Chapter I

_Singular Subjects chosen by Authors—The Spoon, a popular and fertile
one—Sancho Panza, a Spoonmaker—Influence of this Profession on his
Adventures—Ingenuity of Cervantes—Pedro Garcia’s Purse—Selection of
the Spoon for a Theme, an Indication of Taste—One of the first things
wanted on coming into the world, and last parted with ere going
out—Its Domestic and Moral Influence—Ancient Fracas with Hot Broth._

Singular are the subjects on which authors have written: as Lucian on a fly, Apuleius on the ass, Virgil on a gnat, and Homer on a pitched battle between some frogs and mice. One writer is sublime on a flea, another on the north wind, and a third on nothing. Here, one expatiates on the social pipe; and there, goes a royal counterblast against tobacco. Pope has a poem on a lock of hair, Gray wrote lines on a cat, Prior on the ladle, and Cowper on the sofa. Tasso spun out twelve cantos on a bucket, and John Heywood, in Henry the Eighth’s time, wrote seventy-seven chapters on cobwebs and spiders.

The merry Dean of St. Patrick’s wrote an essay on a broomstick; and some reviewer of a late work on hydraulics thinks the author could readily compose a homily on pump handles, or a series of meditations on cistern hooks. A fig for such subjects, and those who discuss them. A person’s taste is seen in what he writes on, as well as in what flows from his pen; and small must be the brains that think on such things. Every one knows Swift’s head was worn out when kind Nature led him to muse on the stump of a besom—an emblem of himself. As there was always something of the wizard about him, he naturally selected the same hobby that accommodates witches in their evening excursions. As for the other gentleman, he must be a dry soul indeed, since he could hit upon nothing but water, about which to fill up a book—or some rickety machines to get at it.

Commend us to something better than either; and on the present occasion to that which daily inspired the reverend wit, and at which it is very certain every writer on water-works has labored oftener than at any pump gearing—_videlicit_, A SPOON. Why, there’s life in the sound! To the hungry and poor and rich, it conjures up visions of pleasure. Its very picture moves the salivary glands into action, and sets the lickerish muscles agog, while thoughts of the good things with which it often is laden make mendicants draw in their breath and thrust out their lips, as if about to salute it!

What gentleman cares for a broom, or a cistern pole, except to kick them out of his way, as a fat neighbor of ours did yesterday? But for a spoon, ah! how eagerly he seized it at dinner! Like the hand of a friend for whom he had long anxiously waited, and from whom he could hardly be prevailed on to part.

As a novel and a popular subject, the spoon is unrivaled—as a fertile one, its equal never rose in the brains of Will Shakespeare or John Baptiste Moliere; and that is strange too, seeing the implement so often entered their heads. A Spanish writer of the sixteenth century, however, did not let it escape him. His wanderings through various countries, and in indifferent circumstances, made him too keenly alive to its value to forget or neglect it. He has immortalized himself by recording the adventures of a spoonmaker, in an inimitable piece of biography.

‘Indeed! (exclaims some reader.) Pray, of whom do you speak? Who was this author, and who the mechanic he snatched from oblivion?’

Strange that at this day such a question should be asked! But, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was the writer, and Sancho Panza the artist.

‘Sancho Panza! The short and fat husband of Tereza—the Governor of Barrataria—he whose simplicity and shrewdness, jokes and proverbs, were so pleasant; and whose witty conceits fell from him as thick as drops in a shower—a maker of spoons?’

To be sure he was! And it was from this circumstance he became so expert in handling them, and which led him to prefer olla-podridas, stews, and hashes of cow beef and onions, to Milan godwits, Roman pheasants, geese of Lavajos, and other kickshaws, which Doctor Pedro Rezio Aquero de Tirteafuera and the steward talked about. Not that Sancho loved good eating more than other people, but he naturally enough preferred those kinds of food which were fluid, in the conveyance of which to his mouth he had become quite familiar from his previous professions and habits.

