Epigraph
A Castilian of refined manners, a gentleman, true to religion and true to honour, a scholar and a soldier, fought under the banners of Don John of Austria, at Lepanto; lost his arm, and was captured; endured slavery not only with fortitude, but with mirth; and, by the superiority of nature, mastered and overawed his Barbarian owner; finally ransomed, he resumed his native destiny—the awful task of achieving Fame.
The world was a drama to him; his own thoughts, in spite of poverty and sickness, perpetuated for him the feelings of youth; he painted only what he knew and had looked into, but he knew and had looked into much indeed; and his imagination was ever at hand to adapt and modify the world of his experience; of delicious love, he fabled, yet with stainless virtue.
CERVANTES: A Lecture, by Coleridge, in 1818.