be read as the sequel of its author’s life—the number of biographies of the Spanish writer in the English tongue is curiously limited. It is ten years since Mr. Henry Edward Watts—whose recent demise will be regretted by all Cervantists in this country—issued his new and revised edition of the Life and Works of Cervantes, and the scholarly and deeply-interesting Life by Mr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly, Cervantes’ most brilliant and discriminating biographer, is already a rare and almost unobtainable work.

Several hundred works of biography, commentary, and criticism of Cervantes’ life and writings have been published in various languages, yet I am not without hope that this modest contribution may find an unoccupied niche in the broad gallery of Cervantist literature. I have no new data to offer, but I have put forward my conclusions, where they traverse the judgment of other authors, with all reserve; and on points of fact I have accepted the verdict of the majority of my authorities. Wherever I have quoted, and I have had much resource to Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly and others, I have acknowledged my indebtedness; and I have endeavoured to keep always in view my object to present a concise, accurate, and readable life of Cervantes.

I confess that I have less diffidence in submitting for the approval of my readers the illustrations which grace this little book. The reproductions of the title pages of various of Cervantes’ books, and the original illustrations to Don Quixote, will recommend themselves to lovers of letters and of Cervantes; and, in default of an authentic likeness of our author, I offer a choice of all the best-known attempts to repair the omission.

A. F. C.

“Royston,” Hampstead, N.W.,
January, 1905.

CONTENTS.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

THE  LIFE   OF
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES.

Viewed in another and more personal light, Cervantes is still found to be “without like or similar;” in himself, as in his work, he retains his peculiar solitariness. He may not rank equal with Shakespeare and Homer, Dante and Milton, Balzac and Molière, among the giants of literature; but as soldier and author he has a double claim upon the admiration and regard of posterity. Edmund Spencer and Walter Raleigh sustained the dual rôle with distinction; but the one is now only known for his poetry, and the other lives only by virtue of his military exploits. If Cervantes had not written Don Quixote, his literary worth would never have been recognised; but his name would yet have been preserved to us as “the man of Lepanto” and the captive of Algiers. That he survived his wounds and captivity, his poverty and persecution, to publish in his fifty-ninth year a work which Dr. Johnson esteemed the greatest book in the world after the Iliad, is not less remarkable than the fact that his whole career, with all his varied and unrelieved vicissitudes, was necessary for its composition.

Under Philip II., Spain was at the zenith of her glory, and her hardly-won and short-lived supremacy was already on the wane. At a time when Spain was a nest of singing birds, the youthful Cervantes won his spurs as a poet—Navarrete regards him as among “the most celebrated poets of the nation”—and in an era when valour was the profession of the nation, he was esteemed one of the most valorous soldiers of his day. Subsequently he became “probably the first man of genius since the revival of learning who made an attempt to earn a livelihood by his pen,” and his enterprise was rewarded with penury and imprisonment. The character of the man, whom we have learnt to revere as an unappreciated genius, an unhonoured soldier, and an unrecognised martyr for the Christian faith, has been finely summed up for us by his Spanish biographer, Aribau, in the following vivid passage: “Fearless in peril, strong in adversity, modest in triumph, careless and generous in his own concerns, delighting in conferring favours, indulgent to the well-meant efforts of mediocrity, endowed with a sound and very clear judgment, of an imagination without example in its fecundity—he passed through the world as a stranger whose language was not understood. His contemporaries knew him not, but regarded him with indifference. Posterity has given him but tardy compensation. It has recognised him as a man who went before his age, who divined the tastes and tendencies of another society; and, making himself popular with his inexhaustible graces, announced the dawn of a civilisation which broke long afterwards.”

