Note 377 — Chapter XI

Don Quixote, Parte I. c. 6. Cervantes, however, is mistaken in his bibliography, when he says that the Amadis was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain. It has often been noted that this distinction belongs to “Tirant lo Blanch,” 1490; though Southey (Omniana, London, 1812, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 219) thinks “there is a total want of the spirit of chivalry” in it; and it should further be noted now, as curious facts, that “Tirant lo Blanch,” though it appeared in Valencian in 1490, in Castilian in 1511, and in Italian in 1538, was yet, like the Amadis, originally written in Portuguese, to please a Portuguese prince, and that this Portuguese original is now lost;—all remarkable coincidences. See note on Chap. XVII. of this Period. On the point of the general merits of the Amadis, two opinions are worth citing. The first, on its style, is by the severe anonymous author of the “Diálogo de las Lenguas,” temp. Charles V., who, after discussing the general character of the book, adds, “It should be read by those who wish to learn our language.” (Mayans y Siscar, Orígenes, Madrid, 1737, 12mo, Tom. II. p. 163.) The other, on its invention and story, is by Torquato Tasso, who says of the Amadis, “In the opinion of many, and particularly in my own opinion, it is the most beautiful, and perhaps the most profitable, story of its kind that can be read, because, in its sentiment and tone, it leaves all others behind it, and, in the variety of its incidents, yields to none written before or since.” Apologia della Gerusalemme, Opere, Pisa, 1824, 8vo, Tom. X. p. 7.