From tawny Spain, lost in the world’s debate.
While the War of Independence was in progress men were otherwise engaged than in novel-reading, and in Ferdinand VII.’s reign literature was apt to be a perilous trade. The banishment or flight of almost every Spaniard of liberal opinions or intellectual distinction had one result which might have been foreseen, if there had been a clear-sighted man in the reactionary party. It brought to an end the period of cut-and-dry classical domination. The exiles returned with new ideals in literature as well as in politics. There was a restless ferment of the libertarian, romantic spirit. Interest revived in the old national romantic drama which had fallen out of fashion, and had been known chiefly in recasts of a few stock pieces. Quaint signs of change are discernible in unexpected quarters. When the termagant Carlota, the Queen’s sister, snatched a state-paper out of Calomarde’s hands and boxed his ears soundly, the crafty minister put the affront aside by wittily quoting the title of one of Calderón’s plays: ‘_Las manos blancas no ofenden_.’ Fifteen years earlier he would probably have quoted from some wretched playwright like Comella. French books were still eagerly read, but they were not ‘classical’ works. Chateaubriand and Bernardin de Saint-Pierre became available in translations. Joaquín Telesforo de Trueba y Cosío, a _montañés_ residing in London, came under the spell of Walter Scott, and had the courage to write two historical romances in English: I have read many worse novels than _Gomez Arias_ and _The Castilians_, and every day I see novels written in much worse English. The shadow of Scott was projected far and wide over Spain, and those who read _The Bride of Lammermoor_ usually went on to read _Notre-Dame de Paris_. If Scott had never written historical novels, and if Ferdinand VII. had not made many excellent Spaniards feel that they were safer anywhere than in Spain, we should not have had Espronceda’s _Sancho Saldaña ó El Castellano de Cuéllar_, nor Martínez de la Rosa’s Doña Isabel de Solís, nor perhaps even Enrique Gil’s much more engaging story, _El Señor de Bembibre_, which appeared in 1844. The first two are unsuccessful imitations of Scott, and _El Señor de Bembibre_ is charged with reminiscences of _The Bride of Lammermoor_.