ing, whose brain had become disordered by the constant and indiscriminate perusal of romances of chivalry; a fiction by no means improbable, as this is said to be frequently the fate of his coun trymen towards the close of their days :-" Sur la fin de ses jours Mendoza devint furieux, comme font d'ordinaire les Espagnols," (Thuana, &c.). The imagination of Don Quixote was at length so bewildered with notions of enchantments and single combats, that he received as truth the whole system of chimeras of which he read, and fancied himself called on to roam through the world in quest of adventures with his horse and arms, both for the general good, and the advancement of his own reputation. In the course of his errantry,' which is laid in La Mancha and Arragon, the most familiar objects and occurrences appear to his dis-> tempered imagination clothed in the veil of magic and chivalry, and formed with those romantic proportions to which he was accustomed in his favourite compositions: and if at any time what he had thus transformed, flash on his understanding in its true and natural colours, he imagines this real appearance all delusion, and a change accomplished by malevolent enchanters, who were envious of his fame, and wished to deprive him of the glory of his adventures.

These two principles of belief form the basis of the work, and, by their influence, the hero is conducted through a long series of comical and fantastic incidents, without entertaining the remotest suspicion of the wisdom or propriety of his undertaking. In all his adventures he is accompanied by a squire, in whom the mixture of credulity and acuteness forms, in the opinion of many, the most amusing part of the composition: indeed, if laughter, as has been said by some persons, arise from the view of things incongruous united in the same assemblage, nothing can be more happy than the striking and multifarious contrasts exhibited between Sancho and his master. The presence of the squire being essential to the work, his attendance on the knight is secured by the promise of the government of an island, and the good luck of actually finding some pieces of gold on the Sierra Morena. At length, one of Don Quixote's: friends, with the intention of forcing him to return to his own village, assumes the disguise of a knight, attacks and overthrows him; and, according to the conditions of the rencounter, insists on his retiring to his home, and abstaining for a twelvemonth from any chivalrous exploit. This period Don Quixote resolves to pass as a shepherd, and lays down an absurd plan of rural existence,

which, though written by the author of Galatea, is certainly meant as a satire on pastoral compositions, which, in the time of Cervantes, began to divide the palm of popularity with romances of chivalry.

In the work of Cervantes there is great novelty of plan, and a species of gratification is presented to the reader, which is not afforded in any previous composition. We feel infinite pleasure in first be-holding the objects as they are in reality, and afterwards as they are metamorphosed by the imagination of the hero. From the nature of the plan, however, the author was somewhat circumscribed in the number of his principal characters; but, as Milton has contrived to double his dramatis persona, by representing our first parents in a state of perfect innocence, and afterwards of sin and disgrace, Cervantes has in like manner assigned a double character to Don Quixote, who is a man of good sense and information, but irrational on subjects of chivalry. Sancho, too, imbibes a different disposition, when under the influence of his master's frenzy, from that given him by nature. The other characters who intervene in the action are represented under two appearances,—that which they possess in reality, and that which they assume in Don Quixote's imagination.

The great excellence, however, of the work of Cervantes, lies in the readiness with which the hero conceives, and the gravity with which he maintains, the most absurd and fantastic ideas, but which always bear some analogy to the adventures in romances of chivalry. In order to place particular incidents of these fables in a ludicrous point of view, they were most carefully perused and studied by Cervantes. The Spanish romances, however, seem chiefly to have engaged his attention, and Amadis de Gaul appears to have been used as his text. Indeed, there are so many allusions to romances of chivalry, and so much of the amusement arises from the happy imitation of these works, and the ridiculous point of view in which the incidents that compose them are placed, that I cannot help attributing some affectation to those, who, unacquainted with this species of writing, pretend to possess a lively relish for the adventures of Don Quixote. It is not to be doubted, however, that a considerable portion of the pleasure which we feel in the perusal of Don Quixote, is derived from the delineation of the scenery with which it abounds-the magnificent sierras-romantic streams and delightful vallies of a land which seems as it were the peculiar region of romance, from Cordoba to Roncesvalles. There is

also in the work a happy mixture of the stories and names of the Moors, a people who, in a won derful degree, impress the imagination and affect the heart, in consequence of their grandeur, gal lantry, and misfortunes; and partly, perhaps, from the many plaintive ballads in which their achievements and fate are recorded.

Of the work of Cervantes, the first part is, I think, incontestibly the best. In the second we feel hurt and angry at the cruelty of the deceptions practised by the duke and duchess on Don Quixote; and surely, the chimerical conceptions which spontaneously arise in his mind from the view of natural objects, are more entertaining than those which are forced on it by artificial combination, and the instrumentality of others.

The first part of Don Quixote was given to the world in 1605, and the second in 1615. In the interval between these two periods, in the year 1614, and while Cervantes was preparing for the press, an author who assumed the name of Avelleneda published at Tarragona his continuation of the first part of Don Quixote. This is the work which is so frequently mentioned and reviled in the second part by Cervantes, especially in the preface; yet so little is this production known, that many have supposed that Cervantes only com