It is difficult to say when _Don Quixote_ was written; later, certainly, than 1591, for it alludes to Bernardo de la Vega's _Pastor de Iberia_, published in that year. Legend says that the First Part was begun in gaol, and so Langford includes it in his _Prison Books and their Authors_. The only ground for the belief is a phrase in the Prologue which describes the work as "a dry, shrivelled, whimsical offspring ... just what might be begotten in a prison." This may be a mere figure of speech; yet the tradition persists that Cervantes wrote his masterpiece in the cellar of the Casa de Medrano at Argamasilla de Alba. Certain it is that Argamasilla is Don Quixote's native town. The burlesque verses at the end indicate precisely that "certain village in La Mancha, the name of which," says Cervantes dryly, "I have no desire to recall." Quevedo witnesses that the fact was accepted by contemporaries, and topography puts it beyond doubt. The manuscript passed through many hands before reaching the printer, Cuesta: whence a double mention of it before publication. The author of the _Pícara Justina_, who anticipated Cervantes' poor device of the _versos de cabo roto_—truncated rhymes—in _Don Quixote_, ranks the book beside the _Celestina_, _Lazarillo de Tormes_, and _Guzmán de Alfarache_; yet the _Pícara Justina_ was licensed on August 22, 1604. The title falls from a far more illustrious pen: in a private letter written on August 14, 1604, Lope de Vega observes that no budding poet "is so bad as Cervantes, none so silly as to praise _Don Quixote_." There will be occasion to return presently to this much-quoted remark. Clearly the book was discussed, and not always approved, by literary critics some months before it was in print: but critics of all generations have been taught that their opinions go for nothing with the public, which persists in being amused against rules and dogmas. _Don Quixote_ carried everything before it: its vogue almost equalled that of _Guzmán de Alfarache_, and by July a fifth edition was preparing at Valencia. Cervantes has told us his purpose in plain words:—"to diminish the authority and acceptance that books of chivalry have in the world and among the vulgar." Yet his own avowal is rejected. Defoe averred that _Don Quixote_ was a satire on Medina Sidonia; Landor applauded the book as "the most dexterous attack ever made against the worship of the Virgin"; and such later crocheteers as Rawdon Brown have industriously proved Sancho Panza to be Pedro Franqueza, and the whole novel to be a burlesque on contemporary politics.[18]