Miguel de Cervantes came of a good, if not noble family, which traced its origin back to the tenth century. Poverty, as he himself has said, may cloud, but cannot wholly obscure nobility; and although his parents appear to have possessed an indifferent share of this world’s goods, they ranked among the hidalgos of Alcala de Henares, in New Castile, where Miguel was born, in 1547. To-day Alcala is a dull, featureless little town, decaying by the sleepy waters of the Henares, memorable only by reason of the mighty names which are associated with its history. Here Charles V. entertained his royal prisoner Francis I.; here Francisco Ximenes de Cisneros, in 1510, founded its university; and, in 1517, superintended the printing of the Complutensian Bible, which was produced at a cost of 80,000 ducats; and here the body of the great Cardinal Statesman lies beneath a princely monument in the Colégio Mayor.

From 1616 until 1748 the identity of Cervantes’ birthplace was lost. The place of Don Quixote’s nativity, it will be remembered, was obscured by his inventor, in order that “all the towns and villages of La Mancha might contend among themselves for the honour of giving him birth and adopting him for their own, as the Seven Cities of Greece contended for Homer,” and for over 130 years he was himself the subject of a similar uncertainty. Until 1748, when the discovery of his baptismal registrar in the Parish Church of Saint Mary the Creator, at Alcala de Henares, made an end of the mystery that had existed on the point, seven cities of Spain contended fiercely for the honour of claiming Cervantes for their own. But the pretentions of Madrid, Seville, Toledo, Lucena, Esquívias, Alcazar de San Juan and Consuegra were disposed of by this documentary evidence, and speculation was shifted from Cervantes’ birthplace to his place of education; indeed the little that is known of the author’s

early days leaves ample scope for conjecture. Tradition says that he spent two years at the University of Salamanca, and the house in which he is supposed to have resided, in the Calle de Moros, is still regarded as one of the lions of this once famous seat of learning. The city is now without learning, society, or commerce—a ruin of its former greatness. Yet in the fourteenth century its university boasted 10,000 students, and in Cervantes’ youth some 5,000 students resorted thither. But the University of Alcala was also at that time a famous centre of learning, and it is unlikely that Cervantes, having regard to the financial status of his family, would go further afield for his collegiate course. Mr. Fitzmaurice-Kelly, who does not believe that he was a student of any university, regards the assumption that he was sent to the distant University of Salamanca, as something like mockery.

All that we can ascertain, concerning his student life, is that he learnt grammar and the humanities under Lopez de Hoyos, a man of culture and a teacher of some distinction in his age and generation. In 1568, upon the death of Isabel de Valois, the third wife of Philip II., Cervantes, among Hoyos’ pupils, won much commendation for some verses written in commemoration of the national bereavement, and we find his master alluding to the youthful poet as his “dear and beloved pupil,” and eulogising the “elegant style,” “rhetorical colours,” and “delicate conceits” of his literary exercises. These compositions, together with many other early poetical effusions of the author, are to be found in some Spanish editions of Cervantes’ works, but the general reader will be content to take them as read. Their author, in his reference to these immature effusions in his Journey around Parnassus, admits that “from his tenderest years he had loved the sweet art of poesy,” he volunteers the information that he had produced an endless variety of ballads and sonnets of varying degrees of merit, and modestly confesses that “Heaven had not granted him the poet’s grace.”

Cervantes was still a stripling when he first evinced that interest in the acted drama, which he never entirely lost. Lope de Rueda, who did so much to produce order out of chaos in the drama of Spain, was at that time an actor-manager at the head of his own company of strolling players. It was this gold-beater of Seville, “admirable in Pastoral Poetry,” distinguished alike “for his acting and for his intelligence,” who brought comedies “out of their swaddling clothes and gave them habitation, and attired them decently and handsomely.” Cervantes must have attended the performances of the Rueda Company when they were in the neighbourhood of Segovia, in 1558; and in the preface to his volume of Comedies and Farces, published a year before his death, he gives us some interesting particulars of the theatrical impedimenta in use at that time. The performances were given in the morning and afternoon in the public square, and the only decoration of the theatre was “an old blanket drawn aside by two ropes, which made what they call the green-room; behind which were the musicians, singing some old ballad without a guitar.” The properties consisted of “four benches arranged in a square, with five or six planks on top of them, raised but four handsbreadth from the ground;” while the whole apparatus of a manager of plays, was contained in a sack, and consisted of “four white sheep-skin dresses, trimmed with gilt leather, and four beards, wigs, and crooks, more or less.”

