Juan Bravo Murillo

Juan Bravo Murillo, a Spanish statesman, born at Frejenal de la Sierra in 1803. He studied theology, and afterward law, and began to practise in 1825. He was fiscal at Caceres from 1833 to 1835. In 1836 he founded at Madrid the Boletin de Jurisprudencia, the first law journal in Spain, and edited for the mode-rados El Porvenir, and in 1837 El Piloto. He became an influential member of the cortes in 1837, and upon the revolution of 1841 was proscribed and fled to France. He returned in 1843, but confined himself to his profession. In 1847 he entered the ministry of Narvaez, and when the latter resigned in 1850 took his place as prime minister, holding it as an extreme absolutist till 1852. He again had to fly after the revolution of 1854, but was recalled by the counter revolution of 1856. He has since held important diplomatic positions.

Juan Carreno De Miranda

Juan Carreno De Miranda, a Spanish painter, born in 1614, died in 1685. As a colorist, the Spaniards rank him with Titian and Vandyke. His principal paintings are a "Magdalen in the Desert," at Madrid; a "Holy Family," at Toledo; and a "Baptism of our Saviour," at Alcala de Henares.

Juan De Grijalva

Juan De Grijalva, a Spanish navigator, born at Cuellar in the latter part of the 15th century, slain by the Indians in Nicaragua, Jan. 21, 1527. He was intrusted by his uncle, Don Diego Velasquez, the first governor of Cuba, with the command of four vessels, which in the spring of 1518 sailed from Santiago de Cuba, to complete the discoveries which Fernandez de Cordova had made in Yucatan the preceding year. He coasted along the peninsula, and rounding it extended his explorations as far as the region of the Panuco, giving his name and that of his companion, Alvarado, to two rivers on the coast. His communication with the Aztecs was friendly, and so profitable that he was enabled to send back one of the ships freighted with gold, jewels, and other treasures. He afterward settled in Nicaragua, and was slain in the valley of Ulancho.

Juan De La Cueva

Juan De La Cueva, a Spanish poet, born in Seville about 1550, died about 1608. He wrote several dramas on national subjects; an epic (La conquista de la Betica, printed in 1603) on the conquest of Seville by St. Ferdinand, an unsuccessful imitation of Tasso's "Jerusalem Delivered;" and over 100 ballads (CoroFe-beo de romances historiales, Seville, 1587-'88), mostly taken from the histories of Greece and Rome; and only four or five from that of Spain. His fame rests more particularly upon his having been the first Spaniard to attempt didactic poetry; his poem, entitled Egemplar poetico, which he wrote in 1605, but which was first printed in 1774 in vol. viii. of the Parnaso espaflol, being the earliest and most original effort of the kind in Spanish.

Juan De Pareja

Juan De Pareja, a Spanish artist, born in the West Indies in 1610, or according to Cean Ber-mudez in Seville, of parents who were slaves, in 1606, died in Madrid in 1670. He accompanied Velazquez as his slave to Madrid in 1628, and mixed the colors and prepared the palette of the artist. Secretly studying the style of Velazquez, he soon painted creditable pictures, one of which attracted the attention of Philip IV. in a visit to the artist's studio, and resulted in the emancipation of Pareja. The slave became the pupil of his master, and imitated him so well that their pictures are sometimes confounded. His works include "The Calling of St. Matthew" at Aranjuez, "The Baptism of Christ" at Toledo, and some saints at Madrid.