itself in length. They who are shod thus miserably remain with just the same quantity of foot.

"Of all animals, man is the one to which, in proportion to its size, nature has given the largest feet; because as his whole body is to be supported upon them, and he has only two, she chose that he should walk in safety. He who wishes to abbreviate them acts as if he were inclined to fall, and to fall into vices which will do him more injury than if he fell upon stones. The feet are the part which in the fabric of the human body are placed nearest to the earth; they are meant therefore to be the humblest part of his frame, but gallants take away all humility by adorning and setting them forth in bravery. This so displeases the Creator, that having to make man an animal who should walk upon the earth, he made the earth of such properties, that the footsteps should sink into it. The foot which is lifted from the ground leaves its own grave open, and seems as if it rose from the grave. What a tremendous thing is it then to set off with adornments that which the earth wishes to devour at every step!"

Whiling with books the tedious hours away.

Proem, p. 12.

Vede quanto importa a liçaõ de bons livros ! Se o livro fora de cavallerias, sahiria Ignacio hum grande cavalleyro; foy hum livro de vidas de Santos, sahio hum grande Santo. Se lera cavallerias, sahiria Ignacio hum Cavelleyro da ardente espada; leo vidas de Santos, sahio hum Santo da ardente tocha. -Vieyra, Sermam de S. Ignacio, t. i. 368.

See, says Vieyra, the importance of reading good books. If it had been a book of knight-errantry, Ignacio would have become a great knight-errant; it was the Lives of the Saints, and Ignatius became a great saint. If he had read about knights, he might have proved a Knight of the Burning Sword: he read about saints, and proved a Saint of the Burning Torch.

Nothing could seem more probable than that Cervantes had this part of Loyola's history in his mind when he described the rise of Don Quixote's madness, if Cervantes had not shown

himself in one of his dramas to be thoroughly imbued with the pestilent superstition of his country. El dichoso Rufian is one of those monstrous compositions which nothing but the antichristian fables of the Romish church could have produced.

Landor, however, supposes that Cervantes intended to satirize a favourite dogma of the Spaniards. The passage occurs in his thirteenth conversation.

"The most dexterous attack ever made against the worship among catholics, which opens so many sidechapels to pilfering and imposture, is that of Cervantes.

"Leopold. I do not remember in what part.

"President. Throughout Don Quixote. Dulcinea was the peerless, the immaculate, and death was denounced against all who hesitated to admit the assertion of her perfections. Surely your highness never could have imagined that Cervantes was such a knight-errant as to attack knight-errantry, a folly that had ceased more than a century, if indeed it was any folly at all; and the idea that he ridiculed the poems and romances founded on it is not less improbable, for they contained all the literature of the nation, excepting the garniture of chapterhouses, theology, and pervaded, as with a thread of gold, the beautiful histories of this illustrious people. He delighted the idlers of romance by the jokes he scattered amongst them on the false taste of his predecessors and of his rivals; and he delighted his own heart by this solitary archery; well knowing what amusement those who came another day would find in picking up his arrows and discovering the bull's-eye hits.

"Charles V. was the knight of La Mancha, devoting his labours and vigils, his wars and treaties, to the chimerical idea of making all minds, like watches, turn their indexes by a simultaneous movement to one point. Sancho Panza was the symbol of the people, possessing sound sense in all other matters, but ready to follow the most extravagant visionary in this, and combining implicit belief in it with the grossest sensuality. For religion, when it is hot enough to produce enthusiasm, burns up and kills every seed intrusted to its bosom." Imaginary Conversations, vol. i. 187.

Benedetto di Virgilio, the Italian ploughman, thus describes the course of Loyola's reading, in his heroic poem upon that Saint's life.

Mentre le vote indebolite vene

poco

Stass' egli rinforzando à poco à
Dentro i paterni tetti, e si trattiene
Or sù la ricca zambra, or presso al foco,
For' del costume suo, pensier gli viene
Di legger libri più che d'altro gioco;
Quant' era dianzi innamorato, e d'armi
Tant' or, mutando stile, inchina à i carmi.

