THE AGE OF THE BOURBONS
1700-1808
Letters, arts, and even rational politics, practically died in Spain
during the reign of Carlos II. Good work was done in serious branches
of study: in history by Gaspar Ibáñez de Segovia Peralta y Mendoza,
Marqués de Mondéjar; in bibliography by Nicolás Antonio; in law by
Francisco Ramos del Manzano; in mathematics by Hugo de Omerique,
whose analytic gifts won the applause of Newton. But all the rest was
neglected while the King was exorcised, and was forced to swallow a
quart of holy oil as a counter-charm against the dead men's brains
given him (as it was alleged) by his mother in a cup of chocolate. Nor
did the nightmare lift with his death on November 1, 1700: the War
of the Succession lasted till the signing of the Utrecht Treaty in
1713. The new sovereign, Felipe V., grandson of Louis XIV., interested
himself in the progress of his people; and being a Frenchman of his
time, he believed in the centralisation of learning. His chief ally was
that Marqués de Villena familiar to all readers of St. Simon as the
major-domo who used his wand upon Cardinal Alberoni's skull:—"Il lève
son petit bâton et le laisse tomber de toute sa force dru et menu sur
les oreilles du cardinal, en l'appelant petit coquin, petit faquin,
petit impudent qui ne méritoit que les étrivières." But even St. Simon
admits Villena's rare qualities:—"Il savoit beaucoup, et il étoit
de toute sa vie en commerce avec la plupart de tous les savants des
divers pays de l'Europe.... C'était un homme bon, doux, honnête, sensé
... enfin l'honneur, la probité, la valeur, la vertu même." In 1711
the Biblioteca Nacional was founded; in 1714 the Spanish Academy of
the Language was established, with Villena as "director," and soon set
to earnest work. The only good lexicon published since Nebrija's was
Sebastián de Covarrubias y Horozco's _Tesoro de la Lengua castellana_
(1611): under Villena's guidance the Academy issued the six folios
of its Dictionary, commonly called the _Diccionario de Autoridades_
(1726-39). Accustomed to his Littré, his Grimm, to the scientific
methods of MM. Arsène Darmesteter, Hatzfeld, and Thomas, and to that
monumental work now publishing at the Clarendon Press, the modern
student is too prone to dwell on the defects—manifest enough—of the
Spanish Academy's Dictionary. Yet it was vastly better than any other
then existing in Europe, is still of unique value to scholars, and was
so much too good for its age that, in 1780, it was cut down to one poor
volume. The foundation of the Academy of History, under Agustín de
Montiano, in 1738, is another symptom of French authority.
Mr. Gosse and Dr. Garnett, in previous volumes of the present series,
have justly emphasised the predominance of French methods both in
English and Italian literature during the eighteenth century. In
Germany the French sympathies of Frederick the Great and of Wieland
were to be no less obvious. Sooner or later, it was inevitable that
Spain should undergo the French influence; yet, though the French
nationality of the King is a factor to be taken into account, his
share in the literary revolution is too often exaggerated. Long before
Felipe V. was born Spaniards had begun to interest themselves in
French literature. Thus Quevedo, who translated the _Introduction à
la Vie Dévote_ of St. François de Sales, showed himself familiar with
the writings of a certain Miguel de Montaña, more recognisable as
Michel de Montaigne. Juan Bautista Diamante, apparently ignorant of
Guillén de Castro's play, translated Corneille's _Cid_ under the title
of _El Honrador de su padre_ (1658); and in March 1680 an anonymous
arrangement of the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ was given at the Buen Retiro
under the title of _El Labrador Gentilhombre_. Still more significant
is an incident recalled by Sr. Menéndez y Pelayo: the staging of
Corneille's _Rodogune_ and Molière's _Les Femmes Savantes_ at Lima,
about the year 1710, in Castilian versions, made by Pedro de Peralta
Barnuevo. Compared with this, the Madrid translations of Corneille's
_Cinna_ and of Racine's _Iphigénie_, by Francisco de Pizarro y
Piccolomini, Marqués de San Juan (1713), and by José de Cañizares
(1716), are of small moment. The latter performances may very well have
been due in great part to the personal influence of the celebrated
Madame des Ursins, an active French agent at the Spanish court.
