Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/119

Rh seemed to side with the French, and they returned to Madrid, when Melendez was again induced to join them, and accepted office as Councillor of State and President of a Board of Public Instruction. Thus he inevitably compromised himself in a cause which was not that of his heart or principles, and whose apparently irresistible strength could only have excused his adhesion to it. This supposition, however, also proved erroneous; and when the French armies had to abandon Spain, Melendez, with their other principal adherents, had to fly with them also, having had the further misfortune to have his house plundered, and his valuable library destroyed, by the very marauders for whose sake he had lost all his hopes of the future at home.

Before entering France, Melendez, kneeling down, kissed the Spanish soil, saying, "I shall not return to tread thee again." His apprehensions, notwithstanding his anxiety to do so, proved correct. He passed four years in France, residing at Toulouse, Montpelier, Nismes and Alaix, as circumstances compelled him, in great privation and with bodily sufferings, the more aggravating, in his advanced age, the bitter remembrances of the past. A paralytic affection first incapacitated him from all exertion, and finally, an apoplectic attack terminated his existence, at Montpelier, on the 24th May, 1817, in the arms of his wife, who had followed him through all the vicissitudes of life, and surrounded by the companions of his exile. A monument was afterwards placed to his memory in the cemetery by the Duke de Frias.

Notwithstanding the indecision of his character in public life, Melendez was in private remarkable for laborious application to his studies and duties. His reading was immense, and his desire unceasing to be useful, and to contribute, by all the means in his power, to the well-being of his fellows. His kindness of heart is conspicuous in all his writings, which