[Footnote 69: The Argensolas were men much esteemed in their day, and are so often mentioned by Cervantes and Lope de Vega, that they must not be passed over in silence. But as there is nothing very original in their writings, we shall take the liberty of dismissing them in a note. The elder, Lupercio, the historiographer for Aragon, secretary to the empress Maria of Austria, and secretary of state to the count of Lemos when viceroy of Naples, died in that city in 1613, at the age of forty-eight. He founded an academy at Naples, and was a studious and laborious man. He burned a considerable portion of his poems just before his death, as not worthy to survive him. Bartolomé was an ecclesiastic. He followed his brother to Naples. On his death he quitted Italy. He continued the "Annals of Aragon," and wrote a history of the conquest of the Molucca islands; a work written with judgment and elegance. His secular poetry is so similar to his brother's that they cannot be distinguished one from the other. Following the same school, adopting the same tastes, and neither of them original, it is not surprising that their productions bore a close resemblance. The best works, however, of Bartolomé are his sacred Canzoni. He died at Saragossa, in the year 1531, at the age of sixty-five.] [Footnote 70: Coleridge's summary of the character and life of Cervantes, though not correct in letter, is admirable in spirit: "A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman true to religion, and true to honour. A scholar and a soldier; he fought under the banners of don John of Austria, at Lopanto, and lost his arm, and was captured. Endured slavery, not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and, by the superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian owner. Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny--the awful task of achieving fame; and for that reason died poor, and a prisoner, while nobles and kings, over their goblets of gold, gave relish to their pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the inventor of novels for the Spaniards; and in his "Persiles and Sigismunda" the English may find the germ of their "Robinson Crusoe." "The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth. He painted only what he knew, and had looked into; but he knew, and had looked into much indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled, yet with stainless virtue."] [Footnote 71: Quarterly Review, vol. XXV.] [Footnote 72: There is an excellent translation of ten from among them; we may also mention that there is an admirable old English translation of Don Quixote, by Shelton.]