# Modern Poets and Poetry of Spain/⁠Memoir of Juan Bautista de Arriaza

V.
JUAN BAUTISTA DE ARRIAZA.
In the history of the literature of every country, it is interesting to observe with what noiseless steps true genius generally proceeds to win popular favour, compared with the means to which mediocrity resorts for whatever share of notice it can attain. There are some writers who, with great talent, have some counterbalancing deficiency, respecting whose merits more discussion will be consequently excited, than respecting the superior qualities of others, not liable to the same observations. To obtain that kind of notoriety, it is often requisite to belong to some school or party, whose praise will give a temporary importance to works written, according to their taste or system, while those out of their pale will be passed over with at best only cold commendations. In Spain, as elsewhere, poetry has had its classical and romantic schools, and the merits of all writers, belonging to one or the other of them, were fully set forth by their respective partisans; while, if there happened to be one who could not be claimed by either, like Arriaza, he was allowed to pass comparatively unnoticed by the critics of the day.
Of this very pleasing author no detailed biography has ​been published; and his claims to be considered one of the first modern poets of Spain seem to be scarcely recognized by his countrymen, who read with surprise the commendations passed on him abroad. Thus they have allowed seven editions of his works to be circulated and exhausted, without satisfying our curiosity by any of those particulars of private life, with which we love to consider the characters of worth and genius. All we are informed of him, in the short notices given of Arriaza by Wolf, Maury and Ochoa, is, that he was born at Madrid, in the year 1770, where the last-mentioned writer also says he died, in 1837.
From his name, it would seem that he was of Basque descent, and his family connections must have been "noble" and influential, from his career through life, though we have no account given of them. We learn, however, that he was educated at the Seminary of Nobles at Madrid, whence he was afterwards sent a cadet to the Military College at Segovia, and that he finally entered the navy. In one of his Epistles, in verse, he informs us that he was engaged in the expedition to Oran, and thence sailed to Constantinople, of which he gives a poetical description.
In 1798 he had to quit this service, on account of a disease of the eyes; and he then published the first edition of his poems. In 1802 he was appointed Secretary of Legation at London, and there wrote his principal poem, 'Emilia,' which was published at Madrid in the year following. The subject was the wish of a lady of fortune to bring up orphan children and others to the study of the fine arts; and it contains many fine passages, but was left unfinished.
In 1805 he went to Paris, where also he resided some time. On his return to Spain, he took part in the struggles against the French, having entered the ranks as a soldier, and having by his verses also vehemently instigated his countrymen to ​rise against the invaders. Of all the poets of the day, he seems to have been the most prolific in those patriotic effusions, which, no doubt, agreeing so well with the national temperament, had no small effect in keeping up the spirit of the Spanish people throughout the war. When the French entered Madrid, Arriaza, while engaged in resisting them, had a brother killed by his side, fighting in the same cause, to whose memory he has given a tribute of affection accordingly among his verses.
In the subsequent discussions in Spain respecting the government, Arriaza took part with those who advocated the rights of the absolute king. For this advocacy, on the return of Ferdinand VII. to full power, he received his reward, having been appointed Knight of the Order of Charles III., and Secretary of Decrees, besides receiving several other minor favours and offices. Henceforth Arriaza seems to have passed his life at court, in the quiet enjoyment of literary pursuits. He might be considered the Poet Laureate of Spain, as he seems to have allowed scarcely any opportunity to pass by unhonoured, of paying homage to the court in celebration of birthdays and other such occasions. His works abound with these loyal effusions, though they might generally have been better omitted.
It must, however, be said, in justice, that he was evidently sincere in those principles, to which he adhered under all circumstances, even when the Constitutionalists were in the ascendent. Once only he was betrayed into an eulogium of the other line of opinions, which had an effect rather ludicrous, so far as he was concerned in it. In 1820, when the constitution of 1812 had been anew promulgated, a friend of his, Don Luis de Onis, was appointed minister from Spain to Naples, and a banquet having been given him on his departure, Arriaza was induced to write verses on the occasion, ​which, full of apparent enthusiasm, abounded in spirit and beautiful images, beyond his usual facility and fulness of expression. Carried away, no doubt, by the contagion of the company, he gave way to what, in soberer mood, he would have thought most dangerous doctrines. He painted the envoy as going "to Parthenope to announce our revolution;" adding, "To Parthenope that is now groaning beneath flowery chains, and to whom, though her syrens celebrate her in songs of slavery, thou wilt be the Spanish Tyrtajus, and raise them to the high employ to sing of country and virtue;" praising the heroism of Riego as to be offered as an example, "to throw down the holds of oppression." The Neapolitan government obtained notice of this composition, and actually used it as sufficient cause for objecting to receive Don Luis as Spanish minister, "because he was coming to inculcate revolutionary principles." Arriaza heard with horror that he was stigmatized as a liberal, and was urgent to disclaim such opinions, notwithstanding what he had written. Don Luis meanwhile was detained at Home, until, by a strange coincidence, the revolution broke out at Naples also, and he entered the city almost as in fulfilment of the prophecy, that he was to be the harbinger of it.
