The most trivial act of the daily life of some men has a unique
interest, independent of idle curiosity, which dissatisfies us with the
meagre food of date, place, and pedigree. So in the "Cartas de Indias"
was published, two years ago, in Spain, a facsimile letter from
Cervantes when tax-gatherer to Philip II., informing him of the efforts
he had made to collect the taxes in certain Andalusian villages.
It is difficult, from the slight social record that we have of
Cervantes, to draw the line where imagination begins and facts end.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the contemporary of Shakspeare, Galileo,
Camoens, Rubens, Tasso, and Lope de Vega, was born obscurely and in
poverty, but with good antecedents. His grandfather, Juan de Cervantes,
was the corregidor, or mayor, of Ossuna, and our poet was the youngest
son of Rodrigo and Leonora de Cortinos, of the Barajas family. On either
side he belonged to illustrious houses. He speaks of his birthplace as
the "famous Henares,"--"Alcala de Henares," sometimes called Alcala de
San Justo, from the saint San Justo having there suffered martyrdom
under the traitor Daciamos. The town is beautifully situated on the
borders of the Henares River, two thousand feet above the level of the
sea.
He was born on Sunday, October 9, 1547, and was baptized in the church
of Santa Maria la Mayor, receiving his name on the fete day of his
patron Saint Miguel, which some biographers have confounded with that of
his birthday.
We may be forgiven for a few words about Alcala de Henares, since, had
it only produced so rare a man as was Cervantes, it would have had
sufficient distinction; but it was a town of an eventful historical
record. It was destroyed about the year 1000, and rebuilt and possessed
by the Moors, was afterwards conquered by Bernardo, Archbishop of
Toledo. Three hundred years later it was the favorite retreat of
Ximenes, then Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, who returned to it, after
his splendid conquests, laden with gold and silver spoil taken from the
mosques of Oran, and with a far richer treasure of precious Arabian
manuscripts, intended for such a university as had long been his
ambition to create, and the corner-stone of which he laid with his own
hands in 1500. There was a very solemn ceremonial at the founding of
this famous university, and a hiding away of coins and inscriptions
under its massive walls, and a pious invocation to Heaven for a special
blessing on the archbishop's design! At the end of eight years the
extensive and splendid buildings were finished and the whole town
improved. With the quickening of literary labor and the increase of
opportunities of acquiring knowledge, the reputation of the university
was of the highest.
The cardinal's comprehensive mind included in its professorships all
that he considered useful in the arts. Emulation was encouraged, and
every effort was made to draw talent from obscurity. To this enlightened
ecclesiastic is the world indebted for the undertaking of the Polyglot
Bible, which, in connection with other learned works, led the university
to be spoken of as one of the greatest educational establishments in the
world. From far and near were people drawn to it. King Ferdinand paid
homage to his subject's noble testimonial of labor, by visiting the
cardinal at Alcala de Henares, and acknowledging that his own reign had
received both benefit and glory from it. The people of Alcala punningly
said, the church of Toledo had never had a bishop of greater
_edification_ than Ximenes; and Erasmus, in a letter to his friend
Vergara, perpetrates a Greek pun on the classic name of Alcala,
intimating the highest opinion of the state of science there. The
reclining statue of Ximenes, beautifully carved in alabaster, now
ornaments his sepulchre in the College of St. Ildefonso.
Cervantes shared the honor of the birthplace with the Emperor Ferdinand;
he of "blessed memory," who failed to obtain permission from the Pope
for priests to marry, but who, in spite of turbulent times, maintained
religious peace in Germany, and lived to see the closing of the Council
of Trent, marking his reign as one of the most enlightened of the age.
Alcala also claims Antonio de Solis, the well-known historian, whose
"Conquest of Mexico" has been translated into many languages, as well as
Teodora de Beza, a zealous Calvinistic reformer and famous divine, a
sharer of Calvin's labors in Switzerland and author of the celebrated
manuscripts known as Beza's manuscripts.
Judging from the character of the town and the refining educational
influence that so grand a university must have had over its inhabitants,
we have a right to believe that Cervantes was early imbued with all that
was noble and good, and it is difficult to understand why, with all the
advantages which the College of St. Ildefonso opened to him, he should
have been sent away from it to that of Salamanca. Even allowing that the
supposition of early poverty was correct, it would have appeared an
additional reason for his being educated in his native town,
particularly as liberal foundations were made for indigent students.
The fact of his being sent to Salamanca would seem to disprove the
supposition of pecuniary necessity. In its early days, the university of
Salamanca was justly celebrated for its progress in astronomy and
familiarity with Greek and Arabian writers; but, during the fifteenth
and sixteenth centuries, it seems to have remained very stationary,
little attention being paid to aught beside medicine and dogmatic
theology.
After being two years at Salamanca he changed to Madrid, where he is
supposed to have made great progress, under the care of Juan Lopez de
Hoyos, a professor of _belles lettres_, who spoke of Cervantes as "our
dear and beloved pupil." Hoyos was himself a poet, and occasionally
published collections to which Cervantes contributed his pastoral
"Filena," which was much admired at the time. He also wrote several
ballads; but ballads generally belong to their own age, and those that
remain to us of his have lost much of their poignancy. Two poems,
written on the death of Isabella of Valois, wife of Philip II.,
specially pleased Hoyos, who at the time gave full credit to his
promising pupil. That eighth wonder of the world, the Escurial, was in
progress during Cervantes' time in Madrid; built as expiatory by the
king, the husband of the same unfortunate Isabella. He was that subtle
tyrant of Spain, who had the grace to say, on the destruction of the
Invincible Armada, "I sent my fleet to combat with the English, not with
the elements. God's will be done."