Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

The mystery of the incarnation presents to us the idea, that the Word has assumed human nature, not by assuming all the individuals of the race, but by assuming humanity individuated in one perfect soul and body into a union with his divine nature, in which it terminates upon his divine person as the final complement of its existence, without any confusion of its distinct essence with the divine essence to which it is united. By this union, the Word is a theandric person, or one divine person in two natures, divine and human, really distinct from each other in essence and existence, but with one common principle of imputability to which their attributes and operation are to be ascribed. This is the union, called in theological language hypostatic, of the creature to the Creator, which is metaphysically final, or final to the divine intelligence and power; beyond which there is no idea in God of a possible act _ad extra_, and which is next in order to the procession of the divine persons _ad intra_. Through this hypostatic union, created nature participates with the uncreated nature impersonated in the Son in the relation to the Father as principle, and the Holy Spirit as consummation, of intelligence and love; that is, in the divine life and beatitude. The incarnation having been in the view and purpose of Almighty God from eternity, {14} as the ultimatum of his wisdom and omnipotence, is the apex of the creative act, or the terminus at which the creative act reaches the summit of possibility. In it the creation returns to God as final cause, from whom it proceeds as first cause, in a mode which is metaphysically final. It is therefore certain that God, in his eternal, creative purpose, determined the universe to an end metaphysically final; and that this end is attained in the incarnation, or the union of created with uncreated nature in the person of the Word.

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From The Dublin University Magazine.

MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Y SAAVEDRA.

Notwithstanding the value of the precious metals extracted from the American mines, the Spanish exchequer had not been in a satisfactory condition for a long time. War had scourged the kingdom since the conquest by the Moors. Ferdinand and Isabella had indeed dislodged them and their unlucky King Boabdil from their little paradise in Granada and Andaluçia, about a century before the poor Don made his first sally; but it was at a dread sacrifice of money and men's lives. Charles V. was engaged in ruinous wars during the greater part of his reign, and Philip II., his successor (unwillingly indeed), was put to trouble and expense while uniting with other Christian powers to prevent the ferocious sultan from bringing all Europe under the Mussulman yoke. The victory of Lepanto, gained by his half-brother, Don John, somewhat crippled the Sublime Porte and the terrible renegade Uchali, but did not prevent the Algerine and other African pirates from doing infinite mischief to all the Christian states bordering the Mediterranean. Ceaselessly they intercepted their merchant vessels, made booty of the freight and slaves of the crew, and obliged all in the rank of merchants or gentlemen to find heavy ransoms. Now what should have prevented Spain and France and the Italian kingdoms from collecting a large fleet and army at any one time, and battering down the strongholds of these ruthless plunderers, and effectually putting it out of their power to annoy their Christian neighbors? Philip was often urged to co-operate in such a good work, but he preferred to expend time and money, and his subjects' blood and property, on other projects.

An extract from the work mentioned below, [Footnote 9] in reference to the state of Spain toward the latter years of Philip II., is well worth transcribing. The author is speaking of Cervantes in prison, some time between 1598 and 1603:

[Footnote 9: Michel de Cervantes, sa Vie, son Temps, son OEuvre
Politique et Littéraire. Par Émile Chasles. Paris: Didier et Cie.]

"He distinctly perceived, through the splendor and apparent unity of
the Spanish monarchy, a muttering and stormy confusion, a thousand
strange and opposed groupings;--politicians who in fact were mere
favorites, austere gentlemen mixed with _galant_ writers,--grave
inquisitors condemning errant Bohemians, applying a barbarous law to
barbarous hordes, and cauterizing but not curing wounds. Through
this assemblage of contrasts he could see a wide separation between
the social classes. Two distinct groups existed united by any common
idea or sympathy, extra-social world of Gitanos (gipsies), rogues,
and mystics, whose lives were independent, and that of the alcaids
and corregidors.

{15}

"Between these two camps hovered a mixed population so frequently
treated of in Spanish letters,--the alguazil, the sacristan, the
deserter, the refugee, a hybrid people attached to the law or the
church, but affiliated to the _hampa_ (illegal bond of union) by
character, by nature, by origin, or by interest.

"In a country where poverty was every day increasing, necessity
threw thousands every day on a career of adventure. It depopulated
Spain in exiling to the Indies her best soldiers. It flung away
innumerable renegades to the coast of Africa. It decimated that
nobility erewhile so valiant, so full of pride and patriotism.
Impoverished gentlemen soon formed a large class of honorable
paupers. They endured, with a stoicism purely Spanish, the
exigencies of honor and poverty, along with the necessity of living
and dying useless to their country."

Let pity be awarded to the poor gentlemen who took his promenade toothpick in hand, to impress on his world that he had dined. Cervantes had no need to go beyond his family recollections for materials for this sketch:

"Behold the hidalgo coming out of his house with unquiet eye. His
suspicious humor inclines him to believe that every one knows his
shoes are pieced, that perspiration has left marks on his hat, that
his cloak is threadbare, and that his stomach is empty. He has taken
a draught of water within closed doors, and just come forth
displaying his hypocritical toothpick,--dolorous and deceptive
exhibition, which has grown into a fashion."

Political principles and social institutions prevalent during the long wars between the Christians and the Moors were still in vigor at the end of the sixteenth century, when the circumstances of the country had undergone a thorough change.

