Its proper founder was Melendez Valdes, who was born in Estremadura, in 1754, and at the age of eighteen was sent to study at Salamanca, where, if he did not pass the larger remaining portion of his life, he passed at least its happiest and best years.[352] As a versifier, he began early, and in a bad school; writing at first in the manner of Lobo, who was still read and admired. But he soon fell indirectly under the influence of Moratin and his friends at Madrid, who were in every way opposed to the bad taste of their time. By a fortunate accident Cadahalso was carried fresh from the meetings of the club of the Fonda de San Sebastian to Salamanca. His discerning kindness detected at once the talent its possessor had not yet discovered. He took Melendez into his house; showed him the merit of the elder literature of his country, as well as that of the other cultivated nations of Europe; and devoted himself so earnestly and so affectionately to the development of his young friend’s genius, that it was afterwards said, with some truth, that, among all the works of Cadahalso, the best was Melendez. At the same period, too, Melendez became acquainted with Iglesias and Gonzalez; and through the latter was placed in relations of friendship with the commanding mind of Jovellanos, who exercised from the first moment of their intercourse an obvious and salutary influence over him.
[352] Considerable improvement took place at Salamanca in some departments of study while Melendez was there. But still things remained in a very torpid state.
His earliest public success was in 1780, when he obtained a prize offered by the Spanish Academy for the best eclogue. Yriarte, who was some years older, and had already become favorably known at court and in the capital, was his most formidable rival. But the poem Yriarte offered, which is on the pleasures of a country life, as set forth by one disgusted with that of the city, is somewhat in the formal, declamatory style of the less fortunate portions of the older Spanish pastorals; while that of Melendez is fresh from the fields, and as one of the judges said, in the discussion that followed its reading, seems absolutely to smell of their wild flowers. It was, indeed, in sweetness and gentleness, if not in originality and strength, such a return to the tones of Garcilasso, as had not been heard in Spain for above a century. Yriarte received the second honors of the contest, but was not satisfied with such a decision, and made known his feelings by an ill-judged attack upon the successful eclogue of his rival. The popular favor, however, fully sustained the Academy, and its vote on that occasion has never been reversed.