Ibnir Ghalib entitles one of his chapters, “Contentment of the soul

in contemplating the ruins of Andalusia.” For us this contemplation

suggests any thing but contentment. The Moor needed no lessons from

the past[317]--the traces of Carthaginian wealth and Roman power were

useless to him. He required no maxims, for he cultured no fallacies.

The Arabs united the two systems of the ancient world--the tribe and

colony. The results in public riches and individual well-being, neither

predecessors nor successors have rivalled or conceived. Such are the

lessons which we may learn in the city of the fandango and guitar,

whither we may have strayed only to bestow a passing glance to Lydian

steps, or a listening hour to Teian measures.

In regard to Moorish ruins, Seville disappointed me. The great mosque

has been demolished: the cathedral, indeed, occupies its site, but

why should the other have been destroyed? The Alcazar is by the

Sevillians extolled above the Alhambra; but, excepting the entrance,

it can be admired only as a copy by those who have seen the works of

the master. Originally it was a Moorish edifice, but it was remodelled

under Spanish kings, and is now undergoing repairs and painting in the

deplorable style of the specimens of Moorish plaster hung up in the

Museum of Madrid.[318] The term Cazar, or Cazaria, is derived from the

palace of the Cæsars; it was then associated with the Moorish god,

and thus acquired an impress of grandeur. A petition from a township,

imploring the Queen to take the government out of the hands of the

Cortes, places in antithesis _Alcazar_ and “_club_!”

The house of Pontius Pilate pretends to be nothing more than an

imitation; as such it is a splendid work. Its chief value is, in

recording the thought of the chieftain, who, after his pilgrimage to

the Holy Land, endeavouring to transfer to his native city the type of

Palestine--took the model of a Moorish palace for the habitation of the

Roman governor of Judæa.

Seville has been well chosen by Corneille as the scene of his “Cid.”

This title, and the reasons he puts in Ferdinand’s mouth for conferring

it on the young hero, show that he looked on the Moors as models for a

soldier and a knight. The character of the contest is pourtrayed with

no less accuracy than is preserved the simplicity of the ballad. The

Spaniards are inflamed against the Mussulman with none of the fanatic

spirit of the Eastern struggles and crusading times; yet the feelings

which naturally suggest themselves in a war between Infidels and

Christians, seemed needful for the purpose and the colouring of his

picture.

A street named _Calle de la Moreria_, or street of the quarter of the

Moors, is the record of the different treatment of that people by

Ferdinand the Saint, and Ferdinand the Catholic.

“Ferdinand, after the capture of Seville, divided the quarters of the

city among the various nations, provinces, and tribes:--one called

_Aduaress_, was inhabited by the Moors, who remained in the city after

the Conquest, or who came from Granada as auxiliaries to St. Ferdinand.

After the Conquest of Granada, these Moors were obliged to send

every year a certain number, to take part in the honours paid to St.

Ferdinand on the 30th of May; and they had to assist _at the Vigils and

Mass_, in _capuzes_, with green _caperotes_, with their crescents also

green, and they stood round the tumulus with white torches burning in

their hands. The Moreria existed down to 1502, when, by an order of the

Catholic king, all the Moors, inhabitants of Seville, were expelled the

kingdom, which order and the mode of execution are sufficiently curious

to be published here, as they have not been given by any author.

“The King and the Queen.--D. Juan di Silva, Count of Cifuenti, our

Alferez Mayor, and of our Council, and our Assistant for the very noble

city of Seville: We have agreed to order all the Moors to quit our

kingdoms, and we order you, that you cause this paper (carta) to be

published, and that you place in sequestration the mosques and other

common property of the Moors, and to see that the said mosques are

cleaned and shut up, and therein use the diligence that we know in you.

From the city of Seville, the twelfth day of the month of February,

one thousand five hundred and two. I, the King. I, the Queen. By order

of the King and the Queen, Miguel Perez de Almazâ.

“The Conde de Cifuenti, with his lieutenant, the Licenciado Lorenzo

Somero, with the public writer, Francisco Sigura, repaired on the same

day with a competent number of aguacils to the quarters of the Moors,

and having here assembled and being present Maestre Mohammed Recocho,

Maestre Mohammed Daiena, and Maestre Mohammed Saganche, and Ali Faza,

and Maestre Alunlie Aguja, and Ali Nuyun--Moors--showed to them and

read the royal order, which they kissed, and placed upon their heads in

sign of obedience.” They then opened the mosque, and proceeded to the

sequestration, and made oath that these were the whole of the _bienes

communes_, by God the all-powerful Creator of the heaven and the earth.

Then they passed all out of the city, and took possession of the

Æsario, adjoining the field of Santa Justa. And this was accomplished

with such expedition, that the expulsion is protocoled as completed on

the same day, 15th February, 1502.[319]

One of the canons of the cathedral remarked, “Whenever you disturb the

ground you come upon turbans: everywhere do the signs appear of the

heads of the Moors, above as well as below the earth, and in Andalusia

are their hearts still buried.”[320] But it is not in the midst of

joyous Seville that the image of such a contest can be called up: you

require ruins in loneliness--these you have a few miles distant, at

Alcala. There is the stamp of that fierce border war of many centuries.

It is, besides, a perfect study of military architecture. There may be

seen double tiers of guns, as on the broadside of a ship, the lower

embrasure no wider than the muzzle, having a slit above, in the form

of a cross, to aim by. There is also outside the walls, and all round,

as at Gibraltar and Malaga, an advanced work, on which guns were

mounted, at once multiplying the means of annoyance and protecting the

base of the walls from the enemy’s shot. This place has three distinct

internal defences, with deep ditches traversing them. It seemed all

hollowed out; cisterns or mattamores for corn occupy the centre. Close

to one of the walls, and at a part where the ground is low, there is a

large square opening, which must even now be fifty feet deep, though

a great quantity of rubbish has fallen in. A solitary tower at the

opposite point from the village projects beyond the circuit of walls:

the stories of halls or vaults, with large embrasures or windows in

the three sides, combine the light and airy prospect of a kiosk, with

the gloomy grandeur of a fortress. There the traveller that would muse

should go, and go alone, and ponder long.

The first object that meets the eye in approaching Seville,

is the Giralda, and it stands first in the estimation of the

inhabitants. Notwithstanding--or because of--an incongruous Spanish

superstructure,[321] an enormous bronze figure, fourteen feet high,

with a shield on the extended left arm, and a lance in the right hand,

is placed on the top--at once a statue and a weathercock--its apparent

inclination, as it revolves, gives to the tower a certain manner, a

gait and gesture, as it were, unlike any other, and makes it look like

a great cypress bending to the breeze.

During the siege, the Moors proposed to pull it down, as too sacred

to be left; but were prevented by the threat of St. Ferdinand, that

if they touched one stone, or rather brick, of it, he would not leave

one man alive. The singular name that belongs to it, is brought forth

deep from the Sevillian’s breast, and its tones linger on his lips.

It rivals the Immaculate Conception as an emblem and an ornament;

it is seen in the painted windows of the churches and cathedrals;

it is embossed on the chairs, embroidered on the dresses; prints of

it are suspended on the walls; it is to be found in the pictures of

the altar-pieces and the slabs of the pavement; it is copied in the

steeples of the surrounding towns; and, finally, it has given to

Seville her two patron saints. Two potter girls of Triana, martyrs in

Roman times--Santa Justa and Santa Rufina--were seen in a vision only

three centuries and a half ago, supporting the Giralda during a storm

and earthquake, and were enshrined as the tutelary saints. This event

is the subject of one of the most incongruous, though not the least

beautiful, of the pictures of Murillo.

This tower claims for its architect the supposed inventor of Algebra,

and it was raised by one of the most powerful of monarchs, Jacob the

Second, of the Almohades. It has been spared alike by the Vandalism

and fanaticism of conquest, the ravages of war, the lightning that

hath struck, and the earthquakes that have shattered the humbler

edifices around. It is the embellishment of Seville; her pride, her

standard-bearer, her nightly watch-tower, the plume of her mural

coronet, first caught by the eye of the stranger, and last seen. The

Giralda is said to be superior to the towers of Rabat and Morocco;

but there is no comparison either in the materials, the ornaments, or

dimensions.