"During the the centuries when Spain was struggling against the
Arabs, the she condition of the nationality was the purity of blood
and the Christian faith. The Old Christian (Christiano Viejo), the
irreproachable Castilian alone, could be intrusted with the defense
of the soil or the government of the country. And now when the enemy
was expelled the usage remained. The alcaid (magistrate) did not
know the law, perhaps he could not read, but 'he had,' as he said,
'four inches of the fat of an Old Christian on his ribs, and that
was sufficient.'"

In the interlude of the Election of the Alcaids of Daganzo, Cervantes specifies the personal gifts sufficient to qualify for the post. An elector proposing Juan Verrouil, thus dwells on his good qualities:

"At all events Juan Verrouil possesses the most delicate
discernment. The other day, taking a cup of wine with me, he
observed that it smacked of wood, of leather, and of iron. Well,
when we got to the bottom of the pitcher, what did we discover but a
key fastened by a strap of leather to a piece of wood!

"_Secretary_.--Wonderful ability, rare genius. Such a man might rule
Alanis, Cazalla, ay even Esquivias."

Francis de Humillos is considered fit for the magistracy because of his nearness in soling a shoe. Michael Jarret is voted worthy, as he shoots an arrow like any eagle. Peter the Frog knows every word of the ballad of the "Dog of Alva" without missing one, but Humillos stands the examination with rather more credit than the rest; he knows the four prayers, and says them four or five times per week.

The number of wandering gipsies and brigands and thieves of all description was out of all rational proportion with the honest and respectable population. These were united under the hampa, and it was a matter of extreme difficulty to obtain information against any delinquent from a brother of the order.

Little is said about the mercantile or manufacturing classes in books connected with the time of Cervantes. Enough is told of the pride, and luxury, and generally perverted tastes of the great, and hints are given of the kind and considerate demeanor of the nobility residing on their estates to their dependents.

{16}

DON QUIXOTE'S PREDECESSORS.

Spain is not the only country which for a time has set an extravagant estimate on some books or class of books. Even in our own days and in those of the last generation, have not literary furors prevailed for picturesque banditti, and feudal castles, and caverns, and awful noises in vast and dimly lighted bedchambers, for poetry beckoning its victims to despair and suicide, for novels stamped with the silver fork of high life, and lastly, for those which enlarge on the physiology of forbidden fruit? M. Chasles will pleasantly explain the literary _penchants_ of the peninsula two hundred and sixty odd years since:

"We have seen the France of the seventeenth century enthusiastic for
the Astrea and the Clelia, [Footnote 10] and the England of the
eighteenth assume shield and spear for Clarissa Harlowe, [Footnote
11] but in 1598 and in Spain, the extraordinary popularity of the
Amadises resembled a brain fever at which no one dared laugh. One
day a certain nobleman coming home found his wife in tears. 'What is
the matter? What bad news have you heard?' 'My dear, Amadis is
dead.' They could not suffer the writers to put their heroes to
death. The infant Don Alonzo personally interceded with the author
of the Portuguese Amadis to rewrite the chapter in which the Signora
Briolana was sacrificed. These creatures of the imagination assumed
a personal reality among the people of that era in the mind of every
one. Every one was convinced that Arthur of Britain would one day
return among men. Julian of Castile, who wrote in 1587, affirmed
(could we believe him) that when Philip II. espoused Mary of
England, he was obliged to reserve the claims of King Arthur, and
engage to yield him the throne when he returned. Chivalric fictions
became an article of faith. A certain gentleman, Simon de Silveyra,
swore one day on the Holy Gospel that he held the history of Amadis
de Gaul [Footnote 12] for true and certain."

[Footnote 10: For information concerning these slow romances and
their contemporaries, and the great Honore d'Urfy. see University
Magazine for February, 1844.]

[Footnote 11: A school of simple and warm-hearted working-class folk
nightly assembled at a forge in Windsor to hear the perilous trials
of Pamela read out to them. They watched with unflagging interest
her progress through her ticklish trials, and showed their joy in
her final triumph by running in a body to the church and ringing the
bells.]

[Footnote 12: This first and best of the chivalric romances was
composed by Vasco de Lobeira of Oporto, who died in 1406. It was
written between 1342 and 1367, and first printed between 1492 and
1500. There is some uncertainty concerning the given dates.]

Such were a few characteristics of Spanish life when Cervantes thought of writing his Don Quixote. In his numerous works he had it in purpose to improve the state of things in his native country, and to correct this or that abuse, but he obtained no striking success till the publication of this his greatest work. Alas! while it established his character as master in literature, it excited enmities and troubles in abundance.

YOUTH OF CERVANTES.

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was born in 1547 at Alcala de Hénarès. His parents, both of gentle birth, were Rodrigo de Cervantes and Leonor de Cortinas. Their other children born before Michael were Rodrigo, Andrea, and Luisa. His family belonged to the class of impoverished gentlefolk, poor but intensely proud of their descent from one of those hardy mountaineers the Saavedras, who, five centuries before, so heroically defended the northern portion of Spain against the Moors. While the hereditary possessions were growing less and less, the heads of the family would endeavor to compensate for present privations, by relating to their children the noble deeds and the great estates of their ancestors.

Cervantes' paternal roof was probably surrounded by some of the paternal fields, and it is likely that the domestic economy was similar to that described in the first chapter of Don Quixote, where translators have still left us at a loss as to the Saturday's fare, _duelos y quebrantos_ (griefs and groans), some, guessing it to be eggs and bacon; others, a dish of lentils; others, brains fried in oil; others, the giblets of fowl.

