Page:Modern poets and poetry of Spain.djvu/61

Rh Quarterly Review has instituted an ingenious parallel between him and Montesquieu. With either, or with Burke, he may be observed to have possessed the philosophy and feeling, which give eloquence its chief value and effect.

As a prose writer, Jovellanos, for elegance of style and depth of thought, may be pronounced without a rival in Spanish literature. As a dramatist, he only gave the public a tragedy and comedy, both of which continue in much favour with the public. The latter, "The Honourable Delinquent," is particularly esteemed; but it is a melodrame rather than a comedy, according to our conceptions. It turns on the principal character having been forced into fighting a duel, and who, having killed his opponent, is sentenced to die; but after the usual suspenses receives a pardon from the king. There are several interesting scenes and much good writing in the piece; but no particular delineation of character, to bring it any more than the other into the higher class of dramatic art. It has, however, been observed, that it only needs to have been written in verse to make it a perfect performance, and this alone shows the hold it must have on the Spanish reader.

As a poet, Jovellanos is chiefly to be commemorated for his Satires. Two of these, in which he lashes the vices and follies of society at Madrid,—"girt with the silent crimes of capitals,"—are pronounced by the critic in the Madrid Review to be "highly finished" compositions. They were, in fact, the only poems he himself published, and those anonymously. With the strength of Juvenal, they have also his faults, and abound too much in local allusions to be suited for translation. In somewhat the same style were several epistles he addressed to different friends, of which the one written to his friend and biographer Bermudez has been chosen for this work, as most characteristic of the author. Like his