In so far as Cervantes forwarded that change he did evil and not good. He did help to laugh Spain’s chivalry away. But in truth it was dying, and the change would have come without him. He is great in literature, because while consciously doing a very small, unnecessary, and partially harmful thing, he created a masterpiece of that rare and fine faculty which while thinking in jest still feels in earnest (the definition of what is, it may be, undefinable is taken from Miss Anne Evans), and which we call humour. Elsewhere in Spanish literature we find a type fixed and unvarying, or even a mere puppet, met through a succession of events, and moved about by them. In _Don Quixote_ we have two characters acting on one another, and producing the story from within. And these two characters are types of immortal truth--the one a gentleman, brave, humane, courteous, of good faculty, for whom a slight madness has made the whole world fantastic; the other an average human being, selfish, not over-brave, though no mere coward, and ignorant, yet not unkindly, nor incapable of loyalty, and withal shrewd in what his limited vision can see when he is not blinded by his greed. The continual collisions of these two with the real world make the story of _Don Quixote_. Cervantes had a fine inventive power, the adventures are numerous and varied, yet the charm lies not in the incidents, but in the reality and the sympathetic quality of the persons. We have no grinning world of masks made according to a formula. The country gentlemen, priests, barbers, shepherds, innkeepers, tavern wenches, lady’s-maids, domestic curates, nobles, and officials are living human beings, true to the Spain of the day no doubt, but also true to the humanity which endures for ever, and therefore intelligible to all times. In the midst is honest greedy Sancho with his peering eyes, so shrewd, and withal so capable of folly, the critic, and also the dupe of the half-crazed dreamer, by whom he rides, and will ride, as long as humanity endures, in this book, and under every varying outward form in the real earth. As for Don Quixote, is he not the elder brother of Sir Roger de Coverley, of Matthew Bramble, of Parson Adams, of Bradwardine, of Colonel Newcome, and Mr Chucks, the brave, gentle, not over-clever, men we love all the more because we laugh at them very tenderly?[46] FOOTNOTES: [37] There is a pretty and not uncommon edition of the _Diana_ published at Madrid by Villalpando in 1795. [38] The _Patrañuelo_ is reprinted by Ochoa in his _Tesoro de Novelistas Españoles_, Paris, 1847, vol. i. He also gives one story from Tirso de Molina--_The Three Deceived Husbands_. It is a _fabliau_. A _Cigarral_ was the name given to a country villa near Toledo. [39] _Libros de Caballerías_ in the _Biblioteca de Ribadeneyra_, with an exhaustive introduction by Don Pascual de Gayangos, vol. xl. [40] The _Guerras Civiles de Granada_ is in vol. iii. of the _Biblioteca de Ribadeneyra_.