DON QUIXOTE RELEASES THE GALLEY SLAVES. [Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VI.] The moment taken in this busy scene is when our valorous knight, after having unhorsed one of the guards, is engaged with the other; while Sancho, willing to bear his part in the adventure, helps to extricate Gines de Passamonte from his bonds. In this, as in some other of Hogarth's designs, the artist not having taken the trouble of reversing his drawing, the figures are left-handed. The character of Sancho, and two or three of the slaves, is admirable. I think the whole design much superior to Vanderbank's in Jarvis' translation, where the scene is chosen after the discomfiture of the Guards; for to two or three of the thieves Vanderbank has given the countenances of apostles. His whole print is tame, feeble, and spiritless.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 47. PLATE VII. THE FIRST INTERVIEW OF THE VALOROUS KNIGHT OF LA MANCHA WITH THE UNFORTUNATE KNIGHT OF THE ROCK. [Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VII.] This interview, which took place in the mountains of Sierra Morena, Cervantes thus describes:-- "Cardenio approached with a grave pace, and in a hoarse voice saluted them with great courtesy. Don Quixote returned his greeting with no less complaisance, and pressed him strongly in his arms, as if they had been long acquainted. The Knight of the Rock, after he had been thus embraced, retreated a few steps, and, laying his hand on the Don's shoulder, perused his face with such earnestness, as though he were desirous of recollecting if he had ever seen him before, and no less admired Don Quixote's strange figure than himself was admired by our heroic knight-errant." This is the point of time which Hogarth has chosen; and the wild eye of Cardenio, the placid benevolence of Don Quixote, and the shrewdness of the goatherd, are well opposed. From the air, attitude, and action of Sancho, I should have imagined the period to be after he had been mauled by the madman, did not the two knights so strongly determine it to be before. In Vanderbank's design of the same subject (_vide_ Jarvis' quarto), the figure of Sancho is tolerable, but the Don is vapid and ill-drawn; and Cardenio's head, like that of Medusa, looks as if it were encircled with snakes.--_Vide Shelton_, p. 51. PLATE VIII. THE CURATE AND BARBER DISGUISING THEMSELVES TO CONVEY DON QUIXOTE HOME. [Illustration: DON QUIXOTE PLATE VIII.] Don Quixote's old neighbours, the curate and barber, being desirous of checking his wandering disposition, are here disguising themselves for an interview, in which they hoped to bring him home, where they trusted he might again live as an old Christian ought to do. In pursuance of this plan, the barber procured an ample beard made from the tail of a pied ox; and the curate assumed the habit of a distressed virgin, and framed a tale of having been wronged by a naughty knight, to punish whom the Don was to be entreated to follow wherever this afflicted fair one should lead.