and Sancho on Dapple, set out, and pursued their journey.

CHAPTER XIX.

The Adventure of the Amorous Shepherd, and other truly comical Passages.

DON QUIXOTE had not travelled far, when he was overtaken by two men that looked like students or ecclesiastics, with two farmers, all mounted upon asses. One of the scholars had behind him a small bundle of linen, and two pair of stockings, trussed up in green buckram like a portmanteau; the other had no other luggage but a couple of foils and a pair of fencing pumps. And the husbandmen had a parcel of other things, which shewed, that having made their market at some adjacent town, they were now returning home with their ware. They all admired (as indeed all others did that ever beheld him) what kind of a fellow Don Quixote was, seeing him make a figure so different from any thing they had ever seen. The knight saluted them, and perceiving their road lay the same way, offered them his company, entreating them, however, to move an easier pace, because their asses went faster than his horse; and to engage them the more, he gave them a hint of his circumstances and profession; that he was a knighterrant travelling round the world in quest of adventures; that his proper name was Don Quixote de la

Mancha, but his titular denomination, the Knight of the Lions.

you

All this was Greek, or pedlar's French, to the countrymen; but the students presently found out his blind side. However, with a respectful distance, "Sir Knight," said one of them, "if you are not fixed to any set stage, as persons of your function seldom are, let us beg the honour of your company; and shall be entertained with one of the finest and most sumptuous weddings, that ever was seen, either in La Mancha, or many leagues round it."-" The nuptials of some young prince, I presume ?" said Don Quixote." No, sir," answered the other, "but of a yeoman's son, and a neighbour's daughter; he the richest in all this country, and she the handsomest you ever saw. The entertainment at the wedding will be new and extraordinary; it is to be kept in a meadow near the village where the bride lives. They call her Quiteria the Handsome, by reason of her beauty; and the bridegroom Camacho the Rich, on account of his wealth. They are well matched as to age, for she draws towards eighteen, and he is about two and twenty, though some nice folks, that have all the pedigrees in the world in their heads, will tell ye, that the bride comes of a better family than he; but that is not minded now-a-days, for money, you know, will hide many faults. And, indeed, this. same Camacho is as free as a prince, and designs to spare no cost upon his wedding. He has taken a fancy to get the meadow shaded with boughs, that are to cover it like an arbour, so that the sun will have much ado to peep through, and visit the green

grass underneath. There are also provided for the diversion of the company, several sorts of anticks and morrice-dancers, some with swords, and some with bells; for there are young fellows in his village can manage them cleverly. I say nothing of those that play tricks with the soles of their shoes when they dance, leaving that to the judgments of their guests. But nothing that I have told or might tell you of this wedding, is like to make it so remarkable as the things which I imagine poor Basil's despair will do. This Basil is a young fellow, that lives next door to Quiteria's father. Hence love took occasion to give birth to an amour, like that of old, between Pyramus and Thisbe; for Basil's love grew up with him from a child, and she encouraged his passion with all the kind return that modesty could grant; insomuch, that the mutual affection of the two little ones was the common talk of the village. But Quiteria coming to years of maturity, her father began to deny Basil the usual access to his house; and to cut off his farther pretence, declared his resolution of marrying her to Camacho, who is indeed his superior in estate, though far short of him in allother qualifications; for Basil, to give the devil his due, is the cleverest fellow we have; he will pitch ye a bar, wrestle, or play at tennis with the best he in the country; he runs like a stag, leaps like a buck, plays at nine-pins so well, you would think he tips them down by witchcraft; sings like a lark; touches a guitar so rarely, he even makes it speak; and to complete his perfections, he handles a sword like a fencer."

"For that very single qualification," said Don Quixote, "he deserves not only Quiteria the Handsome, but a princess; nay, Queen Guinever herself, were she now living, in spite of Sir Lancelot and all that would oppose it."-" Well," quoth Sancho, who had been silent, and listening all the while," my wife used to tell me, she would have everyone marry with their match. Like to like, quoth the devil to the collier, and every sow to her own trough, as the other saying is: As for my part, all I would have is, that honest Basil e'en marry her! for methinks I have a huge liking to the young man; and so heaven bless them together, say I, and a murrain seize those that will spoil a good match between those that love one another !"—" Nay," said Don Quixote, "if marriage should be always the consequence of mutual love, what would become of the prerogative of parents, and their authority over their children? If young girls might always chuse their own husbands, we should have the best families in

termarry with coachmen and grooms; and young heiresses would throw themselves away upon the first wild young fellows, whose promising outsides and assurance make them set up for fortunes, though all their stock consists in impudence. For the understanding, which alone should distinguish and chuse in these cases as in all others, is apt to be blinded or biassed by love and affection; and matrimony is so nice and critical a point, that it requires not only our own cautious management, but even the direction of a superior power to chuse right. Whoever undertakes a long journey, if he be wise, makes it

his business to find out an agreeable companion. How cautious then should he be, who is to take a journey for life, whose fellow-traveller must not part with him but at the grave; his companion at bed and board, and sharer of all the pleasures and fatigues of his journey; as the wife must be to the husband! She is no such sort of ware, that a man can be rid of when he pleases: When once that is purchased, no exchange, no sale, no alienation can be made: she is an inseparable accident to man: marriage is a noose, which, fastened about the neck, runs the closer, and fits more uneasy by our struggling to get loose it is a Gordian knot which none can untie, and being twisted with our thread of life, nothing but the scythe of death can cut it. I could dwell longer on this subject, but that I long to know from the gentleman, whether he can tell us any thing more of Basil."

"All I can tell you," said the student, "is, that he is in the case of all desperate lovers; since the moment he heard of this intended marriage, he has never been seen to smile or talk rationally; he is in a deep melancholy, that might indeed rather be called a dozing frenzy; he talks to himself, and seems out of his senses; he hardly eats or sleeps, and lives like a savage in the open fields; his only sustenance a little fruit, and his only bed the hard ground; sometimes he lifts up his eyes to heaven, then fixes them on the ground, and in either posture stands like a statue. In short, he is reduced to that condition, that we who are his acquaintance verily believe, that