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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

The name of Eulogio Florentino Sanz is little known outside of Spain, where for more than seventy years it has been closely linked with his chief dramatic achievement, "Don Francisco de Quevedo," and with his translations from Heine. Now and then the plea that something be done toward bringing out an edition of his works has found expression but met with no response. To read his scattered verses it is necessary to search the pages of that wilderness of papers, dailies, weeklies, monthlies, and annuals, which appeared in Madrid between 1840 and 1870. Though we are told that he wrote much, it is none the less true that he published next to nothing. In 1848, at the age of twenty-seven he was freely spoken of as one of the most promising of his generation of poets and dramatists. Vanity and indolence at maturity prevented his fulfilling the promise.

His boyhood was spent in Arévalo in the province of Ávila, where he was born March 11, 1821. The village priest taught him Latin, and later he may have been a student at the University of Valladolid. Of the years that passed before he came to Madrid we know little besides a few anecdotes. According to one of these Sanz paid youthful court to the daughter of a glazier whose ruin was threatened by lack of business. The daughter told young Florentino of her father's difficulties in the course of an evening interview, whereupon the ambitious lover quickly organized a band of followers and broke all the windows in Arévalo.

Early in February of 1843 he was in Madrid, where he began to write for the newspapers. Two years later a few poems published in the Semanario Pintoresco, El Heraldo, and La Risa won him some recognition. He now identified himself with the group of romantic poets who held their meetings in the famous Café del Príncipe. His sonnet "La Discordia," published in the Semanario Pintoresco, February, 1843, furnishes indisputable evidence of his romantic tendencies. In it a waning moon, fratricide, corpses, "infernal sonrisa," and an agonized mother provide all the thrills of romantic horror; but it may be wiser to pass over in silence such outbursts as this.

As a member of a circle which gathered in the Café del Recreo (1846) he lived in the very thick of romanticism. Its meetings are thus described:

At that time there existed in Madrid a club of literary fledglings. The majority of the young men who ten years later had won conspicuous places in the world of letters gathered there without knowing exactly why. The nucleus at the Café del Recreo had been formed by no one, nobody was formally presented, no one of our number had been a friend or schoolmate of any one of the others; the gathering was there because it was there, it existed because it existed. The company included besides Sanz himself the poets Mariano Cazurro, Antonio Trueba, Ventura Ruiz Aguilera, Antonio Hurtado, José Albuerne, Antonio Arnao, the journalist Eduardo Asquerino, the statesman Cánovas, and the dramatist Fernández y González.—José de Castro y Serrano, Prólogo (pp. ix-x) to "Obras de Francisco Zea," Madrid, 1858.

The movements and activities of Sanz in the literary world began to be chronicled in such papers as the Fandango, published by Wencelao Ayguals de Izco and Francisco Villegas. They speak of him as "our friend and collaborator." From them we learn that he was occupied in writing semblanzas, or portraits, of the most conspicuous literary lights of the hour. Though these semblanzas seem to have circulated in manuscript, they never were printed. Eduardo de Lustoñó declared[1] that Sanz was always a presumptuous person and particularly so in 1845. Lustoñó wrote a squib, stupid enough to be sure, in which he implies that the purpose of the semblanzas was to ridicule the pedants. Lustoñó enrolled him as private soldier in what he called his "Regiment of Men of Letters," but it was an unconscious tribute to the ability of Sanz to admit him even as a private in a regiment whose officers were: Colonel, Quintana; Majors, Hartzenbusch, Tassara; Captains, Bretón, Rivas; Lieutenants, Campoamor, Mesonero Romanos, and Frías,—all of whom have won enduring fame.

On the night of February 1, 1848, "Don Francisco de Quevedo" was presented in the Teatro del Príncipe. The distinguished actor and poet Don Julian Romea chose the occasion for a benefit performance. The play was an instant success. The number of the Semanario Pintoresco which followed the first performance printed a flattering review:

The drama "Don Francisco de Quevedo," presented at the Príncipe for the benefit of Don Julian Romea, has won for its author, Don Eulogio Florentino Sanz, a place of distinction among our dramatists. Success in portraying the personage from whom the piece takes its name, resourceful stagecraft, daring situations, and a versification now serious, now gay, frolicsome or sorrowful, but always agreeable, facile, and correct, these are the distinguishing features of the play with which Señor Sanz has made himself known to the theater-going public. Don Julian Romea gave an able interpretation of the part of Don Francisco de Quevedo, Señora Díaz was excellent as the Infanta Margarita. The rest of the cast contributed ably to the success of the drama.

