The history of poets must be sought for in their works, for there are to be found their most confidential confessions. In all his writings, in his dramas even more than in _Don Quixote_, we see, as I have before mentioned, that Cervantes had long been a soldier. In fact, the Roman proverb, "Living means fighting," finds a double application in his case. He took part as a common soldier in most of those fierce games of war which King Philip II. carried on in all countries for the honour of God and his own pleasure. The circumstance that Cervantes devoted his whole youth to the service of the greatest champion of Catholicism, and that he fought to advance Catholic interests, warrants the assumption that he had those interests at heart, and hence refutes the widely-spread opinion that only the fear of the Inquisition withheld him from discussing in _Don Quixote_ the great Protestant questions of the time. No, Cervantes was a faithful son of the Roman church, and he not only bled physically in knightly combats for her blessed banner, but his whole soul suffered a most painful martyrdom during his many years of captivity among the Unbelievers. We are indebted to accident for most of the details of Cervantes's doings while in Algiers, and here we recognise in the great poet an equally great hero. The history of his captivity gives a most emphatic contradiction to the melodious lie of that polished man of the world, who made Augustus and the German pedants believe that he was a poet, and that poets are cowards. No, the true poet is also a true hero, and in his breast dwells that God-like patience, which, as the Spaniards say, is a second fount of courage. There is no more elevating spectacle than that of the noble Castilian who serves the Dey of Algiers as a slave, constantly meditating an escape, with unflagging energy preparing his bold plans, composedly facing all dangers, and when the enterprise miscarries, is ready to submit to torture and death rather than betray his accomplices. The blood-thirsty master of his body becomes disarmed by such grand magnanimity and virtue. The tiger spares the fettered lion, and trembles before the terrible "One-Arm," whom with but a single word he could dispatch to his death. Cervantes is known in all Algiers as "One-Arm," and the Dey confesses that only when he knows that the one-armed Spaniard is in safe-keeping can he sleep soundly at night, assured of the safety of his city, his army, and his slaves.