between Lope and the public;” and so, though other biographers may canvass every contemporary writer and weigh the relative qualifications and provocations of envious poets and resentful prelates, Mr. Kelly refuses to look beyond Lope de Vega for the author of the false Second Part of Don Quixote.
Germond de Lavigne, with a sophistry, inspired, we may suppose, by admiration of Vega, declared that we owe a debt to Avellaneda, seeing that but for him Don Quixote would have remained a mere torso, instead of a complete work. Such a piece of special pleading is, of course, fallacious, since Cervantes had pledged himself to produce a second part, and the book must have been nearing completion, in 1614, when Avellaneda’s travesty was published. It is evident that he had progressed as far as the nineteenth chapter, and was within ten chapters of the end, when the Tarragonese bastard was put into circulation, and Cervantes, changing his published plan of procedure, turns Don Quixote from his purpose of entering the lists at Zaragoza and hurries him off to Barcelona. With this counterfeit upon the market Cervantes could no longer pursue the leisurely tenor of his way, and the injury he had received spurred him to new flights of pungent humour. But although our author in this Second Part of Don Quixote deals with his enemy with dignified restraint, and introduces him in person to drub him with the jester’s bladder, rather than becudgel him with his own club, we descry in the dedication of his last book of comedies (1615) how keenly he felt the smart.
Avellaneda had charged him with disparaging the innumerable “stupendous comedies” of Lope de Vega, and of persecuting the Inquisition. Cervantes straightly denies both these imputations, declaring that he “adores Vega’s genius, and admires his works continuous and virtuous,” and protests that he is not likely to persecute any ecclesiastic—above all, if he is a familiar of the Holy Office to boot. “But,” he writes in this dedication to the Conde de Lemos, “that which I cannot help feeling is that he charges me with being old and maimed, as though it had been in my power to stop time from passing over me, or as though my deformity had been produced in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion which ages past and present have seen, or those to come can hope to see. If my wounds do not shine in the eyes of him who looks on them, they are at least honoured in the estimation of those who know where they were acquired; for the soldier looks better dead in battle than alive in flight. And so much I am of this opinion that if now I could devise and bring about the impossible, I would rather be present again in that wonderful action than now be whole of my wounds, without having taken part therein.”
With this manly and characteristic protest we may, I think, close the volume of this scandal, and press forward to the near close of Cervantes’ career.
In this same dedication there is the intimation that Don Quixote is “waiting in the Second Part, booted and spurred, to do homage” to the Conde de Lemos, and before the end of the year (1615) the completion of the great work was published. The book was printed by Juan de la Cuesta, who had printed the First Part, and Francisco de Robles was again associated with Cervantes as publisher. The public received the new volume with the same enthusiasm that they had extended to its predecessor, and although posthumous criticism has in some instances refused to regard it as equal in merit to the first instalment—Charles Lamb went out of his way to refer to it as “that unfortunate Second Part”—the general reading public of successive generations have agreed in regarding it as the most diverting half of the novel. Cervantes himself has declared, through the mouth of the scholar, Samson Carrasco, that second parts are never good, but this rule found a striking exception in the case of his own work. With increasing years the author betrayed no sign of flagging vivacity; experience had lent him a surer hand in the development of character; and while the Knight of La Mancha’s adventures take on a less fantastic guise, and his reflections increase in wisdom, the wit of Sancho Panza broadens and ripens, and the humanity of the immortal comrades acquires a deeper note. Lamb wrote of “that unworthy Duke,” and he condemned the Duchess as “most comtemptible.” Many readers of Cervantes must at times have rebelled against the ingenuity with which the Don’s ducal entertainers conspired to make sport of their guest, and have deplored the means they employed in accomplishing their purpose. But if Cervantes had not had resource to these exalted conspirators we should have lost the passages between Sancho and the Duchess, the story of the squire’s government, and the course prescribed for the disenchantment of Dulcinea del Tobosco—surely among the most richly humorous chapters in the whole story!—and, finally, the death-bed scene, with the old knight-errant, disillusioned, but resigned, dictating his will with his weeping friends around him, and his faithful squire beseeching him “not to die this time, but even take my counsel, and live on many years,” since “the maddest thing ever a man can do is to die!”
