DONOSO CORTES, JUAN, Marquis de Valdegamas (1809-1853), Spanish author
and diplomatist, was born at Valle de la Serena (Extremadura) on the 6th
of May 1809, studied law at Seville, and entered politics as an advanced
liberal under the influence of Quintana (q.v.). His views began to
modify after the rising at La Granja, and this tendency towards
conservatism, which became more marked on his appointment as private
secretary to the Queen Regent, finds expression in his _Lecciones de
derecho politico_ (1837). Alarmed by the proceedings of the French
revolutionary party in 1848-1849, Donoso Cortes issued his _Ensayo sobre
el catolicismo, el liberalismo, y el socialismo considerados en sus
principios fundamentales_ (1851), denouncing reason as the enemy of
truth and liberalism as leading to social ruin. He became ambassador at
Paris, and died there on the 3rd of May 1853. The _Ensayo_ has failed to
arrest the movement against which it was directed, and is weakened by
its extravagant paradoxes; but, with all its rhetorical excesses, it
remains the finest specimen of impassioned prose published in Spain
during the 19th century.