See also _Cervantes vascófilo ó sea Cervantes vindicado de su supuesto antivizcainismo por Julián Apráiz y Sáenz del Burgo, Natural de Vitoria y vizcaino, alavés y guipuzcoano por todos sus abolengos_. Nueva edición considerablemente aumentada (Vitoria, 1895), pp. 270-274. In a note (p. 274) to his letter addressed (April 23, 1884), to Sr. D. José Colá y Goiti, Dr. Apráiz--who courageously sets himself to prove that Cervantes, so far from disliking the Basques as has been generally supposed, had in fact the highest opinion of them--points out that _Los nueve libros de las Habidas_ take no more space than a 16mo. volume. "Y una vez leída la obra del poeta navarro insisto, tanto en que no hay más prosa que brevísimos renglones del argumento de la obra, como acerca del mérito que le reconocen Rosell, Gayangos y Vedia, y Gallardo, mucho más habida cuenta de la temprana edad de 20 años que tenía el poeta al escribir su poema, según el mismo dice al dirigirse á la señora (_i.e._ Doña Adriana de Egues y de Biamonte), á quien lo dedica. Parece que había muerto 3 años antes de la publicación de su poema." If Arbolanche (or Arbolanches) really died in 1563, it is almost impossible that Cervantes can have had--as has been insinuated--any personal grudge against him. Perhaps he had read the _Habidas_ when he was a lad, was bored, and in his old age exaggerated his impression, without remembering very clearly the contents of the book. Or, it may be, as Dr. Apráiz suggests (_op. cit._, pp. 273-274), that Cervantes mistook Arbolanche (or Arbolanches) for the author of some dull pastoral whose name escaped him. If this be so, it is exceedingly regrettable that he should twice have made the same blunder: for the consequence has been that the name of Arbolanche (or Arbolanches), a poet of distinct merit, has become--among those who have not read him and who follow Cervantes blindly--a synonym for a ridiculous prose writer. Cp. the lines in the celebrated _Sátira contra los malos escritores de su tiempo_ by Jorge Pitillas (_i.e._ José Gerardo de Hervás y Cobo de la Torre):-- De Arbolanches descubre el genio tonto, Nombra á Pedrosa novelero infando Y en criticar á entrambos está pronto. [54] See cap. iii., ter. 81-89.