fancy, which was only capable of continuing to invent where another had stopt, could not, with the boldness of Cervantes, have combined traits, apparently heterogeneous, in order thereby to exhaust to the utmost the idea by which he was inspired. Those who are acquainted with Don Quixote only through the medium of the common translations, will not certainly be inclined to regard it as a work of inspiration, in the highest sense of the word. But it is impossible to form a more mistaken notion of this work, than to consider it merely as a satire, intended by the author to ridicule the absurd passion for reading old romances of chivalry. Doubtless this is one of the objects which Cervantes had in view; for among the romances which the Spanish public indefatigably perused, few were tolerable, and only one or two possessed first-rate merit. We must not, however, attribute to him the absurd conceit of wishing to prove the prejudicial influence, which the reading of bad romances produced on the taste of the Spanish nation, by exhibiting the individual folly of an enthusiast, who would have been just as likely to have lost his senses by the study of Plato or Aristotle, as by the reading of romances of chivalry. The merit and the richness of the idea of a man of elevated character, excited by heroic and enthusiastic feelings to the extravagant pitch of wishing to restore the age of chivalry, must be regarded as the seed of inspiration whence the whole work originated. As a poet, Cervantes was aware of the resources which this idea furnished; and he must also have been satisfied with his power to prosecute it, as he has proved in the execution what he was capable of accomplishing. In the invention of a series of comic situations in the most burlesque style, he found full scope for the exercise of his fancy. The painting of these situations afforded opportunities for the free and energetic developement of his poetic talent. Finally, he knew how to combine the knowledge of human nature, which he had acquired during a life of fifty years, with the most delicate satire, so as to render his comic romance also a book of moral instruction, to which no parallel existed. These brief remarks on the idea which forms the foundation of the romance of Don Quixote, must be allowed to supply the place of a detailed analysis of the manner in which that celebrated work is composed. Other critics have sufficiently proved that the composition is by no means faultless. In the preface to the second part, Cervantes has himself pointed out some inadvertences which produce incongruities in the history, but he disdained to correct them, because he conceived that they had been too severely condemned.