even a passing thought; and for a first attempt it was fairly successful, for though some of its emendations are inadmissible, a good many of them have been adopted by all subsequent editors. The example set was soon followed in the elegant duo-decimo editions with Coypel's plates published at the Hague and Amsterdam, and later in those of Ibarra and Sancha in Spain. But the most notable results were the splendid edition in four volumes by the Spanish Royal Academy in 1780, and the Rev. John Bowle's, printed at London and Salisbury in 1781. In the former a praiseworthy attempt was made to produce an authoritative text; but unfortunately the editors, under the erroneous impression that Cervantes had either himself corrected La Cuesta's 1608 edition of the First Part, or at least authorized its corrections, attached an excessive importance to emendations which in reality are entitled to no higher respect than those of any other printer. The distinguishing feature of Bowle's edition is the mass of notes, filling two volumes out of the six. Bowle's industry, zeal, and erudition have made his name deservedly venerated by all students of "Don Quixote;" at the same time it must be owned that the practical value of his notes has been somewhat overrated. What they illustrate is not so much "Don Quixote" as the annotator's extensive reading. The majority of them are intended to show the sources among the books of chivalry from which Cervantes took the incidents and ideas he burlesqued, and the connection is very often purely fanciful. They rendered an important service, however, in acting as a stimulus and furnishing a foundation for other commentaries; as, for example, Pellicer's, which, though it does not contain a fiftieth of the number of notes, is fifty times more valuable for any purpose of genuine elucidation, and Clemencin's, that monument of industry, research, and learning, which has done more than all others put together to throw light upon the obscurities and clear away the difficulties of "Don Quixote."
The zeal of publishers, editors, and annotators brought about a remarkable change of sentiment with regard to "Don Quixote." A vast number of its admirers began to grow ashamed of laughing over it. It became almost a crime to treat it as a humorous book. The humor was not entirely denied, but, according to the new view, it was rated as an altogether secondary quality, a mere accessory, nothing more than
