Great Writers : Life of Miguel de Cervantes. By Henry
Edward Watts. (Walter Scott.)—It was fitting that Mr. Watts should be asked to write this brief biography of Cervantes, since there is probably no living Englishman more competent for the task. The author of "Don Quixote" is the only Spaniard who has produced a work of world-wide celebrity which is yet at the same time racy of the soil. Rich in humour and in a noble pathos, it appeals to the universal heart. The story of Cervantes' life is profoundly sad, but it has the dignity of tragedy ; and when, after a series of calamities that would have crushed a weaker man, he published "Don Quixote" at the age of fifty-seven, his ill-fortune cannot be said to have deserted him. So great was the popularity of the book, that, as Mr. Watts observes, the original "Don Quixotes " "have been bethumbed out of existence ; " but its success brought comparatively slight profit to the author. So little, indeed, was Cervantes regarded, that it is doubtful whether an authentic portrait of him exists. His will, too, has been "lost by his country- men, like almost everything else which was a memorial of him ; " and while the funeral of Lope de Vega was an affair of state which lasted over nine days, Cervantes, who had died thirty years before, was buried without even a stone to mark the spot where he was laid. The prolific dramatist's envy of Cervantes was very marked, and if, as Mr. Watts thinks, the spurious second part of "Don Quixote" was written by this rival of his fame to bring the book into contempt, it must have been great indeed. The biographer observes that he is not aware "of a single act or word of Cervantes which is inconsistent with a friendly disposition towards Lope, and a generous recognition of his powers." Yet on the same page we read that he assailed Lope with merciless ridicule in his Prologue, for his extravagances and conceits ; and the writer reminds us that in the forty-eighth chapter of "Don Quixote," "the Canon of Toledo has the temerity to handle his comedies freely, and to denounce him as the chief of those who degraded the dramatic art by pandering to the tastes of the vulgar." Elsewhere we find also what looks like a contradictory statement. On p. 104, Mr. Watts writes :—" From the single fact that from first to last there were produced in Spain over seventy romances of chivalry, most of them longer than a modern novel, we may judge of the enormous hold which this species of literature had taken on the national mind, and also of the arduous nature of the adventure to which Cervantes devoted himself of rooting up and destroying the whole pernicious brood. How completely he suc-
ceeded, and what excellent Knight's service was done by his 'Don Quixote,' is proved by the fact that from 1605 not one new book of chivalry was written, nor one old one printed." We do not believe that the end thus achieved was the chief object at which Cervantes aimed in writing his incomparable romance ; on the contrary, we entirely agree with Mr. Watts when he states upon p. 95, that the author, according to his own words, "which ought to be enough," had no ulterior purpose in writing " Don Quixote," but that "his object was primarily to produce a book of enter- tainment." A number of interesting topics are suggested by Mr. Watts's little volume, which deserves to be read by every one with humour enough to enjoy "Don Quixote ; " and who is likely to confess that he has not ?
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