Alcala de Hénarès [Footnote 13] was worthy to be the birthplace of Spain's best writer. The archbishops of Toledo owned a palace there, and there the great Cardinal Ximenes, an ex-student of its {17} college, returned when somewhat under a cloud, and prepared his world-famous polyglot Bible in Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Latin. From the date when the great scholar and statesman made the town his permanent residence it aimed to become, and did eventually become, the intellectual Metropolis of the native country of Cervantes. It possessed a University, nineteen colleges, thirty-eight churches, and works of art in profusion.

[Footnote 13: "From the Arabic At-Cala-d'el-Nahr, the chateau by the
river."]

Whether debarred by poverty or negligence, the last an unlikely supposition, Cervantes did not graduate in the University of Alcala or in any other, a circumstance that occasioned him much fortification in his manhood and advanced age. Émile Chasles thus expresses himself on this subject:

"The graduated took their revenge. When Cervantes acquired celebrity
they recollected that he had taken no degree. When he thought an
employ they applied to him by way of iron brand the epithet,
_Ingenio Lego_, 'He is not of ours,' said they; 'he is not a
cleric.' The day when he attracted the attention of all Europe their
anger was excessive towards the writer who possessed talent without
permission, and genius without a diploma. Cervantes gaily replied,
that he admired their pedantic learning, their books bristling with
quotations, the complements they paid each other in Greek, their
erudition, their marginal notes, their doctors' degrees, but that he
himself was naturally lazy, and did not care to search in authors
for what he was able to say without them; and finally, that when
there is a dull or foolish thing to be expressed, it will do in
Spanish as well in Latin."

He was smarting under the contempt of the learned asses of his day when writing the preface to his Don Quixote:

"Alas, the story of Don Quixote is as bare has a rush! Ah, if the
author could do as others,--cite at the head of the book a litany
of authorities in alphabetic order, commencing with Aristotle and
ending with Xenophon or Zoilus! But the poor Cervantes can find
nothing of all this. There he sits, paper before him, the pen behind
his ear, his elbow on the table, his cheek in his hand, and himself
all unable to discover pertinent sentences or ingenious trifles to
adorn his subject. Happily a humorous and intelligent friend enters
and brings relief. 'Quote,' said he, 'and continue to quote; the
first sentence that comes to hand will answer. "Pallida mors aequo
pede" is as good as another. Horace will come in well anywhere, and
you can even make use of the Holy Scriptures. The giant Golias or
Goliath was a Philistine, whom David the shepherd slew with a stone
from a sling in the valley of Terebinthus, as is related in the Book
of Kings in the chapter where it is to be found.'"

THE FIRST PLAYS AT WHICH HE ASSISTED.

The earliest instructors of our brave romancer and poet were the excellent clergyman Juan Lopez de Hoyos, who took pride and pleasure in expanding the intellects of clear-headed pupils, and the talented strolling actor, Lope de Rueda, who at a time (middle of sixteenth century) when neither Alcala nor even Madrid could boast a suitably appointed theatre, went from town to town, and amused the inhabitants from his rudely contrived stage. This consisted of a platform of loose planks supported by trestles, and a curtain as respectable as could be afforded, doing duty as permanent scene, and affording a hiding-place behind it to the actors when not performing, and to the few musicians who occasionally chanted some romantic ballad.

Rueda had been in his youth a gold-beater at Seville, whence, finding in himself a strong vocation for the mimetic art, he made his escape, carrying some of the popular satiric stories in his head, and moulding them into farces. His troupe consisted of three or four male actors, one or two occasionally presenting female characters, and these were found sufficient to present a simple story in action, the manager himself being an actor of rare ability. These open air performances took a very strong hold on Cervantes' imagination. An outline is given of one of these acted fables, the precursors of the voluminous repertory furnished some years later by Lope de Vega.

Rueda himself, presenting an old laborer, tired and wet, and carrying a fagot, appears before his door, and calls on his wife, who should have his supper ready. His daughter (represented by {18} a beardless youth) acquaints him that she is helping a neighbor at her skeins of silk. She is called, and a fierce scolding match ensues, he demanding his supper and vaunting the severity of his labor, she vilifying the fagot he has brought home. By-and-by the discourse falls on a little plantation of olive trees which he has just put down, and the Signora Aguéda de Toruegano forgets her anger in the anticipation of the large profits to accrue from her seedlings:

"_Wife_.--Do you know, my dear, what I've been just thinking? In six
or seven years our little plantation will produce four or five
fanèques (about fifteen barrels) of olives, and putting down a plant
now and again, we shall have a noble field all in full bearing in
twenty-five or thirty years.

"_Husband_.--Nothing more likely; it will be a wonder in the
neighborhood.

"_Wife_.--I'll gather the fruit, you'll take them to market on the
ass, and Menciguela (the daughter) will sell them; but mind what I
tell you, girl! you must not sell them a maravedi less than two
reals of Castile the celemin (bushel).

"_Husband_.--Two reals of Castile! O conscience! a real and a half
[Footnote 14] will be a fair price.

[Footnote 14: This has been substituted for fifteen deniers,
about three farthings, the amount in M. Chasles' version.]

"_Wife--Ah_, hold your tongue! They are the very best kind--olives
of Cordova.

"_Husband_.--Even so, a real and a half is quite enough.

"_Wife_.--Ah, don't bother my head! Daughter, you have heard me; two
reals of Castile, no less.

"_Husband_.--Come here, child. What will you ask--the bushel?

"_Daughter_.--Whatever you please, father.

"_Husband_.--Just a real and a half.

"_Daughter_.--Yes, father.

"_Mother_.--Yes, father! Come here to me. How will you sell them the
bushel?