On reaching the gallery, the clangour of bells strikes one, as

replacing the Muezzin call, “God is great. To prayers.” “Prayer is

better than sleep.” There are a dozen great bells, which send forth

the most discordant and unceasing peals, and the ringing of them is a

strange exhibition. They are swung round and round; the rope is allowed

to coil itself round the stock, or is jerked on the lip of the bell,

and the ringer springs up by stanchions in the wall to get a purchase,

and then throws himself down; or he allows himself to be carried by the

rope as it swings round outside. As I entered the gallery, I saw one of

the ringers thrown out, as I imagined, and expected, of course, that

he was dashed on the pavement below; I saw him the next moment perched

on the bell, smiling at my terror.

The belfry does, however, discharge as a steeple, several of the

functions to which it was appropriated as a minaret: the day, as in

Mussulman countries, is divided by prayer. When you ask in Morocco,

at what hour you are to arrive at such a place;--if they mean at

sunset, they will answer, “at Assar.” So other hours are marked by

the first prayer, or the mid-day prayer, and this is made known to

all, not only by the muezzin’s call, but also by a flag hoisted on the

minaret,--called _alem_. The Spaniards, in like manner, divide the time

by the prayers, the oracion, the animas, &c., the period of which is

announced generally, in the south of Spain, from the towers that the

Musselmans built for the same purpose.

The view from the Giralda invited me to ascend it daily during my stay.

Whether it was calm or windy, whether in sunshine or shade, the charm

was the same in its diversities: the lightness of the atmosphere in

every change, justified the saying of the Sevillians, “Our climate is

fit to raise the dead.”

From this height it requires no great effort to replace, in

imagination, the dead level by an arm of the sea; the tide still

rises four feet in the river, though fifty miles from the sea.[322]

It is only thirty years since it has been deprived of the monopoly of

the commerce of the New World; the caravels and argosies of Santa Fé

deposited upon that bank their precious freights, as is still recorded

in the name of the round tower by the water,--_sorride oro_.

HOSPITAL DE LA SANGRE.

This is a noble edifice, composed of several grand courts and of two

stories, the lower one for summer, and the upper one for winter. I

think I may say that to each patient is allotted at least four times

as much space as in any similar European establishment, and the very

troughs in which the dirty linen is washed are marble: the patients

have two changes of clean linen in the week. The kitchens are all

resplendent with painted tiles and cleanliness, and there seemed

abundance of excellent food. In these institutions, in Spain, the

inmates are completely at home. Soft and blooming girls, with downcast

look and hurried step, were attending upon the poor, the maimed, and

the suffering. The Lady-Directress had told the servant who accompanied

me, to bring me, after my visit, to her apartment, which was a hall in

one of the corners of the building: she said she had heard that England

was celebrated for its charity, and asked if our poor and sick were

better off than in Spain. I was obliged to confess that the reverse was

the case. She was, however, better informed than I at first suspected.

She asked me if it was not true that we hired mercenaries to attend on

the sick and abstained from performing that duty ourselves; and if our

charity was not imposed as a tax? She told me that there were eight

hundred of her order in Spain; that it was the only one that had not

been destroyed; that none were admitted but those of noble birth or of

gentle blood; and that they took all the vows except that of seclusion,

and in lieu of it took that of service to the poor and sick. The St.

Isabelle, of Murillo, painted for them, was the model of their order.

The Hospital de la Sangre was founded by a woman.

THE CARTUJA.

This interesting convent is across the water. It is now a pottery, and

the property of an Englishman, who very obligingly accompanied me over

the works. I never saw the Spanish people to more advantage: they were

models, in both sexes, of classic and Andalusian beauty. Their costume

was peculiarly well-preserved; and the work--itself cleanly--was

carried on in the midst of noble structures, surrounded with the finest

chiseling, the grandeur of vaults and the gorgeousness of azuleos. I

inquired for the sepulchral stone of St. Hermangildo, and after some

search, and the removal of a heap of stones, we found it let into

the wall at the east end of the church. The proprietor, on my urgent

entreaty, promised he would have it conveyed to some place of safety.

I was anxious to get at the feelings of the people working in this

sacred edifice. Although familiarity had destroyed any strong

impressions, they all seemed to regret the splendour of their domicile,

and expressed gratitude to their master for fitting up one of the

chapels for public service. He himself told me that he had at first

preserved the church of worship, but finding that it excited the

congregation that the monastery should have been so disposed of, and

have become the property of a heretic, he deemed it prudent to exert

his rights and convert the church to the uses of the manufactory. As

they were drawing a distinction between the church and the monastery,

he thought the time might come when they would reassert their claim to

the possession of the monastery as well as to the church. If I had had

no other occasion to judge of the prospect of future tranquillity for

Spain, this would have sufficed to assure me that, while this intrusion

upon the monastic property endures, no settlement will be made. In

England and in France, church confiscation was accompanied with a

change of belief, and those possessed either of hereditary influence or

of political power were the acquirers.

No influential body has profited by the confiscation, or risen to

power by the possession, of this wealth. The wealth itself has

disappeared--it was the reaction from the sale of church property that

restored France to the community of Rome. The sale of the property of

a church not upset; the penury and suffering of its clergy (a clergy

which sits in the confessional and administers the viaticum, doubtless

exercises its power of quickening the religious sense of Spain,

especially as the manifestations of it are suppressed)--may in like

manner produce a reaction.

The Cortes receives no petition upon the subject of church property,

and the Crown listens to no prayers against the Cortes.

The tithes never were supposed to be appropriated to the church by the

State. The tithes in each spot had a special and chartered origin.[323]

The church was the continuation of the Mozarabic worship, and was

supported by obtubia and not by tithes. It was not the tenth but the

twentieth part. The tithe was in fact legally fixed at five per cent.

of the gross produce.

From this tithe the clergy paid a revenue to the State of their annual

cures and professions; it amounted some years ago to 180,000,000 reals.

The church now figures in the budget as a charge of 140,000,000; the

difference amounts to one half the entire revenue of Spain, and the

property itself has been wholly swallowed up. This country suffers at

present only from the central government. The clergy, as a corporation,

presents a check: the dues paid by the church would have been

sufficient for all the purposes of government.

These unfortunate proceedings are laid at England’s door, as being

the patron of the minister who introduced the change; she is also

charged with supporting antinational governments with loans; which,

while giving a temporary triumph to a hollow faction, impose permanent

obligations and disgrace. Nor is it one of the least evil consequences

that Spain, like other countries similarly situated, is considered in

England as under an obligation to her.

[316] She was among the first to rise against the

French.

“To an acute but indifferent observer, Seville,

as we found it on our return, would have been a

most interesting study. He could not but admire the

patriotic energy of the inhabitants, their unbounded

devotion to the cause of their country, and the

wonderful effort by which, in spite of their passive

habits of submission, they had ventured to dare both

the authority of their rulers, and the approaching

bayonets of the French.”--DOBLADO’S _Letters_,

p. 441.

[317] Burkhardt characterizes the traditional

institutions of the Desert as “so well adopted, so

natural, and so simple, that every nation not reduced

to slavery, if thrown at large on the wide desert,

might be expected to adopt the same.”--_Notes on the

Bedouins_, p. 214.

Burkhardt has here so forgotten the European, as to

identify freedom and sense. Knowledge is to God, what

science is to language, or mud to water. The fountain

in each is pure, each step in “advance,” brings

corruption: the last point, unless where there is a

return upon itself, is always the worst.

[318] The Duke and Duchess de Montpensier took

up their abode in the Alcazar, with the design of

restoring it. Furniture was ordered from Africa. One

generation more and the Alhambra will be scarcely

traceable, and the bastard fashions now springing up,

will be to subsequent times the type of the Moors!

[319] Historia de Sevilla Gonzales de Leon, p. 367.

It appears from the same work, that the Jews came and

lived with the Moors.

[320] See Gonzales de Leon, p. 519.

[321] “The rich filigree belfry added in 1568,

by Fernando Ruiz, is elegant beyond description.”--

_Handbook_, vol. i. p. 248.

[322] Heeren, in discussing the claims of Seville

to be the original Tarshish, or the earliest settlement

in the West, says, “as it was not likely that these

traders should have ventured _so far_ inland.”

