CAPMANY Y DE MONTPALAU, ANTONIO DE, a Spanish author of high reputation in Spain, was born at Barcelona on the 24th of November 1742. Ho entered the army and served as an officer during the wars with Portugal In 1762, and afterwards took a share iu OlevideNs scheme for colonising and cultivating the Sierra 3forena, to which he conducted a group of Catalan families to co-operate with °beside's Germans. When the plan terminated in Olavide's imprison ment by the Inquisition, Capmany took up his residence in Madrid, where, with the exceptiou of some time spent In travels in Italy, France, Germany, and England, he resided for the next fire and thirty years, intrusted with various political and literary commissions by the government On the entrance of the French army into Madrid in 1SOS he took flight for Seville, and arrived at that city with nothing In his possession but the clothes he wore, and those in raga. lie became an active member of the Cortes of Cadiz, aud was among the multitudes swept away in that city in 1813 by the yellow fever.
Carnany's works are numerous, and are noted for the excelleuce of their Castilian style, though the author, by birth a Catalan, could never speak the language like a native. His ' Critical Memoirs on the Marine,
Commerce aud Arta of the city of Barcelona,' in three quarto volumes, are a valuable contribution to the history of the middle ages, full of curious particulars drawu from unpublished documents. Some inge nious dissertations on the introduction of gunpowder and similar subjects ere contained in his Questiones critics..' His Tear° historico entice de la Elocuencia Espabola ' is a collection of elegant extracts, preceded by an essay on the Spanish language and literature, which is spirited and instructive, though like most of Captnany'a writings one-sided and ultrapatriotic. The work on which he set the most value was a email volume or rather pamphlet entitled 'El Centinela contra Fmuceees,' or ' The Sentinel against tho French,' an invective against the invaders of Spain, which is dedicated in terms of warm affection to his friend Lord Holland. Ile was well acquainted with the French language, and the compiler of an excellent French and Spanish dictionary, but in his hatter years his antipathy to the nation amounted almost to a mania.