CERUTTI CESAHOTTI. 



129 



CERUTTI, GIUSEPPE ANTONIO JOACHIMO ; one of 

 the last members of the order of the Jesuits, (previ- 

 ously to its dissolution in 1773), and one of their most 

 eminent professors in the college at Lyons, was born 

 at Turin, June 13th, 1738. His Apology for the 

 Jesuits attracted much attention. He had already 

 published two discourses upon the means of prevent- 

 ing duels, and on the reasons why modern republics 

 have not reached the splendour of the ancient. The 

 last received the prize of the academy of Dijon. The 

 Apology for the Jesuits gained him the favour of the 

 dauphin. He was at Paris when the revolution broke 

 out, in 1789. His principles, and, perhaps, a desire 

 )f revenging the humiliations which he had experi- 

 enced as a defender of the Jesuits, made him one of 

 the most zealous supporters of the new order of 

 tilings. He was intimately connected with Mirabeau, 

 and laboured much for him. He also published se- 

 veral pamphlets, among which was a Memoire sur la 

 Necessite des Contributions patriotiques. In 1791, he 

 was a member of the legislative assembly. Some time 

 after, he delivered, in the church of St Eustache, a 

 funeral discourse upon Mirabeau. Exhausted by his 

 zealous exertions, he died Feb. 2, 1792. The city of 

 Paris called a street after his name. 



CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE, one of 

 the great writers of modem times, was born probably 

 at Alcala de Henares, in 1547. His parents remov- 

 ed from this place to Madrid, when he was about 

 seven years old. Their limited means made it desir- 

 able that he should fix on some professional study 

 but he followed his irresistible inclination to poetry, 

 which his master, Juan Lopez, encouraged. Elegies, 

 ballads, sonnets, and a pastoral, Filena, were the first 

 productions of his poetical genius. Poverty compell- 

 ed him to quit his country, at the age of twenty-two, 

 to seek maintenance elsewhere. He went to Italy, 

 where he became page to the cardinal Guilio Aqua- 

 viva, in Rome. In 1570, he served under the papal 

 commander, M.A. Colonna, hi the war against the 

 Turks and African corsairs, with distinguished cour- 

 age. In the battle of Lepanto, he lost his left hand. 

 After this, he joined the troops at Naples, hi the ser- 

 vice of the Spanish king. In 1575, returning to his 

 country, he was taken by the corsair Arnaut Mami, 

 and sold in Algiers as a slave. He remained hi sla- 

 very for seven years. Servitude, far from subduing his 

 mind, served to strengthen his faculties. Vincente de 

 los Rios and M. F. Navarrete, his chief biographers, 

 relate the bold but unsuccessful plans which he formed 

 to obtain his freedom ; but, as the only information 

 we have of that period of his life is from his own novel 

 (the Prisoner), of which we cannot positively say 

 that it relates merely the facts of his imprisonment, 

 we cannot determine, with great accuracy, his ad- 

 ventures hi Barbary. In 1580, his friends and rela- 

 tions at length ransomed him. At the beginning of 

 the following year, he arrived in Spain, and from 

 this tune lived in seclusion, entirely devoted to the 

 muses. It was natural to expect something uncom- 

 mon from a man, who, with inexhaustible invention, 

 great richness of imagination, keen wit, and a happy 

 humour, united a mature, penetrating, and clear in- 

 tellect, and great knowledge of real life, and man- 

 kind in general. But it rarely happens, that expec- 

 tation is so much surpassed as was the case with 

 Cervantes. He began his new poetical career with 

 the pastoral novel, Galatea (1584), in which he cele- 

 brates his mistress. Soon after the publication of 

 this, he married. Being thus obliged to look out 

 for more lucrative labour, he employed his poetical 

 genius for the stage ; and, in the course often years 

 Furnished about thirty dramas, amongst which his 

 tragedy called Numancia is particularly valued. He 

 was not so successful in another kind of drama, par- 



ticularly favoured by the Spaniards, a tangled mix- 

 ture of intrigues and adventures; and this was, 

 doubtless, the cause why he was supplanted by Lope 

 de Vega, who was particularly qualified for this kind 

 of composition. He, consequently, gave up the thea- 

 tre, but, it seems, not without regret. From 1594 

 to 1599, he lived retired at Seville, where he held a 

 little office. He did not appear again as an author 

 till after the lapse of ten years, when he produced a 

 work which has immortalized his name Don Quixote. 

 Cervantes had in view, by this work, to reform the 

 taste and opinions of his countrymen. He wished to 

 ridicule that adventurous heroism, with all its evil 

 consequences, the source of which was the innumer- 

 able novels on knight-errantry. The beginning of 

 the work was, at first, coldly received, but soon met 

 with the greatest applause, in which, at a later 

 period, the whole of Europe joined. Cervantes' true 

 poetical genius was nowhere so powerfully displayed 

 as in his Don Quixote, which, notwithstanding its 

 prosaic purpose and its satirical aim, is full of 

 genuine poetry. While it struggles against the 

 prevailing false romance of the tune, it displays the 

 most truly romantic spirit. The extraordinary good 

 fortune of the work did not extend to the author. 

 All his attempts to better his condition were unsuc- 

 cessful, and he lived retired, with his genius and his 

 poverty, and a modest though proud estimation of 

 his merits. After an interval of some years, he 

 again appeared before the public, in 1613, with 

 Twelve Novels (which may be placed by the side of 

 Boccaccio's), and his Journey to Parnassus an at- 

 tempt to improve the taste of his nation. In 1615, 

 he published eight new dramas, with intermezzos, 

 which, however, were indifferently received. Envy 

 and ill-will, in the mean tune, assailed him, and en- 

 deavoured to deprive the neglected author of his 

 literary fame ; for which the delay of the continua- 

 tion of Don Quixote afforded the pretext. An un- 

 known writer published, under the name of Alonzo 

 Fernandez de Avellaneda, a continuation of this 

 work, full of abuse against Cervantes. He felt the 

 malice of the act painfully, but revenged himself in a 

 noble manner, by producing the continuation of his 

 Don Quixote (1615), the last of his works which ap- 

 peared during his lifetime; for his novel Persiles 

 and Sigismunda was published after his death. He 

 found a faithful friend in the count of Lenos, and 

 was thus saved from the death of Butler; but 

 poverty, his constant companion through life, re- 

 mained true to him till his last moments. He died 

 at the age of sixty-eight, April 23, 1616, hi Madrid, 

 where he had resided during the last years of his life. 

 He was buried without any ceremony, and not even 

 a common tombstone marks the spot where he rests. 

 In addition to his celebrity as an author, he left the 

 reputation of a man of a firm and noble character, 

 clear-sighted to his own faults and those of others 

 Many of his works are translated; Don Quixote 

 into all the languages of Europe. 



CESAR. See Caesar. 



CESAROTTI, MELCHIOR ; one of the most cele- 

 brated of the Italian literati of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury ; born at Padua, in 1730, of a noble family. He 

 devoted himself to the belles-lettres, and was soon 

 chosen professor of rhetoric hi the seminary hi which 

 he was educated. He translated three tragedies of 

 Voltaire Semiramis, La Mart de Cesar, and Maho- 

 met. In 1762, he went to Venice, where he trans- 

 lated Ossian into Italian, and was, in 1768, appointed 

 professor of the Greek and Hebrew languages hi the 

 university of Padua. Here he published his transla- 

 tion of Demosthenes and of Homer, and his course 

 of Greek literature. After the establishment of the 

 republican government, in 1 797, 'he was appointed 



