He was born at Santander. In 1871-1872 he studied under Manuel Mil?i Fontanals at the University of Barcelona, then proceeded to the central University of Madrid. His academic successes was unprecedented; a special law was passed by the Cortes to enable him to become a professor at the age of twenty-two. Three years later he was elected a member of the Spanish Academy; but by this time he was well known throughout Spain.
His first volume, Estudios cr?icos sobre escritores monta?ses (1876), had attracted little notice, and his scholarly Horacio en Espa?l (1877) appealed only to students. He became famous, through his Ciencia espa?la (1878), a collection of polemical essays defending the national tradition against the attacks of political and religious reformers. The unbending orthodoxy of this work is even more noticeable in the Historia de los heterodoxos espa?les (1880-1886), and the writer was hailed as the champion of the ultramontane party. His lectures (1881) on Calder? established his reputation as a literary critic; and his work as an historian of Spanish literature was continued in his Historia de las ideas est?icas en Espa? (1881-1891), his edition (1890-1903) of Lope de Vega, his Antolog? de poetas l?icos castellanos (1890-1906), and his Origenes de la novela (1905).
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