In the second engraving,
"The unfortunate Knight of the Rock meeting
Don Quixote" (Part I,
Chapters 23-24, shown above left),
Hogarth illustrates the encounter between
Don Quixote and Cardenio, who in the
novel is called the "Knight of the Rueful Countenance," and is described as having a black beard
and
unkempt hair.
Hogarth removes Cardenio's beard, but in other
details follows the original narrative.
Cardenio has descended from a rocky peak;
Don Quixote has already dismounted from his
horse to
greet him. The actual moment that Hogarth portrays occurs after Cardenio has offended
Don Quixote
by alluding to an illicit sexual
relationship between Queen Madásima and her physician
Elisabat, two characters from a romance of chivalry. Sancho is preparing to defend his master
with
the goatherd looking on. Hayman's illustration (on the right) of the episode in Smollett's edition is based on the
end of Chapter 24, after Cardenio has attacked
Don Quixote, Sancho and the goatherd, and
prepares
to return to the "thickets from whence he came."
