Saavedra Miguel de, the inimitable author of Don Quixote, was born at Alcala de Henares, New Castle, Oct. 9, 1547. He was descended from a noble family, and was the youngest son of Rodrigo di Cervantes and Leonora de Cortinas. From his earliest years he showed an insatiable love of reading, which induced his father to send him to Madrid, that he might receive his education under Juan Lopez de Hoyos, and be fitted for the profession of theology, medicine, or law. The poetical bent of his genius, however, gradually withdrew his attention from these severer studies, and led him at last to devote his whole time to the composition of verses. His first attempt of this kind was an elegy on the death of Queen Isabella, and was speedily followed by a pastoral entitled Cervantes, Filena, several sonnets, romances, and other poems. The apathy with which his countrymen, even his friends, received these productions, roused Cervantes to seek a more favourable field for the display of his talents abroad. In 1569 he set out for Rome, where he became valet to Cardinal Aquaviva, to whom he had been introduced at Madrid. In the following year he quitted the cardinal's service, and joined the expedition fitted out under Marco Antonio Colonna to succour the Cyprians against the invasion of Selim II. He was present at the action in the Gulf of Lepanto, and conducted himself with great bravery, but had the misfortune to receive a severe wound in his left hand, which deprived him of the use of it for life. He was carried in a Spanish ship to the hospital at Messina, and when dismissed immediately rejoined the troops at Naples, who were preparing to march on an expedition against Tunis. During this period he assiduously improved his knowledge of Italian, and had an opportunity of visiting the most celebrated cities of Italy. In 1575 he set out with his brother for Madrid in a Spanish galley called El Sol (the Sun), which had scarcely set sail when they encountered a squadron of Algerian pirates, and were taken prisoners and carried to Algiers, where they remained for four years. Cervantes made many vigorous efforts for the release of himself and his companions, and one of these was so nearly successful that having avowed himself the author of the scheme he was adjudged to death. The admiration, however, which his master entertained for his conduct procured the transmutation of the sentence, and he was soon after transferred as a slave to the service of the Dey. In this situation his enterprising mind conceived a scheme of insurrection, and though the plot was discovered the feeling of respect and even awe with which he was regarded secured him from any ignominious treatment. After many unsuccessful attempts on the part of the Spaniards to relieve the captives, Cervantes and his companions were redeemed in 1580 through the intervention of the Trinitarian Fathers Juan Gil and Antonio de la Bella, who paid down 500 gold ducats for his release. But his misfortunes had not yet cooled down his military ardour; for on his return to Spain he again resumed his arms, and went in three successive expeditions to the Azores. On his return he composed his pastoral romance of Galatea, in honour, it is said, of a certain Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazar, whom he shortly after married. From this period he was for ten years employed in writing plays for the Spanish stage, but of the thirty which he wrote only two have survived, viz. Los Tratos de Argel (Life in Algiers) and La Numancia. For some time he lived at Seville, where he held the office of assistant purveyor to the Indian fleet, and probably wrote the first part of Don Quixote, which, however, was not printed till 1605. Eight years after appeared the Novelas Exemplares, consisting partly of serious partly of comic pieces, in which examples are given of virtues to be imitated and vices to be shunned. This was followed by the Viage el Parnasso (Journey to Parnassus), a satirical piece written in imitation of a similar work by Caesar Caporale, an Italian poet of the sixteenth century. In 1615 he published the continuation of Don Quixote, which immediately supplanted a spurious continuation written by Fernandos de Arellaneda a short while before, and placed the author still higher in popular estimation than before. The work was read by his countrymen with the utmost avidity, and immediately translated into all the European languages. The last work which Cervantes wrote was entitled Trabajos de Pericles y Sigismunda, a grave romance, written after the Theagenes and Chariclea of Heliodorus. At the end of the preface to this book he alludes with touching playfulness to the dropsy which was slowly consuming his life,—“the thirst attending which,” he says, “all the water of the ocean, though it were not salt, would not suffice to quench." Notwithstanding the agonies which he suffered from this constantly increasing malady, he continued writing and talking in his characteristic humorously strain, till his death on the 23rd April 1616—the same day which deprived the world of Shakespeare. For a critical estimate of Cervantes' writings, see ROMANCE.