indirect proof of its existence; and (3) that, so far as the evidence goes, no edition of the _Galatea_ was published at Madrid before 1736: that is to say, until more than a century after Cervantes's death. We do not know precisely when the _Galatea_ was written. M. Dumaine,[8] indeed, declares positively that the poems in the volume--he must surely mean some of them, not all--were addressed to a lady during the author's stay in Italy. If this were so, these verses would date (at latest) from September, 1575, when Cervantes left Italy for the last time. Sr. D. José María Asensio y Toledo[9] holds that the _Galatea_ was begun in Portugal soon after the writer's return from Algiers in 1580. Of these views one may conceivably be true; one must necessarily be false; and it is more than possible that both are wrong. As no data are forthcoming to support either opinion, we may profitably set aside these speculations and proceed to examine the particulars disclosed in the preliminaries of the _Galatea_. The _Aprobación_ was signed by Lucas Gracián[10] Dantisco at Madrid on February 1, 1584, and, as some time must have passed between the submission of the manuscript to the censor and the issue of his license, it seems certain that the text of the _Galatea_ was finished before the end of 1583. In its present form, the dedication, as will be seen presently, cannot have been written till about the end of the following summer. Meanwhile, on February 22, 1584, the _Privilegio_ was granted at Madrid in the King's name by Antonio de Erasso. It was not till a year later--the very end of February 1585--that the _Fe de erratas_ was passed at Alcalá de Henares by the Licenciado Vares de Castro, official corrector to the University of that city. The _Tasa_, which bears the name of Miguel Ondarza Zabala, was despatched at Madrid on March 13, 1585. To those who have had no occasion to study such matters as these, the space of time which elapsed between the concession of the _Privilegio_ and the despatch of the _Tasa_ might seem considerable; and it is not surprising that this circumstance should be the basis of erroneous deductions on their part. Apparently for no other reason than the length of this interval, it has been concluded that, between February 22, 1584, and March 13, 1585, there was printed at Madrid an edition of the _Galatea_, every copy of which has--_ex hypothesi_--vanished. This assumption is gratuitous.