"_Daughter_.--Whatever you say, mother.

"_Father_.--I promise you, my lass, two hundred stripes of the
stirrup leathers, if you don't mind my directions. Now what'll be
the price?

"_Daughter_.--Whatever you like, father.

"_Mother_.--How! Ah, here's for your 'whatever you like.' (_She
beats her_.) Take that, and maybe it'll teach you to disobey me.

"_Father_.--Let the child alone.

"_Daughter_.--Ah, mother, mother, don't kill me! (_Cries out; a
neighbor enters_.)

"_Neighbor_.--What's this, what's this? Why do you beat the little
girl?

"_Wife_.--Ah, sir, it's this wasteall that wants to give away all we
have for nothing. He'll put us out of house and home. Olives as
large as walnuts!

"_Husband_.--I swear by the bones of my ancestors that they are no
bigger than grains of millet.

"_Wife_.--I say they are.

"_Husband_.--I say they're not.

"_Neighbor_.--Will you please, ma'am, to go inside? I undertake to
make all right (_She enters the house_.) Now, my friend, explain
this matter. Let us see your olives. If you have twenty fanèques, I
will purchase all.

"_Father_.--You don't exactly comprehend. The fact is--do you
see?--and to tell the honest truth, the olives are not just in the
house, though they are ours.

"_Neighbor_.--No matter. Sure it's easy to get them brought here.
I'll buy them at a fair price.

"_Daughter_.--My mother says she must get two reals [Footnote 15]
the bushel.

[Footnote 15: The Spaniards keep their accounts in piastres,
reals, and marvedis, the first-named being worth about 8s. 6d. of
our money. Thirty-four marvedis make a real, eight reals a
piastre. The real mentioned in the text was probably a piece of
eight or piastre.]

"_Neighbor_.--That's rather dear.

"_Father_.--Now isn't it, sir?

"_Daughter_.--My father only asks a real and a half.

"_Neighbor_.--Let us see a sample.

"_Husband_.--Ah, don't ask to talk about it farther. I have to-day
put down a small plot of olives. My wife says that within seven or
eight years we'll be able to gather four or five fanèques of fruit
from them. She is to collect them, I to take them on the ass to
market, and our daughter to sell them, and she must not take less
than two reals. She says yes, I say no, and that's the whole of it.

"_Neighbor_.--A nice a fair, by my faith! The olives are hardly
planted, and yet your daughter has been made to cry and roar about
them.

"_Daughter_.--Very true indeed, sir, what you say.

"_Father_.--Don't cry any more, Menciguela. Neighbor, this little
body is worth her weight in gold. Go, lay the table, child. You must
have an apron out of the very first money I get for the olives.

"_Neighbor_.--Good-by, my friend; go in and be agreeable with your
wife.

"_Father_.--Good-by, sir. (_He and his daughter go in_.)

"_Neighbor, alone_.--It must be owned that some things happen here
below beyond belief. Ouf! quarrel about olives before they're in
existence!"

{19}

The reader will easily recognize the "Maid with the milking pail" at the bottom of this illustration. Before the production of any of the regular pieces of De Vega, or Calderon, or Alarcon, or Tirso de Molina, the easily pleased folk of country or town were thoroughly satisfied with Rueda's repertory. When the talented stroller died in 1567, he was honored with a costly funeral, and solemnly interred in the cathedral of Cordova. Strange contrast between his posthumous fortune and that of Molière!

The impression made on Cervantes by the performances on Rueda's platform was strong and lasting. He ever retained a high respect for the talent of observation, the native genius and the good sense of Lope de Rueda.

In the preface to his own plays, Cervantes left an inventory of the theatrical properties of the strolling establishments in his youth:

"All the materials of representation were contained in a sack. They
were made up of four jackets of sheepskin, laced with gilt leather,
four beards, as many wigs, four shepherd's crooks. The comedies
consisted of eclogues or colloquies between two or three shepherds
and one shepherdess. They prolonged the entertainments by means of
interludes, such as that of the _Negress_, the _Ruffian_, the
_Fool_, or that of the _Biscayan_,--four personages played by Lope
as well as many others, and all with the greatest perfection and the
happiest natural ability that can be imagined."

One evening in the old age of Cervantes, the company around him were discussing the living actors and the present condition of the theatre. Among other things they treated of the infancy of the Spanish stage, and the artist who first essayed to make it something better than a platform for tumbling. Cervantes at once brought forward the claims of his early master:

"I remember having seen play the great comedian Lope de Rueda, a man
distinguished for his intelligence and his style of acting. He
excelled in pastoral poetry. In that department no one then or since
has shown himself his superior. Though then a child, and unable to
appreciate the merit of his verses, nevertheless when I occasionally
repeat some couplets that have remained in my memory, I find that my
impression of his ability is correct."

HIS FIRST STEP IN LIFE.

