rawn. The traits of the boor, the glutton, and the coward
come most naturally to the surface upon occasion, yet Sancho remains a
patient, good-natured peasant, a devoted servant, and a humble
Christian. Under the cover of such lifelike incongruities, and of a
pervasive humor, the author has given us a satirical picture of human
nature not inferior, perhaps, to that furnished by Don Quixote
himself. For instance: Don Quixote, after mending his helmet, tries
its strength with a blow that smashes it to pieces. He mends it a
second time, but now, without trial, deputes it to be henceforth a
strong and perfect helmet. Sancho, when he is sent to bear a letter
to Dulcinea, neglects to deliver it, and invents an account of his
interview with the imaginary lady for the satisfaction of his master.
But before long, by dint of repeating the story, he comes himself to
believe his own lies. Thus self-deception in the knight is the
ridiculous effect of courage, and in the esquire the not less
ridiculous effect of sloth.

The adventures these two heroes encounter are naturally only such as
travelers along the Spanish roads would then have been likely to come
upon. The point of the story depends on the familiarity and commonness
of the situations in which Don Quixote finds himself, so that the
absurdity of his pretensions may be overwhelmingly shown. Critics are
agreed in blaming the exceptions which Cervantes allowed himself to
make to the realism of his scenes, where he introduced romantic tales
into the narrative of the first part. The tales are in themselves
unworthy of their setting, and contrary to the spirit of the whole
book. Cervantes doubtless yielded here partly to his story-telling
habits, partly to a fear of monotony in the uninterrupted description
of Don Quixote's adventures. He avoided this mistake in the second
part, and devised the visit to the Duke's palace, and the intentional
sport there made of the hero, to give variety to the story.

More variety and more unity may still, perhaps, seem desirable in the
book. The episodes are strung together without much coherence, and
without any attempt to develop either the plot or the characters.
Sancho, to be sure, at last tastes the governorship of his Insula, and
Don Quixote on his death-bed recovers his wits. But this conclusion,
appropriate and touching as it is, might have come almost anywhere in
the course of the story. The whole book has, in fact, rather the
quality o