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ssss1 See El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha.... Nueva edición corregida por la Real Academia Española (Madrid, 1780), vol. i., p. xii.

ssss1 See Juan Antonio Pellicer's edition of Don Quixote (Madrid, 1797-1798), vol. i. pp. lxxv.-lxxvi.: "Restituido pues Cervantes á España en la primavera del año de 1581 fixó su residencia en Madrid.... Hizo también lugar para escribir y publicar el año de 1584 La Galatea."

It appears that all the assertions here made by Pellicer are mistaken. (1) Cervantes did not return to Spain in the spring of 1581, but late in 1580; (2) he did not reside permanently in Madrid during 1581, for we find him at Tomar on May 21 of that year; (3) if we are to understand that the Galatea was composed in 1684, this is disproved by the fact that the manuscript was passed by the censor on February 1, 1584, and must naturally have been in his possession for some time previously; (4) it will be shewn that the Galatea was not published in 1584, but in 1585. Pellicer is not to be blamed for not knowing the real facts. The pity is that he should give his guesses as though they were certainties. Yet, in a sense, events have justified his boldness; for no man's guesses have been more widely accepted.