So much for the story as it has been read in English and adorned by English (and other) artists. But how about Mr. Wills's predecessors? How about 'Don Quixote's' previous connection with the English stage? Well, it was scarcely to be expected that so popular a tale would never excite the attention of the playwright or the musician. Sooner or later, everything which has vogue finds its way, somehow, to the boards, and it is a little surprising that seventy-four years should have elapsed, after the publication of the first English translation, before 'Don Quixote' received the distinction of dramatization. Was it, indeed, a distinction? There's the rub. The dramatist was Thomas d'Urfey; and what could be looked for from that free-speaking worthy? The original is not without a certain breadth in certain passages, and what Cervantes made broad D'Urfey might be trusted to make broader. That, again, was only according to the practice of the day; and if the virtuous Collier fulminated against the trilogy which D'Urfey wrought out of the epical extravaganza--if some ladies of the time were found to object to the coarser humours of Mary the Buxom (a creation on which D'Urfey prided himself)--there can be no doubt of the success of the venture. The third of the three plays had not, it seems, quite the acceptability of the other two, but the author's explanation of its virtual failure--that the piece was not adequately presented--was possibly, for once, well founded, and the fact that the third play was produced at all speaks volumes for the triumphs of its precursors. A 'Don Quixote'--probably D'Urfey's 'second part'--held the stage, more or less firmly, till the eighteenth century was well upon its way; and then there suddenly appeared a rival, in the shape of a farce or vaudeville by Fielding, entitled 'Don Quixote in England,' and bringing both the Don and Sancho upon English soil. The author was well aware of his temerity, and, indeed, apologized for it. The piece, he pleaded, was 'originally writ for his private amusement, as it would, indeed, have been little less than Quixotism itself to hope any other fruits from attempting characters wherein the inimitable Cervantes so far excelled.'