Readers curious as to the Spanish poets of the eighteenth century
may turn with confidence to the masterly and exhaustive _Historia
Crítica_ of the Marqués de Valmar. Their number may be inferred from
this detail: that more than one hundred and fifty competed at a poetic
joust held in honour of St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. Stanislaus
Kostka in 1727. But none of all the tribe is of real importance. It
is enough to mention the names of Juan José de Salazar y Hontiveros,
a priestly copromaniac, like his contemporary, Swift; of José León y
Mansilla, who wrote a third _Soledad_ in continuation of Góngora; and
of Sor María del Cielo, a mild practitioner in lyrical mysticism. A
little later there follow Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo, a representative
_conceptista_; Eugenio Gerardo Lobo, a romantic soldier with a craze
for versifying; Diego de Torres y Villarroel, an encyclopædic professor
at Salamanca, who, half-knowing everything from the cedar by Lebanon
to the hyssop that groweth on the wall, showed critical insight by the
contempt in which he held his own rhymes. The Carmelite, Fray Juan de
la Concepción, a Gongorist of the straitest sect, was the idol of his
generation, and proved his quality, when he was elected to the Academy
in 1744, by returning thanks in a rhymed speech: an innovation which
scandalised his brethren, and has never been repeated.
A head and shoulders over these rises the figure of IGNACIO DE LUZÁN
CLARAMUNT DE SUELVES Y GURREA (1702-54), who, spending his youth in
Italy, was—so it is believed—a pupil of Giovanni Battista Vico at
Naples, where he remained during eighteen years. For his century,
Luzán's equipment was considerable. His Greek and Latin were of the
best; Italian was almost his native tongue; he read Descartes and
epitomised the Port-Royal treatise on logic; he was versed in German,
and, meeting with _Paradise Lost_—probably during his residence as
Secretary to the Embassy in Paris (1747-50)—he first revealed Milton
to Spain by translating select passages into prose. His verses,
original and translated, are insignificant, though, as an instance of
his French taste, his version of Lachaussée's _Préjugé à la Mode_ is
worthy of notice: not so the four books of his _Poética_ (1737). So
early as 1728, Luzán prepared six _Ragionamenti sopra la poesia_ for
the Palermo Academy, and on his return to Spain in 1733 he re-arranged
his treatise in Castilian. The _Poética_ avowedly aims at "subjecting
Spanish verse to the rules which obtain among cultured nations"; and
though its basis is Lodovico Muratori's _Della perfetta poesia_, with
suggestions borrowed from Vincenzo Gravina and Giovanni Crescimbeni,
the general drift of Luzán's teaching coincides with that of French
doctrinaires like Rapin, Boileau, and Le Bossu. It seems probable that
his views became more and more French with time, for the posthumous
reprint of the _Poética_ (1789) shows an increase of anti-national
spirit; but on this point it is hard to judge, inasmuch as his pupil
and editor, Eugenio de Llaguno y Amírola (a strong French partisan, who
translated Racine's _Athalie_ in 1754), is suspected of tampering with
this text, as he adulterated that of Díaz Gámez' _Crónica del Conde de
Buelna_.
Luzán's destructive criticisms are always acute, and are generally
just. Lope is for him a genius of amazing force and variety, while
Calderón is a singer of exquisite music. With this ingratiating
prelude, he has no difficulty in exposing their most obvious defects,
and his attack on Gongorism is delivered with great spirit. It is in
construction that he fails: as when he avers that the ends of poetry
and moral philosophy are identical, that Homer was a didactic poet
expounding political and transcendental truths to the vulgar, that
epics exist for the instruction of monarchs and military chiefs, that
the period of a play's action should correspond precisely with the time
that the play takes in acting. Luzán's rigorous logic ends by reducing
to absurdity the didactic theories of the eighteenth century; yet, for
all his logic, he had a genuine love of poetry, which induced him
to neglect his abstract rules. It is true that he scarcely utters a
proposition which is not contradicted by implication in other parts
of his treatise. Nevertheless, his book has both a literary and an
historic value. Written in excellent style and temper, with innumerable
parallels from many literatures, the _Poética_ served as a manifesto
which summoned Spain to fall into line with academic Europe; and Spain,
among the least academic because among the most original of countries,
ended by obeying. Her old inspiration had passed away with her wide
dominion, and Luzán deserves credit for lending her a new opportune
impulse.
