Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/221

 CERVANTES SAAVEDRA 213 three years he wrote plays for the stage, which brought him little fame and less money. In 1588 he removed to Seville, where he acted as agent of a royal commissioner of the American fleet, and afterward as collector of public and private debts. During the latter part of 1597 he was imprisoned for about three months at Seville, for a small sum due to the government. From 1598, when he seems to have left Se- ville, to the beginning of 1603, when we find him established at Valladolid, we lose all trace of him. He is said to have spent the interval in La Mancha, and to have been sent there to collect rents due to a monastery; but the debtors, instead of making payment, persecuted him and threw him into prison. Here he is said to have begun " Don Quixote," laying the scene of the knight's earlier adventures in La Mancha, and making him a native of the vil- lage that treated him so ill. But no direct proof exists in support of this statement, al- though it is certain that he spent some time in La Mancha. We now come to the great liter- ary performance of Cervantes. The death of Philip II. took place in 1598, and the relief which the end of his despotic rule brought to Spain was felt also in the world of letters. Cervantes could now give free vent to his opinions. In his youth at Rome he had ob- served in Cardinal Acquaviva's house the char- acter of high life, and there, and subsequently in Spain, he was constantly brought in contact with persons eminent in church, state, and lit- erature. With the camp and Moorish life he was thoroughly familiar, from his service in the navy and his captivity in Algiers. The mys- teries of the stage, the characteristics of actors, were known to him from his career as drama- tist. His frequent journeys had brought him into close contact with persons of all classes. His occupation at Seville and La Mancha had given him new opportunities of observation. With such a world of experience, with an in- exhaustible stock of humor in his disposition, and with a love of the ideal and the heroic in his heart, he produced, in the full maturity of his genius, after having passed the 50th year of his age, his imperishable " Don Quixote." The first part was published at Madrid in 1605. In this work Cervantes hit the vulnerable point of his age. The common sense of the world had long rebelled against the mummeries of knight-errantry, and the foolish books that still spoke of chivalry of which not a vestige re- mained. People who had smiled when the ab- surdity presented itself to their minds, burst out in laughter when Cervantes gave it the finishing stroke. One day Philip III. observed from his balcony a student on the opposite banks of the Manzanares convulsed with laugh- ter over a book. " He must either be crazy," said the king, "or he must be reading Don Quixote." This happened in 1606, after the court had removed from Valladolid to Madrid. Cervantes wrote the first part of the book probably during his residence at Valladolid, where, after his return from Seville and La Mancha, he had taken up his residence. Al- though he received frequent visits from per- sons connected with the court and with the literary world, he was living with his wife, his two sisters, his niece, and a single female domestic, on the fourth floor of a mean house, and his pecuniary embarrassments were great. After his arrival at Madrid, while the publication of the first part of "Don Quixote " and its unprecedented success drew upon him the hostilities of those who resented the sat- ire of his novel, he quietly occupied himself with the publication of his Novelets ejemplares, most of which had been written many years before, and of which he had already given a specimen in the story of the " Curious Imper- tinent," introduced in "Don Quixote." In 1614 he published the Viage al Pamaso, a satirical work, which gives a picture of the state of Spanish literature hi his time, in which he describes himself as the oldest and poorest of Spanish poets. During the same year, while he was preparing for the press the second part of " Don Quixote," a continuation of the same story was attempted by a bungling plagiarist of Tarragona, whose real or assumed name was Avellaneda. This work contained invectives against Cervantes, and was probably published at the instigation of his enemies. The second part of "Don Quixote" made its appearance in the beginning of 1615, with a dedication to the count of Lemos, expressive of gratitude for kindnesses extended to him by the count. It was received with the same universal demon- strations of enthusiasm which had greeted the first part. Cervantes had at last gained the object of his ambition. He had the admiration of Europe, while even in Spain, as Lope de Vega was dead, there was no one to divide with him the literary empire. The sale of "Don Quixote" also relieved his pecuniary wants. But his health began to fail, and he had a presentiment of the close of his earthly career, indicated in the preface of his PJrsiles y Sigismunda, a serious romance modelled after the "Theagenes and Chariclea" of Heli- odorus, which he prepared for the press at the beginning of 1616, though it was not published until after his death in 1617 by his widow. On April 19 he dictated to his wife the following words addressed to his friend Lemos, to whom he dedicated the work : "I have my feet al- ready in the stirrup. I may use this expres- sion since I feel that with one foot I stand in the grave. Yesterday I received extreme unc- tion; to-day I resume my pen. The time is short, my sufferings grow more and more pain- ful ; my hopes grow fainter and fainter ; yet I should be happy to see you before I die." Four days afterward he died, on the same day with Shakespeare. Cervantes was of unusually fair complexion ; his eyes were bright blue, his hair auburn. His countenance, handsome in youth, was spirited throughout his life. His manners were cheerful. He was beloved and