Yet in the face of facts there are critics who would argue that the Second Part was inferior to the First, both as a work of art and as a commercial venture. It is certainly incorrect to say, as one writer does, that “when the second part of Don Quixote came before the world it was universally felt that in nearly every respect it betrayed a great falling off.” Nor can the following criticism, taken from the same source, be accepted: “The fire of imagination, which had sustained him throughout the earlier cycle of adventures, now began to burn low; there was less wit in the speeches, less vivacity in the conversation, less humour and pathos in the situations and incidents. He perceived that he had a great
rival to contend with, and that rival was himself. He had, properly speaking, exhausted his originality in the first part, together with his store of situations, his brilliancy of wit, his freshness of imagery, his peculiar power of delineating singular characters, and placing them in singular circumstances. There is wit in the second part, but it is pale; comedy, but it is forced; vivacity, but it is artificial. You discover nearly everywhere comparative poverty of invention, but a perpetual tendency to imitate himself.”
What shall be said of Don Quixote that has not been said already? or why should we marvel because different men have read it differently? Is it the joyfullest of books, as Carlyle calls it, or do we find it, with Sismondi and De Amicis, the most melancholy of histories? Humour it has, the ripest and rarest that has ever been translated into our language, and pathos that touches the depths of the human emotion. Sir Walter Scott speaks of Cervantes’ humour as “the very poetry of the comic, founded on a tender sympathy with all forms of existence, though displaying itself in sportive reflection, and issuing, not in superficial laughter, but in still smiles, the source of which lies far deeper”; yet others have declared that it lacks “a thread of pathos.” Edward Fitzgerald praised it as “the most delightful of books.” Dr. Johnson declared it to be one of the three books written by a man which the reader wishes to be longer. From Swift to Heine, from Charles Lamb to Sainte-Beuve, from Johnson to Schlegel, the literary giants of all ages and all nationalities have joined in praise of Don Quixote.
In England and France and Germany it is still regarded as a romance, unapproachable in its genre; a work of true genius, supreme, imperishable. But in Spain it has passed from romance, in the national mind, into the realms of reality. In La Mancha the people point to the windmills as proof of the Don’s existence; in Argamasilla they show you the house in which the Knight lived, and draw attention to the ruins of a large, round window, out of which the curate and the barber consigned Don Quixote’s library to the flames. Here is the sluggish Guadiana, in which Sancho Panza’s daughter washed the family linen, and the parish church which guards the veritable portrait of Rodrigo Pacheco, alias Alonzo Quixano, known to fame as Don Quixote de la Mancha, and variously styled the Knight of the Lions and the Knight of the Rueful Countenance. These good, simple Manchegans, who are too wise to mistake Don Quixote for clumsy satire, and recognise the nobility, and wisdom, and virtue of the gallant, fantastic knight-errant, who is “nobly wild—not mad,” have not failed to detect the moral for the age, indeed for all ages, which Mr. Austin Dobson has used as the kernel of his sonnet on the Don:
Cervantes survived the publication of Don Quixote some six months—long enough to see the false Second Part routed and extinguished by his own all-conquering creation. Inspired to renewed activity by the chorus of praise which greeted his latest production, we find him, in his 69th year, arranging his plans for the output of three more works—The Weeks of the Garden, the second part of the Galatea, and the Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda, which latter was to be “either the worst or the best of books of entertainment in our language.” The sequel to the Galatea and the projected Weeks of the Garden were probably never commenced, although he refers to them both again in the prologue to Persiles, which was written on his death-bed, and published by his widow in 1617.
