March, 1594, Tasso returned to Naples in hope of benefiting his
rapidly declining health. The experiment appeared to answer; but
scarcely had he passed four months in his native country, when
Cardinal Cinzio requested him to hasten to Rome, having obtained for
him from the pope the honor of a solemn coronation in the Capitol. In
the following November the poet arrived at Rome, and was received with
general applause. The pope himself overwhelmed him with praises, and
one day said, "Torquato, I give you the laurel, that it may receive as
much honor from you as it has conferred upon them who have worn it
before you." To give to this solemnity greater splendor, it was
delayed till April 25, 1595; but during the winter Tasso's health
became worse. Feeling that his end was nigh, he begged to be removed
to the convent of St. Onofrio, where he was carried off by fever on
the very day appointed for his coronation. His corpse was interred the
same evening in the church of the monastery, according to his will;
and his tomb was covered with a plain stone, on which, ten years
after, Manso, his friend and admirer, caused this simple epitaph to be
engraved

--Hic Jacet Torquatus Tasso.

CERVANTES

By JOSEPH FORSTER

(1547-1616)

[Illustration: Cervantes.]

Cervantes, the Shakespeare of Spain, led a life of the most romantic
and adventurous kind. In fact, no novelist has ever invented a story
as fascinating and varied as the bare facts of his most extraordinary
career. He was a soldier, a dramatist, a patriot, a slave; and after
producing, perhaps, the greatest novel ever written, a work which is
the glory of Spanish literature and a delight to the civilized world,
he died poor and neglected.

His family was noble and was first settled in Galicia, from whence it
moved to Castile. Cervantes was born in 1547. His family, although
honorable, was very poor, but he received a liberal education. He
became a page, chamberlain, and afterward a soldier, and fought at the
naval battle of Lepanto, "Where," he said, "I lost my left hand by an
arquebuse under the conquering banner of the son of that thunderbolt
of war, Charles V., of happy memory."

He also distinguished himself at the siege of Tunis, and later was
taken prisoner by a Barbary corsair, and was kept in cruel captivity
for five years at Algiers, It was customary with the Algerines to
treat their prisoners according to their supposed rank and expected
ransom. The