He was not to win without a battle. The official licensers,
Manuel Gallinero and Miguel Navarro, took public objection to the
retrospective application of his doctrines, and a louder note of
opposition was sounded in a famous quarterly, the _Diario de los
Literatos de España_, founded in 1737 by Juan Martínez Salafranca and
Leopoldo Gerónimo Puig. Though the _Diario_ was patronised by Felipe
V., though its judgments are now universally accepted, it came before
its time: the bad authors whom it victimised combined against it, and,
as the public remained indifferent, the review was soon suspended.
Even among the contributors to the _Diario_, Luzán found an ally in
the person of the clerical lawyer, JOSÉ GERARDO DE HERVÁS Y COBO DE
LA TORRE (d. 1742), author of the popular _Sátira contra los malos
Escritores de su Tiempo_. Hervás, who took the pseudonym of Jorge
Pitillas, wrote with boldness, with critical sense, with an ease and
point and grace which engraved his verse upon the general memory; so
that to this day many of his lines are as familiar to Spaniards as
are Pope's to Englishmen. They err who hold with Ticknor that Hervás
imitated Persius and Juvenal: in style and doctrine his immediate
model was Boileau, whom he adapts with rare skill, and without any
acknowledgment. He carries a step further the French doctrines,
insinuated rather than proclaimed in the _Poética_, and, though he was
not an avowed propagandist, his sarcastic epigrams perhaps did more
than any formal treatise to popularise the new doctrines.
A reformer on the same lines was the Benedictine, BENITO GERÓNIMO
FEIJÓO Y MONTENEGRO (1675-1764), whose _Teatro crítico_ and _Cartas
eruditas y curiosas_ were as successful in Spain as were the _Tatler_
and _Spectator_ in England. Feijóo's style is laced with Gallicisms,
and his vain, insolent airs of infallibility are antipathetic; yet
though his admirers have made him ridiculous by calling him "the
Spanish Voltaire," his intellectual curiosity, his cautious scepticism,
his lucid intelligence, his fine scent for a superstitious fallacy,
place him among the best writers of his age. A happy instance of his
skill in exposing a paradox is his indictment of Rousseau's _Discours
sur les Sciences et les Arts_. His rancorous tongue raised up crowds
of enemies, who scrupled not to circulate vague rumours as to his
heretical tendencies: in fact, his orthodoxy was as unimpeachable as
were the services which he rendered to his country's enlightenment.
His cause, and the cause of learning generally, were championed
by the Galician, Pedro José García y Balboa, best known as MARTÍN
SARMIENTO (1695-1772), the name which he bore in the Benedictine order.
Sarmiento's erudition is at least equal to Feijóo's, and his industry
is matched by the variety of his interests. As a botanist he won the
admiration and friendship of Linné; Feijóo's _Teatro crítico_ owes
much to his unselfish supervision; yet, while his name was esteemed
throughout Europe, he shrank from domestic criticism, and withheld his
miscellaneous works from the press. He owes his place in literature
to his posthumous _Memorias para la historia de la Poesía y Poetas
españoles_, which, despite its excessive local patriotism, is not only
remarkable for its shrewd insight, but forms the point of departure
for all later studies. Not less useful was the life's work of GREGORIO
MAYÁNS Y SISCAR (1699-1781), who was the first to print Juan de Valdés'
_Diálogo de la Lengua_, who was the first biographer of Cervantes, and
who edited Luis Vives, Luis de León, Mondéjar, and others. Though much
of Mayáns' writing has grown obsolete in its methods, he is honourably
remembered as a pioneer, and his _Orígenes de la Lengua castellana_ is
full of wise suggestion and acute divination.
