On his arrival in Madrid, he entered himself in the Royal Guard, where he soon won the goodwill and affections of his officers and comrades, and might have risen to distinction, but for an unfortunate though characteristic occurrence. He had written some verses on passing events connected with the service, which were recited at a banquet, and having been much applauded and passed from hand to hand, came to the knowledge of the ministry, who thereupon, notwithstanding the efforts of his colonel to the contrary, dismissed Espronceda from the corps, and banished him to the town of Cuellar. There he composed a work, which he called a novel, under the title of the ‘Sancho of Saldania,’ but which, though containing some good sketches and descriptions, is only worthy of notice as having been one of his compositions.
“On the dawning of liberty in Spain with the promulgation of the Estatuto,” by Martinez de la Rosa, he came forward as a journalist, connected with the paper published as ‘The Age.’ His proud spirit could not submit to the censorship previously existing, but even now he had to feel its influence. The fourteenth number of his paper, the most violent of the time, was found to contain some articles which were forbidden by the censor, and as the time pressed, the editors did not know how to supply the deficiency. The ready genius of Espronceda suggested a scheme, which, after a little hesitation, was adopted: this was to publish the sheet in blank, with merely the headings, which had not been struck out of the manuscript by the censor. Accordingly, the usual sheet appeared with the titles only of the subjects it had originally to bear, namely—“The Amnesty;” “Domestic Policy;” “Letter from Don Miguel and Don Manuel Bravedeed in defence of their honour and patriotism;” “On the Cortes;” “Song on the Death of Don Joaquin de Pablo.” The effect was startling, and perhaps more powerful than the forbidden articles would have proved. The people supplied the deficiencies according to their individual feelings, and the ingenuity of the device had its fullest success. As the result, the publication of the paper was forbidden, and the managers had to hide themselves for a time to escape further prosecution.
In the years 1835 and 1836, there were several serious commotions in Madrid in which he joined, erecting barricades in the principal square, and making violent harangues to the people. On both occasions the disturbances were soon put down by the military, and he had to hide himself in the provinces, until, in the year 1840, Espartero having put himself at the head of the liberal party, the public principles prevailed for which Espronceda had so exerted himself. He then came forth again from his retirement, and made himself conspicuous by appearing as an advocate in a case in which a paper named the ‘Hurricane’ had been denounced at law for a seditious article it contained. Espronceda’s speech in defence, from some passages of it given by Del Rio, appears to have been very energetic, and as inflammatory as the article accused, but he was successful, and the proprietor of the paper was acquitted.
In the same year, 1840, he published the volume of poems on which his fame rests, as perhaps the first lyric poet that Spain has produced. Most of the contents had been previously given in the periodical publications of Madrid, but it was a great service to literature to have them collected. They contained the fragment of the epic poem, ‘Pelayo,’ and a short dramatic piece, entitled, ‘The Student of Salamanca,’ in which his own character is supposed to have been depicted; as well as the lyric odes and other poems. They are comparatively few in number, not exceeding fifteen altogether, but of such rare excellence as to make us regret that so gifted a writer was to be so soon cut off, depriving the literary world of the hopes of still further excellence they gave reason to expect. In the following year, 1841, he published his poem, ‘The Devil World, El Diablo Mundo,’ in four cantos, to which three others were afterwards added, found among his papers after his death. His friends had long feared that he was not destined to attain a prolonged period of life, but their fears were unhappily realized much sooner than they had imagined.
In December 1841, Espronceda was sent to the Hague as Secretary of Legation, but the coldness of the climate affecting too severely his enfeebled constitution, he was obliged, almost immediately, to return to Spain. He had meanwhile been elected Deputy to the Cortes for Almeria, and he attempted to take accordingly his share of public duties. But his health and strength had been undermined by the life of hazard, of privations and excesses he had undergone, and the journey to the Hague in the depth of winter seemed to give the final shock to his frame, from which it could not recover. On the 23rd of May, 1842, his friends and admirers were thrown into unexpected grief by hearing that he had died that morning, after what was termed a four days’ illness. The immediate cause was said to have been some disorder affecting the throat, and his sufferings have been described by an intimate friend and schoolfellow, who was with him at the time, as very painful. The loss to Spain and the whole literary world was as great as it was irreparable; and so the people seemed to feel it, by the general expression of regret over his fate, such as it seldom falls to the lot of any one to excite.
The moralist might dilate on the evil courses which probably hastened his death, and all must lament that a man of such extraordinary genius should have sunk under them; but before we judge any one severely, we should be certain of being able to form a right judgement. The utmost remark, therefore, we permit ourselves to make, may be to consider his history as a lesson to all under similar circumstances of life, that if they will not take heed to a moral in others, they may become a warning themselves. Every man’s character may be taken as a whole, in which his good and evil qualities are often so blended together as to make them inseparable. The excesses of youth are often “the flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,” which shows itself in its true characters in other respects, though often with the alloy of lower passions to lead them to a fatal end. Thus Byron and Espronceda, two kindred geniuses in our days, have sunk prematurely into the grave, most unhappily, when new fields of glory seemed to be opened before them to retrieve the past errors of life, and make it in future as honourable as they had already rendered it renowned.
The genius of Espronceda was kindred to Byron’s, of whom he has been accused of having been an imitator. But this seems to me unquestionably a mistake. During his residence in England he had certainly acquired a good knowledge of the English language and literature, much to his advantage; but he could scarcely have acquired such a knowledge of either as to put him in the position of an imitator. The utmost that can be alleged of him in this respect is, that the style of Byron’s writing was so congenial to his own taste and talent, as to make him imbibe it intuitively, and so obtain a more decided character for his own than perhaps it would have otherwise attained.
It is certain that Spanish poetry never before presented such depth of thought and feeling, and such fulness and vigour of expression, as he gave to it; and it is apparent, in every page of his works, that he had studied in a higher school and become imbued with a brighter inspiration than he could have done on the Continent. But what ordinary imitators would have considered the characteristics of Byron as models to follow, he had the good sense entirely to discard. He has none of the egotism and affectation which distinguish that school; and if he indulged in some of its propensities, it is clear that they were the natural results of the circumstances in which he was placed, and not the wilful perversions of misdirected abilities. His poem to Harifa is written with an earnestness of feeling that must be felt, even through the haze of translation, giving tokens of its origin too distinct to admit any supposition of its being a suggestion from any other source than his own experience of life. Neither in this poem nor in any other of his works is there any of those mysterious suggestions of dark histories, or of those morbid denunciations of imaginary wrongs which abound in the productions of the Byronian school. His complaints are the evident effusions of a mind maddened at finding itself in a state unworthy of its powers, and thus, instead of venting his rage on others, he turned it against his own misdeeds, in giving way to excesses that he scorned, and which he felt degraded him. But even in his aspirations for higher thoughts, he had the same leaven of earth to keep him from attaining them. He had not learned the lessons which Jovellanos inculcated in the Epistle to Bermudez, to seek wisdom where only it ought to be sought; as he might have done even from the heathen poet, that the hidden things of God could not be found out, though he were to traverse over all space in search of them.
Ἀλλ’ οὐ γὰρ ἆν τὰ θεία, κρύπτοντος Θεοῦ,
Μάθεις ἆν, οὐδ’ εἰ πάντ’ ἐπεξελθοις σκότων.