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We do not know precisely when the Galatea was written. M. Dumaine,ssss1 indeed, declares positively that the poems in the volume—he must surely mean some of them, not all—were addressed to a lady during the author's stay in Italy. If this were so, these verses would date (at latest) from September, 1575, when Cervantes left Italy for the last time. Sr. D. José María Asensio y Toledossss1 holds that the Galatea was begun in Portugal soon after the writer's return from Algiers in 1580. Of these views one may conceivably be true; one must necessarily be false; and it is more than possible that both are wrong. As no data are forthcoming to support either opinion, we may profitably set aside these speculations and proceed to examine the particulars disclosed in the preliminaries of the Galatea. The Aprobación was signed by Lucas Graciánssss1 Dantisco at Madrid on February 1, 1584, and, as some time must have passed between the submission of the manuscript to the censor and the issue of his license, it seems certain that the text of the Galatea was finished before the end of 1583. In its present form, the dedication, as will be seen presently, cannot have been written till about the end of the following summer. Meanwhile, on February 22, 1584, the Privilegio was granted at Madrid in the King's name by Antonio de Erasso. It was not till a year later—the very end of February 1585—that the Fe de erratas was passed at Alcalá de Henares by the Licenciado Vares de Castro, official corrector to the University of that city. The Tasa, which bears the name of Miguel Ondarza Zabala, was despatched at Madrid on March 13, 1585.