Prominent among Luzán's followers in the self-constituted Academia
del Buen Gusto is BLAS ANTONIO NASARRE Y FÉRRIZ (1689-1751), an
industrious, learned polygraph who carried party spirit so far as to
reproduce Avellaneda's spurious _Don Quixote_ (1732), on the specific
ground that it was in every way superior to the genuine sequel.
Cervantes, indeed, was an object of pitying contempt to Nasarre, who,
when he reprinted Cervantes' plays in 1749, contended that they not
only were the worst ever written, but that they were a heap of follies
deliberately invented to burlesque Lope de Vega's theatre. Of the same
school is Lope's merciless foe, AGUSTÍN MONTIANO Y LUYANDO (1697-1765),
author of two poor tragedies, the _Virginia_ and the _Ataulfo_,
models of dull academic correctness. Yet he found an illustrious
admirer in the person of Lessing, who, by his panegyric on Montiano
in the _Theatralische Bibliotek_, remains as a standing example of
the fallibility of the greatest critics when they pronounce judgment
on foreign literatures. Even more exaggerated than Montiano was the
Marqués de Valdeflores, LUIS JOSÉ VELÁZQUEZ DE VELASCO (1722-72),
whom we have already seen ascribing Torre's poems to Quevedo, an
error almost sufficient to ruin any reputation. Velázquez expressed
his general literary views in his _Orígenes de la Poesía castellana_
(1749), which found an enthusiastic translator in Johann Andreas Dieze,
of Göttingen. Velázquez develops and emphasises the teaching of his
predecessors, denounces the dramatic follies of Lope and Calderón, and
even goes so far as to regret that Nasarre should waste his powder
on two common, discredited fellows like Lope and Cervantes. It is
impossible for us here to record the polemics in which Luzán's teaching
was supported or combated; defective as it was, it had at least the
merit of rousing Spain from her intellectual torpor.
Some effect of the new criticism is seen in the works of the Jesuit,
JOSÉ FRANCISCO DE ISLA (1703-81), whose finer humour is displayed in
his _Triunfo del Amor y de la Lealtad_ (1746), which professes to
describe the proclamation at Pamplona of Ferdinand VI.'s accession.
The author was officially thanked by Council and Chapter, and some
expressed by gifts their gratitude for his handsome treatment. As
Basques joke with difficulty, it was not until two months later that
the _Triunfo_ (which bears the alternative title of _A Great Day for
Navarre_) was suspected to be a burlesque of the proceedings and all
concerned in them. Isla kept his countenance while he assured his
victims of his entire good faith; the latter, however, expressed
their slow-witted indignation in print, and brought such pressure to
bear that the lively Jesuit—who kept up the farce of denial till the
last day of his life—was removed from Pamplona by his superiors.
The incorrigible wag departed to become a fashionable preacher; but
his sense of humour accompanied him to church, and was displayed at
the cost of his brethren. Paravicino, as we have already observed,
introduced Gongorism into the pulpit, and his lead was followed by
men of lesser faculty, who reproduced "the contortions of the Sibyl
without her inspiration." By degrees preaching almost grew to be a
synonym for buffoonery, and by the middle of the eighteenth century
it was as often as not an occasion for the vulgar profanity which
pleases devout illiterates. It is impossible to cite here the worst
excesses; it is enough to note that a "cultured" congregation applauded
a preacher who dared to speak of "the divine Adonis, Christ, enamoured
of that singular Psyche, Mary!" Bishops in their pastorals, monks
like Feijóo in his _Cartas eruditas_, and laymen like Mayáns in his
_Orador Cristiano_ (1733), strove ineffectually to reform the abuse:
where exhortation failed, satire succeeded. Isla had witnessed these
pulpit extravagances at first hand, and his six quarto volumes of
sermons—none of them inspiring to read, however impressive when
delivered—show that he himself had begun by yielding to a mode from
which his good sense soon freed him.
