DON QUIXOTE

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the comedies and interludes he had written within the last few years,
and, as he adds plaintively, found no demand for among the managers, and
published them with a preface, worth the book it introduces tenfold, in
which he gives an account of the early Spanish stage, and of his own
attempts as a dramatist. It is needless to say they were put forward by
Cervantes in all good faith and full confidence in their merits. The
reader, however, was not to suppose they were his last word or final
effort in the drama, for he had in hand a comedy called "Engano a los
ojos," about which, if he mistook not, there would be no question.

Of this dramatic masterpiece the world has no opportunity of judging; his
health had been failing for some time, and he died, apparently of dropsy,
on the 23rd of April, 1616, the day on which England lost Shakespeare,
nominally at least, for the English calendar had not yet been reformed.
He died as he had lived, accepting his lot bravely and cheerfully.

Was it an unhappy life, that of Cervantes? His biographers all tell us