Note 49 — BOOK I. FROM THE END OF THE THIRTEENTH TO THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

The merit of the Amadis was not overlooked by Cervantes. In the judgment passed on Don Quixote’s library, the Curate wishes to condemn this work first of all to the flames, because, being the parent of all the books of knight-errantry in Spain, it was therefore the great cause of Don Quixote’s malady; but the Barber, or rather Cervantes, speaking in that character, says, “No, friend; for I have heard it remarked that the Amadis is the best book of the kind ever written; it ought therefore to be spared as a peculiar specimen of art.” Whoever may be desirous of making the Amadis re-appear in a state capable of being relished in the present times, must, above all things, take care to preserve the ingenuous simplicity of the stile, or the work will be wholly disfigured.