with characteristic indolence, were ready to cry, _manana,
manana_ (to-morrow, to-morrow), and so it was left for later generations
to honor his memory, for his power of invention and purity of
imagination can never be rivalled. While acting as clerk in Seville to
Antonio de Guevara, the Commissary-General to the Indian and American
dependencies, he must have been sadly disappointed, particularly as,
during that time, he had been unjustly thrown into prison on the plea of
not accounting for trust-money with satisfaction. Mr. Ticknor gives the
following interesting account: "During his residence at Seville,
Cervantes made an ineffectual application to the king for an appointment
in America, setting forth by the exact documents a general account of
his adventures, services, and sufferings while a soldier in the Levant,
and of the miseries of his life while a slave in Algiers; but no other
than a formal answer seems to have been returned to his application, and
the whole affair leaves us to infer the severity of that distress which
could induce him to seek relief in exile to a colony of which he has
elsewhere spoken as the great resort for rogues." The appointment he
desired was either corregidor (or mayor) of the city of Paz or the
auditorship of New Grenada, the governorship of the province of
Socunusco or that of the galleys of Carthagena. His removal to
Valladolid seems to have been by command of the revenue authorities,
where he still collected taxes for public and private persons. While
collecting for the prior of the order of St. John, he was again
ill-treated and thrown into prison.

Not till he was fifty-eight years old did he give to the world his
master-piece, and thus immortalizes La Mancha, in return for his
inhospitable and cruel treatment. "Don Quixote" was licensed at
Valladolid in 1604, and printed at Madrid in 1605. Its success was so
great that, during his lifetime, thirty thousand volumes were printed,
which in that day was little short of marvellous. Four editions were
published the first year, two at Madrid, one at Valencia, and one at
Lisbon. Byron says: "Cervantes laugh'd Spain's chivalry away!" So
popular was it, that a spurious second part, under the fictitious
authorship of Avellanada was published. Cervantes was furious, and
called him a blockhead; but Germond de Lavigue, the distinguished
Spanish scholar, rashly asserts that but for this Avellanada, he would
never have finished "Don Quixote." E