conveyed convinced Jovellanos that he was to share in the disgrace of his friend, and to consider himself banished from court. He therefore proceeded philosophically to settle himself in his paternal abode with his brother, their father being now deceased, with his books and effects, and engaged in the improvement of their family estates. His expectations proved correct, as in this honourable exile he had to pass seven years, though not altogether unemployed, as he had several commissions entrusted to him similar to those he had previously discharged. But still Jovellanos, unbowed by political reverses, continued the same ardent promoter of public improvement. For the Asturian Institute, which he had founded for the purpose of teaching principally mineralogy and metallurgy, and which he personally superintended, he wrote his very able work on Public Instruction, and compiled elementary grammars of the French and English languages, in which he showed himself proficient to a degree truly astonishing.
In his official duties, having to go carefully in inspection over the Asturias and other neighbouring provinces, he noted his observations in diaries, which have been fortunately preserved, and which contain much valuable information. In these he has gathered all he could learn relative to the productions of the provinces, and the state in which he found them and the people, as embodied in his reports thereon to the government, with an account of the ancient remains and public buildings, making copies of whatever he found most interesting in the archives of the several convents, cathedrals and corporations. Some of these copies now possess a peculiar value, from the damages that have since accrued to many of the originals from time and the events of the subsequent wars.
If it were not for the disparagement of being considered in banishment, Jovellanos could have felt himself contented. He had not only honourable employment, as before stated, but he also received several notices of approbation from the government, especially as regarded the Institute, to which notices he perhaps paid a higher regard than they deserved. He seems himself to have felt this; for in one of his letters he writes—“I will not deny that I desire some public mark of appreciation by the government, to gain by it that kind of sanction which merit needs in the opinion of some weak minds. But I see that this is a vain suggestion, and that posterity will not judge me by my titles, but by my works.”
This was written on a rumour having reached Gijon of the probability of his being soon restored to favour at court. Those under whose intrigues he had fallen had now passed away in their turn: a favourite of a more powerful grade was in the ascendant, Godoy, the Prince of the Peace, to whose mind had been suggested the advisability of gathering round him persons of acknowledged probity and knowledge, for the support of his government. Jovellanos had returned home, in October 1797, from one of his journeys of inspection, when he found the whole town in a state of rejoicing. On inquiring the cause, he was told it was because news had been received of his nomination as ambassador to Russia. A few days afterwards the rejoicings were renewed, on the further intelligence of his being nominated a member of the government itself, as Minister of Grace and Justice.
In this office it might have been hoped that a happier career was before him; but evil fortune on the contrary now followed him, and more fatally than ever. His former banishment from court was owing to the endeavours he had made to remove those abuses into which all human institutions have a tendency to fall, rendering frequently necessary a correction of those abuses, to preserve what was most valuable in the institutions themselves. His next misfortune arose from personal differences with the reigning favourite, whose greater influence it was his error not to have perceived. Jovellanos had been restored to favour at the instance of Godoy; but as this was without his seeking, he felt himself under no obligation to maintain him as the head of the government, for which he was totally unfit. Jovellanos joined in an opposition to him, which for a short time succeeded in depriving Godoy of office. But his influence at court continued, and thus Jovellanos was in his turn dismissed, after holding the office of minister only about eight months, and ordered to return to Gijon.
Unhappily the favourite carried his resentment further; and Jovellanos was, on the 13th of March, 1801, arrested in his bed at an early hour of the morning, and sent as a prisoner through the country to Barcelona, thence to Mallorca, where first in the Carthusian convent, and afterwards in the castle of Bellver more strictly, he was closely confined, without any regard paid to his demands to know the accusation against him. Here his health was severely affected, as well as his feelings outraged, by the unjust treatment to which he was subjected. Still he was not one to sink under such evils. He was rather one of those “who, going through the valley of misery, make it a well.” He turned accordingly to the resources of literature, and employed himself in writing and translating from Latin and French several valuable treatises on architecture, and other works, on the history of the island, and of the convent, besides several poems, among which the Epistle to Bermudez, his biographer, deserves particular notice.
Another work he then wrote is no less deserving of mention, showing the attention he had paid to English affairs, entitled “A Letter on English Architecture, and that called Gothic,” in which he treated of English architecture from the time of the Druids, dividing it into the Saxon, Gothic and modern periods. He describes the buildings according to the epochs, especially St. Paul’s and others of the seventeenth century, coming down to the picturesque style of gardening then adopted in England, with notices of the different sculptors, painters and engravers, as well as architects, and also of the authors who had written on the Fine Arts in England. This work has not been published, but Bermudez states he had the manuscript.
After being seven years a prisoner, Jovellanos was in 1808 released on the abdication of Charles IV. and the consequent fall of Godoy. This release was announced to him in terms of official brevity, and he replied by an earnest demand to be subjected to a trial, for the purpose of having the cause of his imprisonment made manifest. Before, however, an answer could be returned, Ferdinand had, under Napoleon’s dictation, also ceased to reign, and Jovellanos was called upon to take a prominent place in the intrusive government of king Joseph. This he could not be supposed from his antecedent character to be willing to accept. On the contrary, being chosen by the National party a member of the Central Junta, he engaged with his accustomed energy on the other side until the Regency was formed, principally under his influence, to carry on the struggles for independence.
On this being effected, Jovellanos wished to retire to his native city apart from public affairs. At his advanced age, with cataracts formed in his eyes, and after his laborious life and painful imprisonment, rest was necessary for him; but he could not attain it. One of his first efforts in the Central Junta was to draw up a paper on the form of government to be adopted, and this he strongly recommended to be founded as nearly as possible on the model of the English constitution. But he was far too enlightened for the race of men with whom he had to act, and his prepossessions for English institutions were made a reproach against him, observes the editor of the last edition of his works, even by those who were striving to introduce the principles of the Constituent Assembly into Spain.
The miserable intrigues and jealousies of the leading members of the National party caused Jovellanos much anxiety. But he had fulfilled his duties as a Deputy, and those having ceased, he left Cadiz in February, 1810, to return to the Asturias, in a small sailing vessel. After a long and dangerous passage, during which they were in great danger of shipwreck, they arrived at Muros in Galicia, in which province he had to remain more than a year, in consequence of the Asturias being in the possession of the French, to whom he had now become doubly obnoxious.
In July, 1811, however, the French having left that part of Spain, Jovellanos was enabled to return to his native city, where he was again received as he always had been with every token of popular respect. He seems to have been always looked upon there with undeviating favour and gratitude, as their most honourable citizen and public benefactor. No one knew of his coming, says his biographer, but he was observed to enter the church, and kneel before the altar near his family burying-place, when the whole town was roused simultaneously, and a spontaneous illumination of the houses took place, with other tokens of public congratulations and rejoicing.
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