Moratalla

Moratalla, a town of eastern Spain, in the province of Murcia, 40 m. W.N.W. of the city of Murcia. Pop. (1900), 12,689. Moratalla is built on a mountainous peninsula, almost surrounded by the Grande and Benamor, small rivers which meet and flow eastward to join the Segura. The town is a labyrinth of narrow, crooked streets, and some of its houses are Moorish in character. Its chief buildings are the modern hospital and theatre, and the 17th-century church. It has manufactures of coarse cloth, spirits and soap. The nearest railway station is Calasparra, 6 m. east, on the Murcia-Albacete railway.

Moratin, Leandro Antonio Eulogio Meliton Fernandez De (1760-1828), Spanish dramatist and poet, the son of N. F. de Moratin, was born at Madrid on the 10th of March 1760. Though his poetical tastes were early developed, his father apprenticed him to a jeweller. At the age of eighteen Moratin won the second prize of the Academy for a heroic poem on the conquest of Granada, and two years afterwards he attracted more general attention with his LecciOn poetica, a satire upon the popular poets of the day. He was appointed secretary to Cabarrus on a special mission to France in 1787. On his return to Spain, Moratin was tonsured and presented to a sinecure benefice in the diocese of Burgos, and in 1786 his first play, ET Viejo y la nina, was produced at the Teatro del Principe. Owing to the opposition of the clerical party, it was speedily withdrawn. The prose comedy, El Café ó la comedic nueva, given at the same theatre six years afterwards, at once became popular. On the fall of Florida Blanca, Moratin found another patron in Godoy, who provided him with a pension and the means for foreign travel; he accordingly visited England, where he began a prose translation of Hamlet, printed in 1798 but never performed. From England he passed to the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and on his return to the Peninsula in 1796 was appointed official translator to the foreign office. In 1803 he produced El BarOn in its present form; originally written (1791) as a zarzuela, it was shamelessly plagiarized by Andres de Mendoza, but the recast, a far more brilliant work, still keeps the stage. It was followed in 1804 by La Mogigata, written between 1797 and 1803. This piece was favourably received, and an attempt to suppress it on religious grounds failed. Moratin's crowning triumph in original comedy was El Si las Ninas (1806), which was performed night after night to crowded. houses, ran through several Spanish editions in a year, and was soon translated into a number of foreign languages. In 1808 Moratin was involved in the fall of Godoy, but in 1811 accepted the office of royal librarian under Joseph Bonaparte - a false step, which alienated from him all sympathy and compelled him to spend his last years in exile. In 1812 his Escuela de los maridos, a translation of Moliere's Ecole des maris, was produced at Madrid, and in 1813 El Medico a Palos (a translation of Le Medecin malgre lui) at Barcelona. From 1814 to 182S Moratin lived in Italy and France, compiling a work on the early Spanish drama (Origenes del teatro espanol). He died at Paris on the 21st of June 1828.

The most convenient edition of his works is that given in vol. ii. of the Biblioteca de autores espanoles; this is supplemented by the Obras postumas (3 vols., Madrid, 1867-1868).

MORATIN, NICOLAS FERNANDEZ DE (1737-1780), Spanish poet and dramatist, was born at Madrid in 1 737. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Calatayud and afterwards studied law at the university of Valladolid. In 1772 he was called to the bar; four years afterwards he was nominated to the chair of poetry at the imperial college. He died on the 11th of May 1780. A partisan of French methods, Moratin published in 1762 his Desengano al teatro espanol, a severe criticism of the national drama, particularly of the auto sacramental; and his protests were partly responsible for the prohibition of autos three years afterwards (June 1765). In 1762 he also published a play entitled La Petimetra. Neither the Petimetra nor the Lucrecia (1763), an original tragedy still more strictly in accordance with French conventions, was represented on the stage, and two subsequent tragedies, Hormesinda (1770) and Guzman el Bueno (1777), were played with no great success. In 1764 Moratin published a collection of pieces, chiefly lyrical, under the title of El Poeta, and in 1765 a short didactic poem on the chase (Diana 0 arte de la caza). His "epic canto" on the destruction of his ships by Cortes (Las Naves de Cortes destruidas) failed to win a prize offered by the Academy in 1777, and was published posthumously (1785). But a better idea of Moratin's talent is afforded by his anacreontic verses and by his Carta histOrica sobre el origen y progresos de las fiestas de toros en Espana. His works are included in the Biblioteca de autores espanoles, vol. ii.