The best edition of Arriaza's works is that of 1829, printed at the Royal Press of Madrid, of which the one of Paris, 1834, is a reprint. They consist of almost all varieties of song, and are almost all equally charming. His satirical pieces even are light and pleasing, as well as his anacreontic and erotic effusions, while his patriotic songs and odes breathe a spirit well suited to the subjects.
Maury, who has made him better known abroad by his praises than others, his contemporaries, seems to have regarded him with especial favour. He says of him:—"Depuis Lope de Vega, M. d'Arriaza est le seul de nos poetes qui nous semble ​penser en vers. La nature le fit poëte, les évènements l'ont fait auteur. II était arrivé à sa reputation littéraire sans y prétendre, il l'accrue pour ainsi dire à son corps défendant." In truth he seems to have poured forth his verses without effort, as a bird does its song, with a simplicity and truthfulness which went to the heart of the hearer, and left in it a sensation of their being only the echoes of its own. As Maury has well observed, "parlent à la raison et à l'esprit, comme au cœur et à l'imagination, elles offrent en même temps aux amateurs de la langue Castillane les sons harmonieux et les tournures piquantes qui la distinguent avec une grande éléde diction et une clarté rare chez la plupart de nos écrivains."
It is true that his style is exceedingly easy, and the expression generally very clear, but it must also be acknowledged, on the part of the translator, that obscurities are frequently to be found in his lines, when he must discover a meaning for himself. It was Arriaza's own doctrine in the prologue to his works, "that there can be no true expression of ideas where there does not reign the utmost clearness of diction; that what the reader does not conceive at the first simple reading, cannot make in his imagination the prompt effect required, and much less move his heart in any way. This clearness," he observes, "should also be associated with a constant elegance of expression; though he does not consider this elegance to consist in a succession of grammatical inversions, or revolving adjectives, or metaphor on metaphor, but the mode most select and noble of saying things becomingly to the style in which they are written."
Arriaza was eminently what the French call a poëte de société; and thus his verses were favourites with the higher classes particularly. He abjured the practices of the Romanticists who affected to despise the shackles of metre, as if the melody of verse, being merely mechanism, were of inferior ​consideration. On the contrary, he intimates that he considers it of primary importance, as if "whether a statue should be made of wax or marble." Thus he made cadence a principal study, and his verses becoming thereby better adapted for music, obtained greater vogue in the higher circles by means of accompaniments. Some even seem to have been expressly written for that purpose; for instance, among other pieces of a domestic character, one, a very pleasing Recitative, in which his wife and daughter join him in thanksgiving for his recovery from a dangerous illness. Though generally far from being impassioned, some of his verses are full of tender feeling, as the ' Young Sailor's Farewell/ This may be pronounced the most popular piece of modern poetry in Spain, being most in the memories of those whom he himself calls "the natural judges in these matters, the youth of both sexes, in whose lively imagination and sensible hearts may find better acceptation, the only two gifts with which I may rejoice to have endowed my verses, naturalness and harmony."
Arriaza must have acquired in his youth the rudiments of a sound education, and he was distinguished in later life for a knowledge of the French, Italian and English languages. Still he was not considered by his contemporaries as a person of extensive reading; and thus we do not find in his works any allusions or illustrations of a classical character, though it is almost ludicrous to observe with what pertinacity he introduces the personages of the heathen mythology, on all occasions where he can do so. Some of his ideas also run into the ridiculous, as in one of his best pieces, 'La Profecia del Pirineo,’ he says, that on the heroic defenders of Zaragoza "there were at once on their faithful brows raining bombs and laurels."
The Ode to Trafalgar, notwithstanding its being liable to ​the observation above made, of too frequent invocations of the Muses, is an admirable exemplification of an appropriate poem on such a subject. This battle, no doubt on account of its decisive effect, has been more celebrated than others. But it must be acknowledged to have been an unequal fight between the British and the Spanish portion of the allied fleet, as the former were in a high state of discipline, and the latter were newly levied and hurried out of port, before the officers and men had become sufficiently acquainted with one another to take their respective parts, with the precision necessary for such an occasion. Yet it is well known that the Spaniards fought with desperate and unswerving courage throughout, and their poets were therefore well warranted in taking the subject, as one doing honour to the national bravery.
