That Cervantes, during his captivity, was regarded as a person of some distinction, is evident from the high ransom which was demanded for his release. Nothing less than 500 crowns of gold would satisfy the Dey his master ; but on condition of obtaining that sum, with im mediate dispatch, he signified his willingness to resign the prisoner. In the:.e ciremnstanc•s the parents of Cervantes sold what remained to them of possessions, in former (hues considerable, and aided by the benevo lence of the I loly Fathers, who had it in charge from the king of Spain, to negotiate all matters respecting the liberation of captives, the stipulated ransom was paid. In the month of September 1580, the 500 crowns were put into the hands of the Dey, and Cervantes was re stored to his country and his friends.
From this period v% e may date the commencement of his literary career. Disgusted with a life, he appears now to have devoted himself with untisitzil ar dour to the business and labour of writing. The taste or his age demanded pastoral poetry, and accordingly his first attempt was a pastoral, to which he gave the title of Galatea. like other pastorals, it fails in this, that the incidents have little or no resemblance to those which occur in real life ; and in the conduct of the piece, there is a very great extravagance of fancy, and absurdity of combination. The she' • of Cervantes pronounce long orations on the top' ve, with arguments logi cally disposed, all inter sleet all orderly ; and theytalk, in an utter confusion of of ',ion, and Minos, and or Mark Antony ; of Cxsar, Homer, and Ilercules ; of all the great captains of history, and all the heroes or romance. The events of the Galatea are by no means wholly of a pastoral nature. At the time when Cervantes wrote, the Spaniards were a brave and warlike people, the exploits of chivalry formed the basis of every tale; and among such a people, and in such an age, poetry, destitute of adventures and combats, was not likely to find many readers. The Galatea, therefore, is filled, not only with love, which belongs to the legiti mate pastoral, but with battles, stratagems, and defiance. Mars and Venus preside alternately over the page, and duels and sonnets follow one another in discordant suc cession.
Notwithstanding these improprieties, however, the Galatea was favourably received. It was bought and read. And where a taste for romances has been acquired, it may still be perused with such pleasure as is to' be derived from that species of writing. In consequence of his success, which was the more gratifying because it was unexpected, Cervantes appears about this time to have entered into the state of matrimony. His wife bears the name of Donna Catharina de Palacios ; she was of a good family, but as she brought her husband no fortune, he was still obliged to depend, for his daily support, upon his literary exertions.
The next great work of Cervantes, was his famous History of Don Quixote. To the conception and execu tion of this work, the following incident is said to have given rise. Having occasion to travel into La Mancha,
Cervantes unfortunately quarrelled with the inhabitants of a small village, named Argamazil, or, as some of his biographers have affirmed, contracted debts among them, and for the one or the other of these reasons, he was thrown into prison. While lie remained in confinement, he wrote the first part of the adventures of Don Quixote, and in the height of his vengeance assigned to that re doubted personage, La Mancha, as his native province. But with a reserve, which may be accounted for in dif ferent ways, he abstained, throughout the work, from mentioning, or even alluding to the village where he had been so ignominiously. and, as he conceived, so un justly treated. It is probable, however, that the circum stance above alluded to, is to be regarded only as the occasion which brought the great work of our author to The composition of such a piece must ha% e often in his thoughts. The plan, the in, id cuts, and th. textu•e (lit performance, must has e be, ii matured iii elaborate n Ilection : but it may, pct baps, he said, Iv ith truth, that had not the ch•eunistance in question Liken place, the plan, the incidents, and the whole work, might base remained for ever lost to the world, and hurled in the breast v•hich conceived them.
To enter into any lengthened criticism on the history of Don Quixote, would, in a work of this kind, he lin limper. We shall not, therefore, detain our reader , with many observations. The hero of the performance is lepresented as a person of amiable dispositions, and naturally of a sound understanding, but w hose mind had become so far disordered by the incessant perusal of the old romances, as to mistake the fictions which they contained for sober and authentic history. In the work ings of his imagination, he forms the design of assum ing to himself the character of a knight-et rant, awl of sallying forth in quest of ads entures. Every thing meets brings to his recollection something which he had read in his fay ourite books. The slightest noise indicate s an approaching rencounter ; trees, and wind-mills, and !locks of sheep, are metamorphosed into giants ; and whenever untoward or disastrous incidents occur, they are referred at once to the power of enchantment. Uut of the reality of the appearances of nature, and occur rences of actual life, and the extravagant fancies and conduct of Don Quixote with respect to them, the ridi cule arises. Attached to the hero, and in the capacity of his squire, appears Sancho Panza, who had left his fa mily and his home, to take upon him the government of a kingdom which the knight had promised him, and whose simplicity and credulity, whose vulgar jokes and vulgar acuteness, add much to the humour of the piece. The effect of the whole is irresistible; the absurdity of knight-errantry, relatively at least to the time when Cer vantes wrote, is represented in the most glaring colours; and, in point of fact, soon after the book was published, knight-errantry disappeared from among the nations of Europe.