This notice conveys some idea of the striking enthusiasm with which the piece was received.

In keeping with his literary predilections Sanz had already identified himself politically with the progressive liberal party.

In the years immediately preceding the overthrow of the Conservatives (1845) Sanz gave his services to the progressive liberal cause. In 1849 he was editor of La Patria, whose first number appeared on January 2. It announced a policy of political moderation, but its real purpose was the most strenuous opposition to the government of the reactionary conservatives. Sanz was generally believed to be editor-in-chief. Suddenly on the fourth of January he resigned[2] with no explanation whatsoever to the subscribers. A little later he appeared on the staff of La Víbora, periódico venenoso redactado por los peores literatos de España, bajo la dirección de nadie ("The Viper, a venomous paper, edited by the worst scribblers in Spain, under the management of nobody"). The censorship was as crushing as in the days of Larra. Later, in September, La Patria announced another periodical, La Sátira, adding that it was to be under the direction of the editors of the short-lived Víbora. This second attempt also met with disaster. Again in June of 1851 Sanz resigned from another paper, El Mundo Nuevo.

In 1854 the tide turned. The revolution of July found him writing his second play, "Los Achaques de la Vejez."[3] The conclusion of the last act had to be postponed while Sanz was taking part in the popular rising which he had so earnestly sought. While he was waiting for his share of the rewards of victory the play was produced at the Príncipe on the evening of October 13. On the fourteenth there appeared in La Iberia the following notice, written probably by his devoted friend Pedro Calvo Asensio:

Los Achaques de la Vejez. This notable comedy by the gifted and well-known author Don Eulogio Florentino Sanz was played

last night with brilliant success. At the end of the second act the author was called upon the stage, and at the end of the play the enthusiasm of the audience grew to such extraordinary proportions that Sr. Sanz was again called upon to appear. However, we were denied the satisfaction of seeing him, as he had left the theater. The actors also were called before the curtain amidst tumultuous applause as a just reward for their signal success in the presentation of the play. The audience was as we had expected, large and select. Our conviction that the management may look forward to well-filled houses gives us great satisfaction.

The writing of this play was in a measure Sanz's answer to the challenge of his enemies and detractors to repeat the success of "Don Francisco de Quevedo." By this second triumph his fame and reputation were firmly established. This time the theme is a domestic one developed with even greater skill than that displayed in the earlier play. As might be expected, Act I, scene iv, contains a pessimistic and cynical allusion to the tangled politics that preceded the revolution.

By a royal order of November 11 Sanz was appointed secretary of the first class to the Spanish legation in Berlin.[4] This appointment he probably owed to the good offices of his friend Nicomedes Pastor Díaz. Sanz took possession of his new post on the ninth of January, 1855, after having made the journey from Madrid in the company of Gregorio Cruzada Villamil. In June he was granted four months' leave of absence on account of ill health due to the severity of the climate. In August he was made Commander of the Order of Charles III in recognition of his distinguished service. His final resignation from the post was received in November of 1856. He left Berlin for Madrid on February 1, 1857.

His only poem surely written in Berlin is the "Epístola a Pedro."[5] It is a tender tribute to the memory of the poet Enrique Gil, who had died in Berlin ten years before. Its verses are among the most delicately beautiful that Sanz ever wrote. The poem opens with an expression of the longing which Sanz feels for his beloved Spain, and above all for Madrid:

Pues recuerda la patria, a los reflejos

de su distante sol, el desterrado

como recuerdan su niñez los viejos.

He stands before the grave of Enrique Gil and mourns for the poet who died unwept in a foreign land. In deep sincerity of feeling no other poem of Sanz approaches the "Epístola." Fortunately it has been given to the public both in Menéndez y Pelayo's "Cien Mejores Poesías" and in "The Oxford Book of Spanish Verse."

These two years of residence in Berlin had a profound effect upon the temper of Sanz's later verse. It was only natural that his removal from the turmoil of life in Madrid, with its petty jealousies and quarrels, literary and political, should exercise a broadening and sobering influence upon his muse. After this date the flow of idle humorous verse ceased. Inspired chiefly by the exquisite delicacy of Heine's lyrics, he set himself to imitation and translation of his German model. It is not too much to say that all his published verse after this was deeply tinged with this side of Heine.

