As he and his companions were riding from Esquivias, they were accosted by a stranger, who called loudly to them to stop. They waited for him to come up, when he turned out to be a student, riding on an ass, and complaining that they travelled at such a rate that he could not overtake them to join their company. One of the party apologized, laying the blame on the horse of señor Miguel de Cervantes, which was inclined to travel briskly. Scarcely had the student heard the name of Cervantes, whom he held in high esteem, though not personally acquainted with him, than he threw himself from his beast, and seized Cervantes by the left hand, expressing his admiration in passionate terms. Cervantes, who unexpectedly found himself overwhelmed with praises, replied with the modesty and courtesy natural to him, embracing his admirer and begging him to remount and travel in company with him. The student complied, and then followed the dialogue, which gives us an idea of the illness of Cervantes, and which he relates in the following terms. We drew our bridles a little tighter, and pursued our journey with a moderate pace, conversing on my illness, when the good student immediately pronounced my fate, saying, this disorder is the dropsy, which all the water in the ocean could not cure, even though it were sweet and fresh. You must abstain, señor Cervantes, from drinking, but do not fail to eat, and this regimen will cure you without the aid of medicine. Many persons have given me the same advice, said I, but I cannot help drinking, as if I were born for nothing else; my life is drawing to a close, as I see by the rate of my pulse, which cannot continue to beat beyond the next Sunday. You have arrived just in time to make my acquaintance, but I shall have no opportunity to show my gratitude for the disposition which you have manifested towards me. By this time we had reached the bridge of Toledo, and I entered that way, while he took the direction of the bridge of Segovia.' Soon after this dialogue, which shows that Cervantes maintained the cheerfulness of his spirit to the borders of the grave, the violence of his disorder increased, and all hope being extinguished, he received extreme unction on Monday, the 18th of that month. Nevertheless, he preserved till the next day the serenity of his spirit, the power and fertility of his imagination, and an affectionate remembrance of his benefactor, the Count of Lemos, who was expected soon to arrive from Naples, to take the presidency of the council of Italy. As a last mark of his gratitude, he dedicated to the Count his Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, with a letter worthy, as Rios observes, of the attentive regard of all the grandees and scholars of the world, that the former may learn to be generous, the latter to be grateful. With equal serenity he made his will. He ordered that his body should be buried in the convent of the nuns of the Trinity. After having made these dispositions, and enjoined the performance of certain acts for the good of his soul, he died on the 23d of April, 1616. Shakspeare died on the same day. The only work of Cervantes, which can be called posthu mous, is his Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, printed at Madrid, in 1617. The same year editions were printed at Valencia, Pamplona, Barcelona and Brussels. In 1626, it was translated into Italian and printed at Venice. A portrait of Cervantes, painted in the reign of Philip IV., corresponds to the following description of his person in the preface to his Novelas. This man whom you see with an eagle face, chestnut hair, open and easy countenance, bright eyes, a hooked but well proportioned nose, beard silvery, which less than twenty years since was golden, large whiskers, small mouth with few teeth scattered at random, of middling stature, complexion clear, rather light than dark, somewhat heavy in the shoulders and not very light of foot,-this man is commonly called Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra.' Navarrete remarks in conclusion, that 'If Cervantes is deserving of high regard for the fertility of his genius and the extent of his knowledge, he is not less worthy of esteem for his elevated virtues. He knew how, like a true Christian philosopher, to be religious without superstition, warm in his faith and worship without fanaticism, a lover of his country and his countrymen without prejudice, valiant in war without rashness, generous and charitable without ostentation, grateful for favors without servility, candid and thankful for just censure as much as for praise, moderate and indulgent towards his rivals, answering their satires and invectives with good temper; in fine, he never prostituted his pen through favor or interest, nor ever used it but for the good and happiness of his fellow men, and was always ready to praise to a degree that did more honor to the goodness of his heart than the correctness of his judgment. 'Such is the history of the life and writings of Miguel Cer vantes de Saavedra; of that illustrious Spaniard, who, having shed his blood for his country in war, adorned it in peace with writings equally instructive and delightful, left a splendid example of virtue in his private relations, and finished his life with the tranquillity inspired by religion and Christian philosophy. If the mean passions of his contemporaries interrupted for a time the tribute of honor due to his elevated merit, the clouds which ignorance and envy raised have disappeared with the ignorant and the envious, and the judgment of impartial posterity has spread the fame of Cervantes wherever civilization and the love of letters are to be found; so that he is every where regarded as one of those remarkable men, whom Heaven sends on earth in favor to mankind, to console them for their sufferings, teach them the dignity of their nature, and enlighten and reform the world.' ! ART. II.