But what need has Cervantes of "such weak witness of his name;" or what could a monument do in his case except testify to the self-glorification of those who had put it up?
Si monumentum quoeris, circumspice.

The nearest bookseller's shop will show what bathos there would be in a monument to the author of "Don Quixote." Nine editions of the First Part of "Don Quixote" had already appeared before Cervantes died, thirty thousand copies in all, according to his own estimate, and a tenth was printed at Barcelona the year after his death.

So large a number naturally supplied the demand for some time, but by 1634 it appears to have been exhausted; and from that time down to the present day the stream of editions has continued to flow rapidly and regularly.

The translations show still more clearly in what request the book has been from the very outset.

In seven years from the completion of the work it had been translated into the four leading languages of Europe.