THE DOROTHEA OF CERVANTES.*

Who does

WHO does not recognise the lovely Dorothea? not envy the barber and the curate the surprise of so glorious a vision illumining the tangled recesses of the Black Mountain ? The episode which introduces her story is perhaps the most poetical fragment of the great epic of Cervantes. We have elsewhere broader humour, and more surprising and various adventure; yet is the legend of Fernando and Dorothea full of beauty and full of significance;-wholly redeeming, if rightly understood, the memory of Cervantes from the reproaches of which he has been so frequently the object.

Our limits will not allow us, even if we could suppose it necessary, to enter into any detail of the fair fugitive's story. There are few of our readers who know not how the wealthy farmer's only daughter - descended from a true line of ancient

* The print on the opposite page will, no doubt, be recognised as a faithful transcript of one of the leading attractions of the spring exhibition of the British Institution of last year. The picture is from the pencil of Mr. J. G. Middleton, hitherto known to the public chiefly as a portrait painter. It was purchased, on the day of the private view of the gallery, by Mr. Fairlie; but, in consequence of circumstances wholly unconnected with either the artist or the picture, it has been thrown back upon his hands. We trust that this untoward accident will not discourage him from pursuing a walk of art in which he is so eminently qualified to shine. The KEY NOTE, introduced in another part of this volume, is also from the same hand.

Christians, uncontaminated by Moorish blood, and ranked by their neighbours with hidalgos-was loved wildly and to desperation by the son of the Andalusian grandee ; — how his serenades, and his epistles, and his untiring gallantries only fortified the resolution of the Christian maiden not to listen to any advances from one whose rank forbade her to suppose he had any honourable design; - how the treachery of her maid placed the cavalier at her feet, in the privacy of her chamber, in spite of double-bolted doors;-her consternation, her alarm, her balanced fears that left her hesitating and passive; the sighs, the tears, the eloquence of the high-born lover; the pity, the admiration, the kindling ambition, that overpowered the maiden's scruples, and induced her to accept his proffered vows, pledged with solemn imprecation before the holy cross and the Blessed Mother of God; — constitute but the usual tale of man's importunity and the too easy credence of woman. Then comes satiety and desertion on the part of the cavalier; on that of the maiden, heartwearing anxiety, deepened at length to despair on the announcement of her faithless husband's approaching nuptials to another. Now the treacherous attendant hears the reproaches which she has hitherto been spared; and, with another, though, alas! not more faithful guide, the lady hurries, scarce knowing her own hopes or intent, to confront her perjured betrayer. But the unholy nuptials had been violently interrupted. The faithless husband had vainly attempted to rob another of his bride, and had departed in jealous indignation. Meanwhile the farmer is not inactive. His only hope and dearest treasure has escaped he knows not whither; and what are all his wealth and respect to him, if he cannot recover her? The fugitive, accordingly, hears a reward proclaimed in the market-place for her discovery. Agitated equally by shame and terror, she seeks concealment, accompanied only by that

attendant whom she had drawn from her father's house, in the recesses of the Sable Mountain. There opportunity excites the brutal passions of the wretch, and he insults his unhappy lady with rude entreaties and attempted violence. A welltimed push precipitates the monster from a crag; and Dorothea, without venturing to ascertain his fate, again seeks safety in flight. A clown harbours the disguised beauty, and employs her in tending his cattle. But accident betrays her disguise, and she is exposed to fresh difficulties. Again she fled —she knew not whither, or with what hope: but Providence was kinder to her than her hopes. As she sits bathing her feet under the drooping ash, "making a sunshine in the shady place," a party are approaching, destined to relieve her from all her troubles, and to re-unite her in love and honour with her noble spouse.

Such is the outline of the story of Dorothea. The poet connects the episode with his main action, by employing her as the instrument to withdraw his hero from that dreary waste in which he is doing penance. The whole account of the penance in the Sable Mountain is a close imitation—as, indeed, are many other parts of the work-of Amadis de Gaul. Amadis, in penitence and seclusion, rues the rigour of the jealous Oriana, and the Maid of Denmark withdraws him from his unknightly inaction. Notwithstanding, however, the fidelity with which Cervantes parodies the Iliad of the Romances, nothing can be more certain than that the extravagancies and absurdities of these writings were his sole object of ridicule or censure. If any one part of his work could be more appropriately selected than another to vindicate him from the charge of designing to bring the loyal and religious spirit which animated the age and institutions of chivalry into contempt, it would be this very episode of Dorothea. How beautifully does the conscious self-respect

of the farmer's daughter blend with her instinctive reverence for the descent to which her forefathers have for generations owed fealty! How gracefully do the wayward passions and false shame of the self-willed but generous cavalier yield to the appeal to his honour as a gentleman and his faith as a Christian! The pride of birth, and the caprice of selfindulgence never inured to restraint, might have resisted the earnest pleading of the deserted, had she not touched that sacred chord. "Have some regard to your honour," pleads the prostrate beauty; "remember you are a Christian." Eloquent is the whole of her impassioned plea, and surpassed only by the expostulation of repulsed Eve in the language of our own Milton: but the true pride of the grandee, and the deep-seated faith of the Catholic, are the grounds of the triumphant appeal. This self-sacrificing honour, and this profound devotion, were the soul and essence of chivalry. Whatever there was of elevating and ennobling - whatever there was of touching and divine, in the spirit which urged the Christian knight in his career against the lawless and faithless oppressor, or melted him in penitence before the sepulchre of his Redeemer; all was summed up in the two words "Honour and Religion." To the spirit and enterprise of chivalry do we owe the transmission of civilisation and religion over that chaotic epoch when the invading elements of barbarism had not yet emerged into the order of a new creation. The cessation of that elemental strife, and the organisation of another social state, called for new manifestations of that living soul of all that is more than man in man. The lance and the quest were misplaced and absurd; but reverence and faith were no less essential than of old to the dignity and happiness of man. Not against these, then, did Cervantes ever arm his tongue with contemptuous words. The portraiture of Don Fernando is the evidence