That these are blemishes it would be futile to deny; but how insignificant they are beside the positive qualities of the Second Part! Unlike some of his admirers, Cervantes was not above profiting by criticism. He tells us that objection had been taken to the intercalated stories of the First Part, and to some scenes of exuberant fun bordering on horse-play. These faults are avoided in the sequel, which broadens out till it assumes a truly epical grandeur. The development of the two central characters is at once more logical and more poetic; Don Quixote awakens less laughter, and more thought, while Sancho Panza’s store of apophthegms and immemorial wisdom is more inexhaustible and apposite than ever. Lastly, the new personages, from the Duchess downwards to Doctor Pedro Recio de Agüero—the ill-omened physician of Barataria—are marvels of realistic portraiture. The presentation of the crazy knight and the droll squire expands into a splendid pageant of society. And, as one reads the less elaborate passages, one acquires the conviction that the very dust of Cervantes’s writings is gold. The Second Part of _Don Quixote_ was the last of his works that he saw in print. His career was over, and it closed in splendour. His battle was fought and won, and he died, as befits a hero, with the trumpets of victory ringing in his ears. His labyrinthine romance, _Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda_, appeared in 1617. Even had this posthumous work been, as Cervantes half hoped, ‘the best book of its kind,’ it could scarcely have added to his glory. Though distinctly not the best book of its kind, the great name on its title-page procured it a respectful reception, and it was repeatedly reprinted within a short time of its publication. But it was soon lost in the vast shadow of _Don Quixote_: no one need feel guilty because he has not read it. The world, leaving scholars and professional critics to estimate the writer’s indebtedness to Heliodorus and Achilles Tatius, has steadily refused to be interested in _Persiles y Sigismunda_; and in the long run the world delivers a just judgment. It is often led astray by gossip, by influence, by publishers’ tricks, by authors who press their own wares on you with all the effrontery of a cheap-jack at a fair; but the world finds out the truth at last. An author’s genius may be manifest in most or all of his works; but it is wont to be conspicuous in one above the rest. Shakespeare wrote _Hamlet_: one _Hamlet_. Cervantes wrote _Don Quixote_—two _Don Quixotes_: a feat unparalleled in the history of literature. The one is the foremost of dramatists, and the other the foremost of romancers: and it is to a single masterpiece that each owes the greater part of his transcendent fame. CHAPTER VII LOPE DE VEGA