Although Persiles and Sigismunda has been extravagantly praised by Valdivielso—“Of the many books written by Cervantes,” he says, “none is more ingenious, more cultured, or more entertaining”—and although it has gone into more editions than any of the minor works of its author, this return to the monstrous artificial style which he had been the means of destroying, is a paradoxical and incomprehensible variant of his genius. In the last chapter of Don Quixote he had caused the Knight to aver: “I now declare myself an enemy to Amadis de Gaul, and his whole generation; all stories of knight-errantry I detest.” Yet within a few months of writing this passage he was engaged in completing a conglomeration of adventures, experienced by a pair of impossible lovers, under every kind of impossible condition. The Spanish critics admire the book for the beauty and correctness of the language, and the grace and charm of its style, but, as a work of creative art, it lacks invention and originality; and, as a piece of fiction—a “pastime for the melancholy and mopish soul”—it is tedious and ineffective.
But because it carries with it the biographically-conceived dedication to the Conde de Lemos, we are grateful to Cervantes for his last romance. In it we read of the return journey from the famous town of Esquívias—“famous for a thousand things, one for its illustrious families, and another for its most illustrious wines”—on which Cervantes tells us he was overtaken by the grey student on the little she-ass. His chance companion having addressed him as “the all famous, the merry writer, and, indeed, the joy of the muses,” they resumed their journey, in the course of which the infirmity of the merry writer was touched upon. “At which,” says Cervantes, “the good student checked my mirth in a moment: ‘This malady is the dropsy, which not all the water of ocean, let it be ever so sweet drinking, can cure. Let your worship, Señor Cervantes, set bounds to your drink, not forgetting to eat, for so without other medicine you will do well.’ ‘That many have told me,’ answered I, ‘but I can no more give up drinking for pleasure than if I had been born for nothing else. My life is slipping away, and, by the diary my
pulse is keeping, which at the latest will end its reckoning this coming Sunday, I have to close my life’s account. Your worship has come to know me in a rude moment, since there is no time for me to show my gratitude for the goodwill you have shown me.’”
In a letter to his “very illustrious lord,” the Archbishop of Toledo, dated 26th March, 1616, Cervantes wrote: “If for the malady which affects me there could be any relief, the repeated marks of favour and protection which your illustrious person bestows on me would be sufficient to relieve me: but, indeed, it increases so greatly that I think it will make an end of me, although not of my gratitude.” In his valedictory dedication to the Conde de Lemos he speaks of himself as “with one foot in the stirrup, waiting the call of death.” “Yesterday,” he continues, “they gave me extreme unction, and to-day I am writing. The time is short, my agonies increase; my hopes diminish.” And then comes his brave, blithesome, parting message: “Good-bye, humours; good-bye, pleasant fancies; good-bye, merry friends; for I perceive I am dying, in the wish to see you happy in the other life.”
This was his last greeting to his patron, and to the world that had learned to love him so well. His dedication is dated 19th April, and on 23rd April, 1616—nominally on the same day that Shakespeare died—the illustrious Spaniard heard the summons of Death, and passed into the great beyond. He was buried as a member of the Franciscan Order in the graveyard of the Convent in the Calle del Humilladero, to which his daughter Isabel shortly afterwards retired. No stone marked the place where the body of Cervantes was laid, but we know that his widow, his daughters, and the other members of his family were laid to rest in the same hallowed ground, and that in 1635, when the Trinitarian sisters removed themselves to the Calle de Cantaranas, the remains of the departed members of their Order were collected into a common heap and carried by the sisterhood to their new Convent. The manuscripts, the pictures, even the bones of the author of Don Quixote are thus lost to the knowledge of the world. But the man lives again to-day in the commendations of his generals, in the testimony of his brothers-in-arms, in the evidence of his devoted fellow-captives in Algeria, and in his own modest biographical memoranda. We recognise him in the brilliant description of him that has been penned by the Spanish biographer, Aribau, as the man who “passed through the world as a stranger whose language was not understood,” announcing “the dawn of a civilisation which broke long afterwards.”
