In the words of this memoir, “Calderon at that time enjoyed so high a reputation, that it appeared a sacrilegious hardihood to notice defects in his comedies or sacramental pieces, which, repeated annually on the stage with every possible pomp and appliance, delighted the vulgar of all classes, and perpetuated the applauses of their famous author. Moratin published three Discourses, which he entitled, ‘Exposition of the Misconceptions of the Spanish Theatre,’ written with the good judgement of a man of taste, and with the zeal of a citizen interested in the progression and literary glory of his country. In the first he showed the defects in which the old plays abounded; as also the modern, with which poets, without rule or plan, supplied the players, sanctioning every time more irregularity and ignorance. In the two following, he proved that the Autos of Calderon, so admired by the multitude, ought not to be suffered in a country that prided itself as civilized. It is unnecessary to say what opposition these discourses encountered; it is enough to add, that the third was scarcely published when the government prohibited the repetition of what he had condemned:—a memorable epoch in the annals of the Spanish stage, which can never remember, without praise, that judicious and intrepid writer to whom it owed so useful a reform.”
Of this able critic, Leandro Moratin was the only son that survived childhood. He was born at Madrid, the 10th of March, 1760, and in his earliest years is described as having been remarkable for infantile grace and vivacity. At four years of age, however, he unfortunately had a severe attack of the smallpox, which not only left its disfiguring marks on his countenance, but also seemed to have changed his character, making him the rest of his life shy and reserved. As he grew up he shunned all playfellows; like Demophilus, he was a man among boys,—Κεῖνος γὰρ ἐν παισὶν νέος—and devoting himself to drawing and making juvenile verses, pursued his favourite studies in secret, so that even the father seemed not to have been ever fully aware of the bent of his son’s genius.
The elder Moratin, whose father had been jewel-keeper to Isabel Farnesi, widow of Philip V., had been brought up to the profession of the law, in which he had not acquired any eminence, though he had some as an author. Seeing his son’s talent for drawing, he had first intended him to take advantage of it as an artist, but finally placed him with a brother, Miguel de Moratin, who was a jeweller, to learn his occupation. In his earlier years the younger Moratin had been only at an obscure private school in Madrid, but he had good examples and lessons at home, and recourse to his father’s library, where he found all the best works in Spanish literature, for secret study, beyond the tasks set in routine for his education. In 1779 the Spanish Academy, in the course of its objects for the promotion of literary pursuits, had offered, as a subject for a prize poem, The Taking of Granada; when the Accessit was awarded to a competitor who had signed himself Efren de Lardnoz y Morante. On this person being called for, Leandro Moratin, to the surprise of his father, presented himself as the author, producing the rough copy of the verses he had sent. This was naturally a source of great delight to the father, who might thus foresee, in hope at least, his son’s future success. But he did not live to witness it, having died the following year, at only forty-two years of age, leaving a widow dependent on his son’s labours as a working jeweller. At this business he continued, therefore, combining however with it his former studies, as far as his leisure permitted him.
In 1782 he obtained the honour of another Accessit from the Academy for a Satire on the vicious practices introduced into the Spanish language, and a greater feeling thereupon arose in his favour from literary persons who remembered his father, with the respect due to his merits. Hence, also, Leandro Moratin, notwithstanding his natural reserve, was drawn from his retirement into the company of several young men of kindred tastes and pursuits, whose conversation and society had great and good effect on his mind and future efforts.
In 1785 he published an edition of his father’s poems, with reflections, which may be considered his first essay on criticism and declaration of opinion on matters of taste, according to the precepts of the purest classicism, then so much in fashion. From his earliest years he had been much attached to the theatre, then sunk to the low state which he so feelingly describes in the preliminary discourse to his Comedies, subsequently published; and having witnessed his father’s anxiety to reform its abuses, he felt it a sort of inheritance left him to attempt the task. He had already begun one of his plays, which however he had not sufficient leisure to complete, on account of the demands for his daily labour; but about this time his mother died, and Leandro had then only his own wants to consider.
