LITMIR.BIZ

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writers, especially when their private history gives the imagination a right to ask sympathy for their sufferings.

      Nothing is to be found in Iriarte’s works to show any peculiar opinions on religion, though the tendency of his mind is everywhere clearly seen, as leading to freedom of thought, instead of subjection to dogmas. In his poem on Music, as already intimated, some devotional rather than free-thinking principles are developed; yet it is said that it was from a suspicion of his being affected by the French philosophy of the day he fell under the censure of the Inquisition, and was seized in 1786, and imprisoned three years in the dungeons of that institution. What was the particular offence imputed to him has not been stated. It could be no question of a political character, for he was in the employment of the government, and was amenable to it for any misdeeds. It probably was from some private cause, under the cloak of a question of faith, that he had to undergo this imprisonment, during which it is said he had to submit to severe penances before he could obtain his liberty. After he had obtained it, he returned to his studies and wrote further, a monologue, entitled ‘Guzman,’ and some Latin maccaronic verses on the bad taste of some writers then in vogue. But his spirits were no doubt broken down, as his health and strength were undermined; and thus it was that he died two years after, though his death was imputed to his sedentary habits and gout, the 17th of September, 1791, when he had just completed his forty-first year.

      This untimely death was a serious loss to Spanish literature. With his great and varied acquirements and unremitting industry, the world might have expected still more valuable works from him, when, at the age of thirty-six, in the best period of a man’s existence for useful labours, he was cast into that dungeon, from which he seems to have been permitted to come out only to die. The last Auto da fe in Spain was celebrated in 1781; but the Inquisition had other victims whose sufferings were no less to be deplored, though not made known. If Iriarte was one, he had unquestionably the consciousness of being enabled to feel, though not dying “an aged man,” yet that in his comparatively short life, he had not lived in vain for his own good name, and the benefit of posterity.

TOMAS DE IRIARTE.

       Table of Contents

EPISTLE TO DON DOMINGO DE IRIARTE, ON HIS TRAVELLING TO VARIOUS FOREIGN COURTS.

      He who begins an instrument to play,

      With some preludings, will examine well

      How run the fingers, how the notes will swell,

      And bow prepares, or breath for his essay;

      Or if to write the careful penman’s aim,

      He cuts and proves his pen, if broad or fine;

      And the bold youths, to combat who incline,

      Strike at the air, as trial of the game:

      The dancer points his steps with practised pace;

      The orator harangues with studied grace;

      The gamester packs his cards the livelong day;

      I thus a Sonnet, though worth nothing, trace,

      Solely to exercise myself this way,

      If prove the Muse propitious to my lay.

      It seems to me, dear brother, that Apollo

      A course divine now does not always follow,

      Nor please to dictate verses of a tone,

      Worthy a sponsor such as he to own;

      But rather would be human, and prefer

      To prose in rhymes of warmthless character;

      Without the enthusiasm sublime of old,

      And down the wings of Pegasus would fold,

      Not to be borne in flight, but gently stroll’d.

      You who forgetful of this court now seek

      Those of the east and north to contemplate,

      Forgive me, if in envy I may speak,

      That to indulge it has allow’d you fate

      The tasteful curiosity! to view

      With joy the land, so famed and fortunate,

      Which erst a Tully and a Maro knew,

      To which Æmilius, Marius service paid,

      Which Regulus and the Scipios obey’d.

      Long would it be and idle to recall

      The triumphs, with their blazonries unfurl’d,

      Matchless of her, that once of Europe all

      Was greater part, metropolis of the world.

      I only ask of you, as you may read,

      How in Avernus, destined to succeed,

      Anchises show’d Æneas, in long line,

      The illustrious shades of those, who were to shine

      One day the glory of the Italian shore,

      Now you, more favour’d than the Trojan chief,

      Not in vain prophecy, but tried belief,

      From what you see, by aid of history’s lore,

      To admire the lofty state which Rome possess’d,

      The which her ruins and remains attest.

      From our Hispanian clime I cannot scan

      With you the column of the Antonine,

      The fane or obelisk of the Vatican,

      Or the Capitol, and Mount Palatine;

      I cannot see the churches, or the walls,

      The bridges, arches, mausoleums, gates,

      The aqueducts, palaces, and waterfalls,

      The baths, the plazas, porticos, and halls,

      The Coliseum’s, or the Circus’ fates;

      But still the immortal writings ’tis for me,

      Of Livy, Tacitus, Cicero, to see;

      I see Lucretius, Pliny, Juvenal,

      Augustus, Maro and Mæcenas all;

      With their names is the soul exalted high,

      Heroic worth and honour to descry;

      And so much more that model imitates

      A nation now, so much more to be gain’d,

      Is seen it but to approach the lofty heights

      Of splendour, wealth, fame, power, that Rome attain’d.

      From the benignant lands that richly gleam

      Beneath the Tiber’s fertilizing stream,

      You next will pass, where borne as he arose,

      Through colder realms the mighty Danube flows.

      Girded in pleasant borders ’tis for you

      The Austrian Vienna there to view;

      To admire the monarch, warlike, good and wise,

      With the magnanimous Prussian king who vies

      An army brave and numerous to sway;

      Chosen and hardy, forward to obey,

      Whom as companions honour’d he rewards,

      And not as slaves abased a lord regards.

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