Note 70 — CABINET OF BIOGRAPHY. (continued 5)

Coleridge's summary of the character and life of Cervantes, though not correct in letter, is admirable in spirit: "A Castilian of refined manners; a gentleman true to religion, and true to honour. A scholar and a soldier; he fought under the banners of don John of Austria, at Lopanto, and lost his arm, and was captured. Endured slavery, not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and, by the superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his barbarian owner. Finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny—the awful task of achieving fame; and for that reason died poor, and a prisoner, while nobles and kings, over their goblets of gold, gave relish to their pleasures by the charms of his divine genius. He was the inventor of novels for the Spaniards; and in his "Persiles and Sigismunda" the English may find the germ of their "Robinson Crusoe."

"The world was a drama to him. His own thoughts, in spite of poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth. He painted only what he knew, and had looked into; but he knew, and had looked into much indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the world of his experience. Of delicious love he fabled, yet with stainless virtue."