[41.—4-6.] cuesta... infanta. Evidently the world has changed little in a hundred years!
[42.]—Juan Meléndez Valdés (1754-1817) was born in the district of Badajoz (Estremadura). He studied law at Salamanca, where he was guided in letters by Cadalso. In 1780 he won a prize offered by the Academy for the best eclogue. He then accepted a professorship at Salamanca offered him by Jovellanos. Literary success led him to petition a position under the government which, involving as it did loss of independence, proved fatal to his character. He filled honorably important judicial posts in Saragossa and Valladolid, but court intrigue and the caprices of Godoy brought him many trials and undeserved punishments. In 1808 he accepted a position under the French, and nearly lost his life from popular indignation. Later his vacillations were pitiful: he wrote spirited poems now for the French and now against them. When they were finally expelled in 1813, he left the country with them and died in poverty and sorrow in Montpellier.
Most of his poems are in vol. 63 of the Bibl. de Aut. Esp.; others have been published in the Revue hispanique, vols. I. and IV. Cf. his Life by Quintana in Bibl. de Aut. Esp., vol. 19; E. Mérimée, Meléndez Valdés, in Revue hispanique, I, 166-195; Introduction, p. xxx.
[44.—5.] Muy más: this use of muy is not uncommon in the older classics, but the usual expression now is mucho más.
[28.] benigna: see note, p. 22, l. 6.
[46.]—Manuel José Quintana (1772-1857) was born in Madrid. He went to school in Cordova and later studied law at Salamanca. He fled from Madrid upon the coming of the French. In the reign of Ferdinand VII he was for a time confined in the Bastile of Pamplona on account of his liberal ideas. After the liberal triumph of 1834 he held various public offices, including that of Director General of Public Instruction. In 1855 he was publicly crowned in the Palace of the Senate.
See [Introduction], p. xxxii; Ticknor, III, 332-334; Blanco García, La literatura española en el siglo XIX, 2d ed., Madrid, 1899, I, 1-13; Menéndez y Pelayo, D. Manuel José Quintana, La poesía lírica al principiar el siglo XIX, Madrid, 1887; E. Piñeyro, M.-J. Quintana, Chartres, 1892; Juan Valera, Florilegio de poesías castellanas, Madrid, 1903, V, 32-38. His works are in vols. 19 and 67 of Bibl. de Aut. Esp.
The Spanish people, goaded by the subservience of Charles IV and his prime minister and favorite, Godoy, to the French, rose in March, 1808, swept away Godoy, forced the king to abdicate and placed his son Ferdinand upon the throne. It was believed that this change of rulers would check French influence in the Peninsula, but Ferdinand was forced by Napoleon into a position more servile than that occupied formerly by Charles.
[2.] Note the free word-order in Spanish which permits, as in this line, the subject to follow the verb, the object to precede.
[14.] Oceano: note the omission of the accent on e, that the word may rime with soberano and vano; but here oceano still has four syllables.