He Had Fixed His Departure For
Sunday, The 17th Of April, But Waited Six Days For Shakespeare, And The
Two Greatest Souls Of That Age Went Into The Unknown Together, On The
23d Of April, 1616.
The burial of Cervantes was as humble as his christening.
His bier was
borne on the shoulders of four brethren of his order. The upper half of
the coffin-lid was open and displayed the sharpened features to the few
who cared to see them: his right hand grasped a crucifix with the grip
of a soldier. Behind the grating was a sobbing nun whose name in the
world was Isabel de Saavedra. But there was no scenic effort or display,
such as a few years later in that same spot witnessed the laying away of
the mortal part of Vega-Carpio. This is the last of Cervantes upon
earth. He had fought a good fight. A long life had been devoted to his
country's service. In his youth he had poured out his blood, and dragged
the chains of captivity. In his age he had accomplished a work which
folds in with Spanish fame the orb of the world. But he was laid in his
grave like a pauper, and the spot where he lay was quickly forgotten. At
that very hour a vast multitude was assisting at what the polished
academician calls a "more solemn ceremony," the bearing of the Virgin of
the Atocha to the Convent of San Domingo el Real, to see if peradventure
pleased by the airing, she would send rain to the parching fields.
The world speedily did justice to his name. Even before his death it had
begun. The gentlemen of the French embassy who came to Madrid in 1615 to
arrange the royal marriages asked the chaplain of the Archbishop of
Toledo in his first visit many questions of Miguel Cervantes. The
chaplain happened to be a friend of the poet, and so replied, "I know
him. He is old, a soldier, a gentleman, and poor." At which they
wondered greatly. But after a while, when the whole civilized world had
trans-lated and knew the Quixote by heart, the Spaniards began to be
proud of the genius they had neglected and despised. They quote with a
certain fatuity the eulogy of Montesquieu, who says it is the only book
they have; "a proposition" which Navarrete considers "inexact," and we
agree with Navarrete. He has written a good book himself. The Spaniards
have very frankly accepted the judgment of the world, and although they
do not read Cervantes much, they admire him greatly, and talk about him
more than is amusing. The Spanish Academy has set up a pretty mural
tablet on the facade of the convent which shelters the tired bones of
the unlucky immortal, enjoying now their first and only repose. In the
Plaza of the Cortes a fine bronze statue stands facing the Prado,
catching on his chiselled curls and forehead the first rays of morning
that leap over the hill of the Retiro. It is a well-poised, energetic,
chivalrous figure, and Mr. Ger-mond de Lavigne has criticised it as
having more of the sabreur than the savant. The objection does not seem
well founded. It is not pleasant for the world to be continually
reminded of its meannesses. We do not want to see Cervantes's days of
poverty and struggle eternized in statues. We know that he always looked
back with fondness on his campaigning days, and even in his decrepit age
he called himself a soldier. If there were any period in that troubled
history that could be called happy, surely it was the time when he had
youth and valor and hope as the companions of his toil. It would have
been a precious consolation to his cheerless age to dream that he could
stand in bronze, as we hope he may stand for centuries, in the
unchanging bloom of manhood, with the cloak and sword of a gentleman and
soldier, bathing his Olympian brow forever in the light of all the
mornings, and gazing, at evening, at the rosy reflex flushing the
east, - the memory of the day and the promise of the dawn.
End of Castilian Days, by John Hay
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