r _bourgeois_
nor genteel, neither learned nor ignorant, welcomed the book with a
joyous enthusiasm, as a wholly new delight and source of entertainment.
Nothing like it had ever appeared before. It was an epoch-marking book,
if ever there was one.

[11] _Con general aplauso de las gentes_--he says in the Second
Part of _Don Quixote_, speaking through the mouth of the Duchess.
The legend, revived in the present age, that _Don Quixote_ hung
fire on the first publication, and that the author wrote
anonymously a tract called _El Buscapie_ (The Search-foot), in
order to explain his story and its object, rests only upon the
evidence of one Ruidiaz, and is contradicted by all the facts of
the case. No such aid was necessary to push the sale of the book,
whose purpose had been sufficiently explained by the author in
his preface. The so-called _Buscapie_, published in 1848 by
Adolfo de Castro, is an impudent forgery, which has imposed upon
no one. It is the composition of Senor de Castro himself, who is
a _farceur_, of some wit and more effrontery. Ticknor is even too
serious in the attention which he bestows on Senor de Castro and
his work, which an English publisher has thought worthy of a
translation.

The proud and happy author himself spoke of his success with a frank
complacency which, in any other man, would savor of vanity. Some seven
or eight editions of _Don Quixote_ are supposed to have been printed in
the first year, of which six are now extant--two of Madrid, two of
Lisbon, and two of Valencia.[12] The number of copies issued from the
press in one year was probably in excess of the number reached by any
book since the invention of printing.[13] But though all Spain talked
of _Don Quixote_ and read _Don Quixote_, and though the book brought
him much fame, some consolation, and a few good friends, it does not
appear to have helped to mend the fortunes of Cervantes in any material
degree. In accordance with the usual dispensation, the author derived
the least benefit from his success. Francisco Robles and Juan de la
Cuesta, doubtless, made a good thing of it; but to Miguel de Cervantes
there must have come but a small share of the profit. The laws of
copyright were, in that age, little regarded; and it may be questioned
whether, in a book published in Madrid, they could be enforced outside
of Castile. The pirates and the