He had set out impelled by the spirit of burlesque, and perhaps had met in his wanderings on the King’s commission some quaint belated personage who seemed a survival from a picturesque, idealistic age, and who invited good-natured caricature. With some such intention, Cervantes began a tale, which, so far as he could foresee, would be no longer than some of his _Exemplary Novels_ (of which one, at least, was already written); but the experiment was a new one, and the author himself was at the mercy of accidents. He saw little more than the possibilities of his central idea: a country gentleman who had become a monomaniac by incessant pondering over fabulous deeds, and who was led into ridiculous situations by attempting to imitate the imaginary exploits of his mythical heroes. Cervantes sets forth light-heartedly; pictures his gaunt hero arguing with Master Nicolás, the village barber, over the relative merits of Palmerín and Amadís; and finally presents him aflame with an enthusiasm which drives him to furbish up his great-grandfather’s armour, to go out to right every kind of wrong, and to win everlasting renown (as well as the empire of Trebizond). Parodies, burlesque allusions, humorous parallels crowd upon the writer, and his pen flies trippingly along till he reaches the third chapter. At this point Cervantes perceives the subject broadening out, and the landlord accordingly impresses on Don Quixote the necessity of providing himself with a squire.
It is a momentous passage: there and then the image of Sancho Panza first flashed into the author’s mind, but not with any definition of outline. Cervantes does not venture to introduce Sancho Panza in person till near the end of the seventh chapter, and he is visibly ill at ease over his new creation. It is quite plain that, at this stage, Cervantes knew very little about Sancho Panza, and his first remark is that the squire was an honest man (if any poor man can be called honest), ‘but with very little sense in his pate.’ This is not the Sancho who has survived: honesty is not the most pre-eminent quality of the squire, and if anybody thinks Sancho Panza a born fool he must have a high standard of ability. In the ninth chapter Cervantes goes out of his way to describe Sancho Panza as a long-legged man: obviously, up to this point, he had never seen the squire at close quarters, and was as yet not nearly so well acquainted with him as you and I are. He was soon to know him more intimately. Perceiving his mistake, he hustled the long-legged scarecrow out of sight, observed the real Sancho with minute fidelity, and created the most richly humorous character in modern literature. The only possible rival to Sancho Panza is Sir John Falstaff; but Falstaff is emphatically English, whereas Sancho Panza is a citizen of the world, stamped with the seal of universality.