l.
When Lockhart prefixed his well-known essay to Motteux's version, the
work was accompanied by etchings by De Los Rios. Jarvis's rendering
exercised successively the skill of Westall, Cruickshank, Johannot,
Dore, and Mr. A. B. Houghton; another was illuminated by R. Smirke,
R.A.; and in later years there have been the drawings contributed by Sir
John Gilbert and by Kenny Meadows.

So much for the story as it has been read in English and adorned by
English (and other) artists. But how about Mr. Wills's predecessors? How
about 'Don Quixote's' previous connection with the English stage? Well,
it was scarcely to be expected that so popular a tale would never excite
the attention of the playwright or the musician. Sooner or later,
everything which has vogue finds its way, somehow, to the boards, and
it is a little surprising that seventy-four years should have elapsed,
after the publication of the first English translation, before 'Don
Quixote' received the distinction of dramatization. Was it, indeed, a
distinction? There's the rub. The dramatist was Thomas d'Urfey; and what
could be looked for from that free-speaking worthy? The original is not
without a certain breadth in certain passages, and what Cervantes made
broad D'Urfey might be trusted to make broader. That, again, was only
according to the practice of the day; and if the virtuous Collier
fulminated against the trilogy which D'Urfey wrought out of the epical
extravaganza--if some ladies of the time were found to object to the
coarser humours of Mary the Buxom (a creation on which D'Urfey prided
himself)--there can be no doubt of the success of the venture. The third
of the three plays had not, it seems, quite the acceptability of the
other two, but the author's explanation of its virtual failure--that the
piece was not adequately presented--was possibly, for once, well
founded, and the fact that the third play was produced at all speaks
volumes for the triumphs of its precursors.

A 'Don Quixote'--probably D'Urfey's 'second part'--held the stage, more
or less firmly, till the eighteenth century was well upon its way; and
then there suddenly appeared a rival, in the shape of a farce or
vaudeville by Fielding, entitled 'Don Quixote in England,' and bringing
both the Don and Sancho upon English soil. The author was well aware of
his temerity, and, indeed, apologized for it. The piece, he pleaded, was

'originally writ for his private amusement, as it would,