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The third distinctive era of Spanish poetry commences with the restoration of good taste under Luzán and his followers, towards the year 1730.

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But we must take leave, with what ever reluctance, of this fairy land of Spanish poetry, and follow M. Maury through the last period of the art. A rapid but an able sketch of its progress in modern times, introduces his selections from Iriarte, Meléndez, Cadalso, Moratín, Quintana and Arriaza, which, as it is naturally interwoven with the political history of the times, cannot fail to be of interest to our readers.

'Under our Austrian princes,' says M. Maury, 'our poetry in the dawn of its bright days was entirely Italian; it then again followed the antique, and its indigenous elements had the prevalence, during the last period of its course. After times calamitous for the state as well as letters, during which we may observe, as it were, a double interregnum, the Bourbon dynasty brought into vogue the French school, which has undergone successively the same modifications as the Italian. The reign of the prince who had so long to struggle for his establishment on the Spanish throne, was slow in conferring the fruits that wait upon stability. We owe to him some excellent institutions, such as the academies of history and language, but the times of Philip V. were invaded by the last worst Vandals of bad taste. The faction of Góngora and Quevedo, who wrote during his reign, spoiled, so to say, even corruption itself, by the very satiety it produced. Under Ferdinand VI., Spain enjoyed, in Luzán and his pupils, writers of correct taste; but the French school was only fully engrafted on the Spanish, under the reign of Charles III., and the genius of Melendez. The portion which Spain aspired to share in the rich heritage of the age of Louis XIV was not remarkably excellent. There were ministers, however, who sought to render the Muses dear to their sovereigns: Carvajal founded the Academy of Arts, which received the name of San Fernando, and disdained not to take a secondary part in the Society which, under the title of the Academy of Good Taste, was formed by the exertions of Luzán, in the saloons of the Countess de Lemos; and he constantly supported with his credit the efforts of this sensible reformer. But under Charles III., the love of science and the arts amounted to a passion. Scientific institutions, memoirs of literary societies, academic assemblies, and learned dissertations, were multiplied on every hand. The public journals, if not altogether independent, being encouraged to write with freedom, brought information to all classes of society. They spoke to men in power, and these replied by decrees conceived after the best principles of government. Intersected with canals, and adorned with useful edifices, the country changed its face; and the haunts of bandits became thronged with towns travelled to by excellent highways. Florida-Blanca, the prime minister, in generous rivalry of Campomanes, summoned near the throne men valued for their knowledge, Jovellanos and Cabarrus. Sonora, minister of the Indies, made his name revered in our immense colonies, whither elements of amelioration and improvement were sent, which were scarcely enjoyed by the metropolis: and on the other hand, historic illustration received new lustre in the person of the Count d'Aranda, by his eminent talents and his elevation to the Presidency of the Council. We may regard this latter period of our political career as that in which our poetry had, if not the most brilliant success, at least the greatest favour. It was for honours deemed of inestimable price, that Guzmán and Moratín, the elegant Iriarte and the sweet Melendez disputed before the Spanish Academy. Minds which the past no longer agitated nor the future disquieted, devoted themselves with rapture to intellectual enjoyments, which again became the occupation of the first ranks in society, and appeared almost a state necessity. It is only by tradition that we can speak of these years of hope and happiness. We ourselves have only witnessed the effects of that revolution which took place in the system of government, that great revolution to the sequel of which the term ABSOLUTE applies. There, everything which in the physical body would be said to be throwing itself off, was suddenly checked and struck into the system—a malady how fearful! The capital, when we first knew it, was far from accomplishing the promises of the period we have just sketched,—and it indeed shadowed out a future which has but too fatally fulfilled the presage. Already the proscriptions had begun for which the arrest of Count de Cabarrús in 1790 formed the signal. The illustrious friend of this shining statesman, the noble Jovellanos, hastened to his succour, and was involved in his misfortune. Then was decided the fall of Florida-Blanca their protector, followed by that of his successor, the Count d'Aranda, who in accepting the minister's portfolio under the old king, only served as a stepping-stone to the Queen's favourite, Godoy. Fetters were imposed upon the public journals. The counsellors of Castile, the most in honour, received letters of exile; and accusations, police visits, and imprisonments spread terror into the bosom of families. A vast process upon the simple introduction of a prohibited book seemed as though it must strike every Spaniard who was at all raised above the rank of ignorance.

'Peace was made in 1795, with the French revolution, and we were permitted to respire. To understand French was no longer a title for proscription. And here we must do justice to a minister a little too much decried. Evil was not the element of Godoy; we ought to be less surprised at the talents which he wanted than at those which he acquired or possessed. The scandal of his elevation attaches not to him; but with his elevation and the giddiness and error into which it led him, good under his auspices became impossible. Created Prince of the Peace, he wished to renew an administration like that under Florida-Blanca. He shared in 1797 the government with men renowned by their qualities and intellect. He gave the finances to Saavedra, sent Cabarrus ambassador to Paris, and summoned Jovellanos to him as minister of Grace and Justice, in these words, "Come and form a part of the Spanish Directory." Then again the songs of the Muses were heard: Melendez published his new poems, withheld for many unpropitious years; Arriaza and Quintana became known, and the younger Moratín developed his transcendant talents. But, as head of the ministry which he succeeded in composing, the Prince of the Peace was not slow in perceiving that he himself was an anomaly, whilst his colleagues found, on their part, that they could not mingle with so extraordinary an element. Hence arose disagreements and the retreat of the favourite, who was upon the point of suffering a real disgrace. This suspense, which but for Saavedra's indecision and the precise virtue of Jovellanos, might have been turned into security, was terminated by an appeal to the Queen's affection, and Godoy's return to the helm of state more powerful than ever, his mind soured against enlightened men, and meditating a recurrence of the system of warfare against knowledge. The successor of Saavedra fell in exile; Jovellanos, already removed from court, was banished to Majorca and closely imprisoned; and Melendez, but just invested with a high station in the magistracy, deposed and sent also into exile. Remaining thus alone at the head of a nation indignant to see him there, Godoy could never depend upon the people's opposition to the Colossus that pressed upon himself and them. So that having exerted himself in vain to conjure down the tempest, nothing remained but to yield to it when his emissary came from Paris to transmit to the Court the counsel that they should quit Castile. The revolution of Aranjuez, the results of which were altogether contrary to Napoleon's views in the projected invasion, led to the employment of measures the most violent. The national resistance is well known. We have seen the spirit which rules the multitude such as our institutions have made it, hostile to the first invasion, auxiliary to the second, and, always the same in its unfortunate effects on the nation, twice accelerate its melancholy decline.'

Don Ignacio de Luzán, the author of that 'Art of Poetry' which, like the satire of another Gifford, reduced to silence, the pitiful rhymers of his age, was born in 1702, and died at Madrid in 1754. He had resided at Paris as secretary of legation, under the Duke de Huesca, and besides his odes and a poem on Conversation, wrote an excellent essay upon politics, and criticisms upon Crebillon and Fontenelle. His poems, although not of first rate merit, are far from mediocrity. M. Maury observes a coincidence between him and Boscán; both having been natives of Barcelona, and both having acquired a high literary reputation, less from any splendid achievement of their own in composition, than from the reforms which they effected: in every respect, however, he gives the superiority to Luzán. Cadalso, who, like another Garcilaso, cultivated poetry in the midst of arms, fortified like him by his example the existing reformer of the day, and like him too fell in battle, at an early age, by the bursting of a grenade before Gibraltar in 1741. Cadalso had enriched his mind by the acquisition not only of the classical languages, but of French, Italian, German, and even English. In favour with the Count d'Aranda, whom he served as aide-de-camp, in the expedition of 1762, against Portugal, he never failed to exercise, when he had acquired consideration as a writer, a protecting influence over rising merit, as generous as it was judicious. He visited the principal universities of the kingdom, detected and appreciated the talents of Jovellanos, at Alcala, and of Melendez at Salamanca; was the friend of Yriarte, and the companion of Yglesias, Moratín, Huerta and Gonzalos, encouraging their rival efforts and guiding them to excellence. But above all others, he attached himself to Melendez, whose future reputation he clearly foresaw, through the faults of his early essays, taking up his residence with him the better to ensure the arrival of the period when his pupil should be proclaimed his victor. Thus, although his merits as a poet will never be disputed, whilst his gay and spirited anacreontics live, Melendez will be termed with truth the best work of Cadalso. His talents as a writer both in prose and verse, his military recommendations to esteem and social qualities caused his loss to be deplored by the whole army, who regretted as a fault his brave disdain of danger, as he had seen the grenade approaching, but thinking it would pass his head, refused to move from the place where he was standing. And it is a circumstance worthy of honourable remark, that, though his enemies in war, the governor of Gibraltar, and a great number of English officers, who had known the poet living, concurred to mourn his loss, and solemnized his death by funeral honours. The simplicity, elegance, aud fine raillery to be found in Yriarte's Fables, entitle him to be termed the La Fontaine of Spain. Yglesias shines in epigram and in facetious satire; Noroña in fugitive pieces, and an Ode on the peace of 1795, between Spain and France; Cienfuegos, in a tragedy or two, in some idylls and ballads; but Cienfuegos was not born a poet, he is left at an immeasurable distance by Melendez. Melendez is the poet, who, of all others in later times, charms us most and longest. He was born in 1754, of a distinguished family. In 1783 he contended with Yriarte for the chief prize proposed by the Academy of Language, and by the suffrages of the academicians was declared victor, from the exclamation of one of his partisans,—'Gentlemen, do you not perceive that the verses smell of thyme?' His first volume, published two years afterwards, might almost compare, in its sweetness of versification, with the honey gathered from that odorous herb. The success which La Fontaine acquired in fable, from refining upon Æsop and Phædrus, Melendez is thought to have acquired in his Canciones and Romances, from his early fondness and study of Anacreon. The smiling beauty of his imagery, the rich colouring given to his pictures, his elegant and easy diction, true to taste as his descriptions are of nature, and the delightful harmony of his verse, pervaded always by a lively fire, render him the favourite of his countrymen; and his biographer is so great an enthusiast, as to say of his numbers, that 'floating on the Spanish breeze, you would think them, for sweetness, the enchanting accents of a Sybarite, resounded by the echoes of Eden.' This is eulogy, and not appreciation. His second volume, published as we have seen many years after the first, presented his poetical character in a new light, those mature compositions being as much distinguished for sublimity and serious dignity of thought, as his former effusions were for melody and airy grace. His 'Ode to the Stars' may be classed with the best lyrics which his country has produced; but we are unable, from our limits, to attempt a transcript of its spirit, and must content ourselves with an address to his friend, the excellent Jovellanos, which for the same reasons we cast into a different measure from the Anacreontic, a form that would more properly suit the Bacchic gaiety of the original.

TO DON GASPAR MELCHOR JOVELLANOS

For the Easter Holidays.*

A truce now, dear Jové, to care for a season!
Come—Easter is nigh—to the lute let us sing,
Whilst the March wind pines sadly, gay strains such as Teos
Heard warbled midst grapes to her bard's attic string.
Or beside the mild fire bid with exquisite converse [5]
The fugitive hours pass in brilliant relief;
They go—but from night's shady keeping return not,
Why then by lost dreams should we make them more brief?

As to gold the white down on the summer-peach changes,
So the bloom that my cheek early feathered is fled, [10]
And the years that have passed, bringing wisdom but slowly,
With thousand gray ringlets have mantled my head.
I have seen the vale smile beneath April's sweet blossoms,
Beneath burning June have I seen them decay,
And the pomp and profusion of viny October, [15]
Before dull December waste coldly away.

Yes! the days and wing'd months escape from us like shadows,
And years follow months, as the sea-billows pass,—
Mind it not—we've a charm against Time's revolutions,
In the bright golden liquor that laughs in the glass. [20]
Pour it out; crowned with myrtle and rose, we will frighten
Chagrin tar away with our long merry shout,
And in pledges quaffed off to wit, wine, and dear woman,
Disregard the rude elements warring without.

For what are they to us, if our bosoms beat lightly, [25]
And beauty and song set our prisoned souls free,
Whilst the bliss which a king would exchange for a sceptre,
Love, the holy enchantress, consigns me in thee?
I remember one eve when the sun, half in shadow,
Sank slow to his own western island afar, [30]
Whilst the peasants and peasant-girls danced near my trellis,
And I in the porch touched my festal guitar;

How I sang the rich treasure which Heav'n in its bounty
Had lent to console me in pleasure and pain,
And in prayers for thy welfare implored all its angels— [35]
Thy welfare, so dear to our own native Spain;—
Smit with passionate thirst, in my right hand the beaker
I filled till the bright bubbles danced o'er the top,
And to thee and to thine in a frenzy of feeling.
Drained it manfully off to the last purple drop: [40]

And whilst maiden and youth stood in loud admiration
Applauding the feat, how I filled it again,
And with yet deeper rapture a second time emptied
Its bowl of the glory that brightened my brain;
Singing still, singing still in my zeal for thy glory, [45]
As now to my lute in its ardent excess,
Thy virtues, thy fame in the land's future story,
And the bliss, more than all, that in thee we possess!

After the revolution of Aranjuez, Meléndez, whom a new reign, generally ready to repair the injustice of the former one, had recalled from exile to Madrid, found himself in a critical situation, and accepted a mission of peace from the lieutenant-general of the kingdom. He parted for Oviedo, but being capitally charged as a traitor, true Spaniard though he was, he was committed to prison with his colleague the Count del Pinar, released, a second time imprisoned, and released again. But on the instant of his departure, the misguided populace broke his voiture, and hastily prepared to dispatch him with their fusils. The poet in vain recited one of his ballads, well calculated to disarm popular resentment, if resentment could listen to the charm, but then it only won for him a momentary dispensation of his fate, till he should answer the inquiry, whether he would be shot in front or rear. That moment, however, was every thing to him; for during the discussion, the Cross, named of Victory, approached, and the enraged crowd, falling on their knees, relinquished their intended victim. A formal process acquitted the accused, who succeeded this time in regaining Madrid, where he was found by Napoleon. His celebrity marked him out for an office of distinction, which it might be more dangerous to refuse than to accept. On the French retreat from Spain, however, Melendez, as one of the Afrancesados, prepared to accompany them. As he quitted his native soil, he kneeled upon the ground and kissed it, saying, 'I shall never tread thee more!' and the Bidasoa received his parting tears. He died at Montpelier in 1817.

It has been said of the poems of the younger Moratín, for as a dramatic writer we cannot now pause to weigh his various merits, that they have a silver sound; his versification is, indeed, clear, sweet and flowing, as a crystal spring, and his diction is elegant and pure. His 'Elegy on the death of the learned Conde,' the historian of the dominion of the Arabs in Spain, although rather too long, a fault to which the Spanish poets are but too much addicted, is a very beautiful and tender tribute of friendship full of poetry, and poetry of a high order. Arriaza and Quintana are, if we mistake not, still living in Spain.

'Like brotherless hermits, the last of their race,/ To tell where a garden has been 1 .'

Arriaza's muse is fluent and harmonious; Quintana's stately and profound: Arriaza, full of fancy, is deficient in deep feeling; Quintana, with great depth of feeling, writes more by the light of judgment than the inspiration of fancy. In his 'Ode on the Battle of Trafalgar,' Arriaza has perhaps made the best of the Spanish side of the subject, though much of the imagery is conceived in bad taste. Quintana, also, in his 'Ode on the Expedition to introduce Vaccine Inoculation into America,' is less poetical than patriotic; but in his eloquent odes 'To Beauty,' and 'To the Sea,' his title as a poet of great power is fully vindicated, and we are struck alike with the compass and originality of his thought, and the simple severity of his taste. The specimens which, under the title of Poesías Selectas Castellanas, Quintana published from the Spanish poets, and the able essay which he prefixed to the collection, whilst they attest his critical discrimination, prove the interest he has taken in that literature of which he is the living ornament and representative, —and to which he still attaches himself with constancy, through sunshine and through storm, amidst the most melancholy forebodings, and mournful recollections. But, alas for the Spanish muses! Where are they to look for the repose that is to restore their influence with the echoes of their voiceless harps? Where, indeed, but to the ready answerer of doubt, to the soother of dismay, to the 'restorer of paths to dwell in,' to the universal promiser of splendid things,—the TO-MORROW of desiring Hope! It is even thus that M. Maury turns, like ourselves, from the dark picture which forces itself upon his thoughts.

'What has been,' he says, with a concluding sigh, 'for the last twenty years, the success of the Iberian muses? Where indeed have they sojourned? Scattered like leaves by the autumnal blast, our men of letters like our statesmen are departed. An universal silence, with the exception of some few publications of trifling consequence, has left without a vestige the very existence of those rivals who promised the most noble strains. The tribune that resounded to the voice of genius is mute. Spain is agonized in every muscle of her frame, and expects relief from time alone. But TIME, at least, is infallible, and he will replace in that scale of eminence for which Nature designed it, a country in which she puts forth with profusion the germs of every accomplishment.'

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