1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Forner, Juan Bautista Pablo

FORNER, JUAN BAUTISTA PABLO (1756–1799), Spanish satirist and scholar, was born at Mérida (Badajoz) on the 23rd of February 1756, studied at the university of Salamanca, and was called to the bar at Madrid in 1783. During the next few years—under the pseudonyms of “Tomé Cecial,” “Pablo Segarra,” “Don Antonio Varas,” “Bartolo,” “Pablo Ignocausto,” “El Bachiller Regañadientes,” and “Silvio Liberio”—Forner was engaged in a series of polemics with García de la Huerta, Iriarte and other writers; the violence of his attacks was so extreme that he was finally forbidden to publish any controversial pamphlets, and was transferred to a legal post at Seville. In 1796 he became crown prosecutor at Madrid, where he died on the 17th of March 1799. Forner’s brutality is almost unexampled, and his satirical writings give a false impression of his powers. His Oración apologética por la España y su mérito literario (1787) is an excellent example of learned advocacy, far superior to similar efforts made by Denina and Antonio Cavanilles; and his posthumous Exequias de la lengua castellana (printed in the Biblioteca de autores españoles, vol. lxiii.) testifies to his scholarship and taste.