His _Historia del famoso Predicador Fray Gerundio de Campazas, alias
Zotes_ (1758), published by Isla under the name of his friend,
Francisco Lobón de Salazar, parish priest of Aguilar and Villagarcía
del Campo, is an attempt to do for pulpit profanity what _Don Quixote_
had done for chivalresque extravagances. It purports to be the story
of a peasant-boy, Gerundio, with a natural faculty for clap-trap, which
leads him to take orders, and gains for him no small consideration. A
passage from the sermon which decided Gerundio's childish vocation may
be quoted as typical:—"Fire, fire, fire! the house is a-flame! _Domus
mea, domus orationis vocabitur_. Now, sacristan, peal those resounding
bells: _in cymbalis bene sonantibus_. That's the style: as the
judicious Picinelus observed, a death-knell and a fire-tocsin are just
the same. _Lazarus amicus noster dormit_. Water, sirs, water! the earth
is consumed—_quis dabit capiti meo aquam_.... Stay! what do I behold?
Christians, alas! the souls of the faithful are a-fire!—_fidelium
animæ_. Molten pitch feeds the hungry flames like tinder: _requiescat
in pace, id est, in pice_, as Vetablus puts it. How God's fire devours!
_ignis a Deo illatus_. Tidings of great joy! the Virgin of Mount Carmel
descends to save those who wore her holy scapular: _scapulis suis_.
Christ says: 'Help in the King's name!' The Virgin pronounceth: 'Grace
be with me!' _Ave Maria._" And so forth at much length.
Isla fails in his attempt to solder fast impossibilities, to amalgamate
rhetorical doctrine with farcical burlesque; nor has his book the
saving quality of style. Still, though it be too long drawn out, it
abounds with an emphatic, violent humour which is almost irresistible
at a first reading. The Second Part, published in 1770, is a work of
supererogation. The First caused a furious controversy in which the
regulars combined to throw mud at the Jesuits with such effect that, in
1760, the Holy Office intervened, confiscated the volume, and forbade
all argument for or against it. Ridicule, however, did its work in
surreptitious copies; so that when the author was expelled from Spain
with the rest of his order in 1765, Fray Gerundio and his like were
reformed characters. In 1787 Isla translated _Gil Blas_, under the
impression that he was "restoring the book to its native land." The
suggestion that Le Sage merely plagiarised a Spanish original is due in
the first place to Voltaire, who made it, for spiteful reasons of his
own, in the famous _Siècle de Louis XIV._ (1751). As some fifteen or
twenty episodes are unquestionably borrowed from Espinel and others, it
was not unnatural that Spaniards should (rather late in the day) take
Voltaire at his word; none the less, the character of Gil Blas himself
is as purely French as may be, and Le Sage vindicates his originality
by his distinguished treatment of borrowed matter. Isla's version is
a sound, if unnecessary, piece of work, spoiled by the inclusion of a
worthless sequel due to the Italian, Giulio Monti.
The action of French tradition is visible in NICOLÁS FERNÁNDEZ DE
MORATÍN (1737-80), whose _Hormesinda_ (1770), a dramatic exercise in
Racine's manner, too highly rated by literary friends, was condemned
by the public. His prose dissertations consist of invectives against
Lope and Calderón, and of eulogies on Luzán's cold verse. These are
all forgotten, and Moratín, who remained a good patriot, despite his
efforts to Gallicise himself, survives at his best in his brilliant
panegyric on bull-fighting—the _Fiesta de Toros en Madrid_—whose
spirited _quintillas_, modelled after Lope's example, are in every
Spaniard's memory.
