It can scarcely be doubted, though no Spanish writer has made the conjecture, that the death of Philip II. had a favourable influence on the genius of Cervantes. After the accession of the indolent Philip III. every man in Spain felt that he might then have more freedom than he dared to take during the gloomy intolerance of the preceding reign. The Spaniards now ventured to sport with the chains which they had not the power to break, and delicate satire was soon freely employed. Cervantes quickly found a subject for ridicule, in an outrageous contest which arose in Seville between the spiritual and municipal authorities, concerning the funeral obsequies of the deceased monarch. There is reason to believe that he composed, about the same period, some of the Instructive Novels (_Novelas Exemplares_), which he subsequently published. What accident gave rise to the idea of his Don Quixote is unknown; for his having, while travelling through the province of la Mancha, become engaged in disputes with some of the inhabitants, and his being on that account for a short time imprisoned, can at most be only supposed to have suggested the idea of making that province the scene of the first part of his romance. Some fortunate circumstance, which cannot now be traced, seems to have impressed Cervantes, who was then in his fiftieth year, with the consciousness of the true bent of his genius. The commencement of Don Quixote was first published at Madrid, in 1606; but the enthusiastic reception which this original romance experienced from the Spanish public, produced very little change in the author’s fortune; for the folly which felt itself disturbed in its security united with envy in seeking to discover the most offensive allusions in the work. Cervantes accordingly continued poor, and had now to contend with exasperated enemies, who imagined they had completely defeated him, when an unknown writer of their own party, under the name of Avellaneda, published a continuation of Don Quixote, full of invective against the original author. Precisely at the period when this continuation appeared, Cervantes published the sequel of his Instructive Novels, which he dedicated to the Count of Lemos. In that nobleman he found a protector who never withdrew his favour, and who, as it appears, afforded him support in various ways. Pecuniary necessity seems, however, to have urged him, as a last resource, to write for the stage.