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4. Smollett and the Question of Originality.

The qualities that make Smollett's version of Don Quixote the most readable in our language are chiefly attributable, of course, to his own powers as a novelist and to his command of the full stylistic range of English discourse; he had a "genius," as his contemporaries would call it, unmatched by his competitors in this particular work of translation before or since. Smollett's voice is distinctive, and we hear it plainly throughout the work. In this sense the translation indeed is very much his own. And it is his own as well in a number of formal features that originated with him--such as the

introductory "Life of Cervantes," the official preliminaries to Part II of the novel, and many of the explanatory annotations to the text. At the same time, however, Smollett often depended for these innovations on a variety of sources, none of which he chose to acknowledge. It is time to consider more closely the question of Smollett's originality in the translation.

That Smollett had a sufficient understanding of Spanish to enable him to work directly from the original ought to have been clear all along from the fact that no translation before his own included the official preliminaries to Part II of the novel: immediately following Cervantes' Preface to the reader, these are the "Approbation" of the Licentiate Marques Torres; "The Ordinary Licence" of Doctor Gutierrez de Cetina; and the further "Approbation" of Joseph de Valdivielso. Only the first of these, the important Approbabtion of Marques Torres, was already available to Smollett in English, since it is quoted in full in Ozell's translation of Gregorio's Life of Cervantes (1738); even so, the version in Smollett's translation is entirely new. Moreover, in the second of the three preliminaries the variant spelling of the Ordinary's name --"Cetina" rather than "Centina"--serves to identify the particular edition of the original used by Smollett; for this spelling is found only in the edition of Don Quixote printed for Juan Mommarte at Brussels in 1662 and subsequently reissued by the Verdussens of Antwerp in 1673 and 1697.[66] It is worth noting that this text--though not equal in authority to the edition of Pedro Pineda (London: J. and R. Tonson, 1738)--was judged by Ormsby to be superior to all other Spanish editions published from 1637 to 1771.[67]

As for English sources, though Jarvis was Smollett's principal guide, it is clear from collation of editions available to him at the time of composition that he also consulted Ozell's revision of Motteux (in either the seventh [1743] or eighth [1749] edition), as well as Stevens' revision of Shelton (in either the first [1700] or second [1706] edition). Another source, second in importance only to Jarvis, was Stevens' Spanish-English Dictionary (1706 and 1726).[68] Without naming them, Smollett at the start of his narrative quotes all four of these works in an elaborate footnote (noticed, as we have

seen, by Windham) mocking the haplessness of "former translators" who struggled to find an English equivalent for "duelos y quebrantos" (Don Quixote's meal on Saturdays), his own no less hapless solution being "gripes and grumblings." That Smollett consulted these sources throughout the translation is clear from many passages in both the text itself and in his footnotes to the text; these passages, too numerous to list here, will be identified in the explanatory annotations to the forthcoming Georgia edition.

Smollett's "originality" in this work--in the particular sense in which that term seems appropriate here--can perhaps best be seen both in the "Life of Cervantes" prefixed to Part I of the novel and in the footnotes to the text. The "Life" was obviously written by Smollett, and at first glance it would appear to be the product of considerable impressive research into primary sources. In his footnotes Smollett cites works by the Spanish scholars Tomás Tamayo de Vargas (1588-1641), Don Nicolas Antonio (1617-84), author of Bibliotheca Hispania (Rome, 1672), and Fr. Diego de Haedo (d. 1608), author of Topographia e Historia general de Argel (Valladolid, 1612); and he appears as well to be acquainted with the entire canon of Cervantes. In truth, however, these were all sources cited by the two authors on whom Smollett entirely depended for the substantive detail of the "Life." Most important of these was Don Gregorio Mayáns y Siscár (1699-1781), keeper of the Royal Library at Madrid and Cervantes' first biographer. Gregorio's Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Briga-Real, 1737) was translated into English by John Ozell (1738), the translation being reissued subsequently as part of Jarvis's translation of Don Quixote (1742); it is clear from numerous correspondences in phrasing that Smollett's source was not the Spanish of Gregorio, but the English of Ozell.

