How truly Spanish was the tone of their intercourse may be gathered from the fact, that they had but one law to govern all their proceedings, and that was, never to speak on any subject except the Theatre, Bull-fights, Love, and Poetry. But in every thing they undertook they were much in earnest. They read their works to each other for mutual, friendly criticism, and discussed freely whatever was written at the time, and whatever they thought would tend to revive the decayed spirit of their country. They read, too, and examined the literature of other nations; and, if their tendencies were more towards the school of Boileau and the great masters of Italy, than might have been anticipated from the spirit of their association, it should be borne in mind, that two of their most active members were Italian men of letters, that the court had recently come from Naples, and that the spirit of the times much favored all that was French, and especially the French theatre.[344] [344] N. F. Moratin, Obras Póstumas, 1821, pp. xxiv.-xxxi. Among the most interesting members of this agreeable society was José de Cadahalso, a gentleman descended from one of the old mountain families of the North of Spain, but born at Cadiz in 1741. His education was conducted from early youth in Paris, but before he was twenty years old he had visited Italy, Germany, England, and Portugal, and obtained a knowledge of the language and literature of each, and especially of England, sufficient to emancipate him from many national prejudices, and make him more useful to the cause of letters at home than he would otherwise have been. On his return to Spain he took the military dress of Santiago, and entered the army. There he rose rapidly, till he reached the rank of colonel; but, in all the different places to which his own choice or the service of his regiment carried him,--Saragossa, Madrid, Alcalá de Henares, and Salamanca,--he sought occasion to continue his earlier pursuits, and succeeded in connecting himself with the leading spirits of the time, such as Moratin, Iglesias, Yriarte, the wise Jovellanos, and the young and promising Melendez Valdes. But his career, though successful, was short. He perished at the siege of Gibraltar, struck by a bomb, on the 27th of February, 1782, and the governor of the besieged fortress joined in the general sorrow over the grave of an honorable enemy who had been distinguished alike in letters and in arms.[345] [345] Sempere, Biblioteca, Tom. II. p. 21. Puybusque, Tom. II. p. 493. His name, I believe, was originally spelt _Cadalso_; but as that is a recognized word, meaning “scaffold,” it is softened in the recent Madrid editions of his Works into _Cadahalso_, which means “cottage” or “shanty.” Both these words, however, are regarded as one and the same, in the first edition of the Dictionary of the Academy, so that perhaps not much is gained by the change.