Don Francisco de Quevedo | Page 3

so earnestly sought. While he was waiting for his share of the rewards of victory the play was produced at the Príncipe on the evening of October 13. On the fourteenth there appeared in La Iberia the following notice, written probably by his devoted friend Pedro Calvo Asensio:
Los Achaques de la Vejez. This notable comedy by the gifted and well-known author Don Eulogio Florentino Sanz was played
[Footnote 3: The original manuscript of this play is preserved in the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid. At the end of Act I appears the date Junio 13, 1854. At the end of the second Julio 5, 1854, and on the last sheet Setiembre 25, 1854.]
last night with brilliant success. At the end of the second act the author was called upon the stage, and at the end of the play the enthusiasm of the audience grew to such extraordinary proportions that Sr. Sanz was again called upon to appear. However, we were denied the satisfaction of seeing him, as he had left the theater. The actors also were called before the curtain amidst tumultuous applause as a just reward for their signal success in the presentation of the play. The audience was as we had expected, large and select. Our conviction that the management may look forward to well-filled houses gives us great satisfaction.
The writing of this play was in a measure Sanz's answer to the challenge of his enemies and detractors to repeat the success of "Don Francisco de Quevedo." By this second triumph his fame and reputation were firmly established. This time the theme is a domestic one developed with even greater skill than that displayed in the earlier play. As might be expected, Act I, scene iv, contains a pessimistic and cynical allusion to the tangled politics that preceded the revolution.
By a royal order of November 11 Sanz was appointed secretary of the first class to the Spanish legation in Berlin.[4] This appointment he probably owed to the good offices of his friend Nicomedes Pastor Díaz. Sanz took possession of his new post on the ninth of January, 1855, after having made the journey from Madrid in the company of Gregorio Cruzada Villamil. In June he was granted four months' leave of absence on account of ill health due to the severity of the climate. In August he was made Commander of the Order of Charles III in recognition of his distinguished service. His final resignation from the post was received in November of 1856. He left Berlin for Madrid on February 1, 1857.
[Footnote 4: All the papers relating to Sanz's diplomatic career are preserved in the Archivo del Ministerio del Estado. They were collected at the instance of his "widow," who desired that she be accorded a pension in keeping with the dignity of the posts held by her distinguished husband. The papers are filed under Personal Espa?ol, Letra S, A?o 1853. Número 159. Expediente relativo a Sanz, don Eulogio Florentino.]
His only poem surely written in Berlin is the "Epístola a Pedro."[5] It is a tender tribute to the memory of the poet Enrique Gil, who had died in Berlin ten years before. Its verses are among the most delicately beautiful that Sanz ever wrote. The poem opens with an expression of the longing which Sanz feels for his beloved Spain, and above all for Madrid:
Pues recuerda la patria, a los reflejos de su distante sol, el desterrado como recuerdan su ni?ez los viejos.
[Footnote 5: Pedro is Don Pedro Calvo Asensio, the editor-in-chief of La Iberia, in which the poem first appeared. It was later republished in 1881 in the "Almanaque de La Iberia."]
He stands before the grave of Enrique Gil and mourns for the poet who died unwept in a foreign land. In deep sincerity of feeling no other poem of Sanz approaches the "Epístola." Fortunately it has been given to the public both in Menéndez y Pelayo's "Cien Mejores Poesías" and in "The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse."
These two years of residence in Berlin had a profound effect upon the temper of Sanz's later verse. It was only natural that his removal from the turmoil of life in Madrid, with its petty jealousies and quarrels, literary and political, should exercise a broadening and sobering influence upon his muse. After this date the flow of idle humorous verse ceased. Inspired chiefly by the exquisite delicacy of Heine's lyrics, he set himself to imitation and translation of his German model. It is not too much to say that all his published verse after this was deeply tinged with this side of Heine.
In the spring of 1857 he was in Madrid again, enjoying his prestige as a poet, diplomat, and political writer. His presence at a gathering of literary men in May to do honor to the memory of the great