That Gregorio's biography was a likely source for Smollett's "Life" has not gone unnoticed.[69] His other principal source, however, was obscure enough to have been overlooked not only by Gregorio, but also--as William Windham remarked before he had read Smollett's translation--"by all the writers which I have seen, that mention Cervantes...."[70] This was Joseph Morgan's Complete History of Algiers (1728-29) in which Smollett found an account of Cervantes' captivity in Algiers based on Haedo--a stroke of luck that enabled him to become the first of Cervantes' biographers to treat this interesting episode.[71] Smollett's "Life," then, must lay its claim to originality not on the facts it rehearses, but on its author's presentation and interpretation of the facts, an interpretation colored throughout by Smollett's strong personal sympathy with his subject.

In the footnotes to the translation this same pattern obtains: Smollett's practice is to abridge and paraphrase a variety of sources, always without acknowledgment. In Smollett's Hoax, Linsalata charged that no fewer than seventy-one of Jarvis's notes were "copied" by Smollett--or rather by Smollett's

phantom "journeymen."[72] But besides ignoring Smollett's constant way of improving on Jarvis's prose by reducing his prolix and leaden phrasing to an elegant conciseness, Linsalata, by focussing exclusively on Jarvis in his search for Smollett's sources, failed to see that in a third of his examples Smollett drew either on a source he and Jarvis were independently following, or on a source unknown to Jarvis. In twenty-four of the seventy-one parallels cited, Smollett's debts were to others besides Jarvis, as follows: to John Stevens' Spanish-English Dictionary--thirteen examples; to the commentary of earlier translators, especially Stevens' revision of Shelton and Ozell's revision of Motteux--seven examples; to sources not consulted by Jarvis, namely, Louis Moréri's Grand dictionnaire historique and André Félibien's Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et moderne--two examples. Jarvis was certainly an important source for Smollett in annotating Don Quixote, but he was one among many. Of the 187 footnotes in the first edition (1755), forty-seven were based on Jarvis; of the sixteen further footnotes Smollett added to the second edition (1761), only one reveals Jarvis's influence--and in that one Smollett, following Jarvis, regrettably altered his own preferable translation for the worse.[73]

In its final form, Smollett's translation includes, as commentary on the text of the novel, 203 footnotes. These are chiefly of five kinds. (1) The great majority explain problematic Spanish words, proverbs, and idiomatic expressions and offer reasons for Smollett's rendering them as he does. For guidance in solving these specifically textual and linguistic difficulties, Smollett relied principally on Stevens' Dictionary--and, of course, on the examples of his predecessors. (2) Of the other notes, twenty-three, most of them new and based on Smollett's close reading of the text, call attention to inconsistencies in Cervantes' plot and characterization. (3) Twenty-one notes, comprising about one tenth of the total, comment on the customs of ancient chivalry: all these, though representing a unique contribution of Smollett's translation, he abridged without acknowledgment from the French of Ste. Palaye's "Mémoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie," published in Mémoires de littérature, tirés des registres de l'Académie Royale des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, depuis l'année M.DCCXLIV, jusques compris l'année M.DCCXLVI, volume 20 (Paris, 1753). Of a similar kind is another note on the customs of Roman Catholic "disciplinants" (II.ii.15; 2: 204 n.) which Smollett abridged from Blainville's Travels through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, and Other Parts of Europe, translated by William Guthrie and others, 3 volumes (1743-45). (4) For information on certain historical figures to whom Cervantes alludes,

Smollett turned four times to Moréri's Grand dictionnaire historique;[74] and once, for a colorful anecdote concerning the wealthy Foucker brothers of Augsburg (II.ii.6; 2: 144 n.), he looked to Félebien's Entretiens sur les vies et sur les ouvrages des plus excellens peintres anciens et modernes (Paris, 1696). (5) Finally, no fewer than five of the notes Smollett added to the second edition were doubtless inspired by his new-found friendship with William Huggins, translator of Ariosto: in one way or another, these all concern the Orlando romances--Boiardo's and Berni's Orlando innamorato and Ariosto's Orlando furioso.