Moratín's friend, JOSÉ DE CADALSO Y VÁZQUEZ (1741-1782), a colonel
in the Bourbon Regiment, after passing most of his youth in Paris,
travelled through England, Germany, and Italy, returning as free from
national prejudices as a young man can hope to be. A certain elevation
of character and personal charm made him a force among his intimates,
and even impressed strangers; as we may judge by the fact that, when he
was killed at the siege of Gibraltar, the English army wore mourning
for him. His more catholic taste avoided the exaggerations of Nasarre
and Moratín; he found praise for the national theatre, and many of
his verses imply close study of Villegas and Quevedo. Even so, his
attachment to the old school was purely theoretical. His knowledge of
English led him to translate in verse—as Luzán had already translated
in prose—passages from _Paradise Lost_; his sepulchral _Noches
Lúgubres_, written upon the death of his mistress, the actress María
Ignacia Ibáñez, are plainly inspired by Young's _Night Thoughts_; his
_Cartas Marruecas_ derive from the _Lettres Persanes_; his tragedy,
_Don Sancho García_, an attempt to put in practice the canons of the
French drama, transplants to Spain the rhymed couplets of the Parisian
stage. The best example of Cadalso's cultivated talent is his poem
entitled _Eruditos á la Violeta_, wherein he satirises pretentious
scholarship with a light, firm touch. In curious contrast with
Cadalso's _Don Sancho García_ is the _Raquel_ (1778) of his friend
VICENTE ANTONIO GARCÍA DE LA HUERTA Y MUÑOZ (1734-87), whose troubles
would seem to have affected his brain. Though Huerta brands Corneille
and Racine as a pair of lunatics, he is a strait observer of the sacred
"unities": in all other respects—in theme, monarchical sentiment,
sonority of versification—_Raquel_ is a return upon the ancient
classic models. Its disfavour among foreign critics is inexplicable,
for no contemporary drama equals it in national savour. Huerta's
good intention exceeds his performance in the _Theatro Hespañol_, a
collection (in seventeen volumes) of national plays, arranged without
much taste or knowledge.
This involved him in a bitter controversy, which probably shortened
his life. Prominent among his enemies was the Basque, FÉLIX MARÍA DE
SAMANIEGO (1745-1801), whose early education was entirely French,
and who regarded Lope much as Voltaire regarded Shakespeare. Though
Huerta's intemperance lost him his cause, Samaniego's real triumph was
in another field than that of controversy. His _Fábulas_ (1781-94),
mostly imitations or renderings of Phædrus, La Fontaine, and Gay,
are almost the best in their kind—simple, clear, and forcible. A
year earlier than Samaniego, the Jesuit Lasala, of Bologna, had
translated the fables of Lukmān al-Hakīm into Latin, and, in 1784,
Miguel García Asensio published a Castilian version. It does not
appear that Samaniego knew anything of Lasala, nor was he disturbed
by García Asensio's translation. Before the latter was in print,
he was annoyed at finding himself rivalled by TOMÁS DE IRIARTE Y
OROPESA (1750-91), who had begun his career as a prose translator of
Molière and Voltaire, and had charmed—or at least had drawn effusive
compliments from—Metastasio with a frigid poem, _La Música_ (1780).
In the following year Iriarte published his _Fábulas literarias_,
putting the versified apologue to doctrinal uses, censuring literary
faults, and expounding what he held to be true doctrine. He took
most pride in his plays, _El Señorito mimado_ and _La Señorita
mal criada_; yet the Spoiled Young Gentleman and the Ill-bred
Young Lady are forgotten—somewhat unjustly—by all but students,
while the wit and polish of the fables have earned their author an
excessive fame. Iriarte was, in the best sense, an "elegant" writer.
Unluckily for himself and us, much of his short life was, after the
eighteenth-century fashion, wasted in polemics with able, learned
ruffians, of whom Juan Pablo Forner (1756-97) is the most extreme type.
Forner's versified attack on Iriarte, _El Asno erudito_, is one of the
most ferocious libels ever printed. Literary men the world over are
famous for their manners: Spain is in this respect no better than her
neighbours, and the abusive personalities which form a great part of
her literary history during the last century are now the driest, most
vacant chaff imaginable.
