printed, as being then more read, and more narrowly examined,
especially if the author has been much cried up before, for then the
severity of the scrutiny is sure to be the greater. Those who have
raised themselves a name by their own ingenuity, great poets and
celebrated historians, are commonly, if not always, envied by a set of
men who delight in censuring the writings of others, though they could
never produce any of their own."--"That is no wonder," quoth Don
Quixote; "there are many divines that would make but very dull
preachers, and yet are quick enough at finding faults and superfluities
in other men's sermons."--"All this is true," says Carrasco, "and
therefore I could wish such censurers would be more merciful and less
scrupulous, and not dwell ungenerously upon small spots that are in a
manner but so many atoms on the face of the clear sun they murmur at.
If _aliquando dormitat Homerus_, let them consider how many nights
he kept himself awake to bring his noble works to light as little
darkened with defects as might be. But, indeed, it may many times
happen, that what is censured for a fault, is rather an ornament, as
moles often add to the beauty of a face. When all is said, he that
publishes a book, runs a great risk, since nothing can be so unlikely
as that he should have composed one capable of securing the approbation
of every reader."--"Sure," says Don Quixote, "that which treats of me
can have pleased but few?"--"Quite the contrary," says Carrasco; "for
as _infinitus est numerus stultorum_, so an infinite number have
admired your history. Only some there are who have taxed the author
with want of memory or sincerity, because he forgot to give an account
who it was that stole Sancho's Dapple, for that particular is not
mentioned there, only we find, by the story, that it was stolen; and
yet, by and by, we find him riding the same ass again, without any
previous light given us into the matter. Then they say that the author
forgot to tell the reader what Sancho did with the hundred pieces of