Among the triumphs of Smollett's translation is his skillful rendering of Cervantes' poetry. Through the long narrative of his hero's adventures Cervantes scattered some forty poems. These are written on a variety of subjects evoking a range of mood from the pathetic to the ludicrous, and they differ widely in length and form. Indeed, with regard to its formal features the verse is often metrically irregular and dependent for its musical effects on assonant rhymes--features difficult to duplicate in English at any time, and in the age of Pope unthinkable. In this respect, as in the translation as a whole, Smollett succeeded remarkably well in suggesting the qualities of the original without attempting to reproduce them literally: for example, he renders the goatherd Antonio's doric "ditty" to Olalla in seventeen numbered quatrains in an irregular meter alternating between eight and nine syllables (I.ii.3; 1: 56-58); for Chrysostom's "Song of Despair" he chose ten numbered twelve-line stanzas, each rhyming ababcdcdefef (I.ii.[6]; 1: 72-74); for Cardenio's lament, three numbered stanzas of five couplets, metrically very complex--in each, lines 1, 3, 5, 7-10 are tetrameter, lines 2 and 4 dimeter, and line 6 trimeter (I.iii.13; 1: 183); the bogus ghost of Merlin addresses the horrified hero and his squire in forty-nine lugubrious lines of blank verse (II.iii.3; 2: 221-22). And Don Quixote's two comic attempts to sing his imaginary mistress's virtues are, in the first instance, confined to three stanzas of nine lines, in which her name in the refrain "Dulcinea | del Toboso" is made to rhyme with "be a", "defray a" and "to play a" (I.iii.12; 1: 175-76); his later song on the same subject consists of sixteen couplets in lame feet of seven syllables (II.iii.14; 2: 282-83).

These examples suggest the care Smollett took to convey the spirit of his great original in the idioms and literary conventions of his own language. In a footnote to the first of these poems, he made clear that he took this responsibility seriously. It is important, I believe, to the question of Smollett's authorship of the translation that he should focus his remarks (though without naming him) on Jarvis; for Smollett well knew that Jarvis's translation, even by Ozell's admission, had already established itself as the most literally exact of previous versions of Don Quixote. Smollett's criticism, supported by his own literal translation of the verses in question, suggests the confidence with which he was prepared to challenge his rival's claims to a superior understanding

of both Cervantes' language and the subtleties of his narrative. Commenting on Stanza XI of the goatherd's song, Smollett writes:

What, finally, does Smollett's rendering of Cervantes' narrative reveal about the qualities of the translation? The answer to the basic question of his competence in Spanish is not, certainly, as unambiguously negative as we have been led to believe. Though Smollett at times misread the text, in a surprising number of instances he is actually more accurate than any of his predecessors.

Far from following Jarvis "servilely," as Duffield put it, Smollett's errors are often owing to a misplaced confidence in his own command of Spanish. Perhaps the most egregious example is his rendering of the expression "en dos paletos," which, as all his predecessors understood, means simply "briefly, instantly": apparently mistaking pelotas (balls) for paletas (trowels or painters' palettes), Smollett unwisely tried to make literal sense of the phrase, twice translating it as "in the twinkling of two balls" (II.iii.19; 2: 319) and "in the turning of two balls" (II.iv.8; 2: 388). Other examples are less hilarious, but no less to the point.

