Don Francisco de Quevedo | Page 2

"La Discordia," published in the Semanario Pintoresco,
February, 1843, furnishes indisputable evidence of his romantic
tendencies. In it a waning moon, fratricide, corpses, "infernal sonrisa,"
and an agonized mother provide all the thrills of romantic horror; but it
may be wiser to pass over in silence such outbursts as this.
As a member of a circle which gathered in the Café del Recreo (1846)
he lived in the very thick of romanticism. Its meetings are thus
described:
At that time there existed in Madrid a club of literary fledglings. The
majority of the young men who ten years later had won conspicuous
places in the world of letters gathered there without knowing exactly
why. The nucleus at the Café del Recreo had been formed by no one,
nobody was formally presented, no one of our number had been a
friend or schoolmate of any one of the others; the gathering was there
because it was there, it existed because it existed. The company
included besides Sanz himself the poets Mariano Cazurro, Antonio
Trueba, Ventura Ruiz Aguilera, Antonio Hurtado, José Albuerne,

Antonio Arnao, the journalist Eduardo Asquerino, the statesman
Cánovas, and the dramatist Fernández y González.--José de Castro y
Serrano, Prólogo (pp. ix-x) to "Obras de Francisco Zea," Madrid, 1858.
The movements and activities of Sanz in the literary world began to be
chronicled in such papers as the Fandango, published by Wencelao
Ayguals de Izco and Francisco Villegas. They speak of him as "our
friend and collaborator." From them we learn that he was occupied in
writing semblanzas, or portraits, of the most conspicuous literary lights
of the hour. Though these semblanzas seem to have circulated in
manuscript, they never were printed. Eduardo de Lustoñó declared[1]
that Sanz was always a presumptuous person and particularly so in
1845. Lustoñó wrote a squib, stupid enough to be sure, in which he
implies that the purpose of the semblanzas was to ridicule the pedants.
Lustoñó enrolled him as private soldier in what he called his "Regiment
of Men of Letters," but it was an unconscious tribute to the ability of
Sanz to admit him even as a private in a regiment whose officers were:
Colonel, Quintana; Majors, Hartzenbusch, Tassara; Captains, Bretón,
Rivas; Lieutenants, Campoamor, Mesonero Romanos, and Frías,--all of
whom have won enduring fame.
On the night of February 1, 1848, "Don Francisco de Quevedo" was
presented in the Teatro del Príncipe. The distinguished actor and poet
Don Julian Romea chose the occasion for a benefit performance. The
play was an instant success. The number of the Semanario Pintoresco
which followed the first performance printed a flattering review:
The drama "Don Francisco de Quevedo," presented at the Príncipe for
the benefit of Don Julian Romea, has won for its author, Don Eulogio
Florentino Sanz, a place of distinction among our dramatists. Success
in portraying the personage from whom the piece takes its name,
resourceful stagecraft, daring situations, and a versification now serious,
now gay, frolicsome or sorrowful, but always agreeable, facile, and
correct, these are the distinguishing features of the play with which
Señor Sanz has made himself known to the theater-going public. Don
Julian Romea gave an able interpretation of the part of Don Francisco
de Quevedo, Señora Díaz was excellent as the Infanta Margarita. The

rest of the cast contributed ably to the success of the drama.
This notice conveys some idea of the striking enthusiasm with which
the piece was received.
In keeping with his literary predilections Sanz had already identified
himself politically with the progressive liberal party.
[Footnote 1: Imparcial de Madrid, December 3, 1901.]
In the years immediately preceding the overthrow of the Conservatives
(1845) Sanz gave his services to the progressive liberal cause. In 1849
he was editor of La Patria, whose first number appeared on January 2.
It announced a policy of political moderation, but its real purpose was
the most strenuous opposition to the government of the reactionary
conservatives. Sanz was generally believed to be editor-in-chief.
Suddenly on the fourth of January he resigned[2] with no explanation
whatsoever to the subscribers. A little later he appeared on the staff of
La Víbora, periódico venenoso redactado por los peores literatos de
España, bajo la dirección de nadie ("The Viper, a venomous paper,
edited by the worst scribblers in Spain, under the management of
nobody"). The censorship was as crushing as in the days of Larra. Later,
in September, La Patria announced another periodical, La Sátira,
adding that it was to be under the direction of the editors of the
short-lived Víbora. This second attempt also met with disaster. Again
in June of 1851 Sanz resigned from another paper, El Mundo Nuevo.
[Footnote 2: Notices of the appearance of this paper and of Sanz's
resignation will be found in La Guía of January 3 and 4, 1849.]
In