MARQUIS OF SAN PHELIPE.--INFLUENCE OF FRANCE ON SPANISH LITERATURE.--LUZAN.--HIS PREDECESSORS AND HIS DOCTRINES.--LOW STATE OF ALL INTELLECTUAL CULTURE IN SPAIN.--FEYJOÓ. One historical work of some consequence belongs entirely to the reign of Philip the Fifth,--the commentaries on the War of the Succession, and the history of the country from 1701 to 1725, by the Marquis of San Phelipe. Its author, a gentleman of Spanish descent, was born in Sardinia, in the latter part of the seventeenth century, and early filled several offices of consequence under the government of Spain; but, when his native island was conquered by the Austrian party, he remained faithful to the French family, under whom he had thus far served, and made his escape to Madrid. There Philip the Fifth received him with great favor. He was created Marquis of San Phelipe,--a title chosen by himself in compliment to the king,--and, besides being much employed during the war in military affairs, he was sent afterwards as ambassador, first to Genoa, and then to the Hague, where he died, on the 1st of July, 1726. In his youth the Marquis of San Phelipe had been educated with care, and therefore, during the active portions of his life, found an agreeable resource in intellectual occupations. He wrote a poem in octave stanzas on the story in the “Book of Tobit,” which was printed in 1709, and a history of “The Hebrew Monarchy,” taken from the Bible and Josephus, which did not appear till 1727, the year after his death. But his chief work was on the War of the Succession. The great interest he took in the Bourbon cause induced him to write it, and the position he had occupied in the affairs of his time gave him ample materials, quite beyond the reach of others less favored. He called it “Commentaries on the War of Spain, and History of its King, Philip the Fifth, the Courageous, from the Beginning of his Reign to the Year 1725”; but, although the compliment to his sovereign implied on the title-page is faithfully carried through the whole narrative, the book was not published without difficulty. The first volume, in folio, after being printed at Madrid, was suppressed by order of the king, out of regard to the honor of certain Spanish families that show to little advantage in the troublesome times it records; so that the earliest complete edition appeared at Genoa without date, but probably in 1729.