-Education of the Deaf and Dumb. 1. De l'Education des Sourds-muets de naissance, par M. Degerando, Membre de l'Institut de France, Administrateur de l'Institut Royal des Sourds-muets, etc. etc. 2 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1827. 2. Troisième Circulaire de l'Institut Royal des Sourdsmuets de Paris, à toutes les Institutions de Sourdsmuets de l'Europe, de l'Amérique, et de l'Asie ;Paris, Septembre, 1832. 3. Reports of the American Asylum for the Education and Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, first to seventeenth inclusive. Hartford. 4. Reports of the New York Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, fifth to fourteenth, inclusive. New York. 5. Encyclopædia Americana, Vol. IV. Article, Dumb and Deaf. Philadelphia, 1830. 'FRANCE,' says the distinguished author of the work first cited above,' we confess it with regret, with surprise,—has been last to see the public attention directed to the art of instructing the deaf and dumb.' With equal surprise, if not with equal regret, we may observe of our own country, that, while this interesting art has been actually in practice among us for nearly twenty years; in the hands, too, of men distinguished for their ability; nothing has yet appeared to shed light upon its principles, or to gratify the public curiosity with regard to its processes. Hardly has, here and there, a feeble attempt been made to prepare a series of the simplest elementary school exercises; and nowhere do we find even the shadow of a systematic course of instruction, or of a nomenclature reduced to logical method, having its foundation in the connexion between derivative ideas, and the primitive ones of which they are composed, or from which they are abstracted. But if, in this respect, our own country be still deficient, the labors of foreign writers have been so assiduous and so well directed, as to leave nothing, at least in mere theory, to be desired. Prolific Germany has produced her fifty writers on this single subject, considered in one or another of its aspects. France has more than retrieved the ground which she had lost; and from apathy, has passed almost to enthusiasm. Her rapid advances have left all competition far behind, and placed her decidedly at the head of the science and of the To her we owe the work of Degerando, the only complete treatise which the world has yet seen, on the education of the deaf and dumb,-a treatise, which, however particular systems may vary from it in their practical details, embraces those great fundamental principles, which, having their origin in the very nature of things, must lie at the foundation of all. Spain, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Prussia, Switzerland, England, have all contributed their share to the common stock of improvement. Still, though we have in this country done nothing toward perfecting the theory of this noble art, and little toward reducing to system the details of its practice, we have done that which, to the eye of philanthropy, may seem of much higher importance. We have shown ourselves not insensible to the claim, which this remarkable portion of the human family have upon our sympathy and liberality. We have established institutions, which, though of less than twenty years' standing, occupy an elevated rank as well in character as in number. And though, in our extended country, the number of the deaf and dumb is great, and their wants inadequately supplied by the existing provision for their education, still the heart of the philanthropist is gladdened, whether he contemplates what has already been effected, or the disposition which manifests itself among our countrymen, to prosecute to its accomplishment whatever yet remains undone. Lamentable as the natural condition of the deaf and dumb evidently is, we have no satisfactory evidence, that, so lately as the commencement of the sixteenth century, the idea had ever occurred to any individual in any country, that this condition might be ameliorated by education. To impart instruction to a person affected by constitutional deafness, seemed an undertaking so palpably impossible, that its practicability was never even proposed as a problem, much less was it made a subject of examination and discussion. The speaking world had all acquired language through the medium of sound, and knowledge through the medium of language. The belief was therefore universally prevalent, that language could only be acquired through the ear, and was, consequently, in the nature of things, beyond the reach of the deaf and dumb. This pernicious prejudice had its origin in the highest antiquity. It has the express sanction of Aristotle, who, at a stroke of the pen, condemns the deaf and dumb to total and irremediable ignorance. Prejudices still more severe than this, of a kind, too, to bring down upon the heads of their unfortunate objects evils, which nature, unindulgent as in their sad case she evidently is, would have spared them, have extensively prevailed at different times and in different places; nor are we permitted to say, that they are even yet entirely dissipated. Among some nations of antiquity, the deaf and dumb were regarded as beings laboring under the curse of Heaven. By the Romans, they were considered, if not as affected by positive idiocy, as at least deficient in intellect; and were, consequently, by the code of Justinian, abridged of their civil rights. The Abbé de l'Epeé* asserts that, in some barbarous countries, the deaf and dumb are even now regarded as monsters, and put to death at three years old or later, probably as soon as the fact of their calamity can be satisfactorily ascertained. The benevolent Abbé further tells us, that very respectable ecclesiastics of his own time openly condemned his undertaking; and that, too, on theological grounds. Parents, he remarks again, hold themselves disgraced by the fact of having a deaf and dumb child, and therefore conceal it with care from the eyes of the world, and confine it in some obscure retreat. Condillac denies to the deaf and dumb the faculty of memory, * Institution des sourds et muets. Paris, 1776. VOL. XXXVIII.-NO. 83. |