DONOSO conTts, JUAN, an eminent Spanish statesman and author, was born in 1809, of wealthy parents, at the town of El Valle in Extremadura. Ile was so precocious that at the age of eleven he studied login at Salamanca, and had completed his legal studies at Seville long before he was competent to be admitted as advocate at the age of twenty-four. He was known to a largo circle of friends at Seville as a promising poet, and an ode which he published on the nuptials of King Ferdinand with Maria Christina was particularly distinguished among all those on the occasion. In 1832, when the temporary revocation by Ferdinand of the decree for the succession of the present Queen Isabel (Catomanoe] awakened the apprehensions of the liberal party that all progress would be checked, a large number of the principal young men of Madrid waited on Queen Christina to offer her their lives in defence of the rights of her infant daughter, and at their bead was Donoso Cortda. From this time ho was distinguished by the favour of Queen Christina, and entered upcin a political career before he was of ago to enter on a legal one. A pamphlet however which he composed under the title of a Memoir on the rights of Isabel the Second,' was suppressed by the advice of his friends as con taining ideas so ultra-liberal as to be certain to give offence. lie waa appointed in the same year to a post in the ministry of Grace and Justice, and In the next published his ' Considerations on Diplomacy and its Influence ou the Political and Social State of Europe, from the time of the Revolution of July to that of the Quadruple Alliance.' In 1S35 he was sent as a royal commissioner with General Rodil to bring back to obedience his native province of Estrenaadnra, and acted with such success as to receive the grand cross of Carlos and a higher official station ; but, dissatisfied with the turn that affairs were taking, he resigned his post, and for some time occupied himself in corlthating the party which supported the revolution of La Granja. Ile founded the newspaper ' El Nieto,' in which he was assisted by Oaliano [Gatinaci), and was for some time editor of the ' Reeista de Madrid,' a review or rather magazine established on the plan of the French 'Revue des deux Mendes, his first article in which was one of a aerie. on ' Spain since 1334: Ile delivered in 1S37 at the Athenaeum of Madrid, a series of lectures on the science of politics, which attracted mnch attontion. Ho was in Franco in 1340 at the time of the expulsion of Queen Christina, hastened to offer her his services on her arrival in that country, and is said to have been the author of the manifesto which she issued from Marseille. Ho after
wards went to Madrid on a commission from her to defend her rights against Espartero, but his efforts were unsuccessful. Ile then returned to France and occupied himself with the composition of a History of the Minority of Queen Isabel IL,' passages of which were published in the Reviata do Madrid,' and have received high applause from Spanish critics. Ile returned to Spain in 1814 lifter the fall of Eepartero, and was named plenipotentiary to invite Queen Christina back to Madrid, when his services were rewarded with the title of Marquis do Valdegarnas. His pen, which never ceased to be active, was by this time active in an entirely different cause from that iu which he had first won his laurels. From an ultraliberal Donoso Cott& had become a Catholic conservative, and after Balmes, the most distinguished literary advocate of Catholicism in Spain. lie was ambassador to Prussia at the time of the revolution in 1348, and after wards ambassador to France, a country for which lie always avowed a strong partiality. It was while holding that post, and very eoon after he had officiates! as Spanish ambassador at the marriage of Louis Napoleon with a Spanish consort, that ho was seized with an attack of pericarditis, which carried him off, after about a month's illness, on the 3ri1 of May 1853 at Paris.
A select collection of his writings, ' Coloccion escogida de los eacrites del excelentisimo Sehor Don Juan D0110110 Cort4s,' was published in two volumes at Madrid In 1848. It comprises none of his poetry hut most of his political writings that we have mentioned, and several of 1111 article+ from the reviews, which seem, like those of Macaulay, to bs considered the brightest ornaments of his literary coronet. For brilliancy of style they are remarkable among the general thane r of Spanish composition, but for souodueas of thought they are not, we think, likely to acquire a high reputation in England. One of them on Pius 15_, talks of the "singular privilege which Italy enjoys in conjunction with Spodu of drawlog towards itself the the civilised staid," and goes on to affirm that "the nation4 Many? keep their eyes fixed by instinct on the Italian and the Spanish race." There is much that is as questionable on most of the subjects on which he touches.