[154] It has been generally conceded that the Count de Lemos and the Archbishop of Toledo favored and assisted Cervantes; the most agreeable proof of which is to be found in the Dedication of the Second Part of Don Quixote. I am afraid, however, that their favor was a little too much in the nature of alms. Indeed, it is called _limosna_ the only time it is known to be mentioned by any contemporary of Cervantes. See Salas Barbadillo, in the Dedication of the “Estafeta del Dios Momo,” Madrid, 1627, 12mo. In this temper he prepared to meet death, as many Catholics of strong religious impressions were accustomed to do at that time;[155] and, on the 2d of April, entered the order of Franciscan friars, whose habit he had assumed three years before at Alcalá. Still, however, his feelings as an author, his vivacity, and his personal gratitude did not desert him. On the 18th of April he received the extreme unction, and the next day wrote a Dedication of his “Persiles y Sigismunda” to the Count de Lemos, marked, to an extraordinary degree, with his natural humor, and with the solemn thoughts that became his situation.[156] The last known act of his life, therefore, shows that he still possessed his faculties in perfect serenity, and four days afterwards, on the 23d of April, 1616, he died, at the age of sixty-eight.[157] He was buried, as he probably had desired, in the convent of the Nuns of the Trinity; but a few years afterwards this convent was removed to another part of the city, and what became of the ashes of the greatest genius of his country is, from that time, wholly unknown.[158] [155] “Who, to be sure of Paradise, Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.” [156] The only case I recollect at all parallel is that of the graceful Dedication of Addison’s works to his friend and successor in office, Secretary Craggs, which is dated June 4, 1719; thirteen days before his death. But the Dedication of Cervantes is much more genial and spirited. [157] Bowle says, (Anotaciones á Don Quixote, Salisbury, 1781, 4to, Prólogo ix., note), that Cervantes died on the same day with Shakspeare; but this is a mistake, the calendar not having then been altered in England, and there being, therefore, a difference between that and the Spanish calendar of ten days.