[323] Origen de los Rentàs, p. 192, 217.

CHAPTER II.

THE CATHEDRAL.

This building has neither façade, spire, nor dome; it gives no

external signs of grandeur, is surrounded by no open space to

exhibit its dimensions; there is nothing to raise or satisfy

expectation,--following the plan of the Mosque, which it has replaced,

and which rose on the ruins of the Roman temple, its predecessor. The

cathedral externally is lost in the mass of buildings which forms a

parallelogram of 600 by 500 feet, across which it runs; the remainder

being made up of a parish church, a parterre of orange trees, the

Giralda tower, the sacristy, and offices. As seen from a distance with

its flat roof, it appears like a large house in a village; for in the

clearness of that sky distances are lost. When it is pointed out as the

cathedral, any anticipations you may have indulged in are sobered down.

The mind of the spectator is thus artfully managed, and the majesty of

the building is veiled.

Till you stand within its vaults--I entered not by its own portal,

but by the parish church which opens into it--I thought I was in

the cathedral, and looked around in surprise and disappointment. I

presently perceived an opening, and wandering in the direction, I

thought I was advancing up the nave--it was the width that was before

me! Now the tower-like pilasters opened all around; but the limit I

could not see, for the view is intercepted by the built-up choir.

There is no one point from which all is to be seen--you have the sense

of the vastness of the whole wherever you look, but which is nowhere

paraded for you to admire. You wander around to look for what is to be

seen,--to find what is to be admired--as you would through a forest of

trees.

Raised upon the lines of a mosque and a temple, this building differs

wholly from Gothic churches;--there is no lengthened nave--no

cross;--it is a parallelogram supported by rows of pilasters, like the

Temple of Phyle. The scantling of a church is only to be found in the

distribution of the roof, ascending higher in the nave and transept,

so as to make the cross. Six rows of pilasters traverse it in length,

which support seven rows of roofs or vaults. The nave and transept

are 120 feet in height; the two aisles adjoining it on each side are

100; and the two outer aisles are lower, and divided into chapels. The

centre vault above the high altar is 142 feet. At the eastern extremity

it opens into the Lady Chapel, itself a spacious church; while another,

the sacristy, adjoining it to the south, is reached by a passage. The

chapels conceal the altar and shroud the paintings, and their gratings

seem to close in dens; so that the edifice, excepting the choir, is as

a cavern. The stone is without carving or monument; there is no line

save what belongs to the construction:--the pillars ascend, the arches

join as if the rock had thus fashioned itself; the only exception

is the slight tracery of the balustrade of the triforium, and the

fret-work of the graining of the central and adjoining vaults. But,

contrasting with their grey dulness, the floor is in slabs of marble,

alternately black and white in squares and lozenges.

The chapels have their own windows. The body of the church has two

clerestory rows, one in the nave, one in the second side-aisle above

the chapels, besides a Catherine wheel in each corresponding gable.

They correspond: there is one to each vault--their lines are in perfect

symmetry with the vaults and columns; they are deeply coloured and

furnished with curtains, by which the light is regulated, and, when

requisite, the sun on the eastern and southern sides excluded. What

we all feel regarding the “management” of the light of a painting I

now saw in an edifice. How improved its merits--how magnified its

vastness--the effects of colossal magic lanterns played around!

Here presided the spirit of the Moors; the gloom in which they delight;

the deep colour of the admitted rays, repeating the figures and tints

of their gorgeous walls, and streaming with a sweet yet solemn beauty

on their graceful ornaments. These last, indeed, were wanting, and

their Sevillian pupils were determined to show what colour and the sun

alone could do. As he travels round, looking in from the different

sides and windows, a thousand beauties reveal themselves with all the

changes of breaking or departing day.

Within this living rock of Gothic grandeur, one feels the nearest

approach to the sublimity of the conception of the mosque, imitated

by the Arab from the Desert, and the heavens between which his lot

has been cast. The high altar has no gorgeous canopy, as in St.

Peter’s; there are no gems, as in the chapel of the Medici; neither

mosaic nor painting nor gilding meet the eye;--it is surrounded on

the sides and in front by a lofty iron gilded grating, through which

you can distinguish a screen filling up the width of the chancel, and

rising seventy or eighty feet above the altar. This space is divided

into compartments by four horizontal and five perpendicular lines,

each of which contains a group of figures, in alto and basso relievo,

diminishing as they ascend, the four figures coming fully out, and the

accessories being traced in slight relief behind. Of these groups there

are thirty-six, the principal figures two-thirds the size of life,

and over each a Gothic canopy: they are separated by Gothic spaces,

with niches and statues of various sizes. The cusps are enriched and

enlivened with fine branches and foliage. Over the whole projects a

cornice composed of the Twelve Apostles in niches, and the descent

from the cross in the centre. These figures are the size of life. This

cornice is a frame-work of Gothic niches for holding the statues,

while branches are interlaced through its dentated spires and cusps.

It fails only in the curve beneath the projection to a corridor which

sustains the Twelve Apostles, and which correspond with hexagons. Here

would have been peculiar scope for the adaptation either of the Gothic

pendants, or the Moorish stalactite.

On the top, in the centre, is Christ on the cross, and the two Marys

kneeling. These are a little larger than life. The groups contain

between 300 and 400 figures. There are 200 small statues on the Gothic

pinnacles dividing them: seventeen statues the size of life are on

the cornice and in the group above. The whole space, which is above

4000 square feet, is about equally divided between groups and statues,

and tracery and foliation. The ornaments display the beauties of the

pointed Gothic style, with the richness of the Moresque white, serving

as the frame-work to the exquisite Italian groupings. During three

generations it passed from master to pupil, and from father to son, and

the design was unbroken; and, with the one exception I have mentioned,

the whole is perfect as if it had been dreamt by a Cellini at night and

executed in the morning. When you look upon it, you forget even the

cathedral.

I was able to get the great doors opened at the period when the

cathedral is closed, and thus see the whole mass at once, and

unimpeded. The most distinct sight is from the organ-loft, between

twelve and one o’clock, when the side-light falls on the left wing,

and slightly illumines the heads over the screen, and you may trace

the wonderful minuteness of the ornaments. But all these glimpses are

nothing to be compared to the unearthly effect of the setting-sun, when

the light through the St. Catherine Wheel over the great door streams

full upon its different shades.

I was about to say that ten minutes on this spot, at this hour, is

worth a journey to Seville; but it is vain to rate the worth of what

stands alone, and which furnishes a new standard to rate the resources

of art, the genius of man, and the beauty of nature. All are here

combined within the majesty of a temple consecrated to the highest aims

of life, and the hopes of eternity. This effect of the evening sun I

thus described in a letter, at the moment of witnessing it:--

“I was passing the cathedral nearly at sunset. I went in intending

merely to pass through: it was very dark--the light from the western

windows streamed like a phantasmagoria. I got the sacristan to let

me into the choir, and I sat down on the archbishop’s throne at the

bottom of the chancel, opposite the high altar, with my back to the

light, which, passing over the choir, fell full on the upper part

of the screen. It was not white light, but deeply-coloured, and the

distance from the window blended the tints, so that it came like a

rainbow-cloud, and the groups passed through every variety of hue.

The light shifted as it changed; it moved, ascending always to other

groups, and in the gloom they shone like visions in the sky. The birth,

fall, and redemption of the human race, was the story of that wall.

The rays then ascended, and caused to shine forth the Apostles, and

finally the Calvary was brought to light. The kneeling Marys appeared,

not cased in tracery or canopied in Gothic fret-work,--the depths of

the temple were beyond them;--then the sacrifice of the cross, limb by

limb; came forth, and just as the light reached and showed the outlines

of the Saviour’s head and face, averted from its glow, a peal of a

distant organ echoed through the roofs, and a moment after voices,

as of angels in the clouds, supplied the tones of praises which the

overpowered lips of the beholder refused to utter. The light was for a

moment lost in the intervening space, and then struck on the groined

ribs of the arches above, changing them to rainbows. The orb of the sun

touched the horizon; the rays glowed fiery red and remotely yellow, and

then all was grey--the vision was gone--the natural light brought back

the earth. But I am not recovered, and write now, still tremulous under

the unearthly glow of that departing sun--the sudden burst of that

choral peal.”

