In attempting to reach by sea the port of Ribadeo, where there lay
a Spanish frigate, in which he hoped to find a passage to Cadiz,
another storm kept him for eight days under the peculiar hardships of
a dangerous navigation in a small and crowded ship. Exhausted both in
body and mind, and with a heart almost broken by the ill-treatment he
had met with at the close of a long life spent in the service of his
country, he landed at Vega, where, the poverty of the town offering
no better accommodations, he was placed in the same room with Valdés
Llanos, an old friend and relation, who had joined him in the flight,
and seemed so shattered by age and fatigue, as not to be able to
survive the effects of the late storm. Here Jovellanos employed his
remaining strength in nursing and comforting his fellow-sufferer,
till, Valdés being near his end, his friend was, according to the
notions of the country, removed to another room. But death had
also laid his hand on Jovellanos. Two days after completing his
sixty-sixth year, he was laid in the same grave with his friend.[69]
[69] In the Appendix No. 2, to Lord Holland’s _Life of Lope de
Vega_ are found both the originals and translations of some
eloquent passages from Jovellanos’s pen, to which I have made an
allusion in this note. His portrait also, from a marble bust
executed at Seville by Don Angel Monasterio, at his lordship’s
desire, and now in his possession, is prefixed to the second
volume of the same work.
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's Letters from Spain, by Joseph Blanco White
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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