MORATIN, LEANDRO FERNANDEZ, a celebrated Spanish dramatist, was the son of the poet Nicolas Fernandez Moratin, and was born at Madrid on the 10th March 1760. Under the tuition of his father he evinced a strong devotion to poetry and painting; but it was thought a part of parental duty to divert his thoughts from such profitless aspirations towards some lucrative calling. He was therefore apprenticed at an early age to a jeweller. His poetical studies, however, were continued; and at the age of eighteen he appeared before the world as the gainer of the second prize awarded by the Spanish Academy for a heroic poem on the conquest of Granada. The winning of another prize in 1782 for a satire against poetasters, entitled Lección Poética, encouraged him to abandon his trade, and to hope for some more congenial calling. At the recommendation of the famous statesman Jovellanos, he was appointed secretary to Cabarrus in 1786. Attending his master in the following year at the court of Versailles, he acquired that
intimacy with the French drama which formed so important an element in his dramatic education. On his return to Spain in 1789, the minister, Florida Blanca, presented him with a benefice in the archbishopric of Burgos, and Moratin had only to take the tonsure to become the occupant of a sinecure of 300 ducats annually. Thus fortified against all pecuniary anxiety, he turned with enthusiasm to the prosecution of the drama. His first comedy, El Víbjo y la Niña, was produced on the stage in 1790. Strongly marked with that regularity of plan, liveliness of dialogue, and elegance of style which afterwards became the chief basis of Moratin's fame, it called forth great applause. His El Café, or La Comedia Nueva, acted in 1792, was equally successful, and may be said to have completed that reformation of the Spanish theatre which had been begun sixty years before. In the same year Florida Blanca was disgraced; but Moratin immediately found another patron in Godoy, who bestowed upon him a pension of 600 ducats, and even supplied him with money to gratify his desire for foreign travel. He accordingly visited in succession England, Holland, Flanders, Germany, and Italy, studying the dramatic literature of each of these countries, and extending his knowledge of men and manners. On his return he began to translate the Hamlet of Shakespeare, the Médecin Malgre lui and the École des Maris of Molière. His most popular comedy, El Sí de las Niñas, appeared in 1806. It was acted to crowded houses for twenty successive nights, ran through four editions in one year, and was afterwards translated into many languages. Moratin was now in the noonday of his prosperity. He was among the wealthiest of poets; he was a frequent guest in the mansions of the great, and he could retire at pleasure to indulge his aesthetic tastes in a luxurious country retreat. In 1808, however, his good fortune began to wane. His patrons were forced to flee before the French invasion, and relinquish the throne of Spain to Joseph Bonaparte. It was in vain that Moratin bartered his patriotism for the continuation of his pensions, that he temporized with the invaders, and that he allowed himself to be appointed chief librarian to the usurper. He saw himself compelled in 1812 to abandon the sinking fortunes of the French, and to take refuge in the camp of the patriots. He was received with cold distrust, his private property was sequestered, and his revenues and pensions were withheld. Even after he had been pardoned and restored to his privileges by Ferdinand VII. in 1814, his dread of official assassins would give him no rest until he had crossed the Pyrenees, and had taken up his abode at Paris. In 1821 Bordeaux became his settled residence; and there his learned work, Origenes del Teatro Español, was elaborated. He returned to the French capital in 1827, and died there in June of the following year. Moratin also wrote the three dramas of El Barón, La Lugareña orgullosa, and La Mogigata, and several lyric poems. There are several editions both of his lyrical and of his dramatic works.