his own plain declaration, that he had written Don Quixote' in order to destroy the credit of the evil books of chivalry-the envious herd, to whom it is incredible that a man should write except for some personal gratification — the dull souls who look for a moral in every piece of humour-have insisted, from that time to this, that there is some hidden mystery in 'Don Quixote'-some esoteric motive, the clue to which each has sought and found to his own satisfaction. The theory in Spain itself used to be, that Cervantes had undertaken to satirise the Emperor Charles V. Some, including the worthy John Bowle, have favoured the idea that it was Ignatius Loyola who was the antitype of Don Quixote.' Don Vicente de Los Rios gravely propounds the theory that Cervantes meant to imitate Homer; while Pellicer is convinced that he sought his model rather in the Golden Ass of Apuleius. Don Nicolas Benjumea maintains that Dulcinea is "de Quixano el alma objetivada"-discovering in the name the anagram of "Diña Luce," and in the story "a vast and profound allegory-the strife of the new spirit of the age with the old-the eternal combat between Ormuz and Ahriman, between Typhon and Osiris." Walter Savage Landor holds to the opinion that Dulcinea was created in ridicule of the Immaculate Virgin. One critic avers it to be the gayest of comedies, and pronounces the author the most genial of humourists; to an other it is the most tragic of books, and the most melancholy. Mr. Rawdon Brown, in our own days, has, with great circumstantiality, repeated and maintained the silly old fable first published by that notorious fiction-monger Moreri, that Don Quixote' was a satire upon the Duque de Lerma, the favourite of Philip III.,-finding and naming

the various real personages of the Court whose portraits are given in Dulcinea, Sancho, the housekeeper, and the niece-seeing personal allusions even in the five ass-colts spoken of in the twenty-fifth chapter of the First Part.

In refutation of this extravagant theory it is enough to say that Cervantes, ten years after the publication of his First Part, dedicated the second to the Conde de Lemos, the son-in-law and confidant of the Duque de Lerma, and by his own avowal was living, at the close of his life, upon the charity of the Archbishop of Toledo, the uncle of the powerful Minister whom, during the plenitude of his power, he was supposed to have satirised. Every form of individual craze-every crotchet and fantasy-has found in 'Don Quixote' a correspondence to its spirit, so that this book of humour has been the source of infinite humour which the author never intended-these adventures of a madman have been the cause and provocation of lunacies innumerable, till we come, in despair, to take refuge in the opinion which his Spanish friend gave Mr. Jarvisthat "Cervantes was a wag, his whole book a mere fiction, and that there never was such a person as Don Quixote." Yet all these experiments upon it-all these persecutions, tortures, and insults-have never for any considerable time debarred the book from reaching its intended aim and accomplishing the object of its author; so that, while almost all other Spanish books are unknown out of Spain-while even the great Lope, the marvel of his age, the "Phoenix of Europe," is unread and almost unacted in his own country; while Calderon is but "caviare to the general "Don Quixote' has more than continued to fulfil the saying of its author: "Los niños la manosean, los hombres

la entienden, y los viejos la celebran;" fulfilling also that other prediction, "Que no ha de haber nacion ni lengua donde no se traduzca." To reckon and to describe the number of editions through which Don Quixote' has passed would carry us far beyond the limits of our present task. Of translations into foreign languages Don Francisco Lopez de Fabra, on the authority of "una asociacion propagadora of Cervantistas, enumerates 23 in the seventeenth century, 48 in the eighteenth, and 46 in the nineteenth-making a total of 117, which enumeration is by no means complete. England figures honourably in the list as the first of all nations, not only to have a translation of Don Quixote,' but the first which printed the Spanish text in a form worthy of the author, in the magnificent edition published by Tonson, in 1738, under the auspices of Lord Carteret; and the first to bring out a commentary on the Spanish text in 1781, which pious and painful office was performed by the Reverend John Bowle of Salisbury. Up to the present day, the first English translation, that of Thomas Shelton, and this first Spanish commentary, that of Bowle, are the best in their kinds, the former having furnished the groundwork to all subsequent translators; the latter, though depreciated in its time through the malevolence of Baretti, being now deservedly esteemed for its accuracy, learning, and reverent loyalty to the text of Cervantes. Since 1612, when Thomas Shelton (of whom there is extant no other record) published the first part of Don Quixote' -Englished, as he affirms, in forty days there have been four principal English translations: that of

Phillips in 1687, altogether worthless, and now gathered into dust; that of Motteux, or superintended by Motteux, in 1712, not without merit in its kind, and full of a certain spirit and humour, though the humour is not that of Don Quixote, and the spirit not the spirit of Cervantes; that of Jarvis, first issued in 1742, which is tolerably correct, but without any spirit or humour; and that of Smollett, brought out, in rivalry with Jarvis, in 1755, which is inaccurate, loose, and unworthy of the, genius that created Humphrey Clinker.' All the subsequent editions have been based upon one or other of these, more or less purified and corrected, under the influence of the idea which prevails in all countries, that Cervantes in his original form is not decent company, and must be adapted to "the humour of the age.'