In pleasing contrast with these irritable mediocrities is the figure of
GASPAR MELCHOR DE JOVE-LLANOS (1744-1811), the most eminent Spaniard
of his age. Educated for the Church, Jove-Llanos turned to law,
was appointed magistrate at Seville in his twenty-fourth year, was
transferred to Madrid in 1778, became a member of the Council of Orders
in 1780, was exiled to Asturias on the fall of Cabarrús in 1790, and
seven years later was appointed Minister of Justice. The incarnation
of all that was best in the liberalism of his time, he was equally
odious to reactionaries and revolutionists. A stern moralist, he
strove to end the intrigue between the Queen and the notorious Godoy,
Prince of the Peace, and at the latter's instance was dismissed from
office in 1798. He passed the years 1801-8 a prisoner in the Balearic
Islands, returning to find Spain under the heel of France. His prose
writings, political, economic, and didactic, do not concern us here,
though their worth is admitted by good judges. Jove-Llanos is most
interesting because of his own poetic achievement, and because of his
influence on the group of Salamancan poets. His play, _El Delincuente
Honrado_ (1774), is a doctrinaire exercise in the manner of Diderot's
_Fils Naturel_; it shows considerable knowledge of dramatic effect,
and its sentimental, sincere philanthropy persuaded audiences in and
out of Spain to accept Jove-Llanos for a dramatist. At most he is a
clever playwright. Yet, though not an artist in either prose or verse,
though far from irreproachable in diction, he occasionally utters a
pure poetic note, keen and vibrating in satire, noble and austere in
that _Epistle to the Duque de Veragua_, which, by common consent, best
reflects the tranquil dignity of his temperament.
Jove-Llanos' official position, his high ideals, his knowledge,
discernment, and wise counsel were placed at the service of JUAN
MELÉNDEZ VALDÉS (1754-1817), the chief poet of the Salamancan school,
who came under his influence in or about 1777. Jove-Llanos succeeded by
sheer force of character: Meléndez was a weather-cock at the mercy of
every breeze. A writer of erotic verses, he thought of taking orders;
a pastoral poet, he turned to philosophy by Jove-Llanos' advice;
unfortunate in his marriage, discontented with his professorship at
Salamanca, he dabbled in politics, becoming, through his friend's
patronage, a government official: and when Jove-Llanos fell, Meléndez
fell with him. It is hard to decide whether Meléndez was a rogue or
a weakling. Upon the French invasion, he began by writing verses
calling his people to arms, and ended by taking office under the
foreign government. He fawned upon Joseph Bonaparte, whom he vowed
"to love each day," and he hailed the restoration of the Spanish with
patriotic enthusiasm. Finally, the dishonoured man fled for very shame
and safety. Loving iniquity and hating justice, he died in exile at
Montpellier.
He typifies the fluctuations of his time. His natural bent was towards
pastoralism, as his early poems, modelled on Garcilaso and on Torre,
remain to prove; he took to liberalism at Jove-Llanos' suggestion,
as he would have taken to absolutism had that been the craze of the
moment; he read Locke, Young, Turgot, and Condorcet at the instance of
his friends. "_Obra soy tuya_" ("I am thy handiwork"), he writes to
Jove-Llanos. He was ever the handiwork of the last comer: a shadow of
insincerity, of pose, is over all his verse. Yet, like his countryman
Lucan, Meléndez demonstrates the truth that a worthless creature may
be, within limits, a genuine poet. He has neither morals nor ideas; he
has fancy, ductility, clearness, music, charm, and a picturesque vision
of natural detail that have no counterpart in his period. Compared
with his brethren of the Salamancan school—with Diego Tadeo González
(1733-94), with José Iglesias de la Casa (1753-91), even with Nicasio
Álvarez de Cienfuegos (1764-1809)—Meléndez appears a veritable giant.
He was not quite that any more than they were pigmies; but he had a
spark of genius, while their faculty was no more than talent.[29]
His one distinct failure was when he ventured on the boards with his
_Wedding Feast of Camacho_, founded on Cervantes' famous story, though
even here the pastoral passages are pleasing, if inappropriate. It is
to his credit that his theme is national, while his general dramatic
sympathies were, like those of his associates, French. Luzán and his
followers found it easier to condemn the ancient masterpieces than
to write masterpieces of their own. Their function was negative,
destructive; yet when the prohibition of _autos_ was procured in 1765
by José Clavijo y Fajardo (1730-1806)—whose adventure with Louise
Caron, Beaumarchais' sister, gave Goethe a subject—they hoped to force
a hearing for themselves. They overlooked the fact that there already
existed a national dramatist named RAMÓN DE LA CRUZ Y CANO (1731-?