In the spring of 1857 he was in Madrid again, enjoying his prestige as a poet, diplomat, and political writer. His presence at a gathering of literary men in May to do honor to the memory of the great Quintana was an event.[6] A week earlier his translation of fifteen of Heine's lyrics had appeared in the Museo Universal under the caption "Poesía Alemana, Canciones de Enrique Heine." What a grateful contrast they furnish to the undisciplined bursts of romantic thunder that he was writing only a few years before! Sanz had been completely won over to the intense refinement of emotion and diction of Heine. From this time on, the expression of gentle melancholy and spiritual sensitiveness dominates the few poems that he published.

The brief taste of diplomatic life which he had had seems to have put an end to any really creative activity. A tribute to the memory of the young poet Francisco Zea, written in May, 1858,[7] contains what is really his farewell to a life of letters. Therein, after discussing the pessimistic statement of Larra that in Spain "No se lee porque no se escribe, y no se escribe porque no se lee," he declares that people in Spain are writing, but that no one is reading. It is not the fault of those who write, he continues, and waste the treasures of their youth in a fruitless struggle. In Spain one must write for pure love of letters, and unfortunately this is the most platonic of loves. There are few readers of literature in general, and of lyric poetry almost none. He resents the intrusion of the latter into the drama, where it is heard with pleasure by people, comfortably seated in stalls, who in the morning could not endure Fray Luis de León or Francisco de la Torre. His small stock of patience exhausted, Sanz turned to diplomatic life.

On the eleventh of August of 1859 he was appointed Minister to the Empire of Brazil, and on the same day he was named representative in the Cortes. A month later he wrote to the Secretary of State to say that he must resign the post "for reasons which I have had the honor to submit verbally to your Excellency's consideration." At this time he seems to have gone into complete retirement, resisting the entreaties of theater-managers and actors to write again for the stage. In the next fourteen years he published only a half-dozen or more poems, although his name appeared in the list of colaboradores of several papers, among them the Gaceta Literaria, España Literaria, and La América. Apparently his disillusionment was complete. In the Versos a Amalia (La América, Sept. 8, 1858) are these significant lines:

Sonreí de ambición ante la vana

Sombra de mi deseo;

Y al despuntar el sol de mi mañana,

Vi mi horizonte azul (¡que ya no veo!)...

———

Yo fué persiguiendo la límpida estrella

Que allá en lontananza

Resplandece entre todas; aquella

Que deslumbra con locos reflejos,

Que siempre se sigue, que nunca se alcanza.

¡Pérfida estrella de la esperanza

Que alumbra sólo, sólo de lejos!

———

Yo en la mar busqué la gloria

Y de allí torno sin ella.

In September of 1872 Sanz was drawn from his retreat by an appointment to Tangier as Minister Plenipotentiary at a salary of 15,000 pesetas annually. He began his duties in December and continued at his post for exactly a year. Again he pleaded ill health and was granted two months' leave of absence. That he did not return immediately to Madrid is clear from his request of February 12 to be allowed to bring into Cadiz, duty free, a hundred bottles of wine. Early in January, 1873, his appointment to Tangier was confirmed by Amadeo. On the establishment of the republic in February Sanz tendered his resignation, but Castelar himself refused to accept it. In June he finally left his post at Tangier after having been appointed Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States of Mexico. As usual he excused himself on the ground of ill health, and his resignation was accepted in the following September. Sanz certainly could not complain that his merits were unrecognized. In the decree appointing him to the post at Tangier his honors are mentioned as Gran Cruz de la Real y Distinguida Orden de Carlos III, Orden Civil de Maria Victoria, Caballero de la Ínclita de San Juan de Jerusalem, ex Diputado a Cortes.

His movements from this time forward are extremely difficult to follow. In 1878 his name appears in the official list of members of the Asociación de Escritores y Artistas, and his domicile is given as 45 Calle de Atocha. The men that knew him in the closing years of his life agree that he dragged out a miserable existence in the utmost poverty, dependent upon the generosity of his friends. They speak highly of his moral integrity, deploring at the same time the weakness of character which prevented his realizing the promise of his early years. He died April 29, 1881, and was buried in the cemetery of San Lorenzo.