It was days before I could deliberate. I was distracted between the

effects it presented and the thoughts it inspired. The vistas of aisles

upon aisles; the beauteous curves; the tall aspiring lines; the dark

embrowning shades! There was light, but it was enshrined in gloom,

and was ever undergoing change as the sun went round, or the clouds

flitted across,--I went there to expose my mind to its influence, as

we set plants in the sun that they may grow. It is sublime--there is

nothing for display; it is simple--there is nothing for effect; it

is harmonious, for it is all alike and true to itself. Its vastness

would not be grand without its symmetry, nor its beauty harmonious

without its size;--magnificent in its simplicity, manifold in its

unity, it is but man’s performance, yet it elevates our conception of

God’s chief work. Yet our “advanced age” can only gaze with stupid

bewilderment[324] on achievements such as these, whether of art or

polity.

This glorious cavern, during the Holy Week, is decked out in crimson

brocade. In the centre of the nave the monument itself, an imposing

structure, is reared; and the high altar, dark and solemn throughout

the remainder of the year, presents a blaze of light before a shrine

of silver: and then within these walls and from that temple, the bell

tolls and the horn echoes, and before the altar is heard the click

of the castanet, and seen the solemn dance of Jewish and classical

antiquity.

This cathedral is unrivalled in several other respects. It possesses

the finest organ, vestry, and sacristy in the world; the largest amount

of silver plate and jewels: the paintings are of greater value and

number than in any other church; the largest work, or rather monument,

in silver, in the world, is the _Gloria_, placed behind the high altar

in the Holy Week: it is twenty-five feet in height; it was made from

the first-fruits of the mines of America, and saved during the war from

French sacrilege.

I did not fully estimate this cathedral till I entered that of York.

The nave of the one is not equal to the aisles of the other. At York

there is but one aisle, and the flat wall stops the sight immediately

beyond it. The double side-aisles at Seville are equal in height to the

nave and transept at York. Three cathedrals of York might stand, as

to width, in that of Seville. In York there is more glass than wall,

and these are whitewashed: its windows are its glory--their absence

is the splendour of Seville. The vastness of the one is increased by

its gloom, the size of the other diminished by its glare: the one may

excite admiration, curiosity--the other inspires awe. The want of

uniformity in the building and arches at York, brings into evidence

the harmony of the Seville church; for the perfect Gothic[325] reigns

throughout, although four centuries elapsed between its foundation and

completion. In York, the windows and the arches are more acute, the

vault more obtuse. The difference indeed is slight, but is quite enough

to shock the eye when fresh from the unblemished symmetry of the other.

In the lower part of the screen separating the chancel of York from

the nave, the fifteen British kings, from William I. to Henry VI., are

placed in niches under Gothic canopies. Suppose this row of figures

with infinitely more luxurious embellishments, extended a third in

length, and expanded upwards by four or five additional stories, and

you would then have an idea of the _retablo_ high altar of Seville.

When we look on the tombs, the Nile, the heaps of Babylon, the symmetry

of the Erectheum, or the pillared precipices of Syracuse, we are

lifted into the times of those who have left these traces of skill

and greatness. Had the Sevillians disappeared from the earth, in what

rank should we have placed them? The ancient claims of Britain rest on

Westminster Hall; the revived aspirations of the fatherland of Germany

clusters around Cologne; the glory of the Church of the West is St.

Peter’s, as St. Sophia was of that of the East; yet are each outdone

and all surpassed by the work of a provincial corporation, who chanced

one day to resolve they should “build such a cathedral that future

ages would call them mad.” No monarch ordered the plan, no empire

furnished the means. This masterpiece was planned and reared by hands

unknown; the wealth was furnished by hard-earned gains and persevering

parsimony. Well may the Andalusian speak of his “kingdom,” not his

province. What means “_great nations_” when a province can accomplish

such works?[326] When the arts flourished in Italy, there were great

men and small states; so in Spain, the age of art reveals the

independence which belonged to her provinces. What was the universal

monarchy of Philip II., when the Cabildo (the Arab tribe) which raised

the cathedral without his aid, existed despite his power?

A modern English traveller[327] regrets that so much wealth should thus

lie unproductive, and suggests its employment _to put an end_ (he wrote

at the time) to the civil war--that is, to extinguish the liberty of

the Basques! Was an Englishman alone to be found to propose the robbery

of one of these provinces to aid in _the treacherous design against

another_?

[324] “Ici l’œuvre seule de l’homme suffit pour écraser

l’homme.”--A. DUMAS.

[325] The perfect Gothic is the arch composed of two

segments of a circle described from the spring of the opposite

arch, as a centre; and the proportion of the span to the

height--a point not noted in any work upon architecture--is

at Seville in the diameter of the circle from the impact of

the arch to the floor.

[326] “Aujourd’hui, parce que nostre France n’obéit qu’à

un seul roy nous sommes contraints, si nous voulons parvenir

à quelque honneur, de parler son langage; autrement nostre

labeur, tant fut-il honorable et parfait, serait estimé peu

de chose on peut estre totalement mesprisé.”--ROUSARD,

_Abr. de l’Art Poet._ p. 1628.

[327] The author of “A Summer in Andalusia.”

CHAPTER III.

SPANISH PAINTING.

One is accustomed to think of Spanish artists as pupils only, even

when rivals of the great masters with whom we are familiar. Such, at

least, was my impression, and accordingly, no less was my surprise and

suspense than delight, at the first glance at the “Murillo Chamber,” at

Seville. The picture which faced me, as I entered, was Christ bending

from the cross to embrace St. Felix, of Cantalicio--I might have

taken it for Vandyke: next came a St. Joseph, equally admirable, yet

different; then a San Leandro--the one might have been from the pencil

of Dominichino, the other of Titian; and so I turned, from picture to

picture, finding new rivals to every standard and style of excellence.

The question then arose of comparison between the Spanish, the Italian,

and Flemish schools. Afterwards, at Madrid, I visited repeatedly the

Spanish collections, to possess myself thoroughly with them before

visiting the Italian and Flemish galleries. A severer test I could

not apply, for the gallery of the foreign schools, at Madrid, is the

richest in the world. Here are the grander compositions of Vandyke.

One of Raphael, the _Spasimo_, might, if in the Vatican, displace from

its throne the Transfiguration. Three or four masterpieces, besides

ten others, are from Raphael’s pencil, and form a collection of his

works equal to that of the Vatican. Of Titian, there is a gallery in

itself--no less than forty paintings all on a large scale. Amongst

these is the celebrated one of “Fruitfulness;” a flock of cherubs,

just as you may see chickens collected under an inverted basket in the

streets of any Spanish town, and which, if anything, would eclipse

or rival Murillo in the gracefulness and variety of his infantine

conceptions. The result of the comparison was to relieve me from the

restraint of habit, and I could, with conviction and boldness now

assert, that in painting, Spain has no rival.

The Spanish school is most various; but in all its varieties it

is natural. It has no particular manner:--manner is no more than

systematic or constitutional failing.[328] It is the error to which a

man is liable, and which, when he founds a system and instructs others,

is more readily caught by his pupils than his merits,--a colourless

and unblemished glass is invisible. We become sensible of its presence

by its changing the hue or distorting the ray. And so manner in

painting either perverts or obscures nature.

Nature, in her varieties, has a counterpart in the Spanish school. She

is represented darkly in Ribera and Roelas, mildly in Cano, richly in

Morales, boldly in Zurbaran, brightly in Velasquez, divinely in Murillo.

The school of Spain is solemn. The subjects which were alone worthy to

be immortalized, were those which pertained to immortality, and art

was dignified no less in its application than its powers. Painting

was a religious exercise. The enthusiasm of art was linked to fervour

of faith. The studio was an oratory, and “each work was commenced and

prosecuted with fasting and prayer.”[329] The lords were the convents;

the inmates were sons at once of the founder and of the peasant. For

these Spanish art exercised her calling, not to please the caprice of

a virtuoso, or to tapestry the walls of a Sybarite. Seville or Cordova

presented no Flemish pot-houses. In the productions of their masters,

there was none of the extravagant mythology of a Rubens, or the more

finished lasciviousness of a Titian; no dissecting-room of a Michael

Angelo; none of the finery of a Paolo Veronese. There were neither

allegories, portraits, nor giants wrestling with the rocks.