But even as Cervantes has given us the best picture of himself, he has given us also the best epithet that has ever been penned concerning him. He was thinking not of himself, but of Chrysostom, when he uttered the eulogy in which we may apostrophise the body of Cervantes: “This body ...
was one enlivened by a soul which Heaven had enriched with the greatest part of its most valuable graces ... who was unrivalled in wit, matchless in courteousness, a phœnix in friendship ... prudent and grave without pride, modest without affectation, pleasant and complaisant without meanness; in a word, the first in everything good, though second to none in misfortune.”
It has been declared, without provoking contradiction, that Spanish proverbs are undoubtedly wiser and wittier, as well as more numerous than those of any other language. At least a dozen collections of these tabloids of wisdom have been published in Spain; the largest, which was compiled by Juan de Yriarte, containing no fewer than 24,000 proverbs. At least half-a-dozen volumes were in existence in the time of Cervantes; and from these sources it may be presumed he went for much of the sage and pointed witticisms with which Sancho Panza garnishes his conversation. Though it was not the purpose of the author of Don Quixote to select the most characteristic and representative specimens in the language, he has brought together in his book some 300 examples of the refranes which were then in current use; and from those which he considered worthy of quotation I have made the following selection:
“The devil lurks behind the cross.”—I. 6; II. 33, 47.
“What is good is never too abundant.”—I. 6.
“Many go for wool, and come back shorn.”—I. 7; II. 14, 43, 67.
“One swallow does not make a summer.”—I. 13.
“There is no recollection which time does not obliterate, nor grief which death does not destroy.”—I. 15.
“There is nothing certain in this life.”—I. 15.
“What hath been, hath been.”—I. 20.
“All will come out in the washing.”—I. 20, 22; II. 36.
“Do not ask as a favour what you can obtain by force.”--I. 21.
“When one door is shut, another is opened.”—I. 21.
“Let him be wretched who thinks himself so.”—I. 21.
“No discourse that is long can be pleasing.”—I. 21.
“Man goes as God is pleased.”—I. 22.
He who sings frightens away his ills.”—I. 22.
“‘No’ contains the same number of letters as ‘Ay.’”—I. 22.
“To do good to low fellows is to throw water into the sea.”—I. 23.
“The absent feel and fear every ill.”—I. 25.
“Many think to find bacon where there are not even hooks to hang it on.”—I. 25; II. 55, 65, 73.
“He who does not intend to pay is not troubled in making his bargain.”—I. 28.
“The danger is generally in the delay.”—I. 29, 46; II. 41, 71.
“A bird in the hand is better than an eagle on the wing.”—I. 31; II. 12, 71.
“We must suit our behaviour to the occasion.”—I. 31; II. 3.
“To know where the shoe pinches.”—I. 32.
“You often find a good drinker under a bad cloak.”—I. 33.
“He who gives quickly, gives twice.”—I. 34.
“There is a great distance between said and done.”—I. 46.
“Diligence is the mother of success.”—I. 46.
“Every one is the son of his own works.”—I. 47.
“Since I am a man, I may come to be Pope.”—I. 47.
“When the head aches, all the members feel it.”—II. 2.
“Honours change manners.”—II. 4.
“Everyone is as God has made him, and very often worse.”—II. 4.
“He who covers thee, discovers thee.”—II. 5.
“The virtuous maid and the broken leg must stay at home.”—II. 5, 49.
“Better a daughter ill-married than well kept.”—II. 5.
“Great deeds are reserved for great men.”—II. 5.
“He who cannot take advantage of fortune when it comes, should not complain if it passes him by.”—II. 5.
“The counsel of a woman is not worth much, but he who does not take it is worth nothing.”—II. 7.
“Many littles makes much.”—II. 7.
“He who shuffles the cards does not cut them.”—II. 7.
“The lamb goes (to the butcher) as soon as the sheep.”—II. 7.
“Tell me with whom you live, and I will tell you what you are.”—II. 9.
“Truth always gets above falsehood, as oil above water.”—II. 9.
“Not with whom thou art bred, but with whom thou art fed.”—II. 10, 32, 68.
“Madness must necessarily have more followers than discretion.”—II. 13.
“Those who seek adventures do not always find happy ones.”—II. 13.
“It is other people’s burdens that kill the ass.”—II. 13.
“If the blind lead the blind, both are in danger of falling into the ditch.”—II. 13.
“There is no road so level as to have no rough places.”—II. 13.
“To know how many three and two make.—II. 13, 36.
“The lance never blunted the pen, nor the pen the lance.”—II. 16.
“Between a woman’s Yes and No I would not venture to stick the point of a pin.”—II. 19.
“For God who sends the wounds, sends the cure.”—II. 19.
“Love looks through spectacles which make copper appear gold, riches poverty, and weak eyes distil pearls.”—II. 19.
“Every sheep with his fellow.”—II. 19.
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”—II. 20.
“Let him preach well who lives well.”—II. 20.
“He who does not rise with the sun, does not enjoy the day.”—II. 23.
“He who errs and repents recommends himself to God.”—II. 28.
“To talk of a rope in the house of one who has been hanged.”—II. 28.
“Where you least expect it up starts the hare.”—II. 30.
“He who lives a long life, must needs go through many evils.”—II. 32.
“Associate with good men and thou wilt be one of them.”—II. 32.
“The little birds have God for a caterer.”—II. 33.
All is not gold that glitters.”—II. 33.
“Four yards of Cuenca cloth keep one warmer than as many of fine Segovia serge.”—II. 33.
To begin an affair is to have it half finished.”—II. 33.
“At night all cats are grey.”—II. 33.
“Nobody is born learned; and (even) bishops are made of men.”—II. 33.
“I am an old dog, and ‘tus, tus,’ will not do for me.”—II. 33, 69.
“A good name is better than great riches.”—II. 33.
“The corpse of the Pope takes no more ground than that of the sacristan.”—II. 33.
“The fire gives light, and the flames brightness, and yet they may both destroy us.”—II. 34.
“We make less account of that which costs us little.”—II. 34.
“A good heart overcomes evil fortune.—II. 35.
“The ass laden with gold mounts lightly up the hill.”—II. 35.
“There is nothing that costs less than civility.”—II. 36.
“There is no avenging yourself upon a rich man.”—II. 37.
“You may lose as well by a card too much as by a card too little.”—II. 37.
“Make yourself into honey and the flies will devour you.”—II. 43, 49.
“To ‘Get out of my house!’ and ‘What do you want with my wife?’ there is no answer.”—II. 43.
“We are all equals when we are asleep.”—II. 43.
“The foolish sayings of the rich man pass for saws in society.”—II. 43.
“As much as you have, so much you are worth.”—II. 43.
“Heaven always favours good desires.”—II. 43.
“To whom God wishes well, his house knows it.”—II. 43.
“There can be no true pleasantry without discretion.”—II. 44.
“We do not know what is good until we have lost it.”—II. 48.
“It is better for him whom God helps than for him who always rises early.”—II. 49.
“She who desires to see, desires also to be seen.”—II. 49.
“When God sends the dawn, He sends it for all.”—II. 49.
“As long as I am warm, let them laugh (who will).”—II. 50.
“Ingratitude is the child of pride.”—II. 51.
“When you are at Rome, do as you see.”—II. 54.
“Man proposes and God disposes.”—II. 55.
“Until death, all is life.”—II. 59.
“He who falls to-day, may rise to-morrow.”—II. 65.
“Said the pot to the kettle, ‘Get away, blackface!’”—II. 67.
“What the eyes see not, breaks not the heart.”—II. 67.
“The righteous sometimes suffer for sinners.”—II. 67.
“Do away with the motive, and you do away with the sin.”—II. 67.
“He who rails is not far from forgiving.”—II. 70.