of social and
industrial depression Spain did not produce a poet worthy
of the name. The condition of the nation was sensibly
bettered under Charles III (reigned 1759-1788) who did
what was possible to reorganize the state and curb the
stifling domination of the Roman Church and its agents
the Jesuits and the Inquisition. The Benedictine Feijoo
(1675-1764) labored faithfully to inoculate Spain, far
behind the rest of Europe, with an inkling of recent
scientific discoveries. And the budding prosperity,
however deceitful it proved, was reflected in a more
promising literary generation. page xxix

Nicolas FERNANDEZ DE MORATIN (1737-1780) followed the
French rules in theory and wrote a few mediocre plays in
accordance with them; but he showed that at heart he was a
good poet and a good Spaniard by his ode _A Pedro
Romero, torero insigne_, some _romances_ and his famous
_quintillas_, the _Fiesta de toros en Madrid_. Other
followers of the French, in a genre not, strictly
speaking, lyric at all, were the two fabulists, Samaniego
and Iriarte. F. Maria de SAMANIEGO (1745-1801) gave to the
traditional stock of apologues, as developed by Phaedrus,
Lokman and La Fontaine, a permanent and popular Castilian
form. Tomas de IRIARTE (1750-1791), a more irritable
personage who spent much time in literary polemics, wrote
original fables (_Fabulas literarias_, 1781) directed not
against the foibles of mankind in general, but against the
world of writers and scholars.

The best work which was done under the classical French
influence, however, is to be found in the writers of the
so-called Salamancan school, which was properly not a
school at all. The poets who are thus classed together,
Cadalso, Diego Gonzalez, Jovellanos, Forner, Melendez
Valdes, Cienfuegos, Iglesias, were personal friends thrown
together in the university or town of Salamanca, but they
were not subjected to a uniform literary training and
possessed no similarity of style or aim as did the men of
the later Sevillan school.

Jose de CADALSO (1741-1782), a dashing soldier of great
personal charm killed at the siege of Gibraltar, is
sometimes credited with founding the school of Salamanca.
He was a friend of most of the important writers of his
time and composed interesting prose satires; his verse
(_Noches lugubres_, etc.) is not remarkable. FRAY DIEGO
GONZALEZ (1733-1794) is one of the masters of page xxx
idiomati