But in the midst of poverty and embarrassments, and while acting in the humble capacity of general agent and amanuensis for those who needed his services,[131] Cervantes had prepared for the press the First Part of his Don Quixote, which was licensed in 1604, at Valladolid, and printed in 1605, at Madrid. It was received with such decided favor, that, before the year was out, another edition was called for at Madrid, and two more elsewhere; circumstances which, after so many discouragements in other attempts to procure a subsistence, naturally turned his thoughts more towards letters than they had been at any previous period of his life. [131] One of the witnesses in the preceding criminal inquiry says that Cervantes was visited by different persons, “por ser hombre que escribe y trata negocios.” In 1606, the court having gone back to Madrid, Cervantes followed it, and there passed the remainder of his life; changing his residence to different parts of the city at least seven times in the course of ten years, apparently as he was driven hither and thither by his necessities. In 1609, he joined the Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament,--one of those religious associations which were then fashionable, and the same of which Quevedo, Lope de Vega, and other distinguished men of letters of the time, were members. About the same period, too, he seems to have become known to most of these persons, as well as to others of the favored poets round the court, among whom were Espinel and the two Argensolas; though what were his relations with them, beyond those implied in the commendatory verses they prefixed to each other’s works, we do not know.