1-5 



MAKTINEZ DE LA BOSA, FRANCISCO. 



MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA, FRANCISCO. 



126 



' Political Economy ' came out from the shop of a publisher in Pater 

 noeter-row, little known beyond his Unitarian connections. Their 

 immediate success showed how justly the authoress had estimated her 

 powers. Independent of their value as expositions of great principles 

 some of these tales will always be read for their truthful pictures of 

 life, and the ingenious construction of a story limited by its especia 

 purpose. These were followed by six tales entitled ' Illustrations o 

 Taxation/ and four others on the 'Poor Law and Paupers." In 1835 

 Miss Martiueau made a voyage to America, and the results of her visit 

 to the United States were given to the world in her work on ' Society 

 in America,' published in 1837. In 1839 Miss Martineau appearec 

 more distinctly than in her ' Illustrations ' in the character of a novel 

 writer ; ' Deerbrook,' and ' Tha Hour and the Man," which succeeded it, 

 scarcely commanded the popularity due to their merits. The series 

 of ' The Playfellow,' placed her in the highest rank as a writer for the 

 young. 



From 1839 to 1844 her health was greatly impaired. During the 

 most trying period of her illness, she resided at Tynemouth ; and the 

 indefatigable exercise of her mental powers in this crisis was exhibited 

 by her publication of ' Life in the Sick-Room." Her recovery, 

 according to her own statement in the ' Athenaeum,' was the effect ol 

 mesmeric agency. She resumed her pen with renewed vigour; her 

 next production being ' Forest and Game-Law Tales,' in 3 volumes. 

 In 1846, shortly after she had published a pretty tale in one 

 volume called ' The Billow and the Rock,' she went on an expedition 

 to Syria and the Holy Land, and on her return published her impres- 

 sions of those countries in a work entitled ' Eastern Life, Past and 

 Present.' She afterwards formed an engagement with Mr. Knight to 

 carry on the ' History of England during the Thirty Years' Peace,' 

 which he had commenced to write, but which he was obliged to 

 relinquish, as Miss Martineau states in her Preface, " in consequence of 

 extensive changes in his commercial arrangements. 1 ' The value of 

 this history of a most interesting period was fully acknowledged, 

 even by those who differed from its political conclusions on the great 

 changes which England had experienced since 1815. After this pub- 

 lication Miss Martineau astonished the world by avowing, in a volume 

 published in conjunction with Mr. Atkinson, certain opinions upon 

 the great principles of religious belief which were signally opposed to 

 those of her previous career. Her last important work is a free and 

 condensed edition of Comte's 'Positive Philosophy ;' but she is under- 

 stood to have been, during several years a large contributor to the 

 Westminster and other Reviews, and also to the daily and weekly 

 pre^s, more particularly to the 'Daily News.' A little volume, 

 ' Sketches of Life,' appeared at the end of 1856. She now resides at 

 the pretty house which she built at Ambleside, occupying herself, so 

 far as ill-health will allow, in occasional writing. 



* MARTINEZ DE LA ROSA, FRANCISCO, a Spanish lyric and 

 dramatic poet, historian, orator, and statesman, who is at the head of 

 the moderate party in politics in that country, and of a party some- 

 what analogous in literature. He was born at Granada on the 10th 

 of March 1789, the year of the outbreak of the first French revolution. 

 Ho went through a course of study for the law at the university of his 

 native city, and, by the account of all his biographers, held the appoint- 

 ment of lecturer on ethics and professor at the college of San Miguel 

 at the time of the French invasion, when he had not completed his 

 twentieth year. He threw himself with ardour into the patriotic 

 cause, and was sent by the junta of Oranada on a mission to the English 

 authorities at Gibraltar to procure arms and supplies, which were 

 liberally granted, and contributed towards the signal victory of Baylen. 

 He afterwards went on a similar mission to England itself, and it was in 

 London in 1811 that his first productions saw the light. The Spanish 

 government had offered a prize for the beat poem on the heroic defence 

 of Saragossa, but the prize was never awarded. Martinez de la Rosa's 

 poem, 'Zaragoza' (8vo, London, 1811), which was highly approved 

 by Jovellanos and Quintana, is however universally considered to have 

 deserved it He also wrote a short historical sketch of the war of 

 independence for Blanco White's Spanish periodical, ' El Espanol,' 

 which was published in London between 1810 and 1814. A short 

 poem, ' The Remembrance of Home,' which heads the collection of 

 his lyrics, and bean date 'London, 1811,' is so full of yearnings for 

 the sun of Spain, as sufficiently to explain why his residence in England 

 was not of long duration. He appears however to have taken back 

 with him an admiration of constitutional government which has sur- 

 vived 'a host of vicissitudes; Shut up at Cadiz with the patriotic 

 government, ho became intimate with Quintana and Arguelles ; but 

 waa prevented by the deficiency in age, which had been considered no 

 obstacle to his professorship, from being chosen a member of the 

 Cortes. The theatre at Cadiz was within range of the French bombs ; 

 a temporary one was constructed in a safer position ; and one of the 

 first plays produced in it was his ' Viuda de Padilla,' or ' Widow of 

 I'adilU,' a tragedy in tire style of Alfieri, founded on the story of the 

 widow of the Spanish patriot who perished in defending, in the 16th 

 century, the rights of the commons of Castile. This tragedy, which 

 had much success, and was afterwards reproduced with approbation ' 

 at Madrid, is probably the only Spanish play which has ever been 

 represented on the stage in London, having been acted by an amateur 

 company of Spanish emigrants at the Coburg (now the Victoria) 

 Theatre in 1889. A comedy by Martinez de la Rosa, 'Lo quo puede 



un Empleo ' ('The Effects of holding Office '), was still more successful; 

 and is said to be the first in which political life was made a subject of 

 the comic drama, a vein which has since been much worked in France. 

