and the difference makes itself manifest at once.
Even in translation the style will be seen to be far easier, more
flowing, more natural, and more like that of a man sure of himself and of
his audience. Don Quixote and Sancho undergo a change also. In the First
Part, Don Quixote has no character or individuality whatever. He is
nothing more than a crazy representative of the sentiments of the
chivalry romances. In all that he says and does he is simply repeating
the lesson he has learned from his books; and therefore, it is absurd to
speak of him in the gushing strain of the sentimental critics when they
dilate upon his nobleness, disinterestedness, dauntless courage, and so
forth. It was the business of a knight-errant to right wrongs, redress
injuries, and succour the distressed, and this, as a matter of course, he
makes his business when he takes up the part; a knight-errant was bound
to be intrepid, and so he feels bound to cast fear aside. Of all Byron's
melodious nonsense about Don Quixote, the most nonsensical statement is
that "'t is his virtue makes him mad!" The exact opposite is the truth;
it is his madness makes him virtuous.

In the Second Part, Cervantes repeatedly reminds the reader, as if it was
a point upon which he was anxious there should be no mistake, that his
hero's madness is strictly confined to delusions on the subject of
chivalry, and that on every other subject he is discreto, one, in fact,
whose faculty of discernment is in perfect order. The advantage of this
is that he is enabled to make use of Don Quixote as a mouthpiece for his
own reflections, and so, without seeming to digress, allow himself the
relief of digression when he requires it, as freely as in a commonplace
book.

It is true the amount of individuality bestowed upon Don Quixote is not
very great. There are some natural touches of character about him, such
as his mixture of irascibility and placability, and his curious affection
for Sancho together with his impatience of the squire's loquacity and
impertinence; but in the main, apart from his craze, he is little more
than a thoughtful, cultured gentleman, with instinctive good taste and a
great deal of shrewdness and originality of mind.

As to Sancho, it is plain, from the concluding words of the preface to
the First Part, that he was a favourite with his creator even before he
had been taken into favour by the public. An inferior genius, taking him
in hand a second time, w