JUAN, a distinguished poet of Spain, was born at La Ribera del Fresno in Estremadura, on the 11th of March 1754. After studying philosophy at Madrid he went to the university of Salamanca at the age of eighteen, where he pursued the study of law, and made the acquaintance of some of the most eminent literary men of the time in Spain. His earlier efforts at versification were in imitation of Lobo, who had still many admirers, but who belonged to a bad school. The elder Moratin, however, who was thoroughly opposed to the vicious poetical taste of his time, was beginning to leave traces of his influence on the mind of the young follower of Lobo, when a fortunate accident brought Cadahalso to Salamanca. The sympathetic discernment of this eminent poet and soldier soon detected the latent genius of Melendez, and induced him to take him to his house, where he spent great pains in disclosing to the young poet the beauties of the elder literature of Spain, and of the cultivated nations of Europe. It was through Cadahalso that Melendez first became acquainted with the literature of England, which subsequently exerted so marked an influence on his poetic development. He was accustomed to remark in later days, that it was John Locke who first taught him to reason, and that four lines of Pope's Essay on Man were superior to all that poet ever wrote. The devoted friendship of Cadahalso met, accordingly, with an ample reward in the great success of his pupil; and it was afterwards said, with as much truthfulness as point, that "among all the works of Cadahalso, the best was Melendez." But the most commanding mind of the time was that of Jovellanos, whose friendship Melendez afterwards formed through Gonzales. This new relationship at once exercised a decided and salutary influence over him. In 1780 he obtained the prize of the Spanish Academy for the best elegy, although he had to contend with a formidable rival in Yriarte, his senior in years, and in court favour. The performance of the latter was written in the declamatory style of some of the older and weaker Spanish pastorals; while the Batilo of the former was fresh from the fields, and, as one of the adjudicators said, "seemed absolutely to smell of their wild flowers." Melendez, on going to Madrid the following year, was received with much cordiality by Jovellanos, and received new honours from the academy of San Fernando for a Pindaric Ode On the Glory of the Arts. He was shortly after appointed professor of the humanities or philology at Salamanca, which enabled him to return to his favourite haunts on the banks of the Tormes. In 1784 he was induced by Jovellanos to compete for the prize offered by the city of Madrid for a dramatic performance. His comedy of The Wedding of Camacho (Las Bodas de Camacho) secured the vote of the judges, but was received coldly by the public, and soon fell into neglect. The talent of Melendez was not dramatic; and he made an attempt the following year to retrieve his fallen fortunes by presenting the public with a volume of lyrics and pastorals; a species of composition for which his genius was peculiarly adapted. His success was extraordinary. The genuine simplicity and tenderness of those pieces, their elegant versification and light gracefulness, their rich, truthful descriptions of natural scenery,—all combined to communicate to them a fascination such as had not been known in Spain since the disappearance of the eminent names of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Indeed, so subtle and exquisite is the grace of those charming poems, that it is precisely the sort of beauty which is sure to be lost in being strained through any translation. Three counterfeit editions of this small volume appeared in 1785, and were sold off as fast as they were printed.

In an unfortunate hour Melendez, the darling of the court, resolved to leave his happy retirement, and solicit a place under the government. In 1789 he was made a judge; and in 1791 was elevated to a position of honour in the chancery of Valladolid: this new duty did not, however, estrange him from the muse. He published in 1797 a new and greatly enlarged edition of his works, which he dedicated to the Prince of the Peace, with whose misgovernment the poet was now too closely connected, from the necessities of his political position. This new effort did not add greatly to his fame. The influence of English and German literature was more obvious than salutary. In his Ode to Winter he imitates Thomson, and The Fall of Lucifer is a faint echo of Milton. The fervid glow of the rare old Castilian verse was not consistent with the laboured moralizings and dreary metaphysical discussions which Melendez, after the manner of Jovellanos, now packed into his lines. The prince was flattered by the dedication, however, and attached the poet to the court at Madrid, where Jovellanos was a minister of state. But the next year saw these eminent men in exile; and it was not till 1802 that Melendez, by the mitigation of his persecution, was permitted to return to the scene of his early fame at Salamanca. After six years came the revolution of Aranjuez, when he hastened to Madrid only to be in time to witness the ascendancy of the French power, to which he, in a moment of infatuation, gave in his adherence. On being sent as a commissioner to Oviedo, he was led out by the infuriated populace to be shot; and on another occasion his house was sacked, and his valuable library destroyed, by the very party whose interests he served. Melendez fled; and after dragging out four miserable years in exile in the south of France, he died at Montpellier on the 24th of May 1817.

Melendez solaced himself during the heavy hours of exile by preparing a complete edition of his works, with numerous corrections and additions, which was published, with a Life of the author, by Quintana, at Madrid, in 4 vols. 8vo. His anaecrotics still retain their fame; and he is universally regarded as the greatest poet Spain had known for an entire century. (See Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii.)