• (I.iv.14; 1: 315) The Captive relates that as he talked with her father, "salio de la casa del jardin la bella Zorayda, la qual ya avia mucho que me avia visto" ("the lovely Zoraida came out of the garden house. She had caught sight of me some while before" [Putnam]). Smollett alone found this passage confusing: "the fair Zorayda came out into the garden. She had already perceived me from a window of the house . . . ." Jarvis has: "the fair Zoraida, who had espied me some time before, came out of the house."
• (II.i.1; 2: 9) The page whom Smollett describes as "yellow-haired" is in fact "beardless" (barbiluzio), as all Smollett's pedecessors have it. In this he may have been misled by Stevens: "Barbil úzio, one that has a red beard"; "Lúzio [from lúcio] . . . bright, shining or transparent."
• (II.ii.10; 2: 170) When Don Quixote uses the proverbial expression, "quando la colera sale de madre, no tiene la lengua padre," Smollett alone renders it, "When choler once is born, the tongue all curb doth scorn," providing in a footnote what he takes to be the literal sense: "When choler quits the mother, the tongue has then no father." In this, however, though he gained a rhyme ("born/scorn"), he missed the meaning. The idiom, "salír de mádre," denotes a river's overflowing its banks (Stevens: Salír). Jarvis has, "when choler overflows its dam," which ingeniously preserves the double meaning of madre.
• (II.ii.11; 2: 174) Sancho speaks sarcastically of the hardships of his lot as Don

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  Quixote's squire, using the expression, "en vuestra mano estàescudillar" (literally, "the ladling [of the stew] is in your own hand"). Both Jarvis and Shelton understood the metaphor, Jarvis translating the phrase lamely, but accurately enough: "it is in your own power to dish up the mess"; Smollett makes nonsense of it: "the saddle is in your own hand."
• (II.iii.15; 2: 292) In bringing a scene of Sancho's indignation to a quiet close, the narrator says, "andese la paz en el corro." Smollett, apparently confusing carréra (career) with corro (company), renders the phrase, "peace attend him in his career"; Jarvis has "peace be with him and company."
• (II.iv.7; 2: 372) When Don Quixote and his squire sit down to a meal, the narrator ironically remarks that Sancho holds back, "su Señor hiziesse la salva"--a reference to the custom of the nobility's employing "tasters" who sample their food to be sure it is safe to eat. Stevens (s.v. Sálva) glossed the expression hazér la salva, and Jarvis, following Shelton, got it right: "his master should first be his taster." Smollett, however, disregarding these helps, missed the irony: Sancho "waited . . . until his master should begin."

Smollett's translation is not free from errors such as these--errors, it is worth noting, which would not have occurred if he had been tracking Jarvis as closely as we have assumed. Much more remarkable, however, are the number of passages in which he caught the sense of the original more convincingly than Jarvis and other translators. Besides his telling criticism of Jarvis's rendering of the goatherd's song, already cited, consider the following examples:

