DON QUIXOTE

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Quixote" burned in the Plaza Mayor, for one such success as Lope de Vega
was enjoying on an average once a week.

And so he went on, dawdling over "Don Quixote," adding a chapter now and
again, and putting it aside to turn to "Persiles and Sigismunda"--which,
as we know, was to be the most entertaining book in the language, and the
rival of "Theagenes and Chariclea"--or finishing off one of his darling
comedies; and if Robles asked when "Don Quixote" would be ready, the
answer no doubt was: En breve-shortly, there was time enough for that. At
sixty-eight he was as full of life and hope and plans for the future as a
boy of eighteen.

Nemesis was coming, however. He had got as far as Chapter LIX, which at
his leisurely pace he could hardly have reached before October or
November 1614, when there was put into his hand a small octave lately
printed at Tarragona, and calling itself "Second Volume of the Ingenious
Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licentiate Alonso Fernandez de