Quinci comanda, che i volumi ornati
D'alti concetti, e di leggiadra rima,
Dentro la stanza sua vengan portati,
Che passar con lor versi il tempo stima:
Cercan ben tosto i paggi in tutti i lati
Ove posar solean tai libri prima,
Ma nè per questa parte, nè per quella
Ponno istoria trovar vecchia, o novella.

I volumi vergati in dolci canti
S'ascondon si, che nulla il cercar giova:
Ma pur cercando i più secreti canti
Per gran fortuna un tomo ecco si trova,
Tomo divin, che le vite de' Santi
Conserva, e de la etade prisca e nova,
Onde per far la brama sua contenta
Tal opra un fido servo à lui presenta.

Il volume, che spiega in ogni parte
De guerrieri del ciel l'opre famose,
Fa ch' Ignatio s'accenda à seguir l'arte
Che à soffrir tanto i sacri Eroi dispose,
Egli già sprezza di Bellona e Marte
Gli studi, che à seguir primu si pose,
Es' accinge à troncar maggior d'Alcide,
L'Hidra del vicio, e le sue teste infide.

Tutto giocondo à contemplar s'appiglia
Si degni fogli, e da principio al fine;
Qui ritrova di Dio l'ampia famiglia,
Spirti beati ed alme peregrine :
Tra gli altri osserva con sua meraviglia

Il pio Gusman, che colse da le spine
Rose celesti de la terra santa,

Onde del buon Gieso nacque la pianta.

Contempla dopo il Serafico Magno
Fondator de le bigge immense squadre;
La divina virtu, l'alto guadagno
De l'opre lor mirabili e leggiadre:
Rimira il Padoan di lui compagno,
Che liberò da indegna morte il padre,
E per provar di quella causa il torto,
Vivo fè da la tomba uscire il morto.

Quinci ritrova il Celestin, che spande
Trionfante bandiera alla campagna,
De l'egregie virtù sue memorande

Con Italia s'ingemma e Francia e Spagna:
Ornati i figli suoi d'opre ammirande
Son per l'Africa sparti, e per Lamagna,
E in parti infide al Ciel per lor si vede
Nascer la Chiesa, e pullular la fede.

Quivi s'avisa, come il buon Norcino
Inclito Capitan del Rè superno,
Un giorno guereggiando sù 'l Casino
Gl' Idoli fracassò, vinse l'Inferno,
E con aita del motor divino

Guastò tempio sacrato al cieco Averno,
Por di novo l'eresse à l'alta prole
Divino essempio de l'eterno Sole.

Legge come Brunone al divin Regge
Accolse al Rè del Ciel cigni felici,
E dando ordine lor, regola e legge
Gl' imparò calpestare aspre pendici ;
E quelle de le donne anco vi legge,
Che qui di ricche diventar mendici
Per trovar poi sù le sedi superne
Lor doti incorruttibili ed eterne.

Chiara tra l'altre nota e Caterina,
Che per esser di Dio fedele amante,
Fù intrepida à i tormenti: e la Regina
Di Siena, e seco le compagne tante:
Orsola con la schiera peregrina,
Monache sacre, verginelle sante,

Che sprezzanda del mondo il vano rito,
Elessero Giesù lor gran marito.

E tra i Romiti mira Ilarione,

E di Vienna quel si franco e forte
Che debellò la furie, e 'l gran Campione
Ch' appo
il Natal di Christo hebbe la morte;
Risguarda quel del primo Confalone,
Che del Ciel guarda le superne porte ;
E gli undeci compagni, e come luce
Il divo Agnello di lor capo e Duce.

Mentre in questo penetra e meglio intende
D'Eroi si gloriosi il nobil vanto,
Aura immortal del Ciel sovra lui scende,
Aura immortal di spirto divo e santo:
Gia gli sgombra gli errori e già gli accende
In guisa il cor, che distilla in pianto;
Lagrime versa, e le lagrime sparte
Bagnan del libro le vergate carte.