On the other hand, Cervantes, from the date of the “Canto de Calíope” in the “Galatea,” 1584, when Lope was only twenty-two years old, to the date of the Preface to the Second Part of Don Quixote, 1615, only a year before his own death, was constantly giving Lope the praises due to one who, beyond all _contemporary_ doubt or rivalship, was at the head of Spanish literature; and, among other proofs of such elevated and generous feelings, prefixed, in 1598, a laudatory sonnet to Lope’s “Dragontea.” But at the same time that he did this, and did it freely and fully, there is a dignified reserve and caution in some parts of his remarks about Lope that show he was not impelled by any warm, personal regard; a caution which is so obvious, that Avellaneda, in the Preface to his Don Quixote, maliciously interpreted it into envy. It therefore seems to me difficult to avoid the conclusion, that the relations between the two great Spanish authors of this period were such as might be expected, where one was, to an extraordinary degree, the idol of his time, and the other a suffering and neglected man. What is most agreeable about the whole matter is the generous justice Cervantes never fails to render to Lope’s merits. In 1613, he published his “Novelas Exemplares,” Instructive or Moral Tales,[134] twelve in number, and making one volume. Some of them were written several years before, as was “The Impertinent Curiosity,” inserted in the First Part of Don Quixote,[135] and “Rinconete y Cortadillo,” which is mentioned there, so that both must be dated as early as 1604; while others contain internal evidence of the time of their composition, as the “Española Inglesa” does, which seems to have been written in 1611. All of these stories are, as he intimates in their Preface, original, and most of them have the air of being drawn from his personal experience and observation. [134] He explains in his Preface the meaning he wishes to give the word _exemplares_, saying, “Heles dado nombre de _exemplares_, y si bien lo miras, no hay ninguna de quien no se puede sacar algun exemplo provechoso.” The word _exemplo_, from the time of the Archpriest of Hita and Don Juan Manuel, has had the meaning of _instruction_ or _instructive story_. [135] The “Curioso Impertinente,” first printed in 1605, in the First Part of Don Quixote, was separately printed in Paris in 1608,--five years before the collected Novelas appeared in Madrid,--by Cæsar Oudin, a teacher of Spanish at the French court, who caused several other Spanish books to be printed in Paris, where the Castilian was in much favor from the intermarriages between the crowns of France and Spain.