The young admirer of Lope de Rueda exhibited in his temperament and appearance more of the soldier than the poet. With his high forehead, his arched eyebrows, his hair flung behind, his firm-set mouth, he seemed to present little of the imaginative dreamer. However, there was that in the delicate contours of the countenance, in the searching look, in the fire of the large dark eyes, which betrayed the ironical powers of the observant man of genius. No doubt he had the literary instincts somewhat developed by the practical lessons of Rueda, but military aspirations had the ascendant for the time. Though his brother Rodrigo had departed for the war in Flanders, and it seemed as if he was destined to remain at home with his family, fate and inclination were against this arrangement. However, the first step he took in life was not in the direction of the battle-field. An Italian cardinal took him to Rome in quality of secretary. The brave Don John, half-brother of Philip II., was appointed general of the league arming against the Grand Turk at the same time, and the young and ardent Miguel eagerly took arms under him, and was present at the memorable naval engagement of Lepanto. Philip did not enter with much good-will into this strife, and prevented any advantages that might result from the glorious victory by shortly withdrawing his brother from the command of the allied forces of Christendom. The enthusiastic young soldier received three wounds as well as a broken arm in the fight. This was in the year 1571, and until 1575 we find Cervantes attending Don John in his contentions with the Mohammedan powers on the coast of Africa, in which the chivalric commander was hampered by the ill-will of his brother, Philip II. He went into the Low Countries much against his will, and after several victories met a premature death there in 1578, when only thirty-two years old.

{20}

CAPTIVE IN ALGIERS.

Cervantes received from his great-souled commander written testimonials of his valiant conduct and moral worth, and sailed for Spain from Naples in the year 1578. On the voyage the vessel was attacked by three Turkish galliots; those who fell not in the engagement were made prisoners, and our hero became the slave of a lame renegade called the "Cripple," in Arabic, Dali Mami.

The Algerians, rigid Mussulmans as they were, killed as few Christians in these attacks as they could. Slaves and ransoms were the cherished objects of their quests, and as soon as could be after the landing in Algiers, the classification was made of "gentles and commons." The captors were cunning in their generation, and this was the process adapted for the enhancement of their live property.

The captive's owner proceeded with wonderful skill to raise the value of his goods. While the slave declared his poverty, and lowered his station in order to lower the terms of his ransom, the master affected to treat his victim with the greatest respect. He gave him almost enough of nourishment, and professed he was ruining himself for the other's advantage through pure deference and good-will; and slipped in a word as to his hopes of being repaid for his outlay. The prisoner might undervalue himself as much as he chose, "he was merely a private soldier." Ah, his master knew better; the man of the ranks was a general, the man before the mast a _caballero_, the simple priest an archbishop.

"As for me,' said the captive Dr. Sosa, 'who am but a poor clerk,
the need me bishop by their own proper authority, and _in
plenitudine potestatis_. Afterward they appointed me the private and
confidential secretary of the Pope. They assured me that I had been
for eight days closeted with His holiness in a chamber, where we
discussed in the most profound secrecy the entire affairs of
Christendom. Then they created me cardinal, afterwards governor of
Castel Nuovo at Naples; and at this present moment I am confessor to
Her Majesty the Queen of Spain.' In vain Dr. Sosa renounced these
honors. They produced witnesses, both Christian and Turks, who swore
to having seen him officiating as cardinal governor."

The letters of of Don John of Austria having been found on Cervantes, the poor soldier of Lepanto became at once a great lord, from whom a large ransom might be expected. They began with genuflexions, and frequently ended with the scourge, not in his case, however. Many poor wretches, to save themselves from the horrible treatment they endured, or expected to endure, became Mohammedans, on which they immediately obtained their liberty, were set on horseback, with fifty Janissaries on foot, serving as cortège, the king defraying the expense of the ceremony, bestowing wives on the hopeful converts, and offering them places among his Janissaries.

Cervantes became the centre, round which the hopes of many poor captives were grouped. He made several attempts at evasion, and, strange to say, was not in any instance punished by his otherwise cruel master.

Several Christians enjoying the benefit of safe conduct were free to come and go among these Algerines, and the Redemptorist Fathers enjoyed thorough freedom, as through them the ransoms were chiefly effected. A Spanish gentleman being set at liberty, carried a letter from our hero home to his family, and in consequence the brave old hidalgo, his father, mortgaged his little estate, took the dowries of his two daughters, and forwarded all to his son for the liberation of himself and his brother, who was also in captivity. When he presented himself to Dali Mami with his sum in his hands the renegade cripple only laughed at him. He and Rodrigo were men of too much importance to be ransomed for so trifling a sum.

{21}

The cruel viceroy of Algiers having spent his allotted time in charge of that nest of vultures, was replaced by a governor still more cruel, under whom Cervantes made a desperate effort to escape, and carry off forty or fifty fellow-captives with him. He paid his brother's ransom, and he, when set at liberty, managed to send a vessel near the spot where Miguel had his companions in safety in a grotto of a certain garden. Through some mismanagement the descent failed, and the hiding-place was revealed by the treachery of a trusted individual. All were brought before the new Viceroy Hassan, and Cervantes avowed himself the chief and only plotter among them. Hassan used flattery, promises, and threats to induce the intrepid Spaniard to criminate a certain brother Redemptorist as privy to the plot, in order that he might come at a much coveted sum of money which he knew to be in his possession. All was in vain. Cervantes was not to be turned from the path of loyalty, and when every one expected sentence of death to be pronounced on him at the moment, Hassan became suddenly cool, and merely ordered him to be removed.

The bagnio of Hassan was a sufficiently wretched place, but while our hero sojourned there, he made it as cheerful as he could by composing poetical pieces and reciting them, and getting up a Spanish comedy. There were forty priests in it at the time, and these performed their clerical duties as if at liberty. They celebrated mass, administered holy communion, and preached every Sunday. When Christmas approached, he arranged a mystery, such as he had seen performed in his native Alcala under the direction of the ingenious Lope de Rueda. All were prepared,--the shepherds' dresses, the crib, the stable, etc.; the guardian admitting outsiders at a small charge, and a shepherd reciting the opening verses of the entertainment, when a Moor entered in hot haste, and shouted out to all to look to their safety, as the Janissaries were rushing through the streets, and killing the Christians. Some clouds on the northern horizon had been taken for the Christian fleet under Don John, and the terrible guards determined to put it out of the Christian captives' power to aid the attack. The massacre ceased on the clearing away of the vapors.

