The brevity and condensation
required by the drama were foreign to his genius; he could not help
trying to put too much into his stage pieces, and the unity of subject
was compromised.
The _School of Great Men_,[*] as he preferred to call his play at the
Odeon, carries the spectator back to the Spain of Philippe II.
Fontanares, a clever man of science but poor, and without influence,
has discovered the means of navigating by steam. His valet Quinola, a
genius in his way, resolves to aid his master, who, being in love, has
all the greater claim on his pity; and he contrives to present the
King with a petition in favour of Fontanares, and to obtain a ship for
an experiment to be made. But now professional jealousies combine with
love rivalries to thwart the inventor; and when, at last, the ship is
made to move by its own machinery, the honour of the success is
attributed to another. To avenge his wrongs, and the loss of his
betrothed, who is given to his rival and dies, he blows up the steamer
in presence of an assembled multitude, and quits his native land with
a courtezan who has conceived a liking for him and will provide him
with money to recommence his enterprise elsewhere.
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