eting this new thing among books.

_Don Quixote_ was probably finished by the beginning of 1604, though some
further time elapsed, as it seems, before the author had courage to go to
print. His genius had lain fallow for twenty years. He was now old, and
had written nothing, or at least published nothing, since _Galatea_. What
fame was left to him he had earned as a poet among many poets. As an
author, if he was remembered at all, it was in a line wholly different
from that which he now essayed. There is reason to believe that the
manuscript of the new book was in circulation among those who called
themselves the author's friends, as was the custom of the age, before he
found a patron and a publisher.[6] The publisher was got at last in
Francisco Robles, the King's printer, to whom the copyright was sold for
ten years.[7] The patron appeared in the person of the Duque de Bejar, a
nobleman described by a writer of that age--Cristobal de Mesa--as himself
both a poet and a valiant soldier. The choice was not altogether a happy
one, for the Duke of Bejar might be said to have an ancestral claim to be
regarded as a patron of books of chivalries. It was to his great-grandfather
that one of the silliest and most extravagant of the romances had been
dedicated by the author, Feliciano de Silva, who is the writer specially
ridiculed by Cervantes--the very book which is the subject of a parody in
the opening chapter of _Don Quixote_.[8] The Duke of Bejar was noted,
moreover, for his own uncommon affection for the books of chivalries then
in fashion, and it is probable that he at first understood _Don Quixote_
to be one such as he was in the habit of reading. Learning of his
mistake, he refused, it is said, the dedication, and withdrew his
patronage from the author. Then, according to the pleasant story first
told by Vicente de los Rios, was enacted that scene which has been so
favorite a subject with modern artists. Cervantes begged of the Duke to
give him a hearing before deciding against his book; upon which he was
permitted to read a chapter, which the Duke found so much to his taste
that he graciously readmitted the author into his favor and consented to
receive the dedication. There is another tradition which imputes to the
Duke's confessor--an ecclesiastic who must have had a cleaner nose for
heterodoxy than most of his fellows--the original rejection of the
dedication by the Duke, the alteration in its wording, and the subseq