of his youth, Señor Campillo says: "Our childhood friendship was
strengthened by our life in common, wearing as we did the same
uniform, eating at the same table, and sleeping in an immense hall,
whose arches, columns, and melancholy lamps, suspended at intervals, I
can see before me still.

"I enjoy recalling this epoch of our first literary utterance
(_vagido_), and I say _our_, for when he was but ten years old and I
eleven, we composed and presented in the aforesaid school (San Telmo)
a fearful and extravagant drama, which, if my memory serves me right,
was entitled Los _Conjurados_ ('The Conspirators'). We likewise began
a novel. I wonder at the confidence with which these two children, so
ignorant in all respects, launched forth upon the two literary lines
that require most knowledge of man, society, and life. The time was
yet to come when by dint of painful struggles and hard trials they
should possess that knowledge, as difficult to gain as it is
bitter!"[1]

[Footnote 1: Article on Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, by Narciso Campillo,
in La Ilustración Artística, pp. 358-360]

Shortly after the matriculation of young Becquer, the College of San
Telmo was suppressed by royal orders, and the lad found himself in the
streets. He was then received into the home of his godmother, Doña
Manuela Monchay, who was a woman of kind heart and much intelligence.
She possessed a fair library, which was put at the disposal of the
boy; and here he gratified his love for reading, and perfected his
literary taste. Two works that had considerable influence upon him at
this time were the Odes of Horace, translated by P. Urbano Campos, and
the poems of Zorrilla. He began to write verses of his own, but these