About that time, Philip II. was collecting a large naval force in the Mediterranean for the ostensible purpose of storming Algiers, though in reality his intent was merely to seize on the kingdom of Portugal. Its romantic sovereign, Don Sebastian, the hero of one of Miss Porter's romances, had just been slain in Morocco, and his successor Henry, whose days were numbered, was unable to cross his projects. The report of Philip's meditated descent inspired Cervantes with a project of a general rising of the slaves. He even addressed to the sombre king, through his secretary Mateo Vasquez, a remonstrance and encouragement, of which we present a few extracts:

"High and powerful lord, let the wrath of thy soul be enkindled.
Here the garrison is numerous, but without strength, without
ramparts, without shelter. Every Christian is on the alert; every
Mussulman is watching for the appearance of the fleet as the signal
for flight. Twenty thousand Christians are in this prison, the key
of which is in your hands. We all, with clasped hands, on bended
knees, and with stifled sobs, and under severe tortures, beseech
thee, puissant lord, to turn your pitying looks towards us, your
born subjects, who lie groaning here. Let the work courageously
begun by your much loved father be achieved by your hand."

Hassan employed the slaves in building fortifications for his garrison, but he kept Cervantes strictly guarded. "When my disabled Spaniard," said he, "is under guard, I am sure of the city, the prisoners, and the port." But though well watched, the restless captive made three other attempts at escape, for each of which he was to receive, but did not, two thousand bastinadoes. In the fourth attempt, two merchants who were compromised, and feared he might betray them under the torture, offered to pay his ransom, and thus secure his departure, but he did not accept the terms. He braved the examination, and would {22} not reveal the names of any accomplices except four who were already out of danger. Strange to say, even this time he escaped without punishment. A renegade, Maltrapillo, high in Hassan's confidence, and who seems to have entertained great esteem for the fearless and generous character of Cervantes, probably saved his back sundry stripes on these different occasions. On this subject we quote some lines from M. Chasles:

"Either through the interference of Maltrapillo or the influence
exercised by the noble character of Cervantes on all around him,
this time again he was spared by Hassan. How was he enabled to many
times to escape his master's rage? In following his fortunes
through these years of trial, I am struck by the mysterious
influence of his noble character on the events and the persons by
whom he was surrounded. In the mixed of a diverse population
incessantly changing, among a crowd of soldiers and captive
doctors, he occupied an exceptional station. Brothers of Mercy,
Christian merchants, renegades, all recognize in him a moral
superiority. 'Every one,' says the eye-witness Pedrosa, 'admired
his courage and his disposition.'"

The acts of kindness done by the renegades to the captives were not small nor few. Nearly all of them had conformed through the immediate prospect of promotion, or fear of punishment, and there was scarcely a conscientious Mussulman among every hundred of them. In general they were anxious to obtain from the captives about to be ransomed certificates of their own good offices towards them. These were intended to be available for some possible future contingencies.

The poor sorrowful father continued to make unavailing efforts for his ransom. He even disturbed the court officials with representations of his son's services and sufferings; but "circumlocution" was a word understood even in Madrid and in the days of Philip II. The afflicted and impoverished gentleman died in dragging his suit through the lazy and unpatriotic officials, and if ever a death resulted from heartbreak his was one. Still his mother, his brother Rodrigo and his sister Andrea exerted themselves, and dispatched to Algiers 300 crowns. A strong representations at the court insured in addition the amount of a cargo then consigned to Algiers, which produced only 60 ducats, say £30. These sums were not sufficient, and the heart sick captive would have been carried by Hassan to Constantinople, his viceroyalty having expired, only for the deficiency being made up by the Brothers of Mercy, Christian merchants, etc., who were "tightly targed" for that purpose by the good-hearted and zealous brother superior, Gil. This providential redemption occurred in 1580.

Before he quitted his abode of little ease he had the forethought to demand a public scrutiny of his conduct by the Christian authorities. Witnesses in great number came forward to testify to his worth. The following facts were irrevocably established. He had rescued one man from slavery only for the treachery of Blanco. The pure morality of his life was attested by a gentleman of high standing. Others proved his many acts of charity to the unfortunate and to children, all done as secretly as possible. He had contrived the escape of five captives. A gentleman, Don Diego (James) de Benavides, furnished this testimony:

"On coming here from Constantinople, I asked if there were in the
city any gentlemen by birth, I was told there was one in
particular--a man of honor, noble, virtuous, well-born, the friend
of caballeroes, to wit, Michael de Cervantes. I paid him a visit. He
shared with me his chamber, his clothes, his money. In him I have
found a father and a mother."

The declarations of Brother Gil and of Rev. Dr. Sosa solemnly confirmed the facts brought forward by numerous captives. Sosa wrote his declaration while still in irons, and avowed with a mixture of dignity and feeling that his principles would have prevented him from allowing himself such {23} intimacy with Cervantes, had he not considered him in the light of an earnest Christian, liable to martyrdom at any moment.

A scrutiny was also made in Spain at the request of the elder Cervantes, in 1578, and both the justifying documents, signed by notaries, are still in existence.