In 1568, an event occurred which altered the trend of Cervantes’ life, and carried him for a period of twelve years from his native land. In that year, the young and cultured Cardinal Acquaviva came to the Court of Philip II. on a ceremonial mission from the Pope. Though received with scant courtesy by the King, the learned envoy was warmly welcomed by the men of letters of Madrid. By one of these, it is suggested by Cardinal Espinosa to whom Cervantes had dedicated some of his verses, the poet was presented to Acquaviva; and when the Papal legate brought his visit to an end, Cervantes returned with him to Rome in the capacity of camarero, or page. Mr. Kelly treats at some length, if with scant credulity, the vague legend, that in his early youth Cervantes held some minor post at Court; and while he attaches no importance to the traditions that he left Spain to escape the consequences of having wounded a courtier in a duel, or of having had some love passages with a lady about the Court, he takes it for granted that he “fled to Italy in half-voluntary, half-compulsory exile.” Whether that was so or not, he only remained for little more than a year in the service of his ecclesiastical patron, and in the beginning of 1570 he entered the Spanish Army as a private soldier in the company of the famous captain, Don Diego de Urbina.

While it is generally recognised that Cervantes, the author and philosopher, was in advance of his age, Cervantes, the man, was, it would appear, the natural product of his generation and his environment. In the university city of Alcala, “in that fruitful harvest-time of Spanish literature,” he cultivated the muses; in Italy—which, at that period, was dominated by Spain—surrounded, as he was, on all sides by the indomitable Spanish infantry, who “made the earth tremble with their firelocks,” the spirit of Cervantes was fired with military ardour. Christendom, too, was at perpetual war with the Turks, and to a youth of Cervantes’ chivalrous temperament the prospects offered by a career which united the services of both Church and King would prove irresistible. He was present, in 1570, at the ineffectual attempt to relieve the Island of Cyprus, a failure which led up to the formation of the Holy League of Spain, Venice, and Rome against Selim II., and found its crowning glory in the Battle of Lepanto.

The troops went into Winter quarters on their return from Cyprus, and Cervantes trod the streets

of Naples for more than a year, while the allied fleets were being mobilised. On September 15th, Don Juan of Austria found himself in command of the squadron of 208 galleys, 7 galleons, and 24 sailing ships, which sailed from Messina with a complement of 26,000 soldiers to give battle to the Turkish fleet. The enemy were discovered within the Gulf of Lepanto, where, on October 7th, was fought one of the greatest sea-actions of all times. The Turkish ships, though more numerous than those of the allies, were smaller in design, inferior in their armaments, and less skilfully navigated, while the wind, veering suddenly at the crisis of the struggle, gave the advantage to the united fleet. Though the result was not the beginning of the end of Moslem supremacy, the victory of the Holy League was complete and emphatic. The power of the Turk was arrested, and all Christendom rang with the glory of the achievement.

The story of the Battle of Lepanto does not call for special description in these pages; its personal and peculiar interest for us lies in the fact that the two names that are associated with the victory in the most notable prominence are those of Don Juan of Austria, the generalissimo of the forces, and Miguel de Cervantes, the private soldier on the Marquesa—the one for his skill and generalship, the other for his personal heroism. Of Cervantes’ share in the battle, we have ample and detailed evidence. On the morning of the action he was, according to Martin Fernández de Navarrete, stricken with fever, and ordered to remain in the safety of his cabin. But on the representations of the young soldier, who protested that he would rather die fighting for God and his King than tend his health in security, his captain gave him a command of twelve men, and stationed him in a boat on the fighting side of the galley. Opposed to the Marquesa was the flagship of the Turkish right squadron, commanded by the Captain-Pasha of Alexandria, and floating the royal standard of Egypt. The duel between the two galleys was fought with the utmost gallantry on both sides, but the Turk was captured after the loss of 500 of her crew, and her surrender involved the rout of the entire right squadron.