At the same time the good and great Jovellanos, whose notice he had attracted, proposed him as secretary to the Conde de Cabarrus, then going to Paris on a special mission, where accordingly Leandro went with that able and enlightened statesman, in January 1787, returning to Madrid in the January following. Shortly after the Conde and Jovellanos fell into ill-favour at court, and all their friends were involved in their fall. Moratin took shelter in the obscurity of his original occupation, and so escaped notice. He completed his play, but could not get it represented, and in the course of delays had the license for it withdrawn. He wished to be exempt from labour for maintenance, to give himself up to his favourite studies, but sought in vain for other means of attaining this end than from the favour of the government. A change in the ministry having now occurred, he wrote a petition, in verse, to the Conde de Florida Blanca, in which, humorously depicting his wants, he asked a small benefice in the church. This, though a very small one, was granted him, and thereupon he had to take the first orders of the tonsure. Shortly afterwards, Godoy, Prince of the Peace, came into power, and became a still more effectual patron for Moratin, on whom he conferred other benefices and favours, to the amount of about £600 a year sterling, so that he became at once, for his position in life, wealthy, and enabled to devote himself entirely to literature.
It has been the fashion lately for all parties to decry Godoy, and there can be no doubt that he was guilty of much misconduct in the exercise of power. But he was in this only acting according to the circumstances in which he was placed, and the favourite and minister of a weak-minded and despotic monarch could not be expected to have acted much otherwise than he did. In the memoirs he published in his later years in his justification, Godoy has, in a tone of apparent sincerity and earnestness, sometimes amounting even to eloquence, shown that often he could not have acted otherwise, and that his faults were the faults of his position, while his merits were his own. He declares that he was the first minister in Spain who curbed the power of the Inquisition, and that he had never instituted any prosecution for private opinions. His treatment of Jovellanos he might well excuse to himself, as a return for hostility manifested to him under circumstances that he might consider to warrant it. But of other eminent men of learning and of the arts he was the munificent patron, of Melendez among others, and of Moratin more especially. The former dedicated to him the second edition of his works, and Moratin now one of his plays, which had been received with much favour. From this dedication, a judgement may be formed by the translation, of the spirit of Moratin, that, while under the sense of great obligations, he did not condescend, like other poets, to flatter his Mæcenas’s vanity by ascriptions of descent from ancient kings or other fictions; but dwelt only on his personal qualities, and the great power which he undoubtedly possessed, as exercised in his favour. The same spirit Moratin showed in his letter to Jovellanos, in which adulation could less be imputed to him, as that illustrious individual was in disgrace at court, and no longer the dispenser of the favours of the government.
But Moratin showed the independence of his character still more decidedly, in refusing the request made by Godoy that he should write eulogistic verses on a lady of the court; and it is to the honour of Godoy, we are informed, that though he was at first angry at the refusal, he passed it over without subsequent notice.
To another request made by Godoy, for an ode on the Battle of Trafalgar, Moratin acceded, though it is stated with considerable disinclination to the task. He could not, he replied at first, celebrate a lost battle, and as Hermosillia tells us, could not hide from himself the ridiculousness of having to represent a complete defeat as a glorious triumph, though the “dreaded Nelson” had fallen in it. He felt bound, however, to obey the favourite and to reconcile his task to justice, wrote his ‘Shade of Nelson,’ in imitation of the Prophecy of Nereus, and of the Tagus by Fray Luis de Leon. In this poem, he represents Nelson appearing the same night on the heights of Trafalgar, and foretelling England’s approaching ruin, notwithstanding the victory which had been gained “so dearly, as to be in reality a discomfiture.” He observes, that “Napoleon, having overcome the Austrians, would now turn all his energies to the conquest of England, while Spain would raise a mightier fleet to join him. He therefore counselled his countrymen to abandon their ambitious projects and make peace, and to create disunion in foreign countries by corrupting their cabinets, for the purpose of maintaining their preponderance.” The thoughts are expressed in elegant poetical language, but the whole argument shows how little feeling he had in favour of the subject. In the last edition of his works prepared for publication before his death, he took care to have it omitted, but it has been again inserted in subsequent editions.