No words need be wasted in controverting the guesses of those who wish to account for the greatness of a great piece of literature by some hidden quality not literary. They have ranged from the fantastic supposition that Cervantes was ridiculing Charles V. down to the amazing notion that he was attacking the Church. Nor need much respect be shown to the truth that _Don Quixote_ was meant to make fun of the books of chivalry. This would be self-evident even if Cervantes had not said so. It may be that this was all he meant, and then he builded better than he knew. The work of burlesque, though often necessary, and, when decently done, amusing, is essentially of the lower order. In this case it was not necessary, for the _Libros de Caballerías_ were already dying out before the sordid rivalry of the _Novelas de Pícaros_. It was the less necessary, because it was no reform. The Spain of the _Libros de Caballerías_ was the Spain of Santa Teresa and Luis de Leon, of the great scholars of the stamp of Francisco Sanchez El Brocense, of Diego de Mendoza, of Cortés and Pizarro and Mondragon--the Spain which Brantôme saw, “brave, bravache et vallereuse et de belles paroles proférées à l’improviste.” It was a better country than that in which the Count Duke of Olivares had to complain that he could find “no men.” The follies of the _Libros de Caballerías_ were a small matter. It was not a small matter that a nation should replace _Amadis of Gaul_ by _Paul of Segovia_, should pass from the lofty romantic spirit of Garcia Ordoñes to the _carcajada_--the coarse, braying, animal, and loveless guffaw of Quevedo.