Its value is not great; and yet portions of it are not likely to be soon forgotten. The “Epic Canto,” as he calls it, on the bold adventure of Cortés in burning his ships, is the noblest poem of its class produced in Spain during the eighteenth century, and gives more pleasure than almost any of the historical epics that preceded it in such large numbers. Some of his shorter pieces, like his ballads on Moorish subjects, and an ode to a champion in the bull-fights,--which Moratin constantly frequented, and of which he printed a pleasant historical sketch,--are full of spirit. All he wrote, indeed, is marked by purity and exactness of language and harmony of versification; showing that, though he possessed to an extraordinary degree the power of an improvisator, he composed carefully and finished with patience. But his chief success was as a public teacher; laboring faithfully in the chair of the Imperial College, where he took the place of his friend Ayala, and rebuking the bad taste of his times by the strength of his own modest example.[343] [343] Besides the poems noted in the text, I have, by Moratin the elder, an Ode on account of an act of mercy and pardon by Charles III., in 1762, and the “Egloga á Velasco y Gonzalez,” printed on occasion of their portraits being placed in the Academy, in 1770; both of little consequence, but not, I believe, noticed elsewhere. His “Obras Póstumas” were printed at Barcelona, in 1821, 4to, and reprinted at London, in 1825, 12mo. Moratin’s “Carta Sobre las Fiestas de Toros,” (Madrid, 1777, 12mo,) which is a slight prose tract, is intended to prove historically that the amusement of bull-fighting is Spanish in its origin and character;--a point concerning which those who have read the Chronicles of Muntaner and the Cid can have little doubt. Moratin had the power of improvisating with great effect. Obras, 1825, pp. xxxiv.-xxxix. Moratin was an amiable man, and gathered the men of letters of the Spanish capital in a friendly circle about him. They met in one of the better class of taverns,--the Fonda de San Sebastian,--where they maintained a club-room that was always open and ready to receive them. Ayala, the tragic writer; Cerdá, the literary antiquarian; Rios, who wrote the analysis of “Don Quixote” prefixed to the magnificent edition of the Academy; Ortega, the botanist and scholar; Pizzi, the Professor of Arabic Literature; Cadahalso, the poet and essayist; Muñoz, the historian of the New World; Yriarte, the fabulist; Conti, the Italian translator of a collection of Spanish poetry; Signorelli, the author of the general history of theatres; and others,--were members of this pleasant association, and resorted continually to its cheerful saloon.