Chapter 12

SAINTE Clemente de la Mancha, is rendered famous by the renown'd Don Michael Cerviantes, who in his facetious but satyrical Romance, has fix'd it the Seat and Birth Place of his Hero Don Quixot.

The Gentlemen of this Place are the least Priest-ridden or Sons of Bigotry, of any that I met with in all Spain; of which in my Conversation with them I had daily Instances. Among many others, an Expression that fell from Don Felix Pacheco, a Gentleman of the best Figure thereabout, and of a very plentiful Fortune, shall now suffice. I was become very intimate with him; and we us'd often to converse together with a Freedom too dangerous to be common in a Country so enslav'd by the Inquisition. Asking me one Day in a sort of a jocose manner, who, in my Opinion, had done the greatest Miracles that ever were heard of? I answer'd, Jesus Christ.

"It is very true," says he, "Jesus Christ did great Miracles, and a great one it was to feed five Thousand People with two or three small Fishes, and a like number of Loaves: But Saint Francis, the Founder of the Franciscan Order, has found out a way to feed daily one hundred Thousand Lubbards with nothing at all"; meaning the Franciscans, the Followers of Saint Francis, who have no visible Revenues; yet in their way of Living come up to, if they do not exceed any other Order.

Another Day talking of the Place, it naturally led us into a Discourse of the Knight of la Mancha, Don Quixot. At which time he told me, that in his Opinion, that Work was a perfect Paradox, being the best and the worst Romance, that ever was wrote.

"For," says he, "tho' it must infallibly please every Man, that has any taste of Wit; yet has it had such a fatal Effect upon the Spirits of my Countrymen, that every Man of Wit must ever resent; for," continu'd he, "before the Appearance in the World of that Labour of Cerviantes, it was next to an Impossibility for a Man to walk the Streets with any Delight, or without Danger. There were seen so many Cavaliero's prancing and curvetting before the Windows of their Mistresses, that a Stranger would have imagin'd the whole Nation to have been nothing less than a Race of Knight Errants. But after the World became a little acquainted with that notable History; the Man that was seen in that once celebrated Drapery, was pointed at as a Don Quixot, and found himself the Jest of High and Low. And I verily believe," added he, "that to this, and this only we owe that dampness and poverty of Spirit, which has run thro' all our Councils for a Century past, so little agreeable to those nobler Actions of our famous Ancestors."

After many of these lesser sorts of Confidences, Don Felix recommended me to a Lodging next Door to his own. It was at a Widow's, who had one only Daughter, her House just opposite to a Francisan Nunnery. Here I remain'd somewhat upwards of two Years; all which time, lying in my