musicians, anticipating the benefit to science that would result from such an institution.
This poem, the ‘Musica,’ and the Epistles, are written in a very favourite style of versification in Spain, denominated the Silva, which consists of lines of eleven syllables, varied occasionally with others of seven, rhyming at the pleasure of the writer. The ‘Literary Fables’ are written in various metres; Martinez de la Rosa observes in upwards of forty different kinds, appropriate to the characteristics of the subjects, which may be more perceptible to a native ear than to a foreigner’s. It is certainly true that this gives a variety to the work which is well suited to the purposes the author had in view. He was wise enough to know that truths hidden in the garb of fiction will often be felt effectually, where grave precepts would not avail,
Καὶ τοῦ τι καὶ Βρότων φρενὰς
Ὑπὲρ τὸν ἀληθῆ λόγον,
Δεδαιδαλμένοι ψεύδεσι ποικίλοις
Ἐξαπάτωντι μύθοι,
and thus conveyed his lessons in examples, with a moral, which could be quickly understood and easily remembered.
With regard to the objection made to these fables, that they are often deficient in poetical warmth or colouring, it may be observed that the subjects would scarcely admit of any. Iriarte was certainly a writer of more poetic taste than talent, and it must be acknowledged that his genius, judging by the works he left, was not one to soar to the higher flights of poetry. He felt this himself, as he intimates in his Epistle to his brother; and, choosing a subject like Music for a didactic poem, or writing familiar epistles on occasional subjects, did not give himself much scope for fancy, much less for passion. But as applied to the fables, the objection was unnecessary. If they deserved praise for their vivacity of style, that very circumstance, independent of the subjects, rendered them passionless, ἀπαθέστατα, as Longinus remarks, where stronger feelings could scarcely be brought into connexion with such discussions. The great difficulty in such cases is, when metres are chosen to suit the subject, abounding in pyrrhics, trochees, and such measures, as the same great critic adds, to guard, lest the sense be lost in too much regard to the sound, raising only attention to the rhythm, instead of exciting any feeling in the minds of the hearers.
Of the five fables chosen for translation, the two first were taken from Bouterwek, and the third on account of its having been particularly noticed by Martinez de la Rosa. The Epistle to his Brother was selected partly on account of its notices of other countries, as a foreigner’s judgement of them; and partly as being most characteristic of the writer, showing his tastes and dispositions more perhaps than the rest. The reader generally feels most interested in such parts of the works of favourite 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.
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
