The Waverley Novels | Page 5

so frequently occur in those of persons to
whom nature hath conceded fancy weaker of wing, or less ambitious in
flight.
It is affecting to see the great Miguel Cervantes himself, even like the
sons of meaner men, defending himself against the critics of the day,
who assailed him upon such little discrepancies and inaccuracies as are
apt to cloud the progress even of a mind like his, when the evening is
closing around it. "It is quite a common thing," says Don Quixote, "for
men who have gained a very great reputation by their writings before
they were printed, quite to lose it afterwards, or, at least, the greater
part."--"The reason is plain," answers the Bachelor Carrasco; "their
faults are more easily discovered after the books are printed, as being
then more read, and more narrowly examined, especially if the author
has been much cried up before, for then the severity of the scrutiny is
sure to be the greater. Those who have raised themselves a name by
their own ingenuity, great poets and celebrated historians, are

commonly, if not always, envied by a set of men who delight in
censuring the writings of others, though they could never produce any
of their own."--"That is no wonder," quoth Don Quixote; "there are
many divines that would make but very dull preachers, and yet are
quick enough at finding faults and superfluities in other men's
sermons."--"All this is true," says Carrasco, "and therefore I could wish
such censurers would be more merciful and less scrupulous, and not
dwell ungenerously upon small spots that are in a manner but so many
atoms on the face of the clear sun they murmur at. If aliquando
dormitat Homerus, let them consider how many nights he kept himself
awake to bring his noble works to light as little darkened with defects
as might be. But, indeed, it may many times happen, that what is
censured for a fault, is rather an ornament, as moles often add to the
beauty of a face. When all is said, he that publishes a book, runs a great
risk, since nothing can be so unlikely as that he should have composed
one capable of securing the approbation of every reader."--"Sure," says
Don Quixote, "that which treats of me can have pleased but
few?"--"Quite the contrary," says Carrasco; "for as infinitus est
numerus stultorum, so an infinite number have admired your history.
Only some there are who have taxed the author with want of memory
or sincerity, because he forgot to give an account who it was that stole
Sancho's Dapple, for that particular is not mentioned there, only we
find, by the story, that it was stolen; and yet, by and by, we find him
riding the same ass again, without any previous light given us into the
matter. Then they say that the author forgot to tell the reader what
Sancho did with the hundred pieces of gold he found in the
portmanteau in the Sierra Morena, for there is not a word said of them
more; and many people have a great mind to know what he did with
them, and how he spent them; which is one of the most material points
in which the work is defective."
How amusingly Sancho is made to clear up the obscurities thus alluded
to by the Bachelor Carrasco--no reader can have forgotten; but there
remained enough of similar lacunas, inadvertencies, and mistakes, to
exercise the ingenuity of those Spanish critics, who were too wise in
their own conceit to profit by the good-natured and modest apology of
this immortal author.

There can be no doubt, that if Cervantes had deigned to use it, he might
have pleaded also the apology of indifferent health, under which he
certainly laboured while finishing the second part of "Don Quixote." It
must be too obvious that the intervals of such a malady as then affected
Cervantes, could not be the most favourable in the world for revising
lighter compositions, and correcting, at least, those grosser errors and
imperfections which each author should, if it were but for shame's sake,
remove from his work, before bringing it forth into the broad light of
day, where they will never fail to be distinctly seen, nor lack ingenious
persons, who will be too happy in discharging the office of pointing
them out.
It is more than time to explain with what purpose we have called thus
fully to memory the many venial errors of the inimitable Cervantes, and
those passages in which he has rather defied his adversaries than
pleaded his own justification; for I suppose it will be readily granted,
that the difference is too wide betwixt that great wit of Spain and
ourselves, to permit us to use a buckler which was rendered sufficiently
formidable