Page:Don Quixote (Cervantes, Ormsby) Volume 1.djvu/50

 xl "Señora Cornelia," the "Casamiento Engañoso," and the "Coloquio de los Perros" were all written between 1606 and 1612.

Whether the "Tia Fingida," which is now generally included in his novels, is the work of Cervantes or not, must be left an open question. No one who has read it in the original would willingly accept it, but disrelish is no reason for summarily rejecting it, and it cannot be denied that the style closely resembles his. There is nothing in the objection that "usted" is never used by Cervantes for "vuestra merced," for its employment in the tale may be due to the transcriber or printer, and of the two MSS. in existence one at least, though certainly not in the handwriting, is of the time of Cervantes, in the opinion of so good a judge as Señor Fernandez-Guerra y Orbe. The novels were published in the summer of 1613, with a dedication to the Conde de Lemos, the Mæcenas of the day, and with one of those chatty confidential prefaces Cervantes was so fond of. In this eight years and a half after the First Part of "Don Quixote" had appeared, we get the first hint of a forthcoming Second Part. "You shall see shortly," he says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humors of Sancho Panza." His idea of "shortly" was a somewhat elastic one, for, as we know by the date to Sancho's letter, he had barely one-half of the book completed that time twelvemonth.

The fact was that, to use a popular phrase, he had "many irons in the fire." There was the Second Part of his "Galatea" to be written, his "Persiles" to be finished, he had on his hands his "Semanas del Jardin" and his "Bernardo," of the nature of which we know nothing, and there was the "Viaje del Parnaso" to be got ready for the press. The last, now made accessible to English readers by the admirable translation of Mr. James Y. Gibson, had been, in part at least, written about three years before the novels were printed. Its motive was the commission given by the Conde de Lemos, on his appointment as Viceroy of Naples, to the brothers Argensola to select poets to grace his court, which suggested to Cervantes the idea of a struggle for Parnassus between the good and bad poets; and as he worked it out he passed in review every poet and poetaster in Spain. But it is what he says about himself in it, and in the prose appendix to it, "the Adjunta," that gives it its chief value and interest now, and