[158] Nor was any monument raised to Cervantes, in Spain, until 1835, when a bronze statue of him larger than life, cast at Rome by Solá of Barcelona, was placed in the Plaza del Estamento at Madrid. (See El Artista, a journal published at Madrid, 1834, 1835, Tom. I. p. 205; Tom. II. p. 12; and Semanario Pintoresco, 1836, p. 249.) Before this I believe there was nothing that approached nearer to a monument in honor of Cervantes throughout the world than an ordinary medal of him, struck in 1818, at Paris, as one of a large series which would have been absurdly incomplete without it; and a small medallion or bust, that was placed in 1834, at the expense of an individual, over the door of the house in the Calle de los Francos, where he died. But, in saying this, I ought to add,--whether in praise or censure,--that I believe the statue of Cervantes was the first erected in Spain to honor a man of letters or science. CHAPTER XII. CERVANTES.--HIS PERSILES AND SIGISMUNDA, AND ITS CHARACTER.--HIS DON QUIXOTE.--CIRCUMSTANCES UNDER WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN.--ITS PURPOSE AND GENERAL PLAN.--PART FIRST.--AVELLANEDA.--PART SECOND.--CHARACTER OF THE WHOLE.--CHARACTER OF CERVANTES. Six months after the death of Cervantes,[159] the license for publishing “Persiles y Sigismunda” was granted to his widow, and in 1617 it was printed.[160] His purpose seems to have been to write a serious romance, which should be to this species of composition what the Don Quixote is to comic romance. So much, at least, may be inferred from the manner in which it is spoken of by himself and by his friends. For in the Dedication of the Second Part of Don Quixote he says, “It will be either the worst or the best book of amusement in the language”; adding, that his friends thought it admirable; and Valdivielso,[161] after his death, said he had equalled or surpassed in it all his former efforts. [159] At the time of his death Cervantes seems to have had the following works more or less prepared for the press, namely: “Las Semanas del Jardin,” announced as early as 1613;--the Second Part of “Galatea,” announced in 1615;--the “Bernardo,” mentioned in the Dedication of “Persiles,” just before he died;--and several plays, referred to in the Preface to those he published, and in the Appendix to the “Viage al Parnaso.” All these works are now probably lost.