The stranger who visits only Madrid will be surprised at such a

description, for he has there seen what is called the “Spanish Rooms,”

filled with portraits, allegories, extravagances, dwarfs, heathen gods,

and historical compositions, and these constitute in his eyes the

masterpieces of Spanish art. The reason is this; that at Madrid are

collected the paintings of Velasquez, who is so far Spanish only as the

want of manner makes him so. Born in Seville, he became a Madrileño,

and a parasite. His pictures are all at the capital, and in the style

suited to the taste of foreigners. The Spaniards of the capital esteem

their painter, and are reacted upon by the estimation in which he is

held by foreigners.

The thought in all things comes before the execution. What would the

work of him who chiselled the Apollo Belvidere have been, if applied to

the person of a Souter Johnny? So the art of Velasquez was expended on

Philips and abortions. His paintings are common-place domestic scenes,

or they are classical, and there he parodies the poets of Greece and

travesties their gods. His chief works are beautiful caricatures in

oil, without satire and without fun. Before returning to Murillo and

Seville, I must say a few words of his chief works.

_Vulcan’s Forge_ is an exquisitely finished group of naked Spaniards,

with arms, breasts, shoulders, and loins developed. They are heavy

below, as if trampers, not blacksmiths; nor have they been hardened

and bronzed by exposure to the air, the furnace, or the sun: they have

had their clothes taken off within the hour: the shirts must have

been filthy; the bodies are unwashed. The picture is an exposure

of nakedness. The walls of the place, and the manners, and the

countenances, would appear rather an effort to unidealize the Greek,

than to raise the modern to a conception of ancient poetry. In it there

is the genius of painting, not the painting of a man of genius.

_The Belidores._ Drunkards; or, Bacchus among his Companions.--These

are Castilian peasants engaged in a most un-Spanish debauch. One naked,

and bearing a classic wreath, personates Bacchus, with a maudlin

solemnity on a sensual countenance. Another presents a full face of

coarse and stupid laughter, and wears on his head something between

a Spaniard’s sombrero and an Irish hat. This is the picture Wilkie

selected from out the treasures of Madrid, to admire, to study, to

imitate; copying and recopying it, and so fixing in his own mind the

physiognomy of the laughing drunkard with the Irish hat, as thence to

bring forth a numerous progeny, sometimes with a hat more, sometimes

less, the worse for wear.

_The Spinners._ A Flemish picture, as seen through a magnifying glass:

the scene such as Teniers or Ostade might have selected. Two women,

a young and an old one, are sitting spinning at the wheel. Between

them the back shop is seen with customers and tapestry exposed for

sale--and, therefore, this is a painting highly admired by the English.

The back-ground is remarkable for its light, or rather for the shades;

for painting, like the magic lantern, produces brightness by shutting

out the light. Wilkie said of Velasquez, “he paints the very air we

breathe;” just so a clear and perfect mirror might be described as

glass. One of the pictures of the same master has been called “The

Theology of Painting,” and another, “The Philosophy of Light.” His

perspectives and distances are not rendered by lines, or by any

peculiarity of construction or drawing. He put on the canvas what he

saw.

If it is wonderful to see a limb or a figure, even when all the picture

is consecrated to that effort, break forth, as it were, from the dead

surface and rise towards you, how much more to behold that canvas fly

open and spread back, so that by the aid of a tremulous ray, breaking

across it here and there, you may see around and distinguish things,

places, and persons! This is the triumph of the art of painting, and

here Velasquez stands alone.

_The Studio._--Here, like one of those vaudevilles, in which the wings

of a stage are represented, and you hear the plaudits of another

audience “within”--the artist is seen at the corner of his picture,

the back of it being towards you. There are a dog, dwarfs, and a

lady-in-waiting in attendance on an infantine Infanta, who is standing

for her portrait. The presence of the royal parents is signified

by another stage-claptrap--their reflection in a mirror. All the

figures are splendid as separate parts, but there is no dignity in any

expression, or any purpose in the whole. When Philip saw this picture,

he said, “One thing is wanting,” and taking the palette and the brush,

he traced the cross of St. Jago on the artist’s breast.

_The Surrender of Breda_--or the Picture, as it, is called, of the

Lances,--from the number and the thickness of the forest of these that

appear to the right. This is indeed a grand composition. It owes its

power to its being a portrait and a history of the chief figure. The

noble and chivalrous Spinola, with an expression of courteous grief, is

bending down, and laying his hand upon the shoulder of his commonplace

and stern, though vanquished, opponent. The exaltation of triumph

is subdued. The victor’s thoughts are with the unfortunate. What a

representation of victory! Here, for once, the correctness of the eye

has supplied the place of the sight of the mind, and his pencil, like

Allan’s in the Polish Exiles, was above himself.

The last I shall notice is his Christ upon the Cross,--the only picture

of this description, with one exception, which I have found among

seventy. It is an immortal work.

I cannot quit the Gallery of Madrid without some notice of an incident

which fixed two pictures especially on my memory in the description

of the Gallery. The two subjoined pictures will be found in Murray’s

Hand-book, “No. 121,--_Prometheus_, a finely painted picture of GORE

and BOWELS; _such alone as could be conceived by a bull-fighter_, and

_please a people whose sports are blood and torture_. How different

from the same subject by the poetical Titian, See No. 787.” “No. 787,

_Prometheus_,”--compare the _poetical treatment by our Italian_, with

121, the BUTCHER PRODUCTION of the practical Spaniard, Ribera: it is

“Æschylus to Torquemada.” I fancied, having examined the two pictures,

that the writer had mistaken the one for the other; I therefore

returned to the Museum, Guidebook in hand, and remained satisfied that

it was the deliberate purpose of the writer to represent the pictures

as he has done.

The _Prometheus_ of Titian (121), lies on his back on the earth, with

the heels in the air: the top of the head is the lowest part of the

figure, and towards _the spectator_;--_the face is consequently not

seen_. The hero of Æschylus first endures reproach in silent scorn,

and then bursts forth in indignation, claiming unbounded merit for his

works.[330] He stands, his face to his accusers and to heaven. Here is

a man lying on his back! was thought or suffering to be expressed in a

head of shaggy hair? How treat with paint a subject poetically without

action and without feature? This, Prometheus! the _fore-thinker_--this,

the stealer of fire from heaven! It is a corpse revived and cast upon

the rocks; and the picture, if that of a poet, must have been designed

to represent the deluge. The only animated portion of the composition

is the eagle--he is] the predominating figure perched upon the body;

for by the manner of the fastenings, the man, if not quite dead, could

easily have driven him away. The Prometheus of Æschylus is bound so

that the winged dog of Jupiter may come undisturbed to his uninvited

daily feast. This is no eagle; it is a vulture feeding on carrion: the

colouring is from the dissecting-room--but not the anatomy. The bird

has laid bare an enormous surface of the putrid flesh, somewhere about

the breast, where there could be no such exposure of muscle, and to

which, moreover, the eagle’s commission did not extend. Such is “the

poetical treatment by our Italian.”

In No. 787, the Spanish master has painted a man full of life, not

lying where he has been tossed, but held where he is bound. His body

writhes; one hand supports him off the ground, the other is raised

either in agony or supplication. The drawn lineaments of the face and

the expanded mouth, make you listen for the cry it is about to utter,

or which has died away. The tormentor is without his reach, and is

_unseen_--you may distinguish where he is, but you have to strain the

sight to penetrate the gloom in which he broods;--there is no doubt of

the presence of the one, or of the cause of the agony of the other; for

from the slightly gashed _side_,[331] a filament is being drawn away.

This is the “blood-battered subject,” the “butcher production of gore

and bowels” of our Spaniard.

Ribera’s Prometheus would not stand were a Daniel brought to judgment,

for the eagle takes a Shylock’s share, having no more right to the

entrail, which he is suffered to pilfer by the Spaniard, than to the

carrion on which he is gorged by the Italian.

