bian 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."

While he was yet a boy, bull-fights were introduced into Spain:--

"Such the ungentle sport that oft invites
The Spanish maid, and cheers the Spanish swain,
Nurtured in blood betimes, his heart delights
In vengeance, gloating on another's pain."

The attention of the Cardinal Acquaviva was called to him through his
composition of "Filena," and, in 1568 or 1569, he joined the household
of the cardinal and accompanied him to Rome. It is sad to think that
only a few meagre items are all that remain to tell us of his daily life
at this important period of his life. By some of his biographers he is
mentioned as being under the protection of the cardinal; by one as
seeking to better his penniless condition; by another as having the
place of _valet de chambre_; and still again, we find him mentioned as a
chamberlain in the household. Monsignor Guilio Acquaviva, in 1568, went
as ambassador to Spain to offer the king the condolences of the Pontiff
on the death of Don Carlos. The cardinal was a man of high position,
young, yet of great accomplishments, and with cultivated literary
tastes. What then could have been more natural than that he should have
found companionship in Cervantes, a