time more irregularity and ignorance. In the two following, he proved that the Autos of Calderón, so admired by the multitude, ought not to be suffered in a country that prided itself as civilized. It is unnecessary to say what opposition these discourses encountered; it is enough to add, that the third was scarcely published when the government prohibited the repetition of what he had condemned:—a memorable epoch in the annals of the Spanish stage, which can never remember, without praise, that judicious and intrepid writer to whom it owed so useful a reform."
Of this able critic, Leandro Moratin was the only son that survived childhood. He was born at Madrid, the 10th of March, 1760, and in his earliest years is described as having been remarkable for infantile grace and vivacity. At four years of age, however, he unfortunately had a severe attack of the smallpox, which not only left its disfiguring marks on his countenance, but also seemed to have changed his character, making him the rest of his life shy and reserved. As he grew up he shunned all playfellows; like Demophilus, he was a man among boys,—Κεῖνος γὰρ ἐν παισὶν νέος—and devoting himself to drawing and making juvenile verses, pursued his favourite studies in secret, so that even the father seemed not to have been ever fully aware of the bent of his son's genius.
The elder Moratin, whose father had been jewel-keeper to Isabel Farnesi, widow of Philip V., had been brought up to the profession of the law, in which he had not acquired any eminence, though he had some as an author. Seeing his son's talent for drawing, he had first intended him to take advantage of it as an artist, but finally placed him with a brother, Miguel de Moratin, who was a jeweller, to learn his occupation. In his earlier years the younger Moratin had been only at an obscure private school in Madrid, but he had