That Cervantes’ share in this encounter was of material service in contributing to its successful issue, is evidenced by the fact that in an army of 26,000 soldiers and sailors he won the most distinguished measure of individual renown. That he held the post of greatest danger, that he was the first to board the galley, and bore himself with intrepid gallantry, we know on the sworn testimony of Mateo de Santisteban and others of his comrades. The evidence is supported by the unusual interest and concern that Don Juan evinced in him, raising his pay by five or six escudos, and visiting him in the Hospital of Messina. For Cervantes had not come through the battle unscathed. In his breast he received two arquebus wounds, while his left hand was injured by a ball, which rendered it useless for the remainder of his life. In Sola’s bronze statue of Cervantes, at Barcelona, “El manco de Lepanto,” as his countrymen have proudly styled him, is represented with his maimed hand hidden beneath his cloak; although, during his lifetime, he carried with pride the wounds received in “the most memorable of all occasions past, present, or to come”—“wounds that show like stars, lighting us on to heaven and to fame”—and declared that his useless left hand was crippled “for the greater glory of the right.”

Between 1571 and 1575 Cervantes lived the strenuous life of a private soldier, taking part in two campaigns, fighting with enthusiasm, enduring wounds and hardships with stoical fortitude, and acquiring that knowledge of men and things which he was afterwards to employ to such good purpose. His injuries were tended at Messina, but he returned to his duties before they were properly healed; and two years later, when he went to Tunis in the army of Don Juan, he writes to Mateo Vasquez that his wounds were “yet dripping with blood.” After his discharge from the hospital, he was transferred to the tercio de Figueroa, commanded by Don Manuel Ponce de Leon; and, as a soldado aventajado, or select soldier, in the most famous infantry regiment of Spain, he was on the high road to promotion and a distinguished career. In the story of “The Captive,” in Don Quixote (Part I., Chapter xxxix.), Cervantes has left us a graphic account of the ineffective and inglorious second campaign of the allies in the Levant, which was followed by the dissolution of the Holy League. Cervantes repaired with his regiment to Naples, and, after the Tunis expedition, he was for some time in garrison in the Island of Sardinia, before being sent to Genoa by the order of Don Juan.

The inadequacy of the Spanish garrison left for the protection of Tunis, and the growing boldness and activity of the combined Moors and Turks, called for prompt measures; and, in 1574, Don Juan held himself in readiness with a fleet to restore Spanish prestige in Africa. But the delays, caused by the procrastination of Philip, proved fatal. Before the squadron received the supplies and materials required for the expedition, the allies, after a desperate military and naval engagement, captured the Goletta, and obtained possession of Tunis. With this last prospect of active service dispelled, Cervantes, weary of inaction, disgusted with the unchivalrous termination of the Crusade which had commenced so gloriously at Lepanto, and eager for the sight of his native land, obtained leave to return to Spain. The high opinion in which he was held by “men of state and of might” with whom he had come in contact, is shown by the fact that this private soldier received from the Commander-in-Chief, Don Juan, a letter to the King, strongly recommending him as “a man of valour, of merit, and of many signal services,” while the Viceroy of Sicily, the Duke of Sessa, provided him with letters to Philip, and to his Council, in

which he speaks of him as “a soldier as deserving as he was unfortunate; who, by his noble virtue and gentle disposition, had won the esteem of his comrades and his chiefs.” In August, 1575, he set sail for Naples on board the galley El Sol, but five years more were to elapse before he was again to tread the shores of Spain.

In the following month, El Sol was attacked within sight of the Spanish coast by a squadron of Algerine pirates. In the unequal contest which followed, Cervantes is reported to have borne himself with characteristic gallantry, but such an encounter could have but one issue, and the captured Spaniards were divided up among the Moors as spoils of victory. Cervantes became the prize of a Captain, named Delí Mamí, a renegade Greek, who had earned the distinction of being one of the most ferocious of that notoriously savage and revengeful race of corsairs. For the following five years Cervantes endured a tyranny of serfdom as rigorous and unrelaxing as ever slave suffered in the mines of Spain. He was already known as el manco de Lepanto; he was now to earn, if not to wear, the title of el manco de Argel.