 Several pamphlets on the events of the day from the same fruitful pen 

 are described by Galiano, long the author's rival, as abounding in Anda- 

 lusian wit. In 1813 he was elected by the city of Grauada deputy to the 

 Cortes, and at once took his place as an orator of the first rank, his fine 

 person and delivery enhancing the effect of his easy command of elegant 

 and classical language. He was at that time a zealous defender of the 

 constitution of 1812, of which it was then the fashion to maintain that 

 it would work excellently but for the unfortunate absence of the king 

 in the hands of the enemy; and it was not till King Ferdinand's 

 return in 1814 that it was discovered that, of all obstacles to its 

 working, and all enemies to Spain, he was the head and front. When 

 by the decree of the 4th of May 1814 he at once subverted the consti- 

 tution and proscribed its supporters, Martinez de la Rosa, for the 

 crime of having been a member of the constitutional Cortes, was 

 sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in Ihe fortress of Velez de 

 Gomera, on a rock on the coast of Marocco. Here he was treated 

 with so much mildness that he had even the opportunity of getting 

 up private dramatic performances; but it is said by Galiauo that, 

 when he returned to Spain, the old spontaneous gaiety for which he 

 had been remarkable had disappeared for ever. His imprisonment 

 was cut short at the end of six years by the insurrection of the Isle 

 of Leon in 1820, which commenced the second constitutional era of 

 Spain. 



Soon after his return Martinez de la Rosa was secretary of state, but 

 he did not hold the office long. His opinions had undergone a change 

 with respect to the extent to which constitutional reforms were to be 

 carried, and he was no longer disposed to insist on the democratic 

 constitution of 1812. An outcry was soon raised against him as luke- 

 warm in the cause of freedom ; he became so unpopular as to be 

 threa tened with violence by the mob, and resigned his post before the 

 measure was enforced of carrying the king to Seville. When however, 

 after the subversion of the constitutional government by the French 

 under the Due d'Angoulcme, he was required to give in his adhesion 

 to the new order of things, he refused ; and he was considered 

 fortunate in only receiving his passport for France, instead of being 

 sent afresh to the coast of Marocco. The next eleven years of his 

 life were chiefly passed in the public libraries and the best society of 

 Paris, with occasional excursions to Germany and Italy, in the course 

 of one of which, as we learn from one of his best poems (an Oda to 

 Granada), he shouted the beloved name of his native city in the 

 interior of the crater of Vesuvius. His pen was far from inactive, 

 and in 1827 he commenced the publication at Paris of a collection of 

 liis ' Obras Literarias," which amounted at its completion in 1S37 to 

 five volumes. The first two are occupied with his ' Poetica," a didactic 

 poem on the art of poetry, accompanied by notes and illustrations, 

 which comprise historical essays on the Spanish drama, and other 

 forms of literature the poem occupying less than 80, and the notes 

 more than 900 pages. It has been justly observed, that in this large 

 body of criticism, the author not only takes no notice of the modern 

 or ' romantic ' school of jesthetics, but even appears unaware of its 

 existence, writing as if Boileau and Batteux were the absolute monarchs 

 of the realm of taste, whose decrees it might be considered revolu- 

 tionary to contest. The work however contains matter of considerable 

 value, though, as a whole, half a century behind its date. The other 

 volumes of the ' Obras ' comprise the ' Viuda de Padilla,' already 

 mentioned, and four others, which deserve mention ' La Nina en 

 Casa y hi Madre en la Mascara ' (' The Girl at Home and the Mother 

 at the Masquerade '), a comedy first performed at Madrid in 1821, and 

 still a favourite on the Spanish boards, both in Europe and America, 

 which has also been translated into French, and acted with success at 

 Paris ; ' Aben Humeya,' a romantic drama on the insurrection of the 

 lioors under Philip II., written by Martinez de la Rosa in French, and 

 >roduced successfully at the Porte St. Martin, and afterwards translated 

 >y the author into Spanish, not, as he tells us without some difficulty ; 

 Edipo,' a classical tragedy on the time-honoured subject of ' OZdipus,' 

 u the preface to which is given a long analysis of the drama of 

 irydenand Lee; and 'La Conjuraciou de Venecia '(' The Venice 

 "lonspiracy '), founded on an historical event of the year 1310, and 

 rritten in direct imitation of the modern French romantic school. 

 The July revolution of 1830 produced a general impression that things 

 could not remain as they were in Spain, and the first indication of an 

 rn pending change was King Ferdinand's permission to Martinez de la 

 tosa, who had always kept aloof from the main body of Spanish 

 migrants, to return to Granada. He there occupied himself in tho 

 ompletion of an historical novel on the fall of Granada, to emulate, 

 us he says in the preface, those of Walter Scott and Cooper, of 

 which the fame had spread throughout Europe. This novel, 'Dona 

 sabel de Soils,' the first volume of which did not appear till 1837 and 

 he third and last till 1846, was interrupted in it* progress by the 

 ecal of its author to power on the occasion of the death of Ferdinand, 

 nd the necessity which was felt of opposing a principle of some sort 

 rO the claims of Don Carlos. 



Though the queen regent, Christina, was not well disposed to 

 Martinez de la Rosa, he was the only man who had at the same time 

 a high reputation among the Liberal party and had not been personally 