The new translation of 'Don Quixote' into English by Mr. A. J. Duffield, the promise of which for some time past has tantalised the lovers of Cervantes, is now before us, in three goodly volumes, resplendent in purple and gold, legend and livery. Nor is it long before we discover that we are in the presence of a most uncommon production, a new and—as title-page, dedication, and invocation reveal-a more audacious experiment than any which has yet been attempted on the author of Don Quixote.' Poor Cervantes!

This is indeed the most exquisite revenge which fortune had in store for him, to be visited with the same fate which he had dealt to his own creature. Just as he had drawn Don Quixote from his own point of view, and furnished him out of his own imagination, so it is as though the spirit of Don

Quixote, embodied in the new translator, has taken in hand Cervantes, to exhibit him from the Quixote point of view, the Quixote of the Cave of Montesinos; to make him the romancer, romantic to a pitch beyond his own conception; the creator of fantasies, fantastic; the designer of madness, mad. The very title- -page, with its swelling parade of originality (of which more by-and-by), is "prologue to the omen coming on," of which the dedication to Mr. Gladstone may be taken to be a warning. There can be no room to choose between the two theories either that Mr. Duffield has found in the Prime Minister the analogue to Don Quixote, or has perceived in him some sympathy with Cervantes. The greatest master of humour that the world ever saw, the least fanatical of men, who had a charity large enough to embrace within its loving fold, Turk, Moor, Englishman, even Portuguese God's creatures, of whom of his contemporaries had a good word to say no, it is impossible to admit the latter hypothesis. The suspicion that Mr. Duffield intends a joke, even were it possible to believe him capable of a joke in three volumes octavo, is suppressed by the opening words of his introduction. By these the By these the reader is lifted at once into an atmosphere of solemn and serious fancies, where he may contemplate with becoming awe the new translator and his mighty purpose. For it would appear from a vision with which Mr. Duffield was favoured when sitting down to write this notice of Cervantes, that he is under the immediate patronage of beings still higher than Mr. Gladstone "beautiful and flashing angels," who leave their usual avocations to confer with him as to the merits of his new translation. Said one of these to Mr. Duffield:

none

"Mortal, thou art not worthy to stoop down to unloose the shoelatchets of Cervantes, much less to write of his life." Said Mr. Duffield (without rising from his "settle") to the "fair but sexless being:""Your highness, I do not presume to write of this renowned man because I deem me worthy, but because I will not suffer any hand but mine to raise this tablet to his memory." Mr. Duffield added other arguments (superfluous as they might seem in the matter of an angel) to prove that he only of the sons of men was fit to translate Don Quixote.' Mr. Duffield had made two pilgrimages to the place of Cervantes's birth. He had wandered through the miserable town where, "against all law and justice," they kept Cervantes pris

oner.

a

He had "stood many sunny day on the Spanish shore," where Cervantes landed from his captivity. He had read all his works more than once, "excepting those which his countrymen tore up, burnt, or supposed to be lost" -as to the reading of which there was clearly a difficulty. He had read 'Don Quixote' more than twenty times, and had "translated it into English better than it has ever been done before;" nor had he allowed "one single graceless or unchaste word to intrude into this the most chaste and loving book which mortal man has written." Upon these representations the beautiful and sexless one (who is easier to please, as perhaps the sequel will show, than those gifted in the ordinary human way) relented, and gave Mr. Duffield the required licence. "Enough,' said the shining one, and straightway soared into the blue ether; and while yet a good way off the immortal turned and bestowed upon me a most sweet smile, and then, swift as lightning,

1881.

swept from my sight." All this is highly promising in regard to the entertainment to come. The only thing which surprises is that, having an opportunity to interview an angel, Mr. Duffield did not obtain from it some more information as to the history of Cervantes than he seems able of his own resources to give his readers.

Of his Introduction, it may be said briefly, that it introduces us to nothing but the exceeding good opinion which Mr. Duffield has of his own performance. It is the best of possible translations, dedicated to the best of possible good men. So absorbed is Mr. Duffield in the contemplation of his own services to 'Don Quixote,' that he has scarcely patience to record the leading facts in the life of its author. These the English reader

is left still to seek in the unin

spired book of Mrs. Oliphant, the

best account of Cervantes in our language. While he passes over, almost in silence, passages the most material and characteristic in the history of Cervantes, Mr. Duffield dwells at great length, and with surpassing unction, on such as bring his hero into some kind of harmony with the great and good person to whom his book is dedicated. He has conceived an image of Cervantes, such as might serve for the ideal of a candidate for a Gladstonian borough in the full flush of "Bulgarian horrors." He calls him "of all men the one most in earnest in his time." He has invested him with-heaven save the mark-a mission, of which he supposes 'Don Quixote' to be the full expression and final accomplishment. How this astounding theory is maintained, even to the extent of making the battle of Lepanto, the most cherished event in Cervantes's life, a witness to the correctness of his views on the Eastern Question,

