(C. 2.)
"Scarcely had ruddy Phoebus spread the golden tresses of his beauteous
hair over the face of the wide and spacious earth; and scarcely had
the little painted birds, with the sweet and mellifluous harmony of
their forked tongues, saluted the approach of rosy Aurora, who,
quitting the soft couch of her jealous husband, disclosed herself to
mortals through the gates of the Mauchegan horizon; when the renowned
Don Quixote," &c.


How happily already is the abstraction from the senses, from
observation, and the consequent confusion of the judgment, marked in
this description! The knight is describing objects immediate to his
senses and sensations without borrowing a single trait from either.
Would it be difficult to find parallel descriptions in Dryden's plays
and in those of his successors?

(C. 3.)
The host is here happily conceived as one who from his past life as a
sharper, was capable of entering into and humouring the knight, and so
perfectly in character, that he precludes a considerable source of
improbability in the future narrative, by enforcing upon Don Quixote the
necessity of taking money with him.


(C. 3.)
"Ho, there, whoever thou art, rash knight, that approachest to touch
the arms of the most valorous adventurer that ever girded sword," &c.