Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/363

E R V A N T E S 351 conceived. Be found himself amidst a generation which cared for none of these things, confronted by the stern realities of a commonplace age, tossed about and buffeted in a world in which chivalry had become already an ana chronism. There is no need for us to search for the key to the parable of Don Quixote, knowing the life of the author The experience was a bitter one, such as no man of letters ever had to endure ; but from the long ordeal, which ended only with his life, Cervantes emerged sweet ened and strengthened. The gay courage which was the essential attribute of his nature, the dauntless good humour " That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine," had to survive even greater trials than the five years shivery in Algiers. On his return to Spain Cervantes was destined to taste of miseries compared to which even the cruelty of Hassan Pasha was kindness. His services, his works, his sufferings, were all forgotten. His absence of five years from the scene had been long enough to erase from the memories of the king and the Court the gallant soldier who had fought and bled at Lepanto. In 1580 Philip II. was marching his army into Portugal, and Cervantes rejoined his old regiment of Figueroa, in which his brother Rodrigo was also serving. The next year we find him engaged in the expedition against the Azores, where the partizans of Dorn Antonio, known to history as the Prior of Ocrato, the rival claimant to the Portuguese throne, were holding out with the assistance of England and France. On the miscarriage .of this enterprize through the dissensions between the military and naval commanders, the fleet returned to Lisbon. The next year it took the sea again under the command of Don Alvaro de Bazan, Marques de Santa Cruz, celebrated by Cervantes in Don Quixote as " that thunderbolt of war, that father of Battle of his soldiers, that fortunate and invincible captain." In Terceira. j^g victory gained by Santa Cruz over the allied squadrons off Terceira, on the 25th of July 1582 one of the most brilliant achievements in the annals of the Spanish navy Cervantes took a part, being on board the admiral s galleon, the " San Mateo," which bore the brunt of the fighting. It was not until the year following, however, that the Azores were finally reduced, Rodrigo Cervantes distinguishing himself greatly in the storm of Terceira. During his service and residence in Portugal, of which country and its people he ever spoke with a kindliness rare among Spaniards, Cervantes had some passages of love with a noble Portu guese lady, who bore him a daughter, Isabel, his only child, the object of her father s tenderest affection and a sharer in all his troubles till his death. Of the next few years the record is a brief one. To wards the last months of 1583 we hear of Cervantes being at Mostagan, a Spanish post on the Algerine coast, pro bably still with his regiment, whence he was sent with despatches to the king, by whom he was ordered to return to Oran. He does not seem to have been employed again in any official capacity, and perhaps from this time he began to despair of that military preferment to which his services had given him so just a claim. Even if it were possible for one in his station to attract the personal notice of the king, we could not expect that such a man as Philip should recognize the merit of the future author of Don Quixote, nor could the morose tyrant who grudged the glory of Lepanto to his brother be particularly well disposed to one whose chief title to remembrance was his share in that victory. By the end of 1583 Cervantes appears to have quitted the profession of arms and returned to litera- Publication ture, being now in his thirty -sixth year. About this time of Galatea. ne vr ro te Galatea, a prose pastoral interspersed with lyrics, inspired, according to the tradition, by love of the lady he was then courting, and wlio became his wife. Dedicated to Ascanio Colonna, son of Marco Antonio of that name, Cervantes s old commander, it appears to have been favour ably received, and is not more unreadable than the books of that class so happily ridiculed by Cervantes himself in the 73d chapter of the second part of Don Quixote. As the author himself frankly informs his readers, his " shepherds and shepherdesses are many of them only such in their dress." Their names of Lauso, Tirsi, and Damon are but the grotesque disguises of celebrated poets of the time and friends of Cervantes in Galatea being pictured his future wife and in Elisio himself. They talk high- flown sentiment and make stilted love after the manner of the school of Gil Polo in his Diana Enamorada, nor is their talk more insipid than is usual to the pastoral profession in fable. There is no better criticism of the book than that which Cervantes himself has given through the mouth of the priest in the scrutiny of Don Quixote s library. " What book is that ? " " The Galatea of Miguel de Cer vantes," said the barber. " Tis many years since he has been a great friend of mine that Cervantes, and I know that he is rather versed in sorrow than in poetry. This book has some invention ; it proposes something, and it concludes nothing ; it behoves us to wait for the second part which he promises. Perhaps with his amendment he will obtain that entire pardon which is now denied to him ; in the meantime, gossip, keep him a recluse in your cham ber." This second part never appeared, perhaps with no loss to the author s reputation. Poor as the verse is in Galatea, it secured for Cervantes a place among the chief poets of the age, and there is evidence to show that it was held in esteem, even out of Spain, before and after the appearance of Don Quixote. On the 12th of December 1584 Cervantes added to his Marriage, happiness if not to his fortune by a marriage with Dona Catalina de Palacios Salazar y Yozmediano, a lady of good family of Esquivias. The settlement on his wife of a hundred ducats, supposed to be one-tenth of his estate, and the inventory of his effects taken at this time, among which are included " 45 hens, some chickens, and a cock/ prove that the bridegroom was in but indifferent circum stances, even for a poor hidalgo of the time. Of the lady the records give us scarcely a glimpse, and indeed for some years after his marriage the life of Cervantes is wrapt in obscurity. All that is known is that he wrote poetry, and won many friends among the poets by his good nature and genial humour. He wrote for the stage also for a Dramatic living, producing between twenty and thirty plays, chiefly comedies, of which only two survive, La Numancia and El Trato de Argel. There seems to be no reason to doubt Cervantes s own statement that as a playwright he gained considerable applause, and it has been proved that the payment he received was quite as high as that given to Lope de Vega. August Schlegel has assigned high rank to La Numancia as one of the most striking and original of modern tragedies, and La Confusa, a comedy now lost, is spoken of with much complacency by its author. The gifts of Cervantes, however, were not those of the dramatist, and such fame as he had begun to win paled before the rising star of that " monster of nature," Lope de Yega. Once more disappointed in his hopes of a livelihood, and having now to support his wife, his widowed sister, and his natural daughter, Cervantes was forced to seek for bread by other means than literature. For twenty years the darkest period of his life he ceased to write, or at least to publish. The poor crippled soldier had to drink of a cup even more bitter than loss of liberty among the Moors. A veil hangs over this portion of his career, which his countrymen, for their own sake no less than for his,

are not too eager to lift, hiding, as it is only too certain