Don Quixote

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1854. Excerpt: ... MEMOIR OF CERVANTES, WITH A NOTICE OF HIS WORKS. One passage in the admirable memoir of M. Viardot, which we are about to submit to the English reader, states that many of the allusions to be found in the works of Cervantes, can only be understood by those who are acquainted with the events of his life. Those events are so varied in their character, and so deeply interesting, that we should feel great surprise at their being passed over so briefly as they have been when former editions of Don Quixote were published, if we did not recollect what insuperable obstacles present themselves to acquiring minute particulars of the course of eminent men, who have lived even within a few years of our own time; and how many of the greatest magnitude might, in the ordinary course of things, be expected to baffle the industry which aspired to collect materials for the complete history of an author who lived three centuries ago. A happy coincidence gave M. Viardot opportunities for prosecuting such an inquiry which were denied to his predecessors. Not only had he facilities for studying Spanish manners, in all the several grades which society can furnish; but, favoured by the highest political, as well as the highest literary authorities in the country, he was enabled to make an extended and successful search for documents, facts, and traditions; and the result is a most gratifying picture, in detail, of the author of Don Quixote. He has rendered a worthy service to letters and to humanity; for the character of Cervantes well deserves to be known. Like our own Raleigh, it was his fate to shine in strangely dissimilar situations. His was a life of awful vicissitude. But a noble and generous spirit made him great in all; whether we look at him on the day of battle, in the gloom of a Moorish dungeon...