95), who had the merit of inventing a new _genre_, which, being racy
of the soil, was to the popular taste. Convention had settled it that
tragedies should present the misfortunes of emperors and dukes; that
comedies should deal with the middle class, their sentimentalities
and foibles. Cruz, a government clerk, with sufficient leisure to
compose three hundred odd plays, became in some sort the dramatist of
the needy, the disinherited, the have-nots of the street. He might
very well sympathise with them, for he was always pinched for money,
and died so destitute that his widow had not wherewith to bury him.
Beginning, like the rest of the world, with French imitations and
renderings, he turned to representing the life about him in short
farcical pieces called _sainetes_—a perfect development of the old
_pasos_. In the prologue to the ten-volume edition of his _sainetes_
(1786-91), Cruz proclaims his own merit in a just and striking
phrase—"I write, and truth dictates to me." His gaiety, his picaresque
enjoyment, his exuberant humour, his jokes and puns and quips, lend
an extraordinary vivacity to his presentation of the most trifling
incidents. He might have been—as he began by being—a pompous prig and
bore, preaching high doctrine, and uttering the platitudes, which alone
were thought worthy of the sock and buskin. He chose the better part in
rendering what he knew and understood and saw, in amusing his public
for thirty years, and in bequeathing a thousand occasions of laughter
to the world. He wrote with a reckless, contagious humour, with a comic
_brio_ which anticipates Labiche; and, unambitious and light-hearted as
Cruz was, we may learn more of contemporary life from _El Prado por la
Noche_ and _Las Tertulias de Madrid_ than from a mountain of serious
records and chronicles.
In the following generation LEANDRO FERNÁNDEZ DE MORATÍN (1760-1828)
won deserved repute as a playwright. His father, the author of
_Hormesinda_, made a jeweller's apprentice of the boy who, in 1779
and 1782, won two _accesits_ from the Academy. He thus attracted the
notice of Jove-Llanos, who secured his appointment as Secretary to the
Paris Embassy in 1787. His stay in France, followed by later travels
through England, the Low Countries, Germany, and Italy, completed
his education, and obtained for him the post of official translator.
His exercises in verse are more admirable than his prose version of
_Hamlet_, which offended his academic theories in every scene. Molière,
who was his ideal, has no more faithful follower than the younger
Moratín. His translations of _L'École des Maris_ and _Le Médecin
malgré lui_ belong to his later years; but his theatre, including
those most striking pieces _El Sí de las Niñas_ (The Maids' Consent)
and _La Mojigata_ (The Hypocritical Woman), reflects the master's
humour and observation. The latter comedy (1804) brought him into
trouble with the Inquisition; the former (1806) established his fame
by its character-drawing, its graceful ingenuity, and witty dialogue.
His fortunes, which seemed assured, were wrecked by the French war.
Moratín was always timid, even in literary combats: he now proved
himself that very rare thing among Spaniards—a physical coward. He
neither dared declare for his country nor against it, and went into
hiding at Vitoria. He finally accepted the post of Royal Librarian to
Joseph Bonaparte, and when the crash came he decamped to Peñiscola.
These events turned his brain. All efforts to help him (and they were
many) proved useless. He wandered as far as Italy to escape imaginary
assassins, and finally settled in Bordeaux, where he believed himself
safe from the conspirators. _El Sí de las Niñas_ is an excellent piece
among the best, and is sufficient to persuade the most difficult reader
that Leandro Moratín was one of nature's wasted forces. He must have
won distinction in any company: in this dreary period he achieves real
eminence.
No prose-writer of the time rises to Isla's level. His brother Jesuit,
Lorenzo Hervás y Panduro (1735-1809), is credited by Professor Max
Müller with "one of the most brilliant discoveries in the history of
the science of language," and may be held for the father of comparative
philology; but his specimens and notices of three hundred tongues, his
grammars of forty languages, his classic _Catálogo de las lenguas de
las naciones conocidas_ (1800-5) appeal more to the specialist than to
the lover of literature. Yet in his own department there is scarcely a
more splendid name.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] For two singularly acute critical studies by M. E. Mérimée on
Jove-Llanos and Meléndez Valdés, see the _Revue hispanique_ (Paris,
1894). vol. i. pp. 34-68, and pp. 217-235.