French, in fact, soon began to be spoken in the elegant society of the capital and the court;--a thing before unknown in Spain, though French princesses had more than once sat on the Spanish throne. But now it was a compliment to the reigning monarch himself, and courtiers strove to indulge in it. Pitillas, under pretence of laughing at himself for following the fashion, ridicules the awkwardness of those who did so, when he says,
And French I talk; at least enough to know That neither I nor other men more shrewd Can comprehend my words, though still endued With power to raise my heavy Spanish dough.
And Father Isla makes himself merry with the idea of a man who fancies he has married an Andalusian or Castilian wife, and finds out that she proves little better than a Frenchwoman after all.[295]
[295] Pitillas, Sátira. Isla, Á los que degenerando del Carácter Español, afectan ser Estrangeros. Rebusco, p. 178.
Translations from the French followed this state of things; and, at last, an attempt was made to introduce formally into Spain a poetical system founded on the critical doctrines prevalent in France. Its author, Ignacio de Luzan, a gentleman of Aragon, was born in 1702; and, while still a child, went to Italy and received a learned education in the schools of Milan, Palermo, and Naples; remaining abroad eighteen years, and enjoying the society of several of the most distinguished Italian poets of the time, among whom were Maffei and Metastasio. At last, in 1733, he returned to Spain, a well-bred scholar, according to the ideas of scholarship then prevalent in Italy, and with a singular facility in writing and speaking French and Italian.
His personal affairs and his native modesty kept him for some time in retirement on the estates of his family in Aragon. But, in the condition to which Spanish literature was then reduced, a man of so many accomplishments could hardly fail, in any position, to make his influence felt. That of Luzan soon became perceptible, because he loved to write, and wrote a great deal. In Italy and Sicily he had published, not only Italian poetry of his own, but French. In his native language and at home, he naturally went further. He translated from Anacreon, Sappho, and Musæus; he fitted dramas of Maffei, La Chaussée, and Metastasio to the Spanish stage; and he wrote a considerable number of short poems, and one original drama, “Virtue Honored,” which was privately represented in Saragossa.