Who ever painted such children as Murillo?--the cherubs of Raphael

are statuettes; those of Rubens, fœtuses; Murillo’s are children and

cherubs. The brood is as prolific as the type is beautiful--golden,

rosy, dimpled, sporting in troops, or flying in flocks, and then

gathered into his canvas--light as the air; bright as the rainbow, yet

of flesh and blood; full of life and grace, of vigour and ease, of

health and gladness.

Who ever painted such virgins? The Madonnas of Italy are matrons

and mothers. Mary holds her Child, or she gazes on Him as she shows

Him,--it is maternal love. The Marys of Murillo are scarcely past

the verge of childhood; the cheeks are full and ruddy; the form is

plump. There is the ethereal, but it is in the expression: the face

is upturned, the large eye raised, and the mouth half open, the hands

pressed across the breast. The figure is erect--the size natural. They

are never the same to look upon, and yet each can only be described

in the same words as the rest. These bright Virgins in the sky, these

laughing cherubs in the clouds, fill the canvas of Murillo with joy and

innocence.

The gallery of Seville consists of a convent and its church. The rooms,

cloisters, and corridors are all lined with paintings; the church

is, in like manner, filled with them, high and low and all around.

One chamber is set apart for Murillo: in it eighteen or nineteen

of his chief works, nearly all the size of life, are collected. In

reviewing them at an interval of nineteen months, it is impossible

for me to say to which I would give the preference. One he used to

call “_my_ picture.” It is the St. Thomas of Villanueva, Archbishop of

Valencia, distributing alms. It draws neither on the tender nor the

ideal, and the selection indicates not the judgment of the artist,

but the disposition of the man. “The Adoration of the Shepherds,”

is, in colouring and conception, not unlike the “Repose in Egypt” of

Correggio, at Parma.

Santa Justa and Rufina sustaining the Giralda, is beautifully executed,

but incongruous and out of nature, and has neither the pure tints nor

the deep dyes of the painter. The celebrated Señora de la Servilleta

is a gipsy woman of Triana. I have mentioned these two as the pictures

which pleased me the least; although in the St. Felix receiving the

Child from the Virgin, how charmingly are infancy, young womanly

beauty, and ripe old age grouped and pourtrayed! It is three pictures,

not one. That of St. Antonio is fervour without fanaticism. Leandro

is majestic and triumphant prelacy, in Venetian brocade, under an

oriental sun. Like to it are the two ideal portraits, or rather real

portraits, under the names of Leandro and Isidore in the sacristy of

the cathedral. There are three Conceptions--_una de diversâ_--blooming

maidens in the same attitude, arrayed in white and blue, with angels

in the clouds; and yet there is no monotony. They have the serenity

of beauty of the Sevillian maidens, by whom Murillo’s pencil was

inspired; but the fulness of the lower part of the face reminded me

of the women of modern Rome--the grave, dark-eyed, thoughtful Romans.

The Saint Joseph with the Infant Jesus is a high-minded Jew, and the

child, a prodigy. This picture recalls one in the cathedral which I

may here notice, as in speaking of that building I could think of

nothing but itself. The picture I mean is, the “Guardian Angel.” An

angel leads a child and points to heaven: the figures are less than

life. The picture is dark, the tints are not clear, the outline not

distinct: there is no grace in the form of either, no beauty in the

face; yet in this consists the triumph of the master--the inward mind

shines through the veil, and you are sent at once to the inspiration

that has descended, and to the innocence that looks up. This picture

is an admirable exponent of the imaginative temperament of Murillo. He

could revere, and hope, and wonder, to bring forth by pencil-strokes,

the compassionate calm, with the benevolent anxiety of the angel’s face

and the trustingness of that of the child--mingled with the searching

expression that follows the angel’s finger, as to find the heavenly

realms which those alone like it, can seek or see!

The church at the Museum contains the St. Thomas of Zurbaran--held

by some to be the finest picture in the world; the St. Dominic, a

remarkable carving in wood, by Montañes; and masterpieces by almost

all the Sevillian school. I had visited it several times, scarcely

noticing two or three pictures by Murillo, placed there as not worthy

of admission to the “Murillo Chamber.” One of these, however, haunted

me after leaving the Museum. Next morning, and at the earliest hour

admittance could be gained, I went to examine it. It was a Virgin, but

of a different order from his other Virgins--colossal, looking, not up

to heaven, but down on earth; the hands joined and raised, not crossed

upon the bosom; the eye cast down, the ball covered. It is not the full

front figure upstretched; the left knee rests upon a cloud, yet the

right foot is planted with the firmness of a statue. The dishevelled

hair flows not on the shoulders, but streams wildly; and the dark blue

mantle is whirled about and carried away. The picture is divided into

two zones,--the upper one of gold--the sun; the lower one frigid and

pale. She floats between heaven and earth. The picture is placed high

in the apse. As you approach and recede, she seems now to ascend and

now to descend. You cannot tell whether it is an angel coming down to

men, or a saint rising to the sky.

His other Virgins are beautiful;--this one is heroic: his other figures

are flesh and blood, this one is of marble. His other Marys are timid,

hopeful, innocent; this is one of consciousness. The others are

absorbed and ecstatic; this is a youthful Juno--the Spanish form. The

Andalusian features give way to the ideal lines of the Greeks. His

other Virgins wear the outward expression of some mental character

associating the weakness of humanity with the beauty of nature. Here

there is no part you can singly grasp; no feature you can separate,

explain, or admire;--fleeting like the cloud, it dazzles like the sun.

The vision enters as the tones of music, and returns on the memory like

a vessel’s track in the night.

Such was the vision which Petrarch beheld when he exclaimed, “Beautiful

Virgin! clothed with the sun, crowned by the stars, and so pleasing

to the sun that his light he has hidden in thee!” No wonder that the

Andalusian peasants’ salutation should be, “Santa Maria purissima,” or

the reply, “Sin peccado concebida.”[332]

The “Virgin of the Franciscans” is amongst pictures what the Apollo

Belvidere is among statues--a constellation of heavenly graces. I felt

that it must have a history. I turned over such books as were within

reach, but found no mention of it, except in one recent publication,

where it is noticed as an extravagant production that had corrupted the

taste of Seville; but, on inquiring among the Sevillians, I found that

my anticipations were not vain.

Imagine Murillo in the fulness of his years, and still in the height

of his power, called upon by the corporation of the Cathedral to paint

a Virgin for that edifice, to crown at once that unrivalled work, and

his own unequalled fame. Imagine him pacing that hall, raising his

eyes to its vault, and his mind to the effort. This was not to be a

picture to be placed on a wall, enclosed in a chapel, or screened on an

altar-frame: it was to be an emblem of descending charity and ascending

prayer, radiating through its vastness, and filling its space. Go

then to the Museum and contemplate the “Virgin of the Franciscans,”

and you will understand why she looks down--why her joined hands are

raised--why she is colossal--how she is sublime.

When the picture was finished, the Cabildo _proceeded_ to judge of it,

and exclaimed: _Ayach che mamarachio_, “Oh! what a daub.” Murillo made

a present of it to the Franciscans, the advocates of the _essential_

purity of the Virgin. It was suspended under the dome of their church:

all Seville poured forth to behold it, the Cabildo among the rest.

The Cabildo was personified in a Sevillian connoisseur, who was

offended at my admiration. “If you saw it close,” said he, “as I have,

you would think nothing of it.” It was useless to tell him that it

was designed for the other side of a gulf--that it was painted to

represent the heavens; to be seen from--not to touch--the earth.

The critic pointed to the contradictions of the cloak flying on the

right side, and the hair on the left;--in vain I answered that it was

not a ship, and that in that distraction of the elements, in which

she stands motionless, consisted the poetry of the work. Murillo has

filled the Caridad; and hence his pictures have been less scattered.

