returning vanquished from the Tourney at Barcelona, propose to Sancho Panza that they shall turn shepherds and lead a rural life. He decides to call himself Quixotis, to re-name his Squire, Pansino and Teresa Panza is to be celebrated in the annal of arcady by the style of Teresania. The objects and employment of the shepherds were to consist of poetry and protestation. “For my part,” the Don declared, “I will complain of absence, thou” (his Squire) “shall celebrate thy own loyalty and constancy, the Shepherd Larrascon shall expostulate on his shepherdess’s disdain, and the Pastor Curiambio choose what subject he likes best; and so all will be managed to our hearts’ content”--even as it was managed by Cervantes in the _Galatea_. Yet, artificial and uninspiriting as the pastoral appears to-day, it was acclaimed with unstinted praise, both at home and abroad, and caused the author to be classed by Gálvez de Montalvo and by Pedro de Padilla among the most famous poets of Castile. It brought him friends; it gave him enemies; but it was powerless to advance his worldly fortune--the money derived from the sale of the various editions of the book found their way into other pockets. Of the _Galatea_, Cervantes has left us his own critical estimate in Chapter iv., Part I., of _Don Quixote_. The curate and the barber are overhauling the Don’s library--“those unconscionable books of disventures,” the tales of chivalry over which he would pore for eight-and-forty hours together--and of the hundred large volumes, and a good number of small ones, only some half-dozen escape the bonfire that has been built of them in the back yard. The _Galatea_ was one of the exempt. “That Cervantes has been my intimate acquaintance these many years,” cried the curate, “and I know he has been more conversant with misfortunes than with poetry. His book, indeed, has I don’t know what, that looks like a good design; he aims at something, but concludes nothing; therefore, we must stay for the second part, which he has promised us; perhaps he may make us amends, and obtain a full pardon, which is denied him for the present....” The _Galatea_, the second part of which was never written, is not lost to us, though it is little read; but of the rest of the survivors of the curate’s conflagration, and which Cervantes praises through the lips of his character--_Amadis de Gaul_, _Palmerin of England_, _Ten Books of the Fortunes of Love_, by Anthony de Lofraco; _The Shepherd of Filida_, together with the _Araucana_, of Don Alonso de Ercilla; the _Austirada_, of Jean Ruffo, a magistrate of Cordova; and the _Monserrato_, of Christopher de Virves, a Valentian poet--they are now only known because they are mentioned in _Don Quixote_. Yet of the last three works Cervantes makes the curate declare: “These are the best heroic poems we have in Spanish, and may vie with the most celebrated in Italy. Reserve them as the most valuable performances which Spain has to boast of in poetry.”