[48] Babieca was the name of the Cid’s favourite horse.

[49] The old Spanish poets occasionally lengthened their sonnets by affixing to them a few additional lines. The lines so added were called the estrambote.

[50] In the time of Cervantes the Spanish doctors used always to ride on mules when they went to visit their patients.

[51] The delusion of the student, in respect to the merits of his horse, would seem intended to have some reference to the hallucinations and mistakes of the Knight of La Mancha. It may be mentioned, that minute descriptions of animals, such as that here given above, are of frequent occurrence in the works of Spanish writers, especially the poets. Lope de Vega, in one of his comedies, describes in detail a fish caught in the net of a fisherman on the bank of the Guadalquivir. Another beautiful specimen of this kind of animal painting is given by Antonio Mira Amescua, in his Acteon i Diana: the subject is a pack of hounds, weary with the chase. Villaviciosa, in his Mosquea, pourtrays with eloquent poetic colouring the death of a fly; and there is a celebrated description of a horse by Pablo de Céspedes.

[52] Cervantes here alludes to a little work entitled:—Conserva Espiritual, by Joaquín Romero de Cepeda.

[53] Spiritual verses for the conversion of the Sinner, and for shewing the worthlessness of the world.

[54] “Praised be God.”

[55] The ardite is a small Spanish coin, of about the value of a farthing.

[56] Mingo Rebulgo is an old Spanish eclogue written to satirise the court of King John II. Its supposed author is Rodrigo de Cota, who flourished in the commencement of the fifteenth century. It is written in couplets, and is entitled “Las coplas de Mingo Rebulgo.” The romance of the Moor Calaynos is one of the oldest compositions of its class, and is supposed to have been written in the fourteenth century. It is also in coplas, or couplets. In the course of time, and when the forms of Spanish poetry began to improve, the old fashioned commonplace language of the romance of Calaynos began to appear vulgar and trivial, it gave birth to the proverb, “este no vale las coplas de Calaynos.” (This is not worth the couplets of Calaynos.) A saying which is employed to mark great depreciation of any object. In alluding to the little affinity between Mingo Rebulgo and Calaynos, Cervantes means to draw a very broad contrast between two things not merely dissimilar, but differing very much in worth.

[57] “The talk of the prattler is not all truth.”

[58] “The mill gains in going, that which it loses in standing still.”

[59] A sort of hunting-jacket made of leather, formerly worn in Spain.

[60] This excursive flight into the region of romance would appear to have been interpolated by Cervantes after the Buscapié was written,—it has no direct bearing on the question under discussion between the two interlocutors.

[61] Monstruo de Fortuna is a designation frequently applied by old Spanish writers to the celebrated Antonio Pérez. The term Monster in the sense of prodigy is applied to Lope de Vega by Cervantes, who styles his celebrated contemporary Monstruo de Naturaleza (Monster of Nature).

[62] It was formerly the custom in Spain to use small pebble stones for counters in playing at cards.

[63] This is a stroke of satire aimed at the Spanish lawyers of that period. In the time of Cervantes, the Abogados (advocates) were remarkable only for their ignorance and pedantry.

[64] At the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, there lived in Burgos a tavern-keeper named Colmenares, celebrated alike for his wealth, his social humour, and his witty sayings. Many of his jests are collected and published in a volume entitled “Diálogos de apacible entretenimiento, por Gaspar Lucas, Hidalgo.” The inn in Madrid known in the time of Cervantes by the appellation of the Mesón de Colmenares, was probably kept by the witty tavernero of Burgos, or some of his relations.

[65] Cervantes here uses the term librillo, the Spanish diminutive for libro (book). Were it allowable to make an English word for the purpose of translating this Spanish term, booklet might be suggested as an appropriate synonym.