Less innocent, perhaps, are some of Quevedo's other burlesque pieces, which neither gods, men, nor county councillors may allow. In these the poet sins, however, more from carelessness of humour than grossness of imagination. It is not his ideas that are nasty so much as his words which are coarse. He uses words at random, and is reckless of the effect produced, letting his fancy run away with his pen, to the detriment of his art. He is wanting in the exquisite simplicity and delicacy of the master of whose work he was a chief admirer, whose style he followed, and in whose path he attempted to walk--his friend, Miguel de Cervantes. So passionate was his love for _Don Quixote_ that we are told he would throw down the book in an ecstasy and declare that he would gladly burn all his works to be able to write something like _Don Quixote_. Between the two wits it is pleasant to record that there was nothing like jealousy. Cervantes, in the references he makes to Quevedo, seems to speak with more than his wonted kindliness of the younger man, as though from personal intimacy. In the _Voyage to Parnassus_ Quevedo is rallied upon his lameness with a freedom which only a friend might take. In summing up the roll of the good poets who are to be Apollo's allies in the winning of Parnassus, the name of Quevedo is last on the list. But Cervantes interrupts the god-messenger to remind him of Quevedo's infirmity:--
_Scarce can Francisco de Quevedo be_ _In time, I said. Nay, quoth he, on this cruise_ _I do not go, unless he go with me;_ _He is Apollo's son, son of the Muse_ _Calliope; we cannot, it is clear,_ _Go hence without him; I do not choose;_ _He is the scourge of all the poets drear,_ _And from Parnassus, at the point of wit,_ _Will chase the miscreants we expect and fear!_ _My lord, I said, his pace is most unfit,_ _He'll be a century upon the route!_ _Quoth Mercury: It matters not a whit;_ _For be the poet gentleman to boot,_ _Upon a dappled cloud, and through the air,_ _He shall be borne, his courtly taste to suit!_[1]
In the delightful prose appendix to the same poem, the _Adjunta al Parnaso_, Don Pancracio de Roncesvalles brings to Cervantes' house a letter from the god Apollo, dated the 22nd of July, 1614. In this there is another reference to Quevedo: _If Don Francisco de Quevedo hath not left for Sicily, where they await him, seize him by the hand and tell him he must not fail to visit me in a neighbourly way; for his late sudden departure gave me no time to talk with him._