[354] The death of Melendez was supposed by his physician to have been occasioned by the vegetable diet to which he was driven, for want of means to purchase food more substantial; and, from the same poverty, his burial was so obscure that the Duke of Frias and the poet Juan Nicasio Gallego with difficulty discovered his remains, in 1828, and caused them to be respectfully interred, in one of the principal cemeteries of Montpellier, with an appropriate monument to mark the spot. Semanario Pintoresco, 1839, pp. 331-333; a striking and sad history. To solace the heavy hours of his exile, he occupied himself with preparing the materials for a final publication of all he had written, embracing many new poems and many changes in those already published;--all which appeared in 1820, and have constituted the basis of the different editions of his works that have been given to the world since. Like the previous collections, it shows, not, indeed, a poetical genius of the first order, nor one with very flexible or very various attributes, but certainly a genius of great sweetness; always winning and graceful whenever the subject implies tenderness, and sometimes vigorous and imposing when it demands power. What Melendez wrote with success was a great advance upon the poetry of Montiano, and even upon that of the elder Moratin. It was more Castilian, and more full of feeling, than theirs. In style, too, it was more free, and it has done much to settle the poetical manner that has since prevailed. Gallicisms occasionally occur that might have been avoided, though many of them have now become a part of the recognized resources of Spanish poetry; but more often Melendez has revived old and neglected words and phrases, which have thus been restored to their place in the language, and have increased its wealth. As a general remark, his verse is not only flowing, but well suited to his subjects; and whether we consider what he has done himself, or what influence he has exercised over others,--especially when we read the little volume he published in the freshness of his youth, while he was still unknown at court and still careless of the convulsions that were at last to overwhelm him,--there can be no doubt that he was better fitted to form a new school and give a guiding impulse to the national poetry than any writer that had appeared in Spain for above a century.[355]