[276] Lord Mahon’s excellent “History of the War of the Succession in Spain” (London, 1832, 8vo) leaves the same general impression on the mind of the reader, as to the effect of that war on the Spanish character, that is left by the contemporary accounts of it. It is, no doubt, the true one. That Philip the Fifth should desire to restore the intellectual dignity of the country, that had so generously adopted him, was natural. But while the war lasted, it demanded all the care of his government; and when it was over, and he turned himself to the task, it was plain that, in his personal relations and dispositions, he was but imperfectly fitted for it. Notwithstanding the sincerest efforts to assimilate himself to the people he governed, he was still a foreigner, little acquainted with their condition, and unable to sympathize with their peculiar nationality. He had been educated at the court of Louis the Fourteenth; the most brilliant court in Europe, and that in which, more than in any other, letters were regarded as a part of the pageant of empire. His character was not strongly marked; and he expressed no decided love for any definite form of intellectual cultivation, though he had good taste enough to enjoy the elegance to which he had always been accustomed, and which had been an important part of his breeding. He was, in fact, a Frenchman; and never could forget,--what his grandfather had unwisely told him always to remember,--that he was such. When, therefore, he desired to encourage elegant literature, it was natural that he should first recur to the means by which he had seen it encouraged where, more than in any other country, it had been successfully fostered by royal patronage; and if, in some respects, his position was little favorable to such a use of his power, in one, at least, it was eminently fortunate; for the earlier literature of Spain had so nearly disappeared, that it could offer little resistance to any attempt that might be made to introduce new forms or to infuse a new character into the old.