These exhibitions of verbal ingenuity are a blemish in the early chapters of _Don Quixote_ and in _Romeo and Juliet_. At this stage of their development both Cervantes and Shakespeare were struggling to disengage their genius from the clutch of contemporary affectation, and both succeeded. As _Don Quixote_ progresses the parody of the books of chivalry becomes less insistent, the style grows more supple and adaptable, reaches a high level of restrained eloquence in the knight’s speeches, is forcible and familiar in expressing the squire’s artful simplicity, is invariably appropriate in the mouths of men differing so widely from each other as Vivaldo and the Barber, Ginés de Pasamonte and Cardenio, Don Fernando and the left-handed landlord, the Captive and the village priest. The dramatic fitness of the dialogue in _Don Quixote_, its intense life and speedy movement are striking innovations in the development of the Spanish novel, and give the book its abiding air of modernity. Cervantes had discovered the great secret that truth is a more essential element of artistic beauty than all the academic elegance in the world. But the immediate triumph of _Don Quixote_ was not due—or, at least, was not mainly due—to strictly artistic qualities. These make an irresistible appeal to us, who belong to a more analytic and sophisticated generation. To contemporary readers the charm of _Don Quixote_ lay in its amalgamation of imaginative and realistic elements, in its accumulated episodes, in its infinite sympathy, and its pervasive humour. There was no question then as to whether _Don Quixote_ was a well of symbolic doctrine. The canvas was crowded with types familiar to every one who had eyes to see his companions on the dusty highways of Spain. The wenches who served Don Quixote with stockfish and black bread; the lad Andrés, flayed in the grove of oaks by Juan Haldudo the Rich, of Quintanar; the goatherds seated round the fire on which the pot of salted goat was simmering; the three lively needle-makers from the Colt of Córdoba; the midnight procession escorting the dead body from Baeza to Segovia, and chanting dirges on the road; the dozen galley-slaves tramping on, strung together like beads on an iron chain—all these are observed and presented with masterly precision of detail. But the really triumphant creations of the book are, of course, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza—the impassioned idealist and the incarnation of gross common-sense. They were instantly accepted as great representative figures; the adventures of the fearless Manchegan madman and his timorous practical squire were speedily reprinted in the capital and the provinces; and within six months a writer in Valladolid assumed as a matter of course that his correspondent in the Portuguese Indies must have made the acquaintance of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.