{190} Byron, _Don Juan_, xiii. 11. Borrow probably knew well enough where the lines came from. _Don Juan_ had not been published more than fifteen years at the time, and was in the zenith of its popularity. But Byron and his ways were alike odious to the rough manliness of Borrow (see _Lavengro_, ch. xxxix.), and, in good truth, however much the poet “deserves to be remembered,” it is certainly not for this line, which contains as many _suggestiones falsi_ as may be packed into one line. Yet the “sneer” is not in the original, but in Borrow’s misquotation; Byron wrote “smiled.” The idea of the poet having spent a handful of gold ounces in a Genoese posada at Seville and at a bull-fight at Madrid, that he might be competent to tell the world that Cervantes sneered Spain’s chivalry away, is superlatively Borrovian—and delicious. The entire passage runs thus— “Cervantes smiled Spain’s chivalry away; A single laugh demolish’d the right arm Of his own country;—seldom since that day Has Spain had heroes.” {192} About thirty pounds, at the exchange of the day. {195a} “I wish to enlist with you.” {195b} “_Gee up_, donkey!” From this _arrhé_, of Arabic origin, is derived the word _arriero_, a muleteer. {197} “Blessed be God!” {198} See note, _ante_, p. 190. {201} See vol. i. p. 257. {202} Aranjuez, the Roman _Ara Jovis_, was, until the absorption of the great military order by the Crown under Isabella and Ferdinand, a favourite residence of the Grand Masters of Santiago. {203} “Die schönen Tage in Aranjuez Sind nun zu Ende.” The opening lines of _Don Carlos_. {204} An exceedingly ancient town, celebrated in the days before the Roman dominion. {205} See Glossary, _sub. verb_. SCHOPHON. As to rabbits in Spain, see note, vol. i. p. 25. {208} The modern La Granja or San Ildefonso is, in the season, anything but desolate: the beautiful, if somewhat over-elaborate gardens, are admirably kept up, and the general atmosphere of the plain is bright and cheerful, though the Court of to-day prefers the sea-breezes of Biscay to the air of the Guadarrama, when Madrid becomes, as it does, well-nigh uninhabitable in summer. {211a} A particular scoundrel. His massacre of prisoners, November 9, 1838, was remarkable for its atrocity, when massacre was of daily occurrence. See Duncan, _The English in Spain_, pp. 247, 248. {211b} See note, vol. i. p. 164. {213} August 31, 1838. {215} Don Carlos, who probably died a natural death in 1568.