_Melendez Valdéz_ (Don Juan), a native of Estremadura; after having been a professor at Salamanca, he was appointed judge of the royal court of appeal at Valladolid, by Charles III. Charles IV. promoted him to the office of the king's attorney in the royal Council of Castile, the chamber of the alcades of the royal house and of the Court of Madrid. He was the Spanish Anacreon of the nineteenth century, and the fame of his odes will last while good poetry is made. One of these gave rise to several denunciations in 1796, and Melendez was accused of conversing like a man who had read prohibited books, such as Filangieri, Puffendorf, Grotius, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and others. This attack failed from want of proof. In 1808 Melendez was barbarously treated by assassins of the same description as those who massacred the Marquis de Perales and the intendant Truxillo, at Madrid; the Marquis del Socorro, at Cadiz; the Count del Aguila, at Seville; the Count de Torre del Fresno, at Badajoz, and many distinguished Spaniards in other places. Melendez survived almost by a miracle, and sought safety in the French army. King Joseph appointed him a counsellor of state. Melendez accepted the place for the same reasons as _Joven de Salas_; he afterwards incurred the same fate, and died at Montpelier in 1817. The _Mercury_ of France and the other Parisian journals have published his panegyric. I shall therefore only add that at Valladolid in 1788 he gave me a small poem of his own composition to read; it was called _The Magistrate_. When the second edition of his poems appeared, this poem was inserted, and on my inquiring the reason, he gave me the following account of it. "As I was always much occupied in composing poetry, even after I was appointed judge of the royal court of appeal, some of my colleagues harshly censured my conduct, saying that the composition of lyric and amatory verses was very unbecoming the dignity of the magistracy: one of them said maliciously, that I might perhaps know what a troubadour was, but not what a magistrate should be. I then composed this poem, and intended to publish it, but afterwards changed my mind, that it might not occasion a suspicion that I wished to revenge myself." This poem, in my opinion, has much merit, and I hope it will be included in the first edition of the poems of Melendez. _Macanaz_, (Don Melchior de). See the following Chapter.