The young men who, during this disastrous period, were just beginning to unfold their promise, were checked at the outset of their career. Martinez de la Rosa, five years a prisoner of state on a rock in Africa before he had reached the age of thirty; Angel de Rivas, still younger, left for dead on the bloody field of Ocaña; Galiano, sentenced to the scaffold while he was earning his daily bread by daily labor as a teacher in London; Torreno, brought home on his bier, as he returned from his third exile; Arriaza serving in the armies of Ferdinand; Arjona and Barbero silenced; Xavier de Burgos plundered; Gallego, Xerica, Hermosilla, Mauri, Mora, Tapia;--these, and many others, all young men and full of the hopes that letters inspire in generous spirits, were seized upon by the passions of party or the demands of patriotism, and hurried into paths far from the pursuits to which their talents, their taste, and their social relations would alike have dedicated them;--pursuits on which, in fact, they had already entered, and to which they have since owed their most brilliant and enduring distinctions, as well as their truest happiness. Those who were older, and had been before marked by success and public favor, fared still worse. The eyes of men had already been fastened upon them, and in the conflict and crush of the contending factions they were sure to suffer, as one or another prevailed in the long-protracted struggle. Jovellanos and Cienfuegos, as we have seen, were almost instantly martyrs to their patriotism. Melendez Valdes sunk a later and more miserable victim. Conde and Escoiquiz were exiled for opposite reasons. Moratin, after having faced death in the frightful form of want in his own country, survived to a fate in France hardly less to be dreaded. Quintana was cast by his ungrateful sovereign into the Bastile of Pamplona, with an apparent intention that he should perish there. To all of them the happiness of success in letters, to which they had been accustomed amidst the encouragement of their friends and countrymen, was denied;--from all, the hopes of fame seemed to be cut off. Most of them, and most of the small class to which they belonged, passed, as voluntary or involuntary exiles, beyond the limits of a country which they might still be compelled to love, but which they could no longer respect. The rest were silent. It was an interregnum in all elegant culture, such as no modern nation had yet seen,--not even Spain herself during the War of the Succession.