There are, however, five vacant spaces. Of two the robber still

retains possession; two he has sold to an English duke, who has

hitherto mistaken the pleasure of possessing a good picture for that

of performing a good deed; the fifth, on its way back from Paris, was

detained at the Academy of Madrid. _Taste_ being as good a _plea for

plunder_ as philanthropy: sense or anger suggested to the Sevillians to

leave the place of these pictures vacant--they have hung curtains on

the empty spaces: seven still remain. Two of these are the largest he

has painted, and represent multitudes--the Distribution of loaves and

fishes, and Moses striking the rock;--two are Annunciations, in very

different styles, the one bright and beautiful, the other large, dark,

and solemn; in this one the Virgin is the _beau idéal_ of a Sevillian

in her mantilla;--two are gems in size as well as worth,--a John the

Baptist and an infant Christ: the former is especially beautiful:--the

seventh is a St. Juan di Dios, the founder of hospitals--a dark

picture. The saint is carrying a sick man to the hospital, and an

angel, a tall youth with outspread wings, is supporting him. Opposite

to it hangs a curtain--let me raise it.

In the vesture of a nun, with the halo of a saint and the crown of

a queen, Isabella stands over a boy whose head she is laving. The

boy bends over a large silver vessel, from which the reflected light

illumines his flushed face and winking eye, leaning on the stool which

supports the basin: he is suffering, but patient, under the hands that

perform the office. How the soft fingers hold--yet scarcely touch--the

head!--how gently they apply the napkin! Beside her stands a maiden

with a golden jewelled ewer; she watches till the cloth is dry;--an

elderly lady looks from behind to counsel and aid her mistress. A

second attendant carries a tray with ointment, and over her shoulder,

in eastern fashion, hangs a lace embroidered napkin. The service is

regal, not dramatic. There are other patients ready to be served.

An old man in front is unbinding his leg; another is limping in on

crutches from behind: there is no crowd, but there is work prepared

for these lovely hands. The queen’s eyes are averted from the sores

beneath her touch, and rest on an old woman below, whose upturned face

reveals awe and gratitude. The sores on the boy’s head show the blush

of granulation; but the care of the queen is still required. Who said

the painting made him smell the sore?[333]--it is clean and washed and

healthy.

There are here no forms of unnatural beings--no forced images--no

angels’ wings: it is Isabella in her palace, amidst her ladies, at her

ordinary work--nothing that is not simple; nothing that is not true;

nothing pictured except that which has been; and pictured that it may

prompt others to do the same--nothing that is not common, save that

such deeds are as rare as the hands by which they are here performed.

Amongst living beings I have seen one whose life is told in this

picture--and it is her portrait. Murillo must have known some such one;

from her life derived the thought, and from her face the model. She

bears no resemblance to his Virgins. There are here no ideal lines--no

blushing tints; no childlike innocence is here--that face is mild and

solemn, and full of care and tenderness. He must have seen it in a

sister.[334]

This picture is now in the Academy at Madrid, with two of his

masterpieces,--the Dream of the Roman Patrician. The Virgin appeared

to him, directing him to build the Church of St. Maria Maggiore. The

second represents him narrating his dream to the Pope. This head is the

original, which Wilkie has copied for his great picture of Columbus.

He was painting it when I first saw that artist, and I was struck by

it as singularly inappropriate. I now saw how he had selected it--here

it was masterly because suited to the character represented. It is

without power, elevation, or resolution; but is noble, soft, pious,

and munificent. Wilkie admired it as the founder of a Basilicon, and

placed it on the shoulders of the discoverer of America.

The Isabella pourtrays charity; the “sleeping Patrician”--rest. The

one abstracts the soul from surrounding things; the other subjects you

to them:--you lighten your step and fear to tread. The Roman is seated

in a chair by the table, on which lies his closed book; he has gently

dropped asleep, his head resting on his hand. Nothing is recumbent,

but all is still: it is the rest of the spirit rather than the slumber

of the frame: the spirit is elsewhere; the sleep so light, yet the

abstraction so deep, that you watch for a breathing. The light falls

on his reclining head from the vision of Mary and her child above.

On the floor near his feet, seated by her work--the work laid down

and her head reclining on a cushion--his daughter lies in profound

slumber: her dog, curled at her feet, is asleep too. The picture--no,

the chamber--is otherwise in darkness. By what door did he enter? Hush!

lest they awake!

To see this picture, close the windows.

I took leave of Murillo. This was the last of his great works that I

looked upon; its tone the last to dwell on mine eyes, mingling with

those of the St. Isabella and the Mary of the Franciscans, which

constitute it in my mind the ideal of painting.

I cannot suppress my indignation at such masterpieces being kept and

shown in gilt gaudy frames, and huddled together like the wares of

an old curiosity shop. The eye is tortured by the glare, and the mind

oppressed by the numbers. They were painted for altar-pieces; they

were designed to dwell in the glare of the Temple; to be gazed upon by

the kneeling penitent on the floor. How is it that, with our virtuoso

faith, our religion of sentiment, no one dreams of replacing them on

their thrones or pedestals, where, with nothing to distract the thought

or oppress the eye, they may, if no longer fitted to inspire devotion,

at least fill and raise the heart.

Our age has produced a descriptive epic, of which Italy is the scene

and heroine. Her fortune, ruins, arts, monuments, are the incidents;

the works of her genius are transmuted into verse; and if the marble

perished, the Venus and the Gladiator in Childe Harold, would live.

But where are the St. John, the Holy Family, the Transfiguration,

the Last Supper, the Flight into Egypt, the Descent from the Cross,

the Last Judgment? How is it that sculpture’s rainbow-sister has

claimed no tribute, and inspired no strain--that all things in Italy

are there but Raphael, Titian, Guido, and the Caracci? After seeing

Murillo I understood this blank. Byron in his portraits of statues,

enters upon no artistic disquisitions--they were to him the subject

they represented, as if seen in life, or conceived in fancy; and he

brings back from the marble to flesh and blood, and discovers as such

the struggle of the Trojan father and the disdainful majesty of the

archer-god. The failing head of the Dacian awakens the scene and

circumstances of his end, and the great and beautiful grief of the

Phrygian mother recalls the desolation of the mother-mistress of cities

and of the world. Where was the painting in Italy possessed of such a

spell?

I may now confess that in Italy I never saw a picture that satisfied my

judgment, however much it may have excited my admiration. In admiring

one or more, there was an internal struggle to impose upon myself a

standard of excellence, in what was the most excellent of known works.

The canvases of Murillo reconciled me to myself, by presenting a

higher level, or at least a more perfect adaptation. Other masters may

have been in artistic powers superior to Murillo, but he excels in a

perfect knowledge and judgment of himself in reference to the ends of

art. What mortal power or genius could present a Transfiguration so

that it should be natural? What truth could there be in the struggle

of the Giants and Jupiter? Could you be transported in spirit to

the foreground of Purgatory, of the Last Judgment, of a beleaguered

Fortress, or a contested Field? What art could render simple an

assembly of the gods? The painting might be exquisite, but the attempt

would overpower the master, or the subject would be beneath his power.

It has been remarked, that when a person becomes an admirer of Murillo,

he is wholly fascinated and incapable of all discrimination, admires

his master’s defects and despises all others’ merit. I feel that

fascination--if fascination it be--where you clearly see the cause.

No other painter ever awakened in me curiosity. In him there is the

metaphysician no less than the artist. In other painters you may admire

the painting--in other pictures the painter. In Murillo it is the

poet. Colour is his verse, light and shadow his metre; and his were

dreams rather than poetry; or he dreamed as a poet and painted when

he awoke. There is no drama in his scenes--it is ecstacy or thought.

From the metaphysics of the mind he passed to the psychology of the

face: he painted no portraits, and yet every head is one. He selected

the head as pourtraying the character, and the character to suit the

picture. It is not the beauty of form, but the innate connexion between

mind and form which nature herself has traced in making the face the

mirror of the mind which he stretched forth his hand to grasp. His

own portrait I therefore inquired after, to see if I could recognise

the man: it is painted by one of his best pupils. I have already said

that I have recognised his “Isabella.” When I meet his “Patrician,” I

shall recognise him in like manner. When I saw his own picture I was

startled most; for it is the portrait of one who of all living men

has exhibited, in the same qualities--that of judging of himself in

reference to his work--Lord Metcalfe. Ordinary men resemble not their

parents but their age. Extraordinary men of every age are those who

can preserve their own likeness, and having a likeness of their own to

preserve, resemble each other.

