them surpassed or even equaled his _Amantes
de Teruel_. Many of them, characterized by careful workmanship, dramatic
effectiveness, and fine literary finish, are well worth studying, and
deserve more attention than can be given them here. They offer all kinds
of drama: tragedies such as _Dona Mencia_, in which the exaggerations of
Romanticism are given free rein; historical plays, in which striking
incidents in Spanish history or legend are given dramatic treatment;
fantastic plays, such as _La redoma encantada_, in which magic plays an
important part; comedies of character and manners, such as _La coja y el
encogido_, in which contemporary life found humorous presentation. The
best of them may be read in the three volumes published in the
well-known series _Coleccion de Escritores Castellanos_. For literary
criticism the student is referred to the books mentioned later in the
bibliography.

The love of study grew stronger in Hartzenbusch as the opportunity to
devote himself to it became greater, so that after he had had several
plays presented with considerable success, scholarship began to absorb
more and more of his time and the intervals between plays began to
lengthen. Literary criticism, editorial work in connection with new
editions of the Spanish classics, his duties as assistant and, later,
chief librarian of the Biblioteca Nacional, these, with the production
from time to time of a new play, made him a well-known figure in the
literary life of Madrid. His was the quiet life of the modern man of
letters, to whom the incidents of greatest interest are of the
intellectual order: the production of a new play, the publication of a
new book of literary or scholarly value, the discovery of an old
manuscript or the announcement of a new theory, the admission of a new
member to the Spanish Academy. Serenely tolerant in his outlook upon
life, of gentle disposition and ready sympathy, unaffectedly modest,
indifferent to the accumulation of property beyond the needs of his
simple mode of living, conscientious in the performance of all his
duties, he retained to the end of his life the personal esteem of his
many friends. When death put an end in 1880 to the long illness that
saddened the last years of his life, his mortal remains were conducted
to the tomb with all due ceremony by the Spanish Academy, to which
membership had been granted him in 1847 as a recognition of his
excellent work as dramatist and scholar.

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