It is not our purpose here to give a detailed description of the sufferings he bore with knightly fortitude and undaunted spirit for those long five years. The particulars are preserved to us in official documents, but a brief summary must find a place in our sketch.

According to the testimony of Father Haedo, in whose Topography of Algiers, published in 1612, we have the most valuable authority for this period of Cervantes’ life, and who was an eye-witness to the cruelties practised upon the Christian slaves, the captivity of Cervantes was one of the hardest ever known in Algiers. Mr. Watts has given us an eloquent account of our hero in this bondage. It was borne, he says, with a courage and constancy which, had there been nothing else to make his name memorable, must have sufficed to rank Cervantes among the heroes of his age and country. No episode more romantic is contained in the books of chivalry. No adventures more strange were encountered by any knight-errant. Not Amadis nor Esplandian, nor any of those whose fabled deeds had kindled his youthful imagination, displayed a loftier spirit of honour, or more worthily discharged his knightly devoir, than did Miguel de Cervantes when in duress in Algiers. A slave in the power of the bitter enemy of his creed and nation, cut off in the heyday of his fame from the path of ambition which fortune seemed to have opened to him; no lot could be more cruel than that which, in the fulness of his manhood and genius, fell to his share.

Nor is there any chapter of his life more honourable than that record of the singular daring, fortitude, patience and cheerfulness with which he bore his fate during this miserable period. With no other support than his own indomitable spirit, forgotten by those whom he had served, unable to receive any help from his friends, subjected to every kind of hardship which the tyranny or caprice of his masters might order, pursued by an unrelenting evil destiny, which seemed in this, as in every other passage of his career, to mock at his efforts to live that high heroic life which he had conceived to himself; this poor maimed soldier was looked up to by that wretched colony of Christian captives (including among them many men of higher birth and rank) as their chief counsellor, comforter, and guide. In his formal information, laid before the commissary of the Spanish Government at Algiers, Father Juan Gil, of the Order of the Redemptorists, very particular testimony is borne by Cervantes’ fellow-captives to his character and conduct, as one who bore himself always as a faithful Christian, who cheered those who were despondent, who shared with the poor the little that he possessed, who helped the sick in their necessities, who risked every danger in the cause of the faith, behaving himself always like a true soldier of the King and a noble gentleman—all of which good record is confirmed by the honest Father himself of his own personal knowledge.

The daring escapes that Cervantes planned, the intrepid courage with which he set himself to invent new schemes when the old ones miscarried; the indomitable cheerfulness he always maintained, and especially the spell he exercised over his master, the brutal Hassan Pasha of evil memory, are sufficient to mark him as a man of extraordinary resource, magnetism, and force of character. Delí Mamí, misled by the letters which were found upon the person of his captive, regarded Cervantes as a man of position and substance, and the treatment meted out to him was the more severe, in order that his family would the more speedily effect his release. These Algerine pirates lived upon the ransoms which they extorted from the friends of their captives; and at the time of Cervantes’ bondage, no fewer than 25,000 Christians, including many men of rank and fortune, were waiting the arrival of the price of their freedom, and frequently enlivening the monotony of their servitude by attempting to escape. Cervantes earned a peculiar celebrity among this army of captives by the ingenuity and persistence of the plans he put into practice in order to achieve the ambition of every bondman. But while his courage became proverbial, and his craft amazed both his captors and his fellow-prisoners, his ill-luck ever intervened to frustrate his best-laid plans.

A further reference may be permitted here to the influence which Cervantes exercised upon his barbarous gaoler, Hassan Pasha, who had purchased him from Delí Mamí for the sum of 500 gold crowns. The author of Don Quixote has told us (Part I., Chapter xi.) of “the unheard-of and unseen cruelties which my master practised on the Christians. Every day he hanged a slave; impaled one; cut off the ears of another; and this upon so