agencies and
scrivener's work of some sort; probably drafting petitions and drawing up
statements of claims to be presented to the Council, and the like. So, at
least, we gather from the depositions taken on the occasion of the death
of a gentleman, the victim of a street brawl, who had been carried into
the house in which he lived. In these he himself is described as a man
who wrote and transacted business, and it appears that his household then
consisted of his wife, the natural daughter Isabel de Saavedra already
mentioned, his sister Andrea, now a widow, her daughter Constanza, a
mysterious Magdalena de Sotomayor calling herself his sister, for whom
his biographers cannot account, and a servant-maid.

Meanwhile "Don Quixote" had been growing in favour, and its author's name
was now known beyond the Pyrenees. In 1607 an edition was printed at
Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet the
demand by a third edition, the seventh in all, in 1608. The popularity of
the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller was led to bring out
an edition in 1610; and another was called for in Brussels in 1611. It
might naturally have been expected that, with such proofs before him that
he had hit the taste of the public, Cervantes would have at once set
about redeeming his rather vague promise of a second volume.

But, to all appearance, nothing was farther from his thoughts. He had
still by him one or two short tales of the same vintage as those he had
inserted in "Don Quixote" and instead of continuing the adventures of Don
Quixote, he set to work to write more of these "Novelas Exemplares" as he
afterwards called them, with a view to making a book of them.

The novels were published in the summer of 1613, with a dedication to the
Conde de Lemos, the Maecenas of the day, and with one of those chatty
confidential prefaces Cervantes was so fond of. In this, eight years and
a half after the First Part of "Don Quixote" had appeared, we get the
first hint of a forthcoming Second Part. "You shall see shortly," he
says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza."
His idea of "shortly" was a somewhat elastic one, for, as we know by the
date to Sancho's letter, he had barely one-half of the book completed
that time twelvemonth.

But more than poems, or pastorals, or novels, it was his dramatic
ambition that engrossed his thoughts. The same indomitable spirit that
kept him from despair