The literary ambition of Escoiquiz, however, is of both an earlier and later date than this unhappy interval, when his upright spirit was so tried by political persecutions. In 1797 he published a translation of Young’s “Night Thoughts”; and, while he was a prisoner in France, from 1808 to 1814, he prepared a Spanish version of Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” which showed, at least, with what pleasure he gave himself up to letters, and what a solace they were to him under his privations and misfortunes. His “Mexico” was first printed in 1798. It is cast more carefully into an epic form than were the heroic poems that abounded in the days of the Philips, and is sustained more than they generally were by such supernatural Christian machinery as was first used with effect by Tasso. But, like them, it is not without cold, allegorical personages, who play parts too important in the action; while, on the other hand, its faithful history of events, its unity of design, and its regular proportions, are no sufficient compensation for its ill-constructed stanzas and its chronicling dulness. The history of Solís is much more interesting and poetical than this wearisome romantic epic, which owes to that historian nearly all its facts.[362] [362] “Mexico Conquistada, Poema Heróico, por Don Juan de Escoiquiz,” Madrid, 1798, 3 tom. 8vo. A still more unhappy epic attempt on the subject of the Conquest of Mexico preceded that of Escoiquiz by about forty years. It was by Francisco Ruiz de Leon, and is entitled “La Hernandia, Triunfos de la Fé” (Madrid, 1755, 4to); a poem making nearly four hundred pages, and sixteen hundred octave stanzas. Leandro Moratin, son of the poet who flourished in the reign of Charles the Third, was, in some respects, a greater sufferer from the convulsions of the times in which he lived than Escoiquiz, and in all respects more distinguished in the world of letters. His principal success, however, was in the drama, where he must hereafter be more fully noticed. Here, therefore, it is only necessary to say, that, in his lyric and miscellaneous poetry, he was a follower of his father, modifying his manner so far under the influence of Conti, an Italian man of letters who lived long at Madrid, that, in his shorter pieces, the Italian terseness is quite apparent and gives a finish to the surface, though the material beneath may be quite Castilian. This is particularly true of his odes and sonnets, and of a striking Chorus of the Spirits of the Patriarchs of the Old Testament awaiting the Appearance of the Saviour; a solemn composition, breathing the fervent spirit of Luis of Granada. His ballads, on the other hand, though finished with great care, are more national in their tone than any thing else he has left us. But the poems that please us best and interest us most are those that show his own temper and affections; such as his “Epistle to Jovellanos,” and his “Ode on the Death of Conde,” the historian.