"Ah!" says Haedo (himself an eye-witness of the sufferings of the
Christians in that vulture's nest), "it had been a fortunate thing
for the Christians if Michael Cervantes had not been betrayed by his
own companions. He kept up the courage and hopes of the captives at
the risk of his own life, which he imperilled four times. He was
threatened with death by impaling, by hanging, and by burning alive;
and dared all to restore his fellow-sufferers to liberty. If his
courage, his ability, his plans, had been seconded by fortune,
Algiers at this day would belong to us, for he aimed at nothing
less."

Cervantes did not put his own adventures in writing. The captive in Don Quixote said with reference to them, "I might indeed tell you some strange things done by a soldier named Saavedra. They would interest and surprise you, but to return to my own story." The disinterested hero had more at heart the downfall of Islamism than his own glorification.

HIS RESTITUTION TO HIS NATIVE LAND.

Cervantes touched his native land again with no very brilliant prospect before him. His father was dead; his mother could barely support herself, his brother was with the army, and his friends dispersed. Still the first step on his beloved Spain gave him great joy, afterwards expressed through the mouth of the captive in Don Quixote:

"We went down on our knees and kissed our native soil, and then with
eyes bathed in tears of sweet emotion we gave thanks to God. The
sight of our Spanish land made us forget all our troubles and
sufferings. It seemed as if they had been endured by others than
ourselves, so sweet it is to recover lost liberty."

At the time of his arrival king and court were at Badajos, watching the progress of the annexation of Portugal. He joined the army, and during the years 1581, '2, '3, shared in the battles between Philip and the Prior Antonio de Ocrato, the latter being assisted by the French and English. In one of these fights the Spanish admiral ordered the brave Strozzi, wounded and a prisoner, to be flung into the sea. At the engagement of the Azores, Rodrigo Cervantes and another captain flung themselves into the sea, and were the first to scale the fortifications, thus giving their soldiers a noble example.

MARRIAGE AND SUBSEQUENT TROUBLES.

He lived in Lisbon a short time and composed his Galatea there. Next year he returned to Madrid, and married the lady Dona Catalina de Palacios y Salazar y Vomediano. She was of a noble family, but her dowry consisted of a few acres of land. In the marriage contract, signed in presence of Master Alonzo de Aguilera, and still in existence, mention is made of half a dozen fowl forming part of the fortune brought by her to the soldier and poet. The marriage was celebrated 12th December, 1584, at the bride's residence, Esquivias, a little town in the neighborhood of the capital.

He now betook himself seriously to literature, published the Galatea, and began to write for the theater. At first he was very successful, but on a sudden Lope de Vega came on the scene, and exhibited such dramatic aptitude and genius and mental fertility, that managers and actors and audience had no ears for any other aspirant to dramatic reputation, and poor Cervantes found his prospect of fame and independence all at once clouded. The pride of the Spanish hidalgo and "Old Christian" [Footnote 16] had been much {24} modified by his life in the army and bagnio, and his good common sense told him that it was his duty to seek to support his family by some civil occupation rather than indulge his family pride, and suffer them and himself to starve.

[Footnote 16: One unsuspected of having Moorish or Jewish blood in
his veins.]

But oh, Apollo and his nine blue stockings! what was the occupation dropped over our soldier-poet's head, and doing all in its power to extinguish his imaginative and poetic faculties? Nothing more nor less than the anti-romantic duties of a commissary. Well, well, Spain was no more prosaic than other countries, and Cervantes had brothers in his mechanical occupations. Charles Lamb's days were spent in adding up columns of "long tots." Burns gauged whiskey casks and kept an eye on private stills; Shakespeare adjusted the contentions of actors, and saw that their exits and entrances did not occur at the wrong sides; perhaps the life of the mill-slave Plautus furnished as much happiness as any of the others. The mill-stones got an occasional rest, and he was in enjoyment for the time, when reading comic scenes from his tablets or scrolls, and listening to the outbursts of laughter that came from the open throats of his sister and brother drudges.

The Invincible Armada, while preparing to make a hearty meal on England, had need meantime of provender while crossing the rough Biscayan sea, and four commissaries were appointed to collect provisions for that great monster, and for the behoof of the Indian fleets. Cervantes was one of the four, Seville appointed his headquarters, and his time most unpoetically employed collecting imposts in kind from all tax-paying folk.

The regular clergy (houses of friars and monks) were at the time at deadly feud with his Most Catholic Majesty, Philip II., and refused to pay him tribute. They founded their refusal on a papal bull; and on the other aide, the alcaids produced the royal warrant. Between the contending powers the author of Galatea found himself sufficiently embarrassed.

For some years Cervantes endured a troubled and wretched existence in such employment as the above, in purchasing corn for the use of the galleys, and in making trips to Morocco on public business. He solicited the government for an office in the Indies, and was on the point of obtaining it when some influence now unknown frustrated his hopes. He describes his condition and that of many other footballs of fortune in the Jealous Estremaduran:

"In the great city of Seville he found opportunities of spending the
little he had left. Finding himself destitute of money, and not
better provided with friends, he tried the means adopted by all the
idle hangers-on in that city, namely, a passage to the Indies, the
refuge of the outcasts of Europe, the sanctuary of bankrupts, the
inviolable asylum of homicides, paradise of gamblers who are there
sure to gain, resort of women of loose lives, where the many have a
prospect, and the few a subsistence."

