OF SALES'S EDITION OF DON QUIXOTE. E·L INGENIOSO HIDALGO DON QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHA, COMPUESTO POR MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA. Nueva Edicion Clásica, ILUSTRADA CON NOTAS HISTÓRICAS, GRAMATICALES Y CRÍTICAS, POR LA ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA, SUS INDIVIDUOS DE NÚMERO ENMENDADA Y CORREGIDA POR FRANCISCO SALES, A. M. Instructor de Frances y Español en la Universidad de Harvard, en Cambrigia, From the North American Review, October, 1836. Mr. Sales is entitled to the thanks of the lovers of Spanish literature, for this accurate and beautiful edition of the immortal Don Quixote. It is well printed, in two neat volumes, adorned with a fine engraving of the portrait of Cervantes, and a series of ten excellent illustrations. The notes at the end of each volume are brief and pertinent. They are just what a common reader needs to clear up difficult idioms and obscure allusions, both of which abound in Don Quixote. Mr. Sales has displayed much judgment and good taste, both in selection and expression. His long experience as an instructor, his well-known habits of laborious accuracy, and his extensive knowledge of Spanish literature, of themselves inspire a confidence in the value and excellence of this first American edition, which a careful scrutiny will be found to justify. From the North American Review, July, 1837. The publication, in this country, of an important Spanish classic in the original, with a valuable commentary, is an event of some moment in our literary annals, and indicates a familiarity, rapidly increasing, with the beautiful literature to which it belongs. It may be received as an omen favorable to the cause of modern literature in general, the study of which, in all its varieties, may be urged on substantially the same grounds. The growing importance attached to this branch of education, is visible in other countries, quite as much as our own. It is the natural, or rather necessary result of the changes, which have taken place in the social relations of man, in this revolutionary age. Formerly, a nation, pent up within its own barriers, knew less of its neighbors than we now know of what is going on in Siam or Japan. A river, a chain of mountains, an imaginary line, even, parted them as far asunder as if oceans had rolled between. To speak correctly, it was their imperfect civilization, their ignorance of the means and the subjects of communication, which thus kept them asunder. Now, on the contrary, a change in the domestic institutions of one country can hardly be effected, without a corresponding agitation in those of its neighbors. A treaty of alliance can scarcely be adjusted, without the intervention of a general congress. The sword cannot be unsheathed in one part of Christendom, without thousands leaping from their scabbards in every other. The whole system is bound together by as nice sympathies, as if animated by a common pulse; and the remotest countries of Europe are brought into contiguity as intimate as were, in ancient tines, the provinces of a single monarchy. A few works recently published in the United States have shed much light on the interior organization and intellectual culture of the Spanish nation. Such, for example, are the writings of Irving, whose gorgeous coloring reflects so clearly the chivalrous splendors of the fifteenth century; and the travels of Lieut. Slidell, presenting sketches equally animated of the social aspect of that most picturesque of all lands, in the present century. In Mr. Cushing's "Reminiscences of Spain," we find, mingled with much characteristic fiction, some very laborious inquiries into curious and recondite points of history. In the purely literary department, Mr. Ticknor's beautiful lectures before the classes of Harvard University, still in manuscript, embrace a far more extensive range of criticism, than is to be found in any Spanish work; and display, at the same time, a degree of thoroughness and research, which the comparative paucity of materials will compel us to look for in vain in Bouterwek, or his eloquent plagiarist, Sismondi. Mr. Ticknor's successor, Professor Longfellow, favorably known by other compositions, has enriched our language with a noble version of the "Coplas de Manrique," the finest gem, beyond all comparison, in the Castilian verse of the fifteenth century. We have also read with pleasure a clever translation of Quevedo's "Visions," no very easy achievement, by Mr. Elliot, of Philadelphia; though the translator is wrong in supposing his the first English version. The first is as old as Queen Anne's time, and was made by the famous Sir Roger L'Estrange. To close the account, Mr. Sales, the venerable instructor in Harvard College, has now given, for the first time in the New World, an elaborate edition of the prince of Castilian classics, in a form which may claim, to a certain extent, the merit of originality. We now come to Mr. Sales's recent edition of the original; the first, probably, which has appeared in the New World, of the one half of which the Spanish is the spoken language. There was great need of some uniform edition, to meet the wants of our University, where much inconvenience has been long experienced from the discrepancies of the copies used. The only ones to be procured in this country are contemptible both in regard to printing and paper, and are defaced by the grossest errors. They are the careless manufacture of ill-informed Spanish and French booksellers, made to sell, and dear to boot. Mr. Sales has adopted a right plan for remedying these several evils. He has carefully formed his text on that of the last and most correct edition of the Academy; and, as he has stereotyped the work, any verbal errors may be easily rectified. The Academy has substituted the modern orthography for that of Cervantes, who, independently of the change which has gradually taken place in the language, seems to have had no uniform system himself. Mr. Sales has conformed to the rules prescribed by this high authority, for regulating his orthography, accent, and punctuation. In one respect, the present editor has made some alterations not before attempted, we believe, in the text of his original. We have already noticed the inaccuracies of the early copies of the Don Quixote, partly imputable to Cervantes himself, and in a greater degree, doubtless, to his printers. There is no way of rectifying such errors by collation with the author's manuscript, which has long since disappeared. All that can now be done, therefore, is to point out the purer reading, in a note, as Clemencin, Arrieta, and other commentators have done, or, as Mr. Sales has preferred, to introduce it into the body of the text. Besides these emendations, Mr. Sales has illustrated the work by