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"58. Supuesta la amistad, no era mucho, que usase Cervantes de semejante libertad. Contèntese pues el Licenciado Màrquez Torres, con que Cervantes le hizo partícipe de la gloria de su estilo. I veamos que moviò a Cervantes a querer hablar, como dicen, por boca de ganso. No fué otro su designio, sino manifestar la idea de su Obra, la estimacion de ella, i de su Autor en las Naciones estrañas, i su desvalimiento en la propia."

Navarrete protests (op. cit., pp. 491-493) against the theory put forward by Mayáns, notes that Márquez Torres published his Discursos in 1626 when culteranismo was in full vogue, and contends that he may have written in much better style eleven years earlier.

It would be imprudent to give great importance to arguments based solely on alleged differences of style. That Márquez Torres was in holy orders, and that he was appointed chaplain to a prelate so virtuous and clear-sighted as the Cardinal-Archbishop of Toledo are strong presumptions in his favour. Nothing that is known of him tends to discredit his testimony. It would be most unjustifiable to assume of any one in his responsible position that he was capable of inventing an elaborate story from beginning to end, and of publishing a tissue of falsehoods to the world. Nor can we lightly suppose that Cervantes would lend himself to such trickery. The probability surely is that there is some good foundation for the anecdote, though perhaps the tale may have lost nothing in the telling.