Our poet not being born with an instinct for regular accounts and being charged to collect arrears of tax in Granada to the amount of two millions of maravedis, say £1,500, found his task difficult among people who were slow in committing to memory the rights of the crown. His greatest mistake was the intrusting of a considerable sum to a merchant named Simon Freire de Luna in order to be deposited in the treasury at Madrid. Simon became bankrupt, and Cervantes was cast into prison for the deficiency in his accounts. He was soon set at liberty, but the different appearances he was obliged to make before the courts of Seville, Madrid, and Valladolid were sufficient to turn his hair grey before its time. The judges reproached him for his deficit, the people gave him no praise. The alcaids of Argamasilla in La Mancha gave him particularly bad treatment. Perhaps he recollected it when writing his romance.

{25}

Subjected to the interrogatories of the royal councillors, judges, and even alcaids, a servant to all merely for means to live, and always moving about, poor Cervantes appears at last to have given way. From 1594, when sent to collect arrears in Granada, to 1598, little can be gathered concerning him, but from this last date till 1603 nothing whatever is known of his fortunes. The probability is that he spent part of the time in a prison of Andaluçia or La Mancha, and there meditated on the vanity of human expectations, and wrote the first part of Don Quixote.

HIS LITERARY LIFE.

Wherever he spent this interval his brain had not been idle--he had passed in review the defects of the Spanish government and of the Spanish character. He had been unable to rouse the king to crush the power of the Algerine pirates, either by the memorials he had consigned to his friend the secretary, or by the vigorous pictures he had presented on the stage (after his return from captivity) of the cruelties inflicted by them on their unhappy captives. He had failed in his great and cherished object, but there remained one reformation yet to be made, namely, of taste among those Spaniards, ladies and gentlemen, to whom reading was a pleasure, and who could afford to purchase books. To substitute a relish for healthier studies was a darling object of our much worried poet for years. It was cherished in prisons, and the first part of his great work written, or nearly so, at the time when we find him again mixing with society in Valladolid, where Philip II. held his court. This was in the year 1603. The following extract concerning his residence and his mode of life in that city, is taken from the work of M. Chasles:

"There is at Valladolid a poor looking house, narrow and low, hemmed
in among the taverns of a suburb, and near the deep and empty bed of
a torrent called Esguéva. There Cervantes came to live in 1603, in
the fifty-seventh year of his age. With an emotion which I cannot
express I hare visited this dwelling, which stands outside the city,
and which remains unmarked by stone or inscription. A well-used
staircase conducts to the two modest chambers used by Cervantes.
One, in which he slept, no doubt, is a square room with a low
ceiling supported by beams. The other, a sort of ill-lighted kitchen
looking on to the neighboring roofs, still holds his _cantarelo_ or
stone with three round hollows to hold water jars. Here lived with
him his wife, Dona Catalina, his daughter Isabelle, now twenty years
old, his sister Dona Andrea, his niece Constanza, and a relation
named Dona Magdalena. A housekeeper increased the family. Where did
all sleep? However that was arranged, they all did their work
together. The ladies earned money by embroidering the court-dresses.
Valladolid, adopted for abode by the new king and by the Duke of
Lerma, was then incumbered, as was Versailles afterwards, with
gentlemen, with the grandees, and with generals. Our impoverished
family was supported by this affluence. The Marquis of Villafranca,
returning from Algiers to the court, got his gala-suit made by the
family of the soldier-poet, with whom he had erewhile been
acquainted. Cervantes was occupied either with keeping the books of
people in business, or regulating the accounts of some people of
quality, or striving to bring his long lawsuit with the government
lo a close.

"In the evening, while the needles of the women flew through the
stuffs, he held the pen, and on the corner of the table he put his
thoughts in writing. There it was he composed the prologue of that
work which had been a labor of love in the composition, and in which
he employed all the force of his genius. In bringing it with him to
Valladolid, he experienced alternations of hope and fear, being
fully sensible that it was his masterpiece. 'Idle reader,' said he
in the first page, 'you may credit my word, for I have no need to
take oath, that I wish this book, child of my brain, were the most
beautiful, the most brilliant, and the most witty that any one could
imagine.' He had published nothing since the Galatea, which had
appeared twenty years before and was an amiable apology for the
taste of the times. The book about to be printed was a flagrant
attack on the same literature."

Those who despise the old books of chivalry, and have probably never opened one, are too ready to undervalue Cervantes' apprehension about bringing out his book, and the service it eventually rendered to society and literature. We recommend an indifferent individual of this way of thinking to peruse about the eighth of the contents of one of the condemned {26} volumes of Don Quixote's library, and work himself into the conviction that the body of the Spanish readers of 1603, ladies and gentlemen, not only admired such compositions more than living readers admire the most popular writings of our times, but in many instances believed the contents to be true.

Let us hope that there is some mistake about the non-accommodation afforded to the seven individuals of Cervantes' family, six of whom were of gentle blood. It is easy to imagine what delightful evenings they would have enjoyed if tolerably comfortable with regard to furniture and space, the soldier-poet reading out some passages from the Don, or the Exemplary Novels, or one of his plays, and the well-bred women plying their needles, listening with interest, and occasionally breaking out into silvery laughs at the comic misfortunes of the knight, or the naive pieces of roguery of the squire.

We can readily imagine the desolation of Cervantes' spirit during the troubled years of his official wanderings, his superiors urging him to grind the faces of his countrymen and fellow-subjects, and these entertaining most unfriendly feelings toward himself. The ladies of his family--where were they during this nomadic life of his, and how were they situated? Separation from their society and anxiety about their privations must have added much to the present suffering, and forebodings of things still worse, the companions of his lonely hours.

A pleasant interruption to the monotony and privations of the family life must have been the appearance of the first part of the Don in 1604, and the popularity it soon attained.

HIS LABORERS AND THEIR REQUITAL.