Cervantes, to elucidate the association of ideas and the force of early impressions, wittily concealed this employment of Sancho’s, and left it till the knight was condemned by him of the ‘White Moon’ to refrain for a whole year from using a sword, or going in quest of adventures. Then the truth unexpectedly appears. Quixote proposed to pass the time in pastoral pursuits. ‘O, Sancho! said he; we will turn shepherds for the time I must live retired. I will buy sheep and all necessary materials. We will range the mountains, the woods, and the meadows—singing here and complaining there—drinking the liquid crystal of the fountains, of the limpid brooks, and the mighty rivers. The oaks, with a plentiful hand, shall give their sweetest fruit—the trunks of the hardest cork-trees shall afford us seats, the willows shade, and the roses scent. The spacious meadows shall yield us carpets of a thousand colors—the air, clear and pure, shall supply breath, the moon and stars afford light, maugre the darkness of nights—singing shrill furnish pleasure, and complaining yield delight! Heaven be my aid! What a life shall we lead, friend Sancho! What a world of bagpipes shall we hear! What pipes of Zamora! What tambourets and rebecks!’

‘Before God, quoth Sancho, this kind of life squares with me exactly; and no sooner will the Bachelor Sampson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, have well seen it, but they will have a mind to follow, and turn shepherds with us; and God grant that the priest have not an inclination to make one in the fold; he is of so gay a temper, and such a lover of mirth!’ After arranging about shepherdesses, each amateur shepherd to have one, except the priest, who, according to Sancho’s views, ought not to be associated with a lady; but if the bachelor Sampson was inclined that way, why, his soul was at his own disposal. Then the knight begins to anticipate the ditties he and his associates would indite to the charms of their lady loves, when Sancho, mentally recurring to occupations more agreeable to _his_ taste, and with which he was more at home, exclaims in a rapture, ‘O! what SPOONS! What neat WOODEN SPOONS will I make when a shepherd!’ An exclamation which he never, of course, could have made had he not been engaged in that business before. Then, like a sound philosopher, who only regards science and the arts in proportion as they are applied to the purposes of life, he instantly recurs to the _use_ of spoons, and, very naturally to the agreeable visions they call up. “What crumbs! What cream! What olla-podridas! What stews we shall have!”

Having thus shown that the Knight of La Mancha’s squire was, in the early part of his career, a manufacturer of spoons, the reader will at once concede the propriety of this reference to his labors; since he is, beyond controversy, the most famed character of the kind in print. But that is not all. There are other things in Cervantes which reviewers never dreamt of. It were an easy matter to show, but would be out of place here, that the celebrity of his great work is due chiefly to spoons; for example, had he withheld from Sancho the penchant for handling them, the history of Quixote might as well have been without the owner of Dapple; and every body knows what an insipid affair it would have been then. From what but the free use of spoons were the jolly face and sly look of Sancho derived? To what else but their neglect was to be attributed the ghastly appearance of him of the Rueful Countenance? Silenus and a moving corpse!

Such are the wonders wrought by the Spoon: but, great as they appear, they are not the greatest. Had the knight lived in the manner of Sancho, he had never lost his wits; and had the latter dieted as his master, he never would have had any. The moral of the romance is misunderstood. The author designed to inculcate this truth—that the proper use of a spoon can make a sensible man of a fool, and the neglect of it a fool of a sensible man!

The Spoon is really the nucleus of the romance—the core on which the party colored threads of the story are wound. Indeed, the whole affair is nothing else than a mystic account of this useful little implement, and written by Cervantes, most likely to fulfill a vow made on account of the services it rendered him on some occasions of extreme distress—occasions, from the checkered scenes of his life, believed to have been of frequent occurrence.

These things, to be sure, do not stand up on the surface—they are not seen at a glance. Cervantes, in concealing them from readers whose obtuseness of intellect does not suspect them, or who will not take the trouble to look for them, imitated the conduct of his witty and ingenious countryman, Pedro Garcias, whose epitaph strangely announced that his _soul_ lay under the slab. And there it did lay, without exciting the least curiosity from the crowds walking over it, until a poor and shrewd student of Salamanca, travelling that way, guessed the truth, disinterred, and joyfully carried home the Licentiate’s soul in his pocket. But to leave such matters: As every person on earth loves a spoon, there are few who cannot relish an essay upon it; and all will admit its selection for a theme, if no proof of genius, is at least a strong indication of taste.

