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Page 2
In 1820 the Espronceda family occupied an apartment in the Calle del
Lobo. It was there and then that Patricio de Escosura firmed his
intimacy with the future poet. He describes graphically his first
meeting with the youth who was to be his lifelong friend. He first saw
Jos� sliding down from a third-story balcony on a tin waterspout. In the
light of later years Escosura felt that in this boyish prank the child
was father of the man. The boy who preferred waterspouts to stairways,
later in life always scorned the beaten path, and "the illogical road,
no matter how venturesome and hazardous it was, attracted him to it by
virtue of that sort of fascinating charm which the abyss exercises over
certain eminently nervous temperaments." The belief that Espronceda
studied at the Artillery School of Segovia in 1821 appears to rest upon
the statement of Sol�s alone. Escosura, who studied there afterwards,
never speaks of his friend as having attended the same institution.
Sol�s may have confused the younger Jos� with his deceased, like-named
brother, who, we know, actually was a cadet in Segovia. On the other
hand, Sol�s speaks with confidence, though without citing the source of
his information, and nothing would have been more natural than for the
boy to follow in his elder brother's footsteps, as he did later when he
joined the Guardia de Corps. However, the matter is of slight moment,
for if he studied in Segovia at all he cannot have remained there for
more than a few weeks.
What little education Espronceda was able to acquire in the course of
his stormy life was gained mostly in the Colegio de San Mateo between
the years 1820 and 1830. This was a private school patronized by sons of
the nobility and wealthy middle class. Two of the masters, Jos� G�mez
Hermosilla and Alberto Lista, were poets of repute. Lista was the best
teacher of his time in Spain. The wide range of his knowledge astonished
his pupils, and he appeared to them equally competent in the classics,
modern languages, mathematics, philosophy and poetics, all of which
subjects he knew so well that he never had to prepare a lecture
beforehand. Plainly Lista was not a specialist of the modern stamp; but
he was something better, a born teacher. In spite of an unprepossessing
appearance, faulty diction, and a ridiculous Andalusian accent, Lista
was able to inspire his students and win their affection. It is no
coincidence that four of the fellow students of the Colegio de San
Mateo, Espronceda, Felipe Pardo, Ventura de la Vega, and Escosura,
afterwards became famous in literature.
Espronceda's school reports have been preserved. We learn that he
studied sacred history, Castilian grammar, Latin, Greek, French,
English, mythology, history, geography, and fencing, which last he was
later to turn to practical account. He showed most proficiency in
French and English, and least in Greek and mathematics. His talent was
recognized as unusual, his industry slight, his conduct bad. Calleja,
the principal, writes in true schoolmaster's fashion: "He is wasting the
very delicate talent which nature gave him, and is wasting, too, the
opportunity of profiting by the information of his distinguished
professors." It cannot be denied that Espronceda's conduct left much to
be desired. According to Escosura he was "bright and mischievous,
the terror of the whole neighborhood, and the perpetual fever of his
mother." He soon gained the nickname _buscarruidos_, and attracted
the notice of police and night watchmen. "In person he was agreeable,
likable, agile, of clear understanding, sanguine temperament inclined
to violence; of a petulant, merry disposition, of courage rash even
bordering upon temerity, and more inclined to bodily exercise than to
sedentary study." The two friends were much influenced by Calder�n at
this time. The height of their ambition was to be like the gallants of
a cape-and-sword play, equally ready for a love passage or a fight.
Lista's influence upon his pupils was not restricted to class exercises.
In order to encourage them to write original verse and cultivate a taste
for literature, he founded in April, 1823, the Academy of the Myrtle,
modeled after the numerous literary academies which throve in Italy and
Spain during the Renaissance period and later. Lista himself presided,
assuming the name Anfriso. Was Delio, the name Espronceda assumed in his
"Serenata" of 1828, his academic designation? The models proposed for
the youthful aspirants were the best poets of antiquity and such modern
classicists as Mel�ndez, Cienfuegos, Jovellanos, and Quintana. Two of
Espronceda's academic exercises have been preserved. They are as insipid
and jejune as Goethe's productions of the Leipzig period. As an imitator
of Horace he was not a success. What he gained from the Academy was the
habit of writing.
The Academy lasted until 1826, when many of its members had been driven
into exile; but its later meetings must have seemed tame to spirited
boys engrossed in the exciting political events of those times. The year
1823 is famous in Spanish history for the crushing out of liberalism.
This was effected by means of the Holy Alliance, an infamous association
of tyrants whose main object was to restore absolutism. Louis XVIII, the
Bourbon king of France, sent a force of one hundred thousand men under
the Duke of Angoul�me who met with little resistance, and in short order
nullified all that had been accomplished by the Spanish liberals. Before
the end of the year Ferdinand VII, who had been virtually deposed, was
restored to his throne, and the constitution of 1820 had been abolished.
Espronceda, the son of a hero of the War of Liberation, felt that the
work of the men of 1808 had been undone. They had exchanged a foreign
for a domestic tyrant. What his feelings were we may gather from his
ode in commemoration of the uprising of the Madrid populace against the
troops of Murat, "Al Dos de Mayo":
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