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"For the other Passages of his Life, we are only given to understand that he was for some time Secretary to the Duke of Alva" (p. ii). "Some are of the Opinion, that upon our Author's being neglectfully treated by the Duke of Lerma, first Minister to K. Philip the Third, a strange imperious, haughty Man, and one who had no Value for Men of Learning; he in Revenge, made this Satyr which, as they pretend, is chiefly aim'd at that Minister" (pp. iii.-iv.). The biographer then refers to Avellaneda's spurious sequel, and continues:—"Our Author was extremely concern'd at this Proceeding, and the more too, because this Writer was not content to invade his Design, and rob him, as 'tis said, of some of his Copy, but miserably abuses poor Cervantes in his Preface" (p. iv.).

These idle rumours as to Cervantes's relations with Lerma are taken from René Rapin's Réflexions sur la poétique d'Aristote, et sur les ouvrages des Poetes anciens & modernes (Paris, 1674, p. 229) and from Louis Moréri's Grand Dictionaire historique ou le mélange curieux de l'histoire sacrée et profane (Paris, 1687, third edition, vol. i., p. 795); but it is odd to find them reaching England before they reached Spain. Mayáns and Pedro Murillo Velarde do not reproduce them till 1737 and 1752 respectively: the first in his Vida de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Briga-Real), and the second in his Geographica historica (Madrid), vol x., lib. x., p. 28.