But though the taste of Quintana was somewhat inclined to the literature of France, he was a Spaniard at heart, and a faithful one. Even before the French invasion he had so carefully kept himself aloof from the influence and patronage of the Prince of the Peace, that, though belonging almost strictly to the same school of poetry with Moratin, these two distinguished men lived at Madrid, imperfectly known to each other, and in fact as heads of different literary societies, whose intercourse was not so kindly as it should have been. But the moment the revolution of 1808 broke out, Quintana sprang to the place for which he felt himself called. He published at once his effective “Odes to Emancipated Spain”; he threw out, in the journals of the time, whatever he thought would excite his countrymen to resist their invaders; he became the secretary to the Cortes and to the regency; and he wrote many of the powerful proclamations, manifestos, and addresses that distinguished so honorably the career of the different administrations to which he belonged during their struggle for national independence. In short, he devoted all that he possessed of talent or fortune to the service of his country in the day of its sorest trial. But he was ill rewarded for it. Much of what had been done by the representatives of the Spanish people in the name of Ferdinand the Seventh, during his forced detention in France, was unwelcome to that shortsighted monarch; and, as soon as he returned to Madrid, in 1814, a persecution was begun of those who had most contributed to the adoption of these unwelcome measures. Among the more obnoxious persons was Quintana, who was thrown into prison in the fortress of Pamplona, and remained there six miserable years, interdicted from the use of writing-materials, and cut off from all intercourse with his friends. The changes of 1820 unexpectedly released him, and raised him for a time to greater distinction than he had enjoyed before. But, three years later, another political revolution took from him all his employments and influence; and he retired to Estremadura, where he occupied himself with letters till new changes and the death of the king restored him to the old public offices he had filled so well, adding to his former honors that of a peer of the realm. But from the days when he first attracted public regard by his noble Odes on the Ocean, and on the beneficent expedition sent to America with the great charity of Vaccination, letters have been his chosen employment;--his pride, when he cheered on his countrymen to resist oppression; his consolation in prison and in exile; his crown of honor in an honored old age.[364] [364] “Poesías de M. J. Quintana,” Madrid, 1821, 2 tom. 8vo. The lyrical portion has been often reprinted since 1802, when the first collection of his Poems appeared at Madrid, in a thin beautiful volume of only 170 pages, 12mo. His life is in Wolf’s excellent Floresta, in Ochoa, Ferrer del Rio, etc.