prefixing to it the admirable preliminary discourse of Clemencin, and by a considerable body of notes, selected and abridged from the most approved commentators; and as the object has been to explain the text to the reader, not to involve him in antiquarian or critical dis quisitions, when his authorities have failed to do this, the editor has supplied notes of his own, throwing much light on matters least familiar to a foreigner. We may notice another peculiarity in the present edition-that of breaking up the text into reasonable paragraphs, in imitation of the English and French translations; a great relief to the spirits of the reader, which are seriously damped, in the ancient copies, by the interminable waste of page upon page, without these convenient halting-places. We congratulate the public on the possession of an edition of the pride of Castilian literature, from our own press, in so neat a form, and executed with so much correctness and judgment; and we trust that the ambition of its respectable editor will be gratified, by its becoming, as it well deserves to be, the manual of the student, in every seminary throughout the country, where the noble Castilian language is taught. From the Boston Courier, July 4, 1837. [The above is] a handsome and just tribute to Mr. Sales, for his excellent edition of Don Quixote. From the Cambridge (Mass.) Harvardiana, August, 1836. We congratulate the lovers of the Spanish language and literature on the appearance of a new and correct edition of the noble work of Cervantes, published now in the original, for the first time in the United States, and, we believe we may say, in the New World. We rejoice, not only because the adventures of the renowned knight of La Mancha can be read in an accurate and beautiful form, but at the proof thus afforded of the increasing attention that is given to the cultivation of the Spanish language amongst us. An edition like the present has been much wanted; the Spanish copies hitherto generally used here have been incorrect and imperfect, abounding in errors, printed on bad type, and on worse paper, forming a contrast with the present edition as great as can be imagined. Some idea of the care that has been taken in its execution, and the emendations that have been made, may be formed from the following extracts from the editor's preface: "We have taken as our standard the edition of the Royal Spanish Academy of 1819, and have introduced into the text the corrections and improvements which are contained in its valuable notes, but have omitted the various readings, as not required for general readers. We have also consulted the edition of Pellicer, printed at Madrid in 1797; that of Arrieta, which appeared at Paris in 1826; and the first part of the Knight of La Mancha, with the commentary of Clemencin, published at Madrid in 1833, in three volumes 8vo.; and have freely availed ourselves of all the notes and observations, whether grammatical or critical and historical. "This edition contains a likeness of the incomparable author of Don Quixote, copied from one_contained in the Paris edition above mentioned, by Mr. D. C. Johnston, a distinguished engraver of this metropolis; also ten plates, illustrating different adventures, seven of them copied from the illustrations by Cruikshank, contained in an edition of Smollett's translation, published in London, in 1833, and the three others designed and engraved by the above-named ingenious American artist; likewise a map of a part of the kingdom of Spain, comprising the districts traversed by Don Quixote, and the seats of his adventures, taken from the one contained in the above-mentioned edition of Arrieta, but executed with much more elegance and correctness, by Mr. G. W. Boynton, a skilful engraver of this city." The present edition is likewise enriched by the preface of Clemencin, the last distinguished and lamented commentator. The frontispiece corresponds well with the following description of Cervantes contained in his preface to his Novelas : — "This man, whom you see with an eagle face, chestnut hair, open and easy countenance, bright eyes, a hooked but well-proportioned nose, beard silvery, which, less than twenty years since, was golden, large whiskers, small mouth with few teeth scattered at random, of middling stature, complexion clear, rather light than dark, somewhat heavy in the shoulders, and not very light of foot, this man is commonly called Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra." We cannot close these cursory remarks, without calling again the attention of the admirers of the Spanish language to the present rich and beautiful edition of Don Quixote. Its editor, Mr. Sales, has for many years been distinguished for the zeal and ability with which, by his various publications, he has awakened and cherished a love for the Spanish literature in the New World. The American public have long owed him a debt of gratitude; and the present work, the execution of which is highly creditable to his judgment and acumen as a philologist,* and to his taste as a man of letters, greatly increases the obligation. Extract from a Letter of Hon. A. H. Everett to the Editor, July 28, 1836. CAMBRIDGE, Oct. 1, 1836. I have delayed thanking you for your very acceptable present of Don Quijote de la Mancha, till I could look it over and read it in part, which I have done. It is a most creditable enterprise, both for the magnitude of the undertaking and the manner of its execution. The notes are selected with great judgment, and on the true principle of explaining what needs explanation, and nothing more. To have been the editor and publisher of the first edition of this great Spanish classic in the New World, is an honor of which any one might justly be proud, and will forever be recorded as a prominent event in the literary history of America. I hope the success of the work will be equal to its merits, and the liberal efforts of its editor. From the Boston Morning Post, July 20, 1836. We have seen with pleasure the beautiful edition of Don Quixote, just published in its original tongue in this city, and for sale at the bookstores. We have found that, besides a very great abundance of notes from the most celebrated commentators of this classical and popular work, collected, no doubt, with much care and labor, and indispensable to the clear understanding of the text, which the teachers and students of the Spanish language will duly appreciate, the editor * The notes are in Spanish, so as to adapt it better, as we understand, for the Spanish market. As every one, however, who wishes to enjoy Don Quixote in the original, would first make himself somewhat familiar with the language, by reading a few modern productions, we are persuaded that the perusal of the notes, which are easy and plain, will be advantageous. |