Of course he was assailed. A work, called the “Antiteatro Crítico,” appeared early, and was soon followed by another, with nearly the same title, and by not a few scattered tracts and volumes, directed against different portions of what he had published. But he was quite able to defend himself. He wrote with clearness and good taste in an age when the prevailing style was obscure and affected; and, if he fell occasionally into Gallicisms, from relying much on French writers for his materials, his mistakes of this sort were rare; and, in general, he presented himself in a Castilian costume, that was respectable and attractive. Nor was he without wit, which his prudence taught him to use sparingly, and he had always the energy which belongs to good sense and practical wisdom; a union of qualities not often found anywhere, and certainly of most rare occurrence in cloisters like those in which Feyjoó passed his long life. The attacks made on him, therefore, served chiefly to draw to his works the attention he solicited, and in the end advanced his cause, instead of retarding it. Even the Inquisition, to which he was more than once denounced, summoned him in vain before its tribunals.[309] His faith could not be questioned, and his cause was stronger than they were. Fifteen editions of his principal work, large as it was, were printed in half a century. The excitement it produced went on increasing as long as he lived; and when he died, in 1764, he could look back and see that he had imparted a movement to the human mind in Spain, which, though it was far from raising Spanish philosophy to a level with that of France and England, had yet given it a right direction, and done more for the intellectual life of his country than had been done for a century.[310] [309] Llorente, Hist. de l’Inq., Tom. II. p. 446. It may be deemed worthy of notice, that Oliver Goldsmith pays an appropriate tribute to the merits of Father Feyjoó, and relates an anecdote of his showing the people of a village through which he happened to pass that what they esteemed a miracle was, in truth, only a natural effect of reflected light; thus exposing himself to a summons from the Inquisition. (“The Bee,” No. III., Oct. 20, 1759, Miscellaneous Works, London, 1812, 8vo, Vol. IV. p. 193.) But after Feyjoó’s death, the Inquisition ordered only a trifling expurgation of his “Teatro Crítico,” in one passage. Index, 1790.