[328] “The Spanish artists usually endeavoured to produce

an exact imitation of material nature; _while the Italians

aimed at, and attained higher results_. The object of the

Spaniards being less difficult of attainment, the perfection

with which they imitated nature, passes conception. To that

they devoted all the energies of their genius; while you may

search in vain in the best productions of Italy,--not excepting

the school of Venice, one that most resembles the Spanish,--for

anything approaching their success in that respect.”--WELLS’S

_Art. Antiquities of Spain_, p. 361.

[329] These words apply specially to Vicente de Juanes,

founder of the School of Valencia.

[330] “βραχεῖ δὲ μύθῳ, πάντα συλλήβδην μάθε·

Πᾶσαι τέχναι βροτοῖσιν ἐκ Προμηθέως.

[brachei de mythô, panta syllêbdên mathe;

Pasai technai brotoisin ek Promêtheôs.]”

[331] In fact Ribera might have taken greater license.

“Διὸς δέ τοι

κτηνὸς κύων, δαφοινὸς ἀετὸς, λάβρως

διαρταμήσει σώματος μέγα ῥάκος,

ἄκλητος ἕρπων δαιταλεὺς πανήμερος,

κελαινόβρωτον δ’ ἧπαρ ἐκθοινήσεται.”

“[Dios de toi

ktênos kyôn, daphoinos aetos, labrôs

diartamêsei sômatos mega rhakos,

aklêtos herpôn diataleus panêmeros,

kelainobrôton d’ hêpar ekthoinêsetai.]”

[332] That the Virgin was born without sin, is a dogma

of the Catholic church. The disputes with reference to this

subject bear on the mode, viz., whether by retractive grace,

or by an original miracle. I mention this, in consequence

of the extravagances on this head, which are introduced

into Murray’s “Handbook.”

[333] Murillo said of the picture of the Dead Prelate,

by Valdez, and which stood next to this picture at the

_caridad_, that he “could not look at it without holding

his nose.” It represents putrefaction.

[334] I find in Mr. Stirling’s work on “Spanish Artists,”

that Murillo had a sister. I find there nothing to contradict,

but everything to confirm, the history of Murillo which his

brush had taught me.

CHAPTER IV.

PELEA DE NAVAJA.--THE OLD SPANISH SWORD.

A Sevillian whom I was questioning about the frequent assassinations,

astonished me by denying that there were any. “What you hear of,” said

he, “as murders are duels.” I objected the _knife_;--he said, “Well,

the knife; that is our weapon; we fence, we do not stab; the duel has

its laws, the weapon its science.” I thought this must be a figurative

manner of describing some rude point of honour, and asked him to show

me in what consisted the science. “I am not expert,” he said; “but

if you are curious I will take you to a friend of mine, whom you can

engage, as he is the best player in Seville; and, since the death of

Montez, in all Andalusia.”

I begged immediately to be conducted to the _yueçador_, and was

introduced to the inner apartment; which--as he united the calling

of contrabandist to that of fencing-master--was filled with bales of

tobacco. The subject was broached as a matter of business. He was

willing to give me lessons, but would not undertake to _teach_ me. If

I had natural dispositions I might learn “to play” in three months,

taking Time by the forelock. I proposed commencing at once; and next

morning he came to me by day-light, at the inn--for it required a large

room. A wooden dagger is used for a foil: it is about eight inches

long, and in form like the old sacrificial knife: it is held by the

closed fingers, the thumb stretching along the blade, and the edge

turned inward. Round the left arm is wound the jacket as a shield.

My teacher, putting himself in attitude, at once reminded me of the

fighting Gladiator. He thus commenced: “You must hold your right hand

down upon your thigh; you must never _raise it till sure of your

blow_. Your feints must be with the eye--the eye, hand and leg must

move together. When you look here, you must strike there, and spring

when you have cut, _corta y huya_. The left arm must be kept high, the

right hand low, the knees bent, the legs wide, the toes forward, ready

to spring back or forward. There are three cuts and three parries;

one point,--the point is low and at the belly--St. George’s _au bas

ventre_: the cut must be across the muscle on the shoulder or the

breast, or down well into the groin, so as to let out the bowels.

Unless you know _how to cut_, it is of no use knowing how to fence.”

He knew nothing of our fencing, and was much surprised when I made

application of it, and attributed the advantages it gave to a natural

instinct for the art. The result was, that in a week he had gone

through the whole course, and the last day of my stay at Seville,

he brought two of the proficients, and we had a regular _assault

d’armes_, the guests at the hotels being spectators. He honoured me at

the introduction by saying, that he feared me more than either of his

two compeers, because I sprang better than the one, and cut better than

the other.

The attitudes are a study for an artist. There are not the stiff

figures and sharp angles of our fencing; but the rounded limb, the

gathered-up muscle, the balanced body:--instead of the glance of the

steel there is that of the eye. The weapon is concealed under the hand,

and pointing down, so that not a ray betokens it. There is no boxer’s

fist or cestus, no crusader’s helm or hauberk, no Roman’s sword or

shield. It seemed as if the hands and the eye of the man were equal

to the claw of the tiger, or the tusk of the boar. It was a combat of

beasts rather than a contest of men. There was the ambling pace, the

slouching gait of the panther or the lion, or, rather, it was a mixture

of the snake and the frog; gliding like the one and springing like the

other. This is the war _of_ the knife, the _Pelea de Navaja_, falsely

interpreted war _to_ the knife.

After missing a blow with the right hand, the knife, by a dexterous

player, may be jerked into the left; but this, if unsuccessful, is

inevitable death. To jerk[335] it at your antagonist is not permitted

by the rules of the game. By a sudden spring an adversary’s foot may be

pinned after he has failed in a blow. The most deadly of these feints

is to strike the foot of your adversary sideways and so bring him down.

A celebrated Juccador named Montes (not the _Torero_), killed in this

manner eleven men, and was at last so killed himself.

The mantle or jacket round the left arm is used, not for the purpose

of catching the blow, but of striking off the adversary’s arm so that

he may not reach. The guarding arm is always within reach, but always

avoided; for to strike at it would leave your side open, and the safety

consists in keeping _under_ your adversary. The arms of the players

were all scarred; but that was in “love fights.” The edge of the knife

is then blunted, or a shoulder is put to it, as in the case of the

lances which they use with the bulls.

The Sevillian was right. This is not simple assassination: it is

not the stab given in the dark, though of course we could only so

understand a man being killed by a knife. A popular song at Seville

is, the lamentation of a man imprisoned for “stabbing” another:--he

exclaims against the wrong; justifies his legitimate defence of his

_maja_; calls upon the gaoler to testify to his treatment; and, failing

to obtain sympathy, rushes to the grates and appeals to the people:--

“Si venga gente pora aca!”

There is no song sung with more fervour by the ladies.

This is the most deadly weapon I know; the dirk, the cama, the dagger,

are grasped in the hand, and impelled by the leverage of the arm. The

navaja may be so used, or plunged right on end like the Hindoo dagger,

and also by the motion of the wrist alone: it more resembles mowing

with the scythe than thrusting with a poniard: it is accompanied by the

action of the sword, in which, as in fencing, the limbs come into play,

and thus serves the purpose of a defensive weapon. It is the origin of

our fencing; and against adversaries not acquainted with that art, or

not armed for it, it still retains all its ancient superiority:--in all

cases it would be a valuable accessory to other weapons, without being

an incumbrance, and serving for all the ordinary purposes of a knife.

[Illustration: clasp knife]

The navaja (pronounced _navakha_) is a clasp knife,--those worn by

professed players are a foot long when closed. There is a spring to

catch it behind, to prevent it closing on the hand. When opened there

is the click as in cocking a pistol, and the sound is said to delight

Andalusian equally with Irish ears. The art of fencing with it is

called _pelea de navaja_. Pelea has been derived from πελέα [pelea],

or πάλλος [pallos], of the Greeks; but I give it a higher origin. The

Pelethites and the Cerethites served in the armies of Judæa; and

though these were the names of two people, Hebrews seem to have borne

subsequently that name. One of these passed into Greece as Cretan, and

Creticus became synonymous with bowman. The Pelethites, doubtless, used

some other weapon, and what it was the πελέα [pelea] of the Greeks

and the Pelea of the Spaniards plainly show. Not that the navaja came

from Judæa: the word is Basque, an original term signifying to make

smooