Besides the anacreontic poems of Melendez, his lyric romances, his popular songs, in which the old national style is combined with modern elegance, his romantic odes, his elegies and his sonnets, must be numbered among the best productions in Spanish literature.[627] How admirably he succeeded in the composition of poetic epistles is proved by the classical dedication of his poems to his friend Jovellanos.[628] He has rendered service to the Spanish theatre by dramatizing the novel of the rich Camacho from Don Quixote. He is also the author of several treatises on moral and philosophical subjects.
BRIEF NOTICE OF SOME OF THE MORE RECENT LITERARY PRODUCTIONS OF SPAIN.
If the above information respecting some of the latest Spanish poets be connected with the general observations and bibliographic notices in the preceding part of this history, it will plainly appear that the revival of polite literature in Spain must have been on the one hand accelerated, and on the other retarded, by the progress which was made in the cultivation of modern science and philosophy, during the latter years of the eighteenth century. The period of the triumph of the Gallicists is doubtless past, however numerous the adherents of that party still may be. But in general the Spaniards of the educated and refined classes still blush for their ancient prejudices, and observe, with regret, that the Spanish literature is now only labouring to acquire what it long ago neglected. In order to raise the elegant literature of Spain to a level with that of other cultivated nations of modern Europe, it is deemed necessary to continue with persevering spirit to translate, adapt and imitate every foreign work which attains any degree of celebrity. In this concurrence of the spirit of foreign literature with the ancient national spirit, which is by no means suffered to perish, more than one decennial period of the present century will probably elapse ere Spanish poetry resume its original independence.
Among their modern dramas, the Spaniards particularly esteem the regular tragedies of Nicolas Fernandez de Moratin, and the comedies of Ramon de la Cruz, who, previous to the year 1784, was computed to have written upwards of two hundred interludes in the old style. Spanish translations of the tragedies of Corneille and Voltaire, of the plays of Moliere, and other French comic writers, and of the sentimental dramas of Mercier, have also been received with approbation. Don Leandro Fernandez de Moratin, who must not be confounded with his namesake, travelled at the expense of the Spanish government to study the dramatic literature of the different nations of Europe; and since his return to Spain, a considerable pension has been granted to him as a reward for one of his dramatic productions. He has rendered the tragedy of Hamlet into Spanish, and is expected to give to his countrymen a complete translation of Shakespeare. Don Luciano Francisco Comella, who is mentioned in literary journals as one of the rivals of Leandro de Moratin in comic poetry, appears to be a very prolific writer, and inclined to the old national style. Don Theodoro de la Calla has attempted to give Shakespeare’s Othello in Spanish, from a French translation. Comella has also dramatized several recent historical events, among which are some points in the history of Peter the Great, and Catharine II. of Russia.
The Count de Noroña has particularly distinguished himself as a writer of lyric poetry, and he has also translated Dryden’s Alexander’s Feast into Spanish verse.
Joseph Vasquez Cadalso, and the younger Moratin, may be ranked among the most successful writers of satirical poetry which Spain has recently produced.
Diana, or the Hunt, by the elder Moratin; the Happy Man, by Almeida; and the Happy Woman, by Morino, are the latest productions in didactic poetry. A Spanish translation of How to be always Merry, from the German of Uz, also occurs in the notices of new Spanish poems.
The old ambition of the Spaniards to distinguish themselves by some production in epic art has again revived. A work of this class, entitled, Mexico Conquistada, by Don Juan de Escoiquiz, has excited some attention.
Spanish pastorals in the old national style are associated with translations from the German of Gessner.
The collision of the natural and foreign styles is strikingly exemplified in the Spanish romance literature of the present period. The old romance of Cassandra has lately been re-printed; and a new one in the old style, entitled, Leandra, has also made its appearance. All the English and French novels which obtain any celebrity, are now translated into Spanish.