Excerpt from The History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote: In Four Volumes Iguel De Cervantes Saavedra was at once the glory and reproach of Spain; for, if his admirable genius and heroick fpirit conduced to the ho nour of his country, the diltrefs and Obfcmity which attended his old age, as effectually redounded to her difgrace. Had he lived amidl't Gothick darknefs and barbarity, where no records were ufed, and letters altogether unknown, 'we might have expected to derive from tradition a number of particulars relating to the family and fortune of a man fo remarkably admired even in his own time. But one would imagine pains had been taken to throw a veil of Oblivion over the perfonal concerns of this excellent author. No enquiry hath as yet been able to afcertain the place of his nativity; and, although in his works he has declared himfelfa. Gentleman by birth, no houfe has hitherto laid claim to fuch an illuttrious de fcendant. One author fays he was born at Efquivias; but offers no argument in fupport of his altertion: and probably the conjecture was founded upon the encoqms which Cervantes himfelf bellows on that place, to which he gives the epithet of renowned, in his preface to Fertiles and Sigifmunda. Others afl'irm he firfi drew breath in Lucena, grounding their opinion upon a vague tradition which there prevails; and a third fet take it for granted that he was a native of Seville, be. Raufe there are families in that city known by the names of Cervantes and Save draf; and our author mentions his having, in his early youth, feen plays acted by Lope Rueda, who was a Sevilian. There, indeed, are prefumptions that de ferve (ome' regard, though far from implying certain information, they fcarce even amount to probable conjecture; nay, thefe very circumfiances feem to difprove the fuppofition; for, bad he been actually defcended from thofe families, they would in all likelihood have preferved fome memorials of his birth, which Don Nicholas Antonio would have recorded, in {peaking of his fellow-citizen. All thefe pre tenfions are now generally fet slide in favour of Madrid, which claims the honour of having roduced Cervantes, and builds her title on an expreflion in his Voyage to Eamafl'us I, which, in my Opinion, is altogether equivocal and incone clufive. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.