The Spoon is one of the first things wanted when we come into the world, and one of the last we part with before we go out. It is the companion of childhood, manhood, and age—the great nurse of mankind. It administers comfort to ladies when they ‘lay in,’ and to every person before being ‘laid out.’ Without it, no baby takes pap; nor boys and girls porridge or soup; the man acquires strength by its aid, and it assists in prolonging the years of the old and infirm. In the hands of physicians, it drives sickness away; and when the angel of death comes at last, it soothes the last moments of many.

Its influence is felt in every department of life—in manners, morals, and even in national characteristics. Associated almost as much with the soul as the body, it seems equally to modify both. It is a healer of wounds, whether in the person or mind. What tempers has it not subdued—what passions allayed! For it is always called in after a broil to promote peace and good will. What evils, too, has it not extinguished which want has conceived and poverty planned! Hunger and haggard despair fly before it, while health and hilarity attend it! It is, and justly, a universal favorite—as well with the savage as the sage—with ladies and their maids—with children and their grandpapas.

What urchin has not felt more elastic when beholding his mother beating up eggs for plum-cake with a spoon; or stood by when with it she scraped out the bowl in which the pudding was made! And where is the youngster with ‘a sweet tooth’ that has not thrust it with delight into ‘mush and molasses!’ or with joy almost extatic made it dive into ‘samp,’ through an ocean of melted butter and sugar! As for grown people, it daily works the same wonders in them as it did in the Rev. Mr. Sampson when applied by the hospitable hand of Mrs. Merriless. In barbarous and semi-barbarous countries, few meals are prepared without it, but in civilized life it is as regular an attendant at table as plates.

The moral influence of the spoon is remarkable. It preaches contentment, and fosters no pride. It enters the cottage and comforts those who are too poor to own either cottage or cot. It ascends into garrets, dives into cellars, and forces its way into prisons, where, like a Howard or Frye, it condoles with the children of sorrow. It is all things to all men, for it adapts itself to the circumstances of all. To the humble or poor, it appears in homely apparel; to the rich and the proud, it shines forth in ivory and pearl—in silver and gold.

Some men talk about the ‘social glass’—of the pleasures it imparts, the agreeable reminiscences it calls up; but what are they, compared to those associated with the spoon? The former is selfish—men indulge in it by themselves; but the latter is the innocent companion of both sexes—of young and old. The glass too often destroys some joys—loosens domestic ties; the spoon revives the one and strengthens the other. It gratifies a natural, the glass an artificial, appetite. The one imparts happiness to the abstemious, the other maddens the brain of the intemperate. Here sits an industrious laborer at his evening meal; he has reached home shivering with cold and faint with hunger; he sups the warm pottage his wife has prepared, and finds his heart strengthened, and his energies blessed. There carouses an acquaintance at the tavern; his eyes now rolling with the maniac’s gaze, and now like an idiot’s, fixed on vacancy. Reason has left her seat, and the character of the man is lost in that of the beast. Such are the different effects of the ‘social glass’ and the spoon.

A lover of domestic quiet, family jars cease in its presence; for unlike the mischief loving ladle, the spoon enters into no broils. An instrument of peace, it lends not itself to those illegitimate and unconjugal uses to which enraged housewives are said sometimes to put its taller associate. No! Instead of stirring up the caldron of family feuds, the gentle spoon soothes the boiling elements, and, in the pleasantest way imaginable, silences the squalling of infants, and the grumbling of older folks.

It took no part in an ancient fray between the scholars of Oxford and some Reverend companions of the Pope’s Legate, on a feast or saint’s day; but the soup or rather the broth did. The peace loving spoon withdrew ere the fracas began. “And at that tyme was maister Edmunde of Abendon archbishoppe of Caunterbury, an holi man, in the twelff hundred yere of our Lorde and foure and thritti. And at that tyme come the legat Oter from Rome, and called a councelle of Bishoppes at London, and went from thens to Oxenford, to the Abbey of Osney. And as certeyn of the clerks come to speke with the legat, vppon Seynt Gregoryes day, one of the legats men _cast hote broth_ vppon a scolore, and then come the clerkes first, and besett Osney, and slew one of the legats men, and the legat fled into the steple.” [_Peter Langtoff’s Chronicle_, _Hearne’s Glossary_, vol. ii. 682.]

This quotation may serve as a little seasoning to the dish before the reader. If any one questions its pertinence, and that of others hereafter to be noticed, we beg to observe that what relates to the soup can hardly be foreign to the spoon.