The circumstances of the battle have lately again come into discussion in Spain, with naturally considerable warmth, on M. Thiers, in his History of the Consulate and the Empire, having been guilty of the extraordinary error to allege that the Spanish fleet fled, the greater part of them, from the battle, when, in fact, it was only the division of the French Admiral Dumanoir that had done so. This he did "for the purpose of preserving a naval division for France," as Dumanoir himself afterwards stated, in his justification, though he was disappointed in that patriotic wish, having been met a few days after by Sir Robert Calderas squadron, when all his four ships were taken in a less renowned combat.
The translation of the Ode has been made as nearly into the same metre with the original, as the forms of verse used in the two languages would admit. That of the 'Farewell' may be considered in the same light also, though the original has the first and fourth lines rhyming together, and the second with the third. This is an old and common form in Spanish ​poetry, and agrees well with our alternate lines of eight and six syllables, which Johnson considered "the most soft and pleasing of our lyric measures." In the Ode, it is interesting to observe not only the manly style of sentiment throughout, but also the absence of any ungenerous feeling against the English. Arriaza had, however, both as a seaman and a diplomatist, while resident in England, had sufficient opportunities of learning to think more justly of the English character than some other writers of the Continent.
Beyond his poems, Arriaza wrote several political pamphlets. The first was published at Seville in 1809, after the battle of Talavera, when the English, notwithstanding the victory, had to retreat into Portugal, giving occasion to the French party in Spain to allege that they were about to abandon the country to the French, and keep possession of the principal ports. In this pamphlet, which he entitled the 'Pharos of Public Opinion.’ Arriaza combated these suspicions, and by a strenuous assertion of the good faith of the English, succeeded in disabusing the minds of his countrymen of what he termed "such malignant insinuations."
The second pamphlet he termed 'Virtue of Necessity,’ shortly after the disastrous battle of Ocania; and its object was to stimulate the English government and nation to give more assistance than they had yet done, by money and otherwise. He proposed in return to give the English free right of commerce with the Spanish colonies in America, at least for a stated period, observing that they already had extensive dealings with them by contraband, and that the free commerce would make the English neutral, at least, in the question of the colonies wishing to declare themselves independent, while otherwise it would be their interest to have them independent. This pamphlet especially is full of sound states-manlike ideas, and proves how well he was acquainted with ​the state of public feeling in England, on the several particulars respecting which he was writing.
A third pamphlet he wrote in English, and published it in London in 1810, where he was then sent on the part of the Spanish government. This he entitled 'Observations on the system of war of the Allies in the Peninsula;' and he endeavoured in it to urge the English to send more troops to the Peninsula, at certain points, where he considered they would be of most avail in disconcerting the plans of the French, and assisting the Guerrilla warfare the Spaniards were carrying on. He explained the determined fidelity of the Spaniards to the cause of their independence, but showed they would be insufficient to effect it, without the assistance he came to seek. This pamphlet was favourably received in England, and was noticed in Parliament; and the author had the good fortune to hope that his efforts had been successful, as he says, "The English government then sent greater reinforcements to their army, which emerging from its inaction, acquired the superiority preserved until the happy conclusion of the war."
For these and other writings, Arriaza received the thanks of the Regency in the name of the king, and had just cause to consider that a sufficient counterbalance to the misrepresentations made of his conduct in France, and elsewhere, by the opposite party. In a note affixed to the last edition of his poems, he complains that in a work published in France, ’Biography of Contemporary Characters/ there was an article respecting him "full of errors, even regarding the most public circumstances of his life," which he seems to have considered written from party feeling. If his surmises were correct, it is the more to be regretted that he did not take the best means of correcting those misrepresentations, by giving an authentic biographical account of his career in reply. He might ​thus not only have done justice to himself, but also have satisfied the desires of his admirers, who would naturally have felt sufficient interest in his fame to have rejoiced in those details. Whatever may be the course which a man of genius takes in public life from honest principles, he may always rely on finding in literature a neutral harbour where he may retire in confidence from all turmoils, and expect full justice awarded to his motives and memory. In the midst of political contentions, where so much always depends on circumstances with which we are little acquainted, it is often difficult at the time to know what is the proper course to follow. It is enough for us that those we admire have ever been distinguished for their sincerity and uprightness in the conduct they pursued.
With regard to Arriaza, our greatest regret must be that, with his apparently extreme facility of versification, and capability of elevating his mind to the conception of nobler subjects, he confined his genius so much to trivial events of the day, and thus wrote for his contemporaries instead of for posterity.