De juicio sí; mas no de ingenio escaso, Aqui Huerta el audaz descanso goza; Deja un puesto vacante en el Parnaso, Y una jaula vacia en Zaragoza. In judgment,--yes,--but not in genius weak, Here fierce Huerta tranquil sleeps and well; A vacant post upon Parnassus leaves, In Saragossa, too, an empty cell. The discussions it provoked were of more direct importance, and tended to infuse new life into the theatre itself. Such discussions had been begun immediately after the publication of the first tragedy by Montiano, in 1750,--a date which may be regarded as the dividing point in the history of the Spanish stage during the eighteenth century,--and they were now resumed with great activity, partly in consequence of the increasing interest in the national drama generally, and partly in consequence of the personal temper of La Huerta himself. One immediate result of this state of things was a great increase in the number of plays, of which at least ten times more were written in the last half of the century than in the first; and if there were less improvement in the condition of the theatre than might have been anticipated from such competition, still, as we have seen, poets and men of genius, like Ramon de la Cruz, were stirred by the movement, and far-sighted spirits, like Jovellanos, augured well for the future.[383] [383] Don Jaime Doms attacked Montiano in a Letter, without date or name of place or printer, and was answered by Domingo Luis de Guevara in three Letters, (Madrid, 1753, 18mo,) to which a rejoinder by Faustino de Quevedo appeared at Salamanca in 1754, 18mo;--all the names being pseudonymes, and all the discussions more angry than wise. The publication of the “Teatro” of La Huerta excited still more discussion. He himself speaks (Escena Hespañola Defendida, Madrid, 1786, 12mo, p. cliii.) of the “enorme número de folletos” that appeared in reply to his “Prólogo,” many of which were probably only circulated in manuscript, according to the fashion of the times, while others, like those of Cosme Damian, Tomé Cecial (i. e. J. P. Forner), etc., were printed in 1786, and La Huerta replied to them in his angry “Leccion Crítica” of the same year. (Sempere, Bib., Tom. III. p. 88.) The whole of this period of Spanish literature is filled with the quarrels of Sedano, Forner, Huerta, Yriarte, and their friends and rivals.