"Supplement to a
Journey to Parnassus," and speaking of his dramas, says: "I should
declare them worthy the favor they have received were they not my own."
Unfortunately, his comedy of "La Confusa" is among the lost ones. He
alludes to it as a good one among the best.

We have known Cervantes as a student, a soldier, a captive, and an
author, and now we have to imagine our maimed and bronzed soldier-poet,
after his many fortunes of war, in the new character of a lover. In
thought we trace his noble features, his intelligent look and expressive
eye, combined with his dignified bearing and thoughtful manner, and in
so tracing we find it congenial to imagine him as being well dressed and
enveloped in the ample Spanish cloak thrown gracefully over his breast
and left shoulder, concealing the poor mutilated arm, and at the same
time making it all the more difficult to believe that the right one had
ever wielded a "Toledo blade" or sworn that very strongest vow of
loyalty, "A fe de Rodrigo."[1]

We find him much interested in the quaint old-fashioned town of
Esquivias, making many friends therein, and sometimes gossiping with the
host of the _fonda_, so famed for the generous wines of Esquivias that
it needed no "bush;" and while enjoying his cigarito and taking an
occasional morsel from the dish of _quisado_ before him, he is learning
from the same gossiping host many items of interest about the very
illustrious families of Esquivias,--for it was famed for its chivalrous
prowess and its "claims of long descent." He had commenced his
"Galatea," and in it he was painting living portraits, and with great
delicacy he was, as the shepherd Elicio, portraying his passion for
Catalina, the daughter of Fernando de Salazar y Voxmediano and Catalina
de Palacios, both of illustrious families. Her father was dead, and she
had been educated by her uncle, Francisco de Salazar, who left her a
legacy in his will.

The fair Catalina, like other Spanish senoritas, was under the espionage
of a strict duena, and his opportunities of seeing her were very
limited. Sometimes we fancy him awaiting the passing of the hour of the
siesta and knocking at the grating of the heavy door of the house of the
Salazars, and in reply to the porter's question of _Quien es_?
answering, in his melodious tones, _Gente de paz_ (literally, "a
friend"),--a precaution which still continues in Spain. Meanwhile, his
romance of "Galatea" and of his own life are both g