CLAVIJO Y FAXARDO, JOSEPH, a Spanish writer, whose name is Dow better known in France and Germany than in Spain from a train of circumstances which have secured him an unenviable immortality. lie was born at Lanzarote, one of the Canary islands, on the 39th of March 3726, and was educated in the Islands for the legal profession, but went in 1749 to seek his fortune in Madrid, and was appointed to a place-in the war.office, where he bad the merit of first suggesting the publication of a Spanish army-list, the series of which commences in 1763. The year before, 1762, be bed begun, under the assumed name of Alvarez y Valladarek a periodical collection of essays in imitation of the English 'Spectator,' to which he gave the title of 'El Pensador,' or ' The Thinker.' The work was so successful that he soon affixed his real name to it, and the third volume appeared with a royal privilege to protect it from piracy, commencing with the very unusual clause that his majesty had been "informed of the utility and profit which resulted to the public from this periodical undertaking." The king, Charles III., a warm patron of literature, at the same time promised him the first honourable post suited to his merits which should become vacant, and a few weeks after be was named Officer of the Archives of the first Secretary of State.
For some 7esre Clavijo had been acquainted with two French ladies, Madame Guilbert and Mademoiselle Caron, who carried on some kind of business', probably millinery, at Madrid. Ile had received from them instruction in the niceties of the French language, and some hints in the composition of the 'Peneador,' much of which, like its English prototype, was occupied with speculations on the fair sex. At his first success he made proposals for the hand of Mademoiselle Caron, and the marriage was settled to take place as soon as he received his promised appointment. When the appointment came the lover cooled, and though the banns had been put up, he ceased to frequent the house. Some scandal was excited, and the French ambassador was applied to Clavijo began to be afraid of the result, solicited his betrothed for pardon, renewed his vows, brought the affair for the second time to the verge of marriage, and then repeated his desertion. The younger lady became seriously ill, the elder wrote to Paris to complain to their father and family, and their brother, Pierre Augustin Caron, came to Madrid to inquire into the matter. lie was then a
man of two-and.thirty, scarcely beginning to bo known, but he after wards became celebrated under the title of nobility which he purchased, the title of Beaumarchais. (Ileaunancums.) Beaumarchais on his arrival at Madrid introduced himself with a friend to CInvijo, in the character of a French literary gentleman who was travelling, at the request of a literary society at Paris, to establish a correspondence with the most eminent writers of every country, and was of course attracted to the rising hope of Spain, the distin guished author of the l'eneador.' When Clavijo, who welcomed his proposal with eagerness, inquired if he could serve him in any other way, the stranger, fixing his eyes on him, commenced a narrative of the wrongs of a French lady at Madrid, in which, as it proceeded, Clavijo could not fail with gradually darkening countenance to recog nise the atory in which he bore a principal part. "The eldest sister," Psmumarchass went on " wrote off to France an account of the outrage to which they had been subjected, and the story affected their brother to such a degree that ho made but one leap from Paris to Madrid. 1 am that brother, come to unmask a traitor, and to write his soul on his face in lines of blood. The traitor is yourself I" The startled Spanient began to stammer out an explanation; the prepared and self possessed Frenchman, pressing his advantage, cut him abort with a declaration that what ha came to demand was, not the completion of the !marriage, but an acknowledgment, under Clavijo's own band, that he was a villein who had deceived, betrayed, outraged his sister, without a muse. In case of refusal, Beaumarchais told him that he would purees him till he should be obliged to give him a meeting behind Ilnenretire, at that time the common spot for duels at Madrid. " Then, If I am more fortunate than you," he said, " I will take my dying sister in my arms, put her in my carriage, and return at once with her to France. If, on the contrary, fortune favours you, there is an end. 1 made my will before I set out; you will have every advantage over us, and may laugh at our expence." The interview after a long discussion ended with Clavijo's giving him the declaration he required, bearing on the face of It that it was "free and spontaneous;" and Beaumarchais left him with the understanding that Clavijo was to be permitted if possible to make his peace with his betrothed.