But otherwise, one might suppose that Cervantes, entirely abandoning the field of reality, and forgetting that, in other parts of the story, he intends us to be actually within that sober realm, by making mention of personages who were existing about his own time, had wandered away into the dreamy countries of romance, and that he is speaking of those imaginary kingdoms we read of in Amadis de Gaul--"El Reyno di Dinamarea o el di Sobradisa," kingdoms in romance, situated in the imaginary maps of the Chronicle of Amadis de Gaul. Of the _Dinamarea_ damsel, the chief confidante of the Lady Oriana, and of the kingdom of Sobradisa, which was bounded by that of Seroloys on one side, and by the sea on the other, we have frequent mention, especially in chapters 21 and 22.--_Note in Don Quixote, by Pellicer_, v. 1, pt. 1. _Note 5._ Page 256. In the middle ages, riding full gallop down a precipice occurs in Froissart, as a common but distinguished act of chivalry.--_Fosbroke's Encyclopædia of Antiquities._ BOOK III. _Note 6._ Page 281. In this poet Cervantes describes himself. His first literary compositions were dramas; he was poor; he had returned home from his career as a soldier with the loss of his left hand, and had been five years and a half in slavery at Algiers. _Note 7._ Page 338. Cervantes hated the Moors; which was, perhaps, not wonderful after his five years' slavery among them. But he is clearly a courtier, too; and the story seems introduced for the sake of this tirade against their nation; and the apostrophe to the king, Philip III., in whose reign was perpetrated that deed of violence, cruelty, and short-sighted folly, the consequences of which Spain will never recover, and which will ever remain a dark blot in the page of her history. It also serves as an opportunity for Cervantes to show his zeal for the Roman Catholic religion, which he never loses throughout the whole work. The expulsion of the Moors was determined upon in 1609. Persiles and Sigismunda is the last work Cervantes ever wrote. The dedication is dated 1616. _Note 8._ Page 377. The Academy of the Entronadas, properly Intronati, an Italian word which signifies _blockheads_. The Italian academies, of which almost every town, large and small, had one or more, (and in the sixteenth century especially Italy was remarkable for them,) were distinguished by quaint and humorous names, such as "Insensati," "Stordite," "Confusi," "Politice," "Umorose," "Oziosi," "Gelati." The Intronati, which Cervantes has called Entronadas, were at Sienna.