• (I.i.2; 1: 10) When Don Quixote calls him "Señor Castellano," the landlord thinks he means one of "los sanos de Castilla." Smollett alone understood the allusion: "Mine host imagining that he called him Castellano*, because he looked like a hypocritical rogue," commenting in his note: "Sano de Castella, signifies a crafty knave." He was presumably indebted to Stevens: "Sáno . . . Sáno de Castilla, in cant, a dissembling thief." Jarvis echoes all previous translators in rendering the passage: "The host thought he called him Castellano because he took him for an honest Castilian," commenting: "Castellano in Spanish signifies both a governour of a castle, and a native of Castile."
• (I.i.8; 1: 42) The Biscainer, blustering threats at Don Quixote, inverts a proverbial phrase: "el agua quan presto veràs que al gato llevas." Smollett paraphrased this in a Somerset dialect simulating the Biscainer's rude speech: "'che will soon zee which be the better man*'", and, in a footnote probably indebted to Stevens (Gáto), became the first translator to gloss the passage: "The literal meaning of the Spanish is, Thou shalt soon see who is to carry the cat to the water; or rather, in the corrupted Biscayan phrase, 'The water how soon thou wilt see, that thou carriest to the cat." Jarvis, following Motteux and Ozell, has simply, "I will make no more of thee than a cat does of a mouse."
• (I.ii.4; 1: 61) Referring to Chrysostom, a young man of unimpeachable character and sole heir of his father who has died, Pedro the goatherd calls him "Señor desoluto" of all his father's wealth. Smollett translates this "desolate lord and master"; all previous translators, as well as Ormsby and Watts, have "dissolute"--an adjective entirely inappropriate in context and unlikely in the old spelling of the Spanish, dissoluto rather than the modern disoluto (see Stevens and the Royal Dictionary [1732]). Putnam silently translates it "absolute," desoluto being a barbarism for absoluto (see C. Fernandez Gomes, Vocabulario de Cervantes [Madrid, 1962]). But Smollett's "desolate" desoluto suggesting desolar (Stevens: "Desolár . . . to make desolate")--also preserves the malapropism as well as being appropriate to Chrysostom's grief.
• (I.iii.7; 1: 126) Soon after Don Quixote mistakes the beat of the fulling-mill hammers for the terrible sound of giants, he prepares to assault a stranger whom he believes to be wearing Mambrino's helmet. Afraid of another painful misadventure,

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  Sancho says, "mas quiera Dios . . . que oregano sea, y no batanes"--adapting to his present purpose the proverbial expression, "á Dios plega que oregano sea y no se nos vuelva alcarabea" ("please God it be marjoram, and not turn carraway upon us" [Watts]). Smollett alone understood the original: he translates, "God grant . . . that this may turn out a *melon rather than a milling," commenting in the footnote that "Oregano . . . signifies sweet marjoram, as if Sancho had wished his master might find a nosegay, rather than a bloody nose." His predecessors either ignore the play on the proverb or get it wrong: "I pray . . . it may not prove another fulling-mill adventure" (Jarvis); "I wish this may'nt prove another blue Bout, and a worse Jobb than the Fulling-Mills" (Motteux and Ozell); "I wish . . . it prove a golden Purchase, and not a Fulling-Mill" (Stevens' revision of Shelton).
• (I.iv.2; 1: 209) In his footnote on the mythical "kingdom of Micomicon" ("Reyno de Micomicon") Smollett was first to propose that Cervantes intended a play on mico: "As if he had said Ape land: Mico signifying an ape."
• (I.iv.4; 1: 232) Andrew takes his leave of Don Quixote "and as the saying is, took his foot in his *hand." Smollett in his note was first to gloss the original: "Literally, Took the road in his hands [tomò el camino en las manos]." The expression is not in Stevens or Pineda, and Jarvis and Ozell, without comment, simply have, "and marched off."
• (I.iv.7; 1: 259) Leonola credits Lothario with "a whole alphabet of accomplishments," and proceeds to name a virtue beginning with every letter in the Spanish alphabet, which has no k and w. Smollett followed the original, omitting words beginning with k and w; only Shelton before him had preserved this peculiarity of the original, and Smollett seems not to have known Shelton except in Stevens' revision.
• (I.iv.15; 1: 332) As the curate tells the story of Zoraida and the captive, Cervantes writes: "A todo lo qual estava tan atento el Oydor, que ninguna vez avia sido tan Oydor como entonces," which Smollett renders: "to which the judge listened with more attention than ever he had yielded on the bench*." In annotating the passage, he became the first translator to note Cervantes' play on oidor: "*A judge in Spanish is called Oydor, i.e. Hearer, and the original literally translated , is, 'The hearer was never so much a hearer before.'"
• (II.i.3; 2: 16) Sancho recalls a time when Rozinante lusted after the mares, or, as he puts it, "'*longed for green peas in December.'" Smollett alone, probably referring to Stevens (Cotúfas), glosses this proverbial expression: "* Pedir cotufas en el golfo, signifies to look for tartuffles in the sea, a proverb applicable to those who are too sanguine in their expectations, and unreasonable in their desires." Jarvis, following Shelton, ignores the literal meaning, writing that Rozinante "had a longing after the forbidden fruit".
• (II.i.4; 2: 23) Sancho, though he avoids all fighting, will look after his master's needs gladly: "yo le baylarè el agua delante." Smollett renders this expression, "'I will †jig it away, with pleasure.'" In his note, probably derived from Stevens (Agua), he alone glosses the original: "Baylar el agua delante, is a phrase applicable to those who do their duty with alacrity, taken from the practice of watering the courts in Spain, an office which the maids perform with a motion that resembles dancing." Without comment Jarvis, following Motteux and Ozell, renders this, "I will fetch and carry like any water-spaniel."
• (II.i.8; 2: 43) Sancho fears that in the spurious continuation of Don Quixote, "andar mi honra àcoche acàcinchado," a proverbial expression which Smollett alone preserves: "'my reputation goes like a jolting hackney-coach.'"
• (II.i.9; 2: 47) At midnight Don Quixote and Sancho "dexàron el monte" and enter Toledo. Before Smollett, only Stevens in his revision of Shelton had seen that the context requires the secondary meaning of monte (Stevens: "Mónte, a hill, a mountain, a wood"). Smollett has "leaving their covert"; Stevens, "left the Wood." Jarvis, following Shelton, has "left the mountain"; Motteux and Ozell, "descended from a Hill."
• (II.i.10; 2: 55) Annoyed at Sancho's representing her to Don Quixote as his

