Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

“Vicious Habits of the Religious Probationers.” [p. 195].

The Spanish satirical novel, “Fray Gerundio de Campazas,” contains a lively picture of the adventures of a Novice. It was written by Padre Isla, a Jesuit, for the purpose of checking the foppery and absurdity of the popular preachers. Cervantes himself could not boast of greater success in banishing the books of Chivalry than Isla in shaming the friars out of the affected and often profane concetti, which, in his time, were mistaken for pulpit eloquence. But the Inquisition could not endure that her great props, the religious orders, should be exposed, in any of their members, to the shafts of ridicule; and Fray Gerundio was prohibited.

NOTE K.

A book entitled Memorias para la vida del Excmo. Señor D. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, was published, at Madrid, in 1814, by Cean Bermudez. This gentleman, whose uninterrupted intimacy from early youth with the subject of his Memoirs, enabled him to draw an animated picture of one of the most interesting men that Spain has produced in her decline, has, probably, from the habits of reserve and false notions of decorum, still prevalent in that country, greatly disappointed our hopes. What relates to Jovellanos himself is confined to a few pages, containing little more than the dates of events connected with his public life, some vague declamation, and a few inuendos on the great intrigues which, having raised him to the ministry, confined him soon after to the fortress of Bellver. The second part contains a catalogue, and a slight analysis of his works. The friends of Jovellanos, however, are indebted to the author of the Memorias, for the help which this collection of notes on the life of that truly excellent and amiable man will afford any future writer who, with more settled habits of freedom, and altogether under more favourable circumstances, shall undertake to draw the full-length picture of which we yet scarcely possess a sketch.

For the satisfaction of such of our readers as may wish to know the fate of Jovellanos, we subjoin a brief account of the last years of his life.

Upon the accession of Ferdinand VII., Jovellanos was, by royal order, released from his confinement, and subsequently elected a Member of the Central Junta. When the French entered Seville in 1810, and the Regency of Cadiz superseded the Junta, he wished to retire to his native place, Gijon, in Asturias.

The popular feeling, exasperated by national misfortunes, was now venting itself against the abdicated Government, to whose want of energy the advantages of the French were indiscriminately attributed; and Jovellanos, accidentally detained in the Bay of Cadiz, had the mortification of learning that he was involved in the absurd and shameful suspicion of having shared in the spoil of the Spanish treasury, with which the Central Junta was charged. A dignified appeal to the candour of the nation, which he sent to the Cadiz papers for insertion, was not permitted to see the light—so narrow and illiberal were the views of the Regency—and the feeling and high-minded Castilian had to sail under the intolerable apprehension that some of his countrymen might look upon him as a felon endeavouring to abscond from justice.

If any one circumstance could add to the painfulness of Jovellanos’s situation, it was that, while the thoughtlessness or the ingratitude of his countrymen thus involved him in a suspicion of peculation, the state of his finances was such as to have obliged him to accept the sum of little more than one hundred pounds, the savings of many year’s service, which his trusty valet pressed upon him, with tears, that he might defray the expenses of their removal from Seville.

After being almost wrecked on the coast of Galicia, Jovellanos was obliged to land at the small town of Muros. Here he had to endure a fresh insult from the petty Junta of that province, by whose orders his papers were minutely searched, and copies taken at the option of an officer sent for that purpose with a military detachment.

A temporary retreat of the French from Gijon enabled Jovellanos to revisit his native town; but an unexpected return of the invaders obliged him soon after to take ship with the utmost precipitation. His flight was so sudden that he was actually at sea without having determined upon a place of refuge. Had the venerable and unhappy fugitive listened to the repeated invitations which his intimate friend Lord Holland sent him after the first appearance of danger from the progress of the French, his life might have been prolonged under the hospitable roof of Holland House. But Jovellanos’s notions of public duty were too exalted and romantic: and he would not quit Spain while there was a single spot in the possession of her patriots.