Three thousand lashes, and eke three hundred more,
Each to afflict and sting, and gall him sore;

So shall relent the authors of her woes,
Whose awful will I for her ease disclose."

"Body o'me," quoth Sancho, "three thousand lashes! I will not give myself three; I will as soon give myself three stabs in the guts. May you and your disenchanting go to the devil! What a plague have my buttocks to do with the black art? Passion of my heart! Mr Merlin, if you have no better way for disenchanting the Lady Dulcinea, she may even lie bewitched to her dying-day for me."

"How now, opprobrious rascal," cried Don Quixote, "stinking garlick-eater! Sirrah, I will take you and tie your dogship to a tree, as naked as your mother bore you; and there I will not only give you three thousand three hundred lashes, but six thousand six hundred, ye varlet! and so smartly, that you shall feel them still, though you rub your backside three thousand times, scoundrel! Answer me a word, you rogue, and I will tear out your soul." -"Hold, hold !" cried Merlin, hearing this, "this must not be; the stripes inflicted on honest Sancho must be voluntary, without compulsion, and only laid on when he thinks most convenient. No set time is for the task fixed; and if he has a mind to have abated one half of this atonement, it is allowed, provided the remaining stripes be struck by a strange hand, and heavily laid on."

"Hold you there," quoth Sancho, “neither a strange hand nor my own, neither heavy nor light,

shall touch my bum. What a pox, did I bring Madam Dulcinea del Toboso into the world, that my hind parts should pay for the harm her eyes have done? Let my master Don Quixote whip himself, he is a part of her; he calls her every foot, my life, my soul, my sustenance, my comfort, and all that. So even let him jirk out her enchantment at his own bum's cost; but as for any whipping of me, I deny and pronounce* it flat and plain."

No sooner had Sancho thus spoken his mind, than the nymph that sat by Merlin's ghost in the glittering apparel, rising and lifting up her thin veil, discovered a very beautiful face; and with a masculine grace, but no very agreeable voice, addressing Sancho, "O thou disastrous squire," said she, "thou lump, with no more soul than a broken pitcher, heart of cork, and bowels of flint! Hadst thou been commanded, base sheep-stealer! to have thrown thyself headlong from the top of a high tower to the ground; hadst thou been desired, enemy of mankind! to have swallowed a dozen of toads, two dozen of lizards, and three dozen of snakes; or hadst thou been requested to have butchered thy wife and children, I should not wonder that it had turned thy squeamish stomach; but to make such a hesitation at three thousand three hundred stripes, which every puny school-boy makes nothing of receiving every month, it is amazing, nay astonishing to the tender and commiserating bowels of all that hear thee, and will be a blot in thy escutcheon to all futurity.

*A blunder of Sancho's, for renounce.

Look up, thou wretched and marble-hearted animal! look up, and fix thy huge louring goggle-eyes upon the bright luminaries of my sight. Behold these briny torrents, which, streaming down, furrow the flowery meadows of my cheeks. Relent, base and exorable monster-relent; let thy savage breast confess at last a sense of my distress, and, moved with the tenderness of my youth, that consumes and withers in this vile transformation, crack this sordid shell of rusticity that envelopes my blooming charms. In vain has the goodness of Merlin permitted me to reassume a while my native shape, since neither that, nor the tears of beauty in affliction, which are said to reduce obdurate rocks to the softness of cotton, and tygers to the tenderness of lambs, are sufficient to melt thy hagard breast. Scourge, scourge that brawny hide of thine, stubborn and unrelenting brute! that coarse inclosure of thy coarser soul, and rouse up thus thyself from that base sloth that makes thee live only to eat and pamper thy lazy flesh, indulging still thy voracious appetite. Restore me the delicacy of my skin, the sweetness of my disposition, and the beauty of my face. But if my entreaties and tears cannot work thee into a reasonable compliance, if I am not yet sufficiently wretched to move thy pity, at least let the anguish of that miserable knight, thy tender master, mollify thy heart. Alas! I see his very soul just at his throat, and sticking not ten inches from his lips, waiting only thy cruel or kind answer, either to fly out of his mouth, or return into his breast.”

very place, what you resolve to do, for Dulcinea must be again transformed into a country wench, and carried back immediately to Montesinos's cave, or else she shall go as she is now, to the Elysian fields, there to remain till the number of stripes be made out."" Come, come, honest Sancho," said the duchess, "pluck up a good courage, and shew your gratitude to your master, whose bread you have eaten, and to whose generous nature, and high feats of chivalry, we are all so much obliged. Come, child, give your consent, and make a fool of the devil: Hang fear; faint heart never won fair lady; fortune favours the brave, as you know better than I can tell you."-"Hark you, Mr Merlin," quoth Sancho, without giving the duchess an answer; 66 pray, will you tell me one thing. How comes it about, that this same post-devil that came before you, brought my master word from Signior Montesinos, that he would be here, and give him directions about this disenchantment, and yet we hear no news of Montesinos all this while ?"" Pshaw, answered Merlin, "the devil is an ass and a lying rascal; he came from me, and not from Montesinos; for he, poor man, is still in his cave, expecting the dissolution of the spell that confines him there yet, so that he is not quite ready to be free, and the worst is still behind.* But if he owes you any money, or you have any business with him, he shall

* Aun le falta la cola por desollar, i. e.-The tail still re.mains to be flayed, which is the most troublesome and hard to be done.

be forthcoming when and where you please. But now, pray make an end, and undergo this small penance, it will do you a world of good, for it will not only prove beneficial to your soul as an act of charity, but also to your body as a healthy exercise; for you are of a very sanguine complexion, Sancho, and losing a little blood will do you no harm.""Well," quoth Sancho, "there is like to be no want of physicians in this world, I find; the very conjurers set up for doctors too. Well, then, since every body says as much, (though I can hardly believe it,) I am content to give myself the three thousand three hundred stripes, upon condition that I may be paying them off as long as I please; observe that: though I will be out of debt as soon as I can, that the world may not be without the pretty face of the Lady Dulcinea del Toboso, which, I must own, I could never have believed to have been so handsome. Item, I shall not be bound to fetch blood, that is certain, and if any stroke happens to miss me, it shall pass for one, however. Item, Mr Merlin, (because he knows all things,) shall be obliged to reckon the lashes, and take care I do not give myself one more than the tale."-" There is not fear of that," said Merlin; " for at the very last lash the Lady Dulcinea will be disenchanted, come straight to you, make you a courtesy, and give you thanks. Heaven forbid I should wrong any man of the least hair of his head."-" Well," quoth Sancho, "what must be, must be; I yield to my hard luck, and, on the aforesaid terms, take up with my penance.