University MICHIGAN

may be seen in the following choice passage of history :

"The year following, the treacherous Turk, who broke his alliance with Venice, like one who can see his way in the night, came and seized upon Cyprus, and took it by assault. For, in a brief parenthesis, it might

be said that in 1570 there was much gold in Cyprus, and the official Turk, according to authentic history, has ever had an all-devouring hunger and thirst for ready gold. The gold in this case was not yet in its native quartz, or mixed with alluvial mud, requiring art and industry to reclaim it, but chased and wrought into fineness and ornament, and worn on the arms and necks and in the ears of Christian maidens, ready for the bloody snatching fingers of Selim II. and his crew. This taking of Cyprus by the Turk brought on the alliance of Italy with France and Spain and Venice, and the battle of Lepanto; and Cervantes, at the call of a mightier enthusiasm, gave up litera

ture and Rome, and enlisted, first under the banner of the Colonna, but finally deciding for the career of a soldier, fought his first and last battle under Prince Don John of Austria."

As Mr. Duffield tells us, in a remarkable burst of candour, that he has " always held it good manners to speak the truth to those who cannot be deceived," we must suppose one of two things-either that he has not thought it worth while to be mannerly over such a trifling matter, or that his readers are to be easily deceived. Unfortunately for his artless attempt to bring the leading event in Cervantes's life into correspondence with the Gladstonian view of the Eastern Question, history tells us the precise reason why Selim II. took Cyprus, and that it was a most un-Turk-like reason, having nothing to do with gold. Selim, the Drunkard, the first of the harembred Sultans of the Ottoman line, all historians are agreed, was led to conquer Cyprus because of his taste

for Cyprus wine (of drinking which he died), being instigated to that enterprise by the intendant of his pleasures, one Joseph Nassy, a Portuguese Jew, whom his master raised to be Duke of Naxos and the Cyclades. The rest of Mr. Duffield's story is of equal truth with the pretty parable of the "official Turk," his greed for gold, and other atrocities. What is meant by "Italy" forming an alliance with France, in an undertaking where there was no Italy and no France, the one being non-existent and the other not present, is one of those things which are secrets between Mr. Duffield and his shining familiar. And what the banner of the Colonna was which Cervantes gave up when he decided for a military career, will be no less a puzzle to those who are interested in our hero's life. Bio

graphers tell us that it was under

the banner of Marco Antonio Colonna that Cervantes served at Lepanto-Don Juan being generalissimo of the allied forces of the Pope, Venice, and Spain. They also say, on the authority of Cervantes himself, that Lepanto was not his last battle, adding the not immaterial fact, that he did not give up "soldiering with the sword and take to fighting with his pen," in consequence of his wounds, as Mr. Duffield tells us he did, but that he took part in various other actions by sea and land, both before and after his captivity; that he was not going to fight the Turk when he was captured at sea, but was returning home on leave. The spirit, we perceive, had some grounds for distrusting Mr. Duffield's capacity to write the life of Cervantes. Mr. Duffield expresses great scorn for those who give us 66 necessary facts," but "dare tell of nothing else." Certainly it must be admitted that Mr. Duffield's manner of writing history is different. He hardly gives us one

necessary fact. necessary fact. He dares tell of a good many things. He has not told, however, of many things which, though they may lie under the reproach of being necessary, are yet essential to the understanding of Don Quixote' and of its author. He is not to be trusted to state any single fact correctly, but twists and tortures the commonest incidents of Cervantes's life, as we have just seen, so as to accommodate them to his own fantastic theories of Cervantes, his character and "mission."

In vain does the student of Cervantes look to Mr. Duffield for any light on those obscure passages and dark problems of his life which have occupied so much attention among Spanish scholars,-questions of the deepest import, as bearing upon the character of the man and his book, for the man and book are indissolubly connected. He will be informed that Quixote is to be pronounced "Keehoty," and warned not to say "Sanko" or "Manka." He will learn nothing as to the relations between Cervantes and Lope de Vega, except a faint echo of the vulgar opinion that they were fast friends; so that one great and necessary fact of Cervantes's life, without a knowledge of which the book cannot be read, will remain to him as great a mystery as before. He will have no help to unravel the strange mystery of the false Don Quixote of Avellaneda, except some wordy abuse of the book as one unfit for publication, and a note from which it might be supposed that Mr. Duffield believes that Avellaneda was the man's name who wrote it. He will receive no enlightenment on the question of the attitude of the Inquisition towards Cervantes; or why, seeing that Don Quixote' was written, as Mr. Duffield tries to make us believe, to promote a religious as well as moral reformation, the Holy Office did not inter