The last sentence of this quotation is not clear. It has become the subject of many comments and discussions, but no wholly satisfactory explanation has resulted. Menéndez y Pelayo intimates that probably the sign of negation should be omitted from the clause “pues no hizo tantas necedades de industria.” If this were done the passage would make good sense. In the second volume, page 76, of his _Introducción a los Orígenes de la Novela_ he suggests another explanation. He quotes a passage from Juan Rufo which reads as follows: “mas a fe que en algo errárades, y yo fuera presidente, que os avia de _echar a galeras pues no_ podiades _hazello de ignorancia_.” He is of the opinion that Cervantes expressed or intended to express the same idea as that contained in the words just quoted, but that in some way “industria” was substituted for “ignorancia.” If Cervantes had used the latter word instead of the former, the sentence in question would be free from obscurity. However that may be, it is evident that the judgment of Cervantes concerning _Tirant lo Blanch_ was expressed in a humorous way. Almost the whole of it consists of words of praise. The only adverse criticism is to be found in the last sentence, whereby Cervantes voices his objections to the nonsense and obscene features of the work. According to Menéndez y Pelayo, the whole sentence would be clear if the clause, “pues no hizo tantas necedades de industria,” were not one of negation. It seems to me possible and practicable to remove the negative meaning from the clause without omitting or changing any words that are now found in the text. The clause may be made affirmative, emphatically affirmative, by resorting to the rhetorical device of converting it into a negative interrogation. The sentence may as a result appear complicated, but orally expressed it would not seem unnatural or forced. The passage, with this change in punctuation, would read: “Con todo eso, os digo que merecía el que lo compuso, pues, ¿no hizo tantas necedades de industria? que le echaran á galeras por todos los días de su vida.” _Tirant Lo Blanch_ was first published in Valencia, in 1490. Of this edition there are three copies extant: one in the British Museum, another in the Biblioteca Provincial in Valencia, and the third in the library of the Hispanic Society of New York.[3] Mr. Archer M. Huntington, founder of the above Society and a distinguished patron of Spanish letters, had two hundred facsimile copies made from the last one mentioned.[4] One of these was used in the investigations connected with this dissertation.