1580-1645.
Spaniards may look back with pride to this epoch, so fertile in genius,
so prolific of the talent and high character that germinates in the
Spanish soul, and which it required unexampled despotism and cruelty to
crush and efface. Not that the inborn greatness of that people is lost,
but its outward demonstration, after this period, became the unheard and
sightless prey of political oppression. The words of Gray, wherein he
speaks of the heroes and poets who may have been born and died without
achieving distinction, or performing any act capable of winning it, is
so true, perhaps, in no country as in Spain: but with them it cannot be
said, that
"Chill penury repressed their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul."
It was the stake and the dungeon, a system of misrule, and the aspect of
the merciless deeds committed by their governors on helpless multitudes,
that destroyed the energies, and blighted the genius, of the people.
When we read of such acts as the banishment of the Moriscos, and the
history of all that high-hearted people suffered--torn from their
native vales and hills, and cast out upon the stranger--we wonder what
manner of men lived in Spain, and feel that these inhuman and impious
deeds must have poisoned the very air. But, politically speaking, it is
not the act, but its effects, that are so baneful; national crime
influences by causing the degeneracy of the race. The youth may live a
life of sin; it is the man that is the sufferer. And thus the heroes of
Spain of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, might glory in their
children of the sixteenth; but the infection of evil had touched these,
and their descendants made good the awful denunciation,--that the
children are to suffer for their parents' crimes--an annunciation of
divine will, so carried out in the vast system of the world, though
often omitted in particular instances, as to demonstrate that it is one
of the laws bestowed by heaven to govern the human race.
Among the men who, last of the Spaniards of renown, flourished at that
epoch, Quevedo deserves particular mention. He was a man of genius--a
man who acted as well as wrote, and displayed in both originality,
penetration and rectitude; whose character was as admirable as his
intellect. He was the victim, also, of the most frightful misrule; and
the fate of Quevedo alone might be brought forward as an example of the
infamy of the political institutions of Spain.
Don Francisco Gomez de Quevedo Villegas, was born at Madrid in September
1580. His father, Pedro Gomez de Quevedo, was a courtier. He had been
secretary to the empress Mary, and afterwards filled the same situation
to queen Anne, wife of Philip II. His mother, donna Maria de Santibanez,
also was attached to the court, and was a lady of the bedchamber to the
queen. They were both of noble family, and descended from the most
ancient landed proprietors of the Montana, in the Valle de Toranzo.
His father died when he was a child; and he was brought up in the royal
palace by his mother, but she also died when he was young[114], as we
gather from one of his ballads, in which he gives a jocosely bitter
account of the ill luck that pursued him through life. He went early to
the university of Alcalà, and there his passion for study developed
itself in all its intensity, so that we are told that he took his degree
in theology, to the wonder of every body, at fifteen. This seems almost
incredible; but it is plain he took it with credit, and a the expense of
great labour.
This science and success, however, did not satisfy him. He gave himself
eagerly up to the acquirement of other knowledge: civil and canon law,
medicine and natural history, the learned languages, and the various
systems of philosophy, were in the number of his studies and
acquirements: poetry was added to the list. His grasping and clear mind
became informed by all the learning of the times; it converted it all to
nutriment, and acquired power from the various intellectual weapons he
taught himself to wield.
His career was checked by a circumstance that may rather be looked on as
fortunate, since it forced him to quit the immediate atmosphere of the
court, and to make his way elsewhere, through his own exertions and
merits. He was, though so young, held in high esteem for his conduct,
and, as the most accomplished cavalier of his time, was often made the
arbitrator of quarrels: in which character he displayed his good sense
and good feeling by the care he at once took, to watch over the point of
honour and to reconcile adversaries. He himself wielded all weapons of
defence with singular dexterity; though, being born with both his feet
turned in, this deformity must have impeded the full developement of his
powers, which, nevertheless, exceeded those of most men in strength and
skill, and were aided by his bravery and greatness of mind. These
qualifications had brought him off the conqueror in several unexpected
and inevitable rencontres, where he had been obliged to defend or assert
himself. On one occasion a man, calling himself a gentleman, entirely
unknown to him, took advantage of the darkness in which churches are
plunged during the evening of Holy Thursday, to insult a lady (equally
unknown to Quevedo), in the church of St. Martin, at Madrid. Quevedo
came forward to her assistance, forced the insulter into the street,
and, reproving him for his brutality, they drew on each other, and
Quevedo ran his adversary through the body. The friends of the cavalier
endeavoured to seize him, and he was obliged to fly: he took refuge in
Italy, and thence, invited by the viceroy, repaired to Sicily.
At this time Don Pedro Giron, duke of Osuna and grandee of Spain, was
viceroy of Sicily. He was a man of singular character; and the career he
ran, in which Quevedo was involved, was as strange and various as was
his disposition and designs.[115] The character of the Spanish, under
the gloomy influence of Philip II., had become dignified, grave and
ceremonious. His son Philip III. was of a different character. His
father had taken pains to inculcate all his own bigotry in matters of
religion, and, at the same time, to inspire him with application,
judgment, and a knowledge of the arts of government. In the first part
of his education he succeeded; in the latter he wholly failed. Philip
III. was a weak prince and as such given up to favouritism. On coming to
the crown, he devolved all the labours of government on the marquis of
Denia whom he made duke of Lerma, who again entrusted much of the royal
patronage and power to Don Rodrigo de Calderon, a man of low birth, but
of high and haughty mind, who became count of Oliva and marquis de Siete
Iglesias. The court of Philip III., however, preserved much of the
dignity, the severe etiquette and solemn gravity brought in by Philip
II. In this serious and ceremonious circle the duke of Osuna was almost
regarded as a madman. He displayed the fervour and spirit of youth in a
gaiety and recklessness of manner and behaviour, wholly at war with
courtly decorum and seriousness. His wit was brilliant, his
understanding penetrating, his imagination full of fire and
extravagance; his temper ardent and joyous. He was often called insane,
and the sober tried to bring him into disesteem. His high birth and vast
fortunes, however, gave him rank and weight, and he had distinguished
himself in the wars of the Low Countries, not only by his bravery but by
his military skill. His disposition prompted him to love the trade of
war; and he made such use of his experience during the struggle carried
on in that disturbed country, that he became reputed fit to command an
army. His valour was undoubted; on one occasion he had three horses
killed under him, and the success that attended his enterprises
surrounded them with still greater lustre. He was licentious in his
habits, but so grossly so, that he was never the slave of love. His
ambition was unbounded; his designs vast: his imagination suggested a
thousand strange modes of satisfying it, and engendered schemes so wild
and daring that, while the world was amazed, and its repose disturbed,
their very singularity, in many instances, commanded success. His
military reputation was the cause, joined to the influence of Uzeda, son
of the duke of Lerma, who was his friend, that, notwithstanding his
indiscretions and levity, he came to be named viceroy of Sicily.
Quevedo was an invaluable acquisition to such a man. His gaiety and wit
recommended him as a companion: his understanding, his integrity, his
elevated character, his resolution, his capacity for labour, and his
great knowledge, caused him to be a useful servant to one, whose vast
designs required instruments of power and skill. The duke showed his
great confidence in his talents and fidelity by sending him as his
ambassador to Madrid, to recount his exploits and explain his designs.
Quevedo succeeded so well that, the king and council bestowed a pension
on him, and the duke of Osuna was advanced to the viceroyalty of
Naples--which opened a new scene for his schemes and a wide field for
his towering ambition. Osuna's first acts were directed against the
Turkish power, and he obtained several splendid victories in the
Mediterranean and on the coasts of Africa, but he had designs more at
heart than a victory over the Turks. The war of the Low Countries was
concluded, and there was peace between France and Spain. The Spanish
power, possessed of Sicily and Naples and Milan, threatened to become
omnipotent in Italy. Charles Emanuel, duke of Savoy, a gallant and
patriotic prince in vain endeavoured to make head against it: he was
forced to submit. Still in heart he was at war; and this sovereign and
the republic of Venice made a quiet but determined stand against the
encroachments of Spain in Italy. The Duke of Osuna set himself in
opposition to them, and, in particular, used every means he could
command, to weaken and injure the Venetians.
The methods he took were lawless and dishonourable, but they shewed his
despotic and daring spirit. He encouraged the Uscocchi, a tribe of
pirates who inhabited Istria, and infested the Mediterranean. A Spanish
fleet protected their attacks on the Venetians, intercepted the forces
of the republic sent against them, and seized upon their merchantmen in
the Adriatic. Corsairs and pirates of all nations brought their prizes
to the ports of Naples, and found shelter and protection: they were
permitted to trade; and Osuna thus gathered together a number of
desperate men whom he could use in the execution of any daring
enterprise. The fair traders and merchants of Naples however, finding
commerce decline, complained at the court of Madrid; the French also
made representations against the nefarious acts of the pirates protected
by Osuna; and the court, which had entered on a treaty of peace with
Savoy, and was negotiating one between Venice and Ferdinand of Austria,
sent an order to the viceroy to suspend all hostilities.
Osuna would not obey. He sent a fleet into the Adriatic, and threatened
with death any one who should dare carry complaints to Madrid. His
pretence was the alarm of an intended invasion by the Turks, while at
the same time he was endeavouring to induce the Porte to attack Candia.
This fleet was driven into port by a storm: but he had a number of
privateers which, notwithstanding Spain was at peace with Venice,
captured the vessels of that state; and, when he was ordered to restore
them, he obeyed by sending back the vessels and keeping the cargoes. In
vain did the Venetians complain. Osuna declared that he would persist
while he detected latent enmity to Spain in the councils of the
republic, and the Spanish ambassador was forced to allow that the
viceroy was beyond royal control.
But his designs did not end here; his heart was set on the destruction
of Venice: and, his daring and uncontrolled imagination suggesting the
wildest schemes, he set on foot another attempt even less venial than
his encouragement of the Uscocchi. It is true that Spanish historians,
and, among them, Ortiz, deny the complicity of Spain in the conspiracy
formed against Venice, and throw upon the Venetian senate the accusation
of trumping up a plot, for the sake of getting rid of the Spanish
ambassador: but all other nations concur in believing the conspiracy to
have been real, and in affirming that the interesting account Saint Real
gives, is, in the main, founded on undoubted facts.
The name of the Bedmar conspiracy against Venice is familiar to us
through Otway's play. This is not the place to go into minute detail.
The marquis of Bedmar was a man of great talent and acquirements. The
Spanish government held him in high esteem; he was sagacious and
discerning, and he had that zeal for the glory of his country, which in
that day distinguished the Spaniards: and it was of the first importance
to the prosperity of Spain to weaken, how much more to destroy the state
of Venice. His design was to introduce foreign troops surreptitiously
into the town--to fire the arsenal and other parts of the city, and to
seize on its places of strength. The senators were to be massacred; and
if the citizens offered resistance, artillery was to be turned on them,
and the city laid in ruins. The plot was discovered: it is not known
exactly how. It seems probable, that a conspirator, a Venetian, a
Jaffier, betrayed it through the suggestions of fear or humanity, and
Venice was preserved.
Bedmar, it is said, communicated his plot to Osuna, and they acted in
concert. There can be no doubt, but that both ministers were zealously
bent on weakening the power of Venice; and, as there appears ample proof
that this conspiracy originated in the marquis of Bedmar, so is it also
probable that he associated in it a spirit so lawless, a man so bold and
resolute as Osuna. Quevedo was the emissary that passed between them,
and if Osuna was privy to the plot, it seems certain that Quevedo also
was.
[Sidenote: 1618.
Ætat.
38.]
This is a painful circumstance. We hear so much of the integrity and
excellence of Quevedo's character, that we are averse to believe his
complicity in the nefarious attempt to destroy a rival state, not by the
fair advantages of war, but by conspiracy, incendiarism, and massacre;
that state also not only being at peace, but the plot originating in,
and carried on by one who bore the sacred character of an ambassador.
But, nurtured under the poisonous influence of the Inquisition, fraught
with a zeal, which does not deserve the name of patriotic, since the
true honour of their country was not consulted, the Spaniards nourished
a false conscience; and the men who could serve God by the murder of the
innocent and helpless, could serve their king by perjury and
assassination. During his various political services the life of Quevedo
had been several times attempted, and this also might tend to blunt his
sense of right: he might fancy that it was but fair retaliation to use
towards others the secret weapon levelled against himself. However this
may be, whether or not he were acquainted with the secret of the
conspiracy, and took a part in it, it is certain that he was in Venice
at the time that the plot was discovered. Many of his intimate friends
were seized and perished by the hands of the executioner; but he
contrived to elude the vigilance of the senate, and finally made his
escape in the guise of a mendicant.
Osuna continued viceroy of Naples, and it began to be suspected that he
intended to arrogate power independent of the king his master. His
success at sea against Venice raised him many enemies, as he gained it
through the destruction of all fair trade, and also by the imposition of
vast and burthensome taxes. The Neapolitan nobility were, in a body,
inimical to him; and all those disaffected to the Spanish rule made him
the apparent object of their hatred and complaints. He, aware of their
aversion, endeavoured to crush them; he visited all those crimes
severely which they had hitherto, under shadow of their rank, committed
unpunished. He excluded them from all offices of power and trust, and
took occasion when he could, to confiscate their property. He encouraged
a spirit of sedition among the common people; he surrounded himself by
foreign troops; he encouraged men of desperate fortunes--he commanded
the sea--and his power became unbounded. He utterly despised the king
his master, calling him the great drum of the monarchy, as if he had
been a mere tool and instrument, and possessed no real authority.
With all this it is not probable that he really conspired to seize on
Naples. He wished to rule absolutely and unquestioned, but did not go
beyond into forming designs of putting his power on a new and
independent foundation. His wild projecting brain was well known, and
caused many of his acts to pass unnoticed; but his enemies increased,
and their complaints at court were frequent. They fabricated accusations
to his dishonour, exaggerated his weaknesses and faults, and combined
together for his overthrow. Finding that he became aware of their
attempts, they, fearful of his revenge, renewed them with increased
fervour. Men of the highest rank in Naples visited Madrid, and put
themselves forward to misinterpret his actions. They art-fully
represented that the ruin of commerce, and the desolation of the kingdom
arose from his dissolute life and misrule. The king and his ministers
gave ear to these representations, and commanded Osuna to return to
Madrid. This was a great blow to the duke: though he received it with
apparent constancy, he neither liked to lose his place, nor, above all,
to lose it under dishonourable imputations, and he delayed obedience.
Thus colour was given to the idea that he meant to assert his
independence. The court of Madrid, therefore, proceeded more warily:
they contrived to get possession of his galleys and other vessels of
war; and orders were despatched to cardinal don Gaspar de Borgia, who
was named his successor, to proceed instantly from Rome, where he was
residing, to Naples, and to seize on the government. Borgia arrived at
Gaëta, but still Osuna protracted his stay under various pretences. The
nobles represented that he was endeavouring to raise an insurrection
among the populace and soldiers; and Borgia, to put an end to the
struggle, having gained the support of the governor of the Castel Nuovo,
introduced himself into that fortress by night. The following morning
the discharge of artillery proclaimed his arrival, and Osuna was obliged
to submit. He returned by slow journies to Spain. He presented himself
at court, and the king turned his back on him. Osuna eyed his sovereign
with contempt, muttering, "The king treats me not as a man, but as a
child." Not long after, Philip III. died. The enemies of Osuna were not
idle; fresh accusations of his treasonable intents at Naples were
perpetually made; and one of the first acts of the reign of Philip IV.
was to throw him into prison. The distress of his mind increased the
disease of which he was the victim, and he died in prison of a dropsy,
in the year 1624.
[Sidenote: 1620.
Ætat.
40.]
Quevedo was enveloped in his ruin. He had been a zealous and laborious
servant to Osuna and to his government. He had, by his attention to the
finances discovered various frauds, and brought large sums into the
treasury. He crossed the sea seven times as ambassador to the court of
Madrid, and fulfilled the same employment at Rome. He had been rewarded
by the gift of the habit of Santiago. He loved and revered Osuna, and
testified his attachment by writing several sonnets in his honour. One
is on his death, in which he says, "The fields of Flanders are his
monument--the blood-stained Crescent his epitaph: Spain gave him a
prison and death; but though his country failed him, his deeds were his
defence."[116] He wrote three other sonnets as epitaphs[117]: Ortiz
mentions them as containing an epitome of the duke's life. He says of
him that he was "The terror of Asia, the fear of Europe, and the
thunder-bolt of Africa. His name alone was victory, there where the
Crescent ruled. He divorced Venice and the Sea." In another he sums up
his achievements against the Turks:--"He liberated a thousand Christians
from the galleys; he assaulted and sacked Goletta, Chicheri, and
Calivia: the Danube, and Moselle and the Rhine paled before his armies."
The fall of Osuna included his own. There can be no doubt that he was
innocent of all participation in any treasonable designs of the viceroy,
but innocence was a slight resource in Spain against powerful accusers.
He was arrested and carried to his villa of Torre de Juan Abad, and
imprisoned there for three years and a half. He was confined with such
rigour, that in default of medical aid he fell severely ill, so that he
wrote to the president of the council, to represent the miserable state
of his health, and obtained leave to attend to his cure in the
neighbouring city of Villa Nueva de los Infantes. A few months after he
was liberated, under the restriction that he was not to appear at court.
But the total absence of all proof against him, caused this sentence to
be taken off soon after. Unfortunately he was not satisfied with freedom
from persecution. His fortunes had suffered during his imprisonment, and
he sought to mend them by claiming the arrears of his pension, the
payment of which had been suspended during his disgrace. This lighted
again the fire of persecution, and he was again exiled, and retired to
his villa of Torre Juan Abad, till after the lapse of another year he
was allowed to return to Madrid. No longer persecuted, and restored to
his proper place in society, he resided for some time at court, where he
enjoyed the reputation his talents, prudence, and conduct commanded, so
that the king, to reward his services, and compensate for his
sufferings, named him one of his secretaries.
[Sidenote: 1632.
Ætat.
52.]
But such honours had ceased to charm Quevedo. Misfortune and disgrace
had taught him to look with aversion on public employments; his long
imprisonment had accustomed him to study, and engendered a love of
tranquillity. Several places were offered him by the count-duke
Olivarez, minister and favourite of Philip IV., such as minister for
state despatches, and the embassy to Genoa, but he declined them and
gave himself up to study and philosophy. His writings were many, and
gained for him a high reputation; he was in correspondence with all the
most learned men of Europe, and was enriched by the revenue of several
benefices; thus for several years he enjoyed reputation and prosperity.
[Sidenote: 1634.
Ætat.
54.]
He gave up, however, his church preferments for the sake of marrying.
His wife was donna Esperanza de Aragon y la Cabra, Señora of Cetina,
and she belonged to one of the highest families in the kingdom. With her
he retired to Cetina; but he was not long allowed to enjoy the happiness
he promised himself: his wife died within a few months, and this last
misfortune, destroying the fabric of felicity he had erected, and
counted upon possessing to the end of his life, was the heaviest blow of
all. His resource and consolation was retirement and study. He took up
his abode at Torre Juan Abad, and gave himself up to the cultivation of
literature and poetry.
Several of his poems are expressive of the delight he felt at leaving
Madrid for the solitude of his villa which was placed in the Sierra of
La Mancha. One of his romances describes his progress from Madrid
through Toledo, la Mancha, and the Sierra, to his estate: the poem is
burlesque, and in ridicule of all he sees; but there are others in which
he dwells with satisfaction on his tranquil occupations. "Retired to the
solitude of these deserts," he writes, "with few but wise books, I enjoy
the conversation of the dead, and with my eyes listen to those who are
no more. The press gives into our hands those great souls whom death has
freed from injury. The hour takes its irrevocable Sight, but that is
spent best which improves us by reading and study."[118]
He was an excellent landlord, and a kind master; he exerted himself in
acts of charity towards his vassals, and conducted himself with
Christian humility and mercy. For a few years he was permitted to enjoy
this tranquillity; it was a sort of calm after storm, where the absence
of sorrow is called happiness. His active mind furnished him with
occupation, while his piety and philosophy taught him content. He might
now hope that he was assured of such a state of peace to the end of his
life,--for he had relinquished every ambitious project, and limited his
views to the narrowed sphere immediately around him. But Quevedo was one
of those men marked by destiny for misfortune. He playfully, and yet
with some bitterness, alludes to his evil fate, in a poem before quoted.
He says: "My fortunes are so black, they might serve me for ink: I might
be used as an image of a saint;--for, if the country people want rain,
they have but to turn me out naked, and they are sure of a deluge; if
they want sun, let me be covered by a mantle, and it will shine at
night; I am always mistaken for some object of vengeance, and receive
the blows intended for another. If a tile is to fall, it waits till I
pass under. If I wish to borrow from any one, he replies so rudely,
that, instead of borrowing, I am obliged to lend my patience. Every fool
prates to me; every old woman makes love; every poor person begs; every
prosperous one takes offence. When I travel, I always miss my road; when
I play, I always lose; every friend deceives, every enemy sticks to me;
water fails me at sea,--in taverns I find it in plenty, mingled with my
wine. I have given up all employments, for I know that if I turned
hosier, people would go bare-legged; if physician, no one would fall
ill. If I am gallant towards a woman, she listens to or refuses
me,--both are equally disastrous. If a man wished to die neither by
poison nor pestilence, he has but to intend to benefit me, and he will
not live an hour. Such is the adverseness of my star, that I submit and
try to propitiate its pride by my adoration."[119]
[Sidenote: 1641.
Ætat.
61.]
But worse luck was in store for him, and a misfortune so heavy, as to
put an end to his life, after exhausting him by suffering. He was
suspected of being the author of certain libels against the court, and
to the injury of public morals;--and an accusation was brought against
him, either by some malicious enemy, or officious and mistaken medler.
Happening to visit Madrid for some cause, and being in the house of a
grandee, his friend, he was arrested at eleven at night, in the month of
December 1641, and imprisoned in a dungeon of the royal Casa de San
Marcos de Leon, and his possessions seized on. His confinement was cruel
as well as rigorous,--his dungeon was damp;--a stream flowed through it
close to his pillow. He was allowed no money, and lived by charity; his
clothes became rags, and he could not renew them. This frightful
situation produced sores on his body, and not being allowed medical aid,
he was forced to dress them himself.
There are two letters of his extant, written in prison,--one addressed
to a friend,--the other, a memorial to the count-duke Olivarez,
soliciting inquiry into his case.[120] These letters are far less
interesting than might have been expected from so vivid a writer as
Quevedo, describing the squalid wretchedness of a dungeon, and the
horrors of his lot; but they are curious monuments of the manners of the
day, shewing how men endured the evils of misrule, and evincing the
resignation and dignity Quevedo could preserve throughout.
The first is addressed to a gentleman whom his biographers name his
intimate friend, don Diego de Villagomez, a cavalier of the city of
Leon; but the style is as cold and ceremonious as if written to an
archbishop. It begins by saying:--"I who am a warning write to you who
are an example to the world,--but different as we are, we both travel to
the same end,--and adversity has this of good, that it serves as a
lesson to others. Even in learning the military profession, you have
shewn yourself a good captain. For you have not left it, but attained
preferment. War endures to all men through life, for life is war; and to
live and to struggle is the same thing."--He then makes a religious
application of this maxim, saying, that to leave a worldly service for
that of Jesus, is to follow a better banner and to be assured of the
pay; and, after a long disquisition on this subject, and in praise of
St. Ignatius, he concludes by saying: "I can count, señor don Diego,
fourteen years and a half of imprisonment, and may add to this the
misery of this last dungeon, in which, I count the wages of my sins.
Give me pity in exchange for the envy I bear you; and since God gives
you better society, enjoy it, far from the solitude of your friend, who
lies in the grasp of persecution, far short in his account, though he
pays much less than he owes. And may God give you his grace and
benediction. From prison, the 8th of June, 1643."
The memorial to the count-duke is far more to the purpose, but, even
that is very diffuse and pedantic, though the facts he details were
impressive enough to obtain compassion without quotations from the
ancients; but such was the tone of that age.
"My lord," he writes, "a year and ten months have passed since I was
thrown into prison, on the seventh of December, on the eve of the
Conception of our Lady, at half-past ten at night; when I was dragged in
the depth of winter, without a cloak, and without a shirt, in my
sixty-first year, to this royal convent of San Marcos de Leon; where I
have remained all the time mentioned, in most rigorous confinement; sick
with three wounds, which have festered through the effects of cold, and
the vicinity of a stream that flow's near my pillow; and not being
allowed a surgeon, it has been a sight of pity to see me cauterise them
with my own hands. I am so poor that I have been clothed, and my life
supported by charity. The horror of my hardships has struck every one
with dread. I have only one sister, a nun among the barefooted
Carmelites, from whom I can hope nothing, but that she should recommend
me to God. I acknowledge (for so my sins persuade) mercy in this
cruelty. For I am myself the voice of my conscience, and I accuse my
life. If your Excellency found me well off, mine would be the praise. To
find me miserable, and to do me good, makes the praise yours; and if I
am unworthy of pity, your Excellency is worthy to feel it, and it is the
appropriate virtue of so great a noble and minister. 'There is nothing,'
says Seneca, when consoling Marcia, 'that I consider so meritorious in
those who hold a high station, as the pardoning many things, and seeking
pardon for none.' What worse crime can I commit, than persuading myself
that my misfortunes are to be the limit of your magnanimity? I ask time
from your Excellency to revenge myself on myself. The world has already
heard what my enemies can say against me; I desire now that they should
hear me against myself, and my accusations will be the more true from
being exempt from hatred. I protest, before God, our Lord, that in all
that is said of me, I am guilty of no other crime, than not having lived
an exemplary life, so that my sins may be attributed to my folly. Those
who see me, do not believe that I am a prisoner on suspicion, but under
a most rigorous sentence; wherefore I do not expect death, but live in
communion with it. I exist only through its generosity,--and I am a
corpse in all except the sepulture, which is the repose of the dead. I
have lost every thing. My possessions, which were always trifling, are
reduced to nothing, between the great expenses of my imprisonment, and
the losses it has occasioned. My friends are frightened by my calamity,
and nothing remains to me but my trust in you. No mercy can bestow many
years on me, nor any cruelty deprive me of many. I do not, my lord, seek
this interval, naturally so short, for the sake of living longer, but of
living well for a little while."
He then sums up, by quoting Pliny and Trajan on the merits of mercy, and
the preferability of being loved rather than feared.
This memorial had the effect of drawing attention to his cause and
sufferings. The accusation on account of which he was imprisoned was
examined, and it was discovered that he had been calumniated, and the
real author of the libel came to be known; on this he was set at
liberty, and allowed to return to court. His first labour was to recover
his property, the whole of which, except the portion he had entrusted to
his powerful friend, doctor Francisco de Oviedo, had been sequestered.
It was a work of difficulty; and, meanwhile, he found himself too poor
to live with becoming respectability at court, so he retired to his
country seat. Here he soon fell ill from the effects of neglect during
his last, long, and cruel imprisonment; and he was obliged to remove to
Villa Nueva de los Infantes, for the sake of medical treatment. He was
long confined to his apartment, suffering great pain and annoyance, all
of which he endured with exemplary patience. He made his will, and
prepared his soul for death. He named his nephew his successor, on
condition that he took the name of Quevedo. His death was lingering. To
the last he displayed fortitude and a tranquil spirit of resignation. He
died the 8th of September, 1647, at the age of sixty-five.
In person, Quevedo was of middle height, and robust, though his feet
were deformed. He was handsome in face, fair, and with curly hair
inclined to red. He was short-sighted--but his countenance was full of
animation. Notwithstanding his deformity, he was vigorous,--addicted to,
and excelling in, manly exercises.
His life was spent in a series of vicissitudes; at one time enjoying
power and reputation; at another, a prisoner, suffering all the evils of
poverty and neglect. He bore all with fortitude: his active mind gave
him employment, his genius caused him to find a resource in
writing;--and the vivacity and energy of his works display the unabated
vigour of his soul. Nearly fifteen years of his life he spent in prison,
as he mentions in his letter above quoted. Meanwhile his character
remained uninjured by adversity. His disposition was magnanimous, so
that he never revenged himself on any of his enemies: he was generous
and charitable to those in need; and so diffident of his own merit, that
the only poems he published saw light under a feigned name.
His integrity had been put to the proof at Naples, where bribes were
offered him to conceal the frauds practised on the royal revenue; but he
was far above dishonesty and peculation. The only slur on his character
is his possible complicity in the Bedmar conspiracy; but in those days
the advantage of the state to which a man belonged was deemed
preponderant to all the suggestions of justice and right. Quevedo also
acted on this occasion (if he did act) under the command of his
superiors; and believed that fidelity to his patron was his first duty.
Of his "Affaires du Cœur," the great subject with poets, we know
little. Several ladies are celebrated in his verses; but a great
proportion of his erotic poetry is dedicated to one, whom he names Lisi,
and to whom he appears to have been faithfully attached for a
considerable space of time. In one of his sonnets to her, he says that
ten years had taken their swift and noiseless flight since first he saw
her; and for these ten years the soft flame had warmed his veins, and
reigned over his soul; "for the flame," he says, "that aspires to
immortal life, neither fears to die with the body, nor that time should
injure or extinguish it." Many of his poems express great aversion to
matrimony, and when, at last, in advanced age, he did marry, we have
seen that he was widowed almost as soon as wed.
With the never-to-be-omitted exception of Cervantes, Quevedo is the most
original prose writer Spain has produced; but at the same time he is so
quaint, referring to local peculiarities, and using words unknown,
except colloquially, that he is often unintelligible, especially in his
burlesque poetry, to a foreigner. His countrymen esteem him highly. One
of the most pleasing stanzas of Lope de Vega's Laurel de Apolo is
dedicated to his praise. He speaks of him as "Possessing an acute but
gentle spirit; agreeable in his wit, and profound in his serious
poetry." He adopted something of the _culto_ style and conceits blemish
his verses. Quintana says of him, "Quevedo was every thing in excess; no
one in the same manner displays in the serious, a gravity so rigid, and
morals so austere; no one in the jocose, shows a humour, so gay, so
free, and so abandoned to the spirit of the thing. His imagination was
vivid and brilliant but superficial and negligent; and the poetic genius
that animates him, sparkles but does not glow, surprises but does not
move deeply, bounds with impetuosity and force, but neither flies nor
supports itself at the same elevation. I am well aware that Quevedo
often diverts with what he writes, and raves because it is his pleasure.
I know that puns have their proper place in such compositions, and that
no one has used them more happily than he. But every thing has its
bounds; and heaped together with a prodigality like his, instead of
pleasing they only create weariness.
"His verse, however, is for the most part full and sonorous, his rhyme
rich and easy. His poetry, strong and nervous, proceeds impetuously to
its end; and if his movements betray too much of the effort, affectation
and bad taste of the writer, their course is yet frequently seen to have
a wildness, an audacity, and a singularity hat is surprising.[121]"
To give some idea of Quevedo's style to the English reader we may liken
him to Butler; but it is Butler rather in his fragments than in
Hudibras, for a more elevated poetic tone is displayed in those. Quevedo
could be sublime, though only by snatches. Serious he could be, to the
depths of grave and profound disquisition, as his ethical and religious
treatises testify.
One singular circumstance appertains to Quevedo's literary career--that
he published none of his poetry himself, except that portion which he
gave to the world under the feigned name of the Bachiller Francisco de
la Torre. These are the choice of all. Being more elevated, more sweet,
more pure in their diction and taste, several critics would deprive
Quevedo of the merit of being their author. But who Torre was, if he
were not Quevedo, nobody can tell: while, these poems appearing under
his editorship, and the very name--Francisco being his own, and the
surname, "of the Tower," appropriate to his position, as the verses were
written while he was living secluded in his patrimonial villa of Torre
Juan Abaci, seems to fix them unquestionably on him. Of the rest, a
friend of Quevedo assures us that not a twentieth part of what he wrote
has escaped destruction. His dramas and historical works have perished;
by which he has lost the right to being considered the universal writer
his contemporaries name him. This friend, and afterwards his nephew and
heir, published his poems, distributed under the head of six muses,
pedantically headed with mottos from Seneca. There is Clio the historic,
consisting chiefly of sonnets on great events addressed to great people;
Polyhimnia the sententious; Melpomene, composed chiefly of epitaphs;
Erato the erotic, or as it is styled, "singing of the achievements of
love and beauty:" the greater part of which is dedicated to Lisi.
Terpsichore the light, gay and satirical, a large portion of which are
written in the jargon of the gypsies, and are unintelligible on this
side of the Pyrenees; and Thalia, longest of all, which sings, "de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis."
It is as a prose writer, however, that Quevedo has acquired fame out of
his own country. And this not from his serious works; nor from his
"picaresco," in which he relates the life of the great Tacaño, or
captain of thieves, the type of a Spanish rogue. This tale, by its
familiarity with vice, squalid penury, and vulgar roguery, becomes
tiresome; nor is it to be compared in richness of humour to Mendoza's
history of Lazarillo de los Tormes. The letters of the "Cavallero de
Tenaza," or knight of the pincer, are very whimsical. They are in
ridicule of avarice, a sin, which Quevedo declares in another work to be
the most unnatural of all. They are addressed to a lady; and are lessons
to teach how little can be given, and how much preserved, by a man on
all occasions. This sort of dry humour turning on one idea amuses at
first, but at last becomes wearisome.
It is on his Visions however, his most original work, that his European
reputation rests. Nothing can be more novel, singular and striking. They
consist of various visions of the other world; where he sees the end of
earthly vanities and the punishments that await crime. They are full of
knowledge of human nature, vivacity, wit and daring imagination; they
remind the reader of Lucian; and if they are less airy and fanciful,
they are bolder and more sarcastic. They have the fault, it is true, of
dwelling too exclusively on subjects of mean and vulgar
interest--alguazils, attornies, ruffians, and all sorts of rogues of
both sexes; among which, tailors figure preeminently. Now that tailors
provide their own cloth, we have lost that intense notion of
"cabbaging," which was so deeply impressed on the minds of our
ancestors, when they only fashioned cloth sent to them. Tailors are with
Quevedo the very _ne plus ultra_ of a thief. As lord Byron styles a
pirate "a sea-solicitor," so Quevedo calls a robber "a tailor of the
highways." Several of these visions were written while their author was
comparatively young: (one, dedicated to the duke of Osuna, is dated
1610, when he was thirty years of age), and possess the glow and spirit
of early life. Nothing can be more startling and vivid than the
commencement of the "Vision of Calvary." The blast of the last trump is
described, and then he goes on to say: "The sound enforced obedience
from marble, and hearing from the dead. All the earth began to move,
giving permission to the bones to seek one another. After a short
interval, I beheld those who had been soldiers arise in wrath from their
graves, believing themselves summoned to battle: the avaricious looked
up with anxiety and alarm fearing an attack, while men of pleasure
fancied that the horns sounded to invite them to the chase. Then I saw
how many fled with disgust or terror from their old bodies, of which
some wanted an arm, some an eye; and I laughed at the odd figures they
cut, while I admired the contrivance of Providence, that all being
confounded together, no mistake was made. In one churchyard only, there
was some confusion and exchanging in the appropriation of heads; and I
saw an attorney who denied that his own soul belonged to him. But I was
most frightened at seeing two or three merchants who put on their souls
so awry, that all their five senses got into their fingers."
The commencement of the "Alguazil possessed" is equally spirited. A
spectator calling him a man bedevilled, the bad spirit, within, cries
out that "He is not a man but an alguazil; and you must know that it is
against their will that devils possess alguazils; so that you ought
rather to call me a devil be-alguazilled than an alguazil bedevilled."
He is almost as inveterate against duennas, a race of people peculiar to
Spain, and he disposes of them ludicrously enough in the infernal
regons. "I went a little further," he says, "and came to an immense and
troubled swamp, where there was so much noise that my head was
bewildered: I asked what it was, and was told that it proceeded from
women who had turned duennas on earth. And thus I discovered that those
who are duennas in this life, are frogs in the next, and like frogs, are
for ever croaking amidst the wet and mud; and very properly do they act
the parts of infernal frogs, since duennas are neither fish nor flesh.
I laughed to see them turned into such ugly things, with faces as
care-worn and wrinkled as those of duennas here on earth."
Such is the sort of wit that Quevedo indulges in; terse, pointed,
bitter, and driven home with an unsparing hand. Extravagant in its
imaginations, yet so proportioned to the truth of nature as to excite
admiration as well as surprise, and to be the model of a variety of
imitations, none of which come up to him in penetration, vivacity and
subtle felicity of expression.
[Footnote 114: "Murieron luego mis padres,
Dios en el cielo los tenga,
porque no vuelvan acà,
y a engendrar mas hijos vuelvan."
_Musa_, VI.--_Romance_, XVI.]
[Footnote 115: Cespedes.]
[Footnote 116: "Memoria immortal de D. Pedro Giron, duque de
Osuna, muerto en la Prisión." Musa I. Soneto 13.]
[Footnote 117: Musa III. Sonetos 4, 5, 9.]
[Footnote 118: The last three lines of this sonnet would serve admirably
for a motto to a time-piece in a library. The whole, from which the
above is an extract, runs thus:--
"Retirado en la paz de estos desiertos,
Con pocos, pero doctos libros juntos,
Vivo en conversacion con los difuntos,
Y escuchocon mis ojos à los muertos.
Sino siempre entendidos, siempre abiertos,
O enmiendan, o fecundan mis assuntos,
Y en musicos callados contrapuntos
Al sueño de la vida hablan despiertos.
Las grandes almas, que la Muerte ausenta
De injurias, de los años vengadora,
Libra, o gran Don Joseph, docta la emprenta.
En fuga irrevocable huye la hora;
Pero aquella el mejor calculo cuenta
Que en la lección y estudios nos mejora."
_Musa_ II. _Soneta_ 90.]
[Footnote 119: Musa VI., romance XVI.]
[Footnote 120: Vida de Quevedo por Tarsia.]
[Footnote 121: As a specimen of Quevedo's poetry, Quintana quotes a
sonnet, which Wiffen has translated, and which has the merit of force
and truth.
"THE RUINS OF ROME.
"Pilgrim, thou look'st in Rome for Rome divine,
And ev'n in Rome no Rome can find! her crowd
Of mural wonders is a corse, whose shroud
And fitting tomb is the lone Aventine.
She lies where reigned the kingly Palatine,
And Time's worn medals more of ruin show
From her ten thousand fights than even the blow
Struck at the crown of her imperial line,
Tiber alone remains, whose rushing tide
Waters the town, now sepulchred in stone,
And weeps its funeral with fraternal tears:
O Rome! in thy wild beauty, power, and pride,
The durable is fled; and what alone
Is fugitive, abides the ravening years!"]