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  Dulcinea, the country wench uses a proverbial expression that peasants say to their wives when they beat them: "Mas yo que te estr[i]ego burra de mi suegro"--which Stevens (Búrra) renders, "Stand still while I curry you, my father-in-law's ass." Smollett was first to render this in the text ("'Would I had the currying that ass's hide of thine'"); and he was first to understand that the woman speaks it not to the ass she rides on (as in Jarvis's note), but to Sancho.
• (II.i.13; 2: 71) Sancho compliments Don Quixote with a proverbial expression, referring to him as "moliente, y corriente." Smollett's vivid rendering of this as "well dammed and gristed," comes nearest to the full sense of the original, which literally refers to a mill working well, the water running and the sails going, but metaphorically signifies "anything that is in good order, and no way defective" (Stevens: Moliénte, y corriénte). Jarvis has merely, "wanting for nothing"; all others, "round and sound."
• (II.ii.1; 2: 108) After hearing Don Lorenzo's sonnet, Don Quixote compliments him with a play on words: "entre los infinitos Poëtas consumidos que ay, he visto un consumado Poëta." Smollett renders this, "'amidst the infinite number of consumptive poets that now exist, I have found one consummate.'" Only Shelton had previously attempted to translate this word-play, preferring, however, the combination "consumed . . . consummate." Watts and Putnam follow Shelton in rendring consumidos as "consumed"; but Smollett's "consumptive" (Stevens: "Consúmo, consumption") is funnier and makes better sense.
• (II.iii.2; 2: 216) The duke advises Sancho, when he becomes governor of the island, to take up hunting, "y vereys como os vale un pan por ciento." All translators resort to a loose paraphrase of this puzzling expression, Smollett rendering it, "'which you will find of incredible * service'"; but in his footnote Smollett was first to attempt a literal translation: "And you shall see it will be worth a loaf that will serve an hundred."
• (II.iii.15; 2: 289) Annoyed at the intrusion of a stranger with a petition, Sancho threatens: "yo ponga en pretina àmas de un negociante"--which Smollett renders, "'I will sit upon * the skirts of more than one of these men of business.'" In his note, Smollett alone offered a literal translation of this expression, which only the Royal Dictionary (1737) glossed (s.v. Pretina): "*The original Ponga en pretina, signifies, I will put in my girdle."
• (II.iii.15; 2: 289) The page describes the honest peasant as "una alma de cantaro" (literally, "a soul of a pitcher")--an expression usually used pejoratively to signify a stupid person (as in II.i.13; 2: 71, where Smollett renders it "dull as a beetle"). Smollett was first to see that in context the expression is here meant positively: Shelton has "a very dull Soule"; Jarvis, "a pitcher-soul'd fellow." Smollett's translation, "a simple soul," was indeed adopted by Putnam.
• (II.iv.[18]; 2: 447) Sancho pities Altisidora, whom Don Quixote has rejected: "Mandote yo, dixo Sancho, pobre Donzella, mandote (digo) mala ventura." Smollett alone preserves the repetition of "mandote" (which, following Stevens [Mandár], he renders "bequeath"), as well as the repetition "dixo . . . (digo)": "'Poor damsel! cried he, I can bequeath, bequeath thee nothing, I say, but bad luck.'" Jarvis, for example, has simply, " Poor damsel! Quoth Sancho, I forebode thee ill luck."
• (II.iv.[19]; 2: 447) In the opening paragraph of the chapter, Smollett's rendering of the obscure expression, "y catalo cantusado," as "and so the farce is acted" anticipates the sense favored by both Ormsby ("and, there, his labour is over") and Watts ("and lo, it is done").
• (II.iv.[19]; 2: 450) Insisting that he will keep his promise to scourge himself with three thousand lashes, Sancho quotes a proverb: "àdineros pagados, braços quebrados" ("The money paid, the arms broken"). Smollett alone preserves both the rhyming and the full sense of the proverb: "'When money's paid before it's due, a broken limb will straight ensue.'" Jarvis has, "The money paid, the work delayed"; Stevens, revising Shelton, has the following, which Motteux also adopted: "having received Money before hand, I thought much to work for a dead Horse."

