The last of Cervantes's works, the one he was occupied upon up to the hour cf his death, was "Persiles and Sigismunda,"--a romance, full of wild adventures, of love and war, of danger, escape, and indeed every variety of accident of "flood and field." It shows the true bent of the author's mind, who delighted to revel, like his own Don Quixote, in the very excesses of the imagination; and showing thus, how in his advanced age, he had forgotten none of his youthful tastes. He wrote it in imitation of Heliodorus: it is amusing in parts, and in parts interesting; but now that the taste for this heterogeneous, though imaginative, species of writing has passed away it will scarcely find readers sufficiently persevering, and sufficiently fond of the fabulous and strange, to dwell upon its enchainment of impossible adventures. [Footnote 55: Viardôt] [Footnote 56: This circumstance is mentioned by M. Viardôt only; and was unknown to every other biographer.] [Footnote 57: Viardôt.] [Footnote 58: Viardôt.] [Footnote 59: Bouterwek says, erroneously, that Los Rios has interwoven Cervantes's novel of the "Captive" into his biography, as being authentic, and relating to himself. This is a mistake: Los Rios conceives, indeed, that the mention made by the captive of "a soldier, by name Saavedra," alludes to Cervantes himself, who adopted that surname, as of course he does; but the history he gives of his captivity is drawn from other sources, such as are used, with some additions, for the present narrative.] [Footnote 60: Topographia y Historia general de Argel, repartido en cinco tratados, do se veran casos estranos, muertas espantoas, y tormentas exquisitas, que conviene se entiendan en la christianidad: con mucha doctrina y elegancia curiosa. Por el Maestro Fray Diego de Haedo, Abad de Funestra. Fol. Valladolid, 1612.] [Footnote 61: Viardôt.] [Footnote 62: For the sake of the curious we append a translation of the registry of Cervantes's liberation, as found by Los Rios in the archives of the order of mercy, and quoted by him in his "Proofs of the Life." These documents consist of two registers; one of the receipt of money for his redemption given by the friars Juan Gil, procurer-general for the order of the most Holy Trinity and Antonio de la Vella, minister of the monastery of the said order in the city of Baeza; and the second testified the payment of the money in Algiers. The first runs thus:--