Chapter XII

CERVANTES.--HIS PERSILES AND SIGISMUNDA, AND ITS CHARACTER.--HIS DON QUIXOTE.--CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN.--ITS PURPOSE AND GENERAL PLAN.--PART FIRST.--AVELLANEDA.--PART SECOND.--CHARACTER OF THE WHOLE.--CHARACTER OF CERVANTES.

Six months after the death of Cervantes,[159] the license for publishing “Persiles y Sigismunda” was granted to his widow, and in 1617 it was printed.[160] His purpose seems to have been to write a serious romance, which should be to this species of composition what the Don Quixote is to comic romance. So much, at least, may be inferred from the manner in which it is spoken of by himself and by his friends. For in the Dedication of the Second Part of Don Quixote he says, “It will be either the worst or the best book of amusement in the language”; adding, that his friends thought it admirable; and Valdivielso,[161] after his death, said he had equalled or surpassed in it all his former efforts.

[159] At the time of his death Cervantes seems to have had the
following works more or less prepared for the press, namely: “Las
Semanas del Jardin,” announced as early as 1613;--the Second Part
of “Galatea,” announced in 1615;--the “Bernardo,” mentioned in
the Dedication of “Persiles,” just before he died;--and several
plays, referred to in the Preface to those he published, and in
the Appendix to the “Viage al Parnaso.” All these works are now
probably lost.

[160] The first edition of Persiles y Sigismunda was printed with
the following title: “Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda.
Historia Setentrional, por M. de Cervantes Saavedra, dirigida,”
etc., Madrid, 1617, 8vo, por Juan de la Cuesta; and reprints
of it appeared in Valencia, Pamplona, Barcelona, and Brussels,
the same year. I have a copy of the first edition; but the most
agreeable one is that of Madrid, 1802, 8vo, 2 tom. There is
an English translation by M. L., published 1619, which I have
never seen; but from which I doubt not Fletcher borrowed the
materials for that part of the Persiles which he has used, or
rather abused, in his “Custom of the Country,” acted as early as
1628, but not printed till 1647; the very names of the personages
being sometimes the same. See Persiles, Book I. c. 12 and 13; and
compare Book II. c. 4 with the English play, Act IV. scene 3, and