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He has endeavoured to retain the spirit and ideas, without servilely adhering to the literal expression, of the original; from which, however, he has not so far deviated, as to destroy that formality of idiom, so peculiar to the Spaniards, and so essential to the character of the work.

Smollett achieved his aim of fidelity to the spirit of his great original. At the same time, for the particular enjoyment of his countrymen, he may be said to have translated it in another sense, bringing the work home to them from another time and another country, and making of it, as Dryden recommended, "an Original" in its own right. As Pope in his Iliad adapted Homer to the expectations of readers in England's Augustan Age, so Smollett succeeded in making Cervantes his contemporary. His gruff Biscainer speaks the Somerset dialect of Fielding's Squire Western; and Cervantes' narrator not only writes Smollett's mid-Georgian prose but at times echoes the phrases of Shakespeare and Milton, or recalls a song from The Beggar's Opera.[77] The narrative is colored by homely locutions that would make the plains of La Mancha seem a familiar place to an Englishman: Sancho stuffs his budget with good things to eat, and his stomach wambles; waits strike up tunes, and a skinker pours the wine; hare-hunters search in vain for a scut; desperadoes discharge their fusils; mariners worry about ships that steer athwart their hause.

In writing his translation of Don Quixote, Smollett, as he predicted in his preface, did indeed subject himself "to the most invidious comparison" with his rivals--and even, as he could not have predicted, to criticism in our own century designed to abstract him from his work altogether. My purpose in this essay has been to affirm his authorship of the translation and to offer an opinion of its merit. Samuel Johnson, Mrs. Piozzi tells us, considered Don Quixote second only to the Iliad as "the greatest" work of entertainment in the world.[78] As Johnson credited Pope with having produced in his translation of the Iliad "the noblest version" of poetry the world had seen,[79] we may at least, with Carlos Fuentes and Rodríguez Marín, allow that Smollett in his translation of Don Quixote not only succeeded in capturing the spirit of the original for English readers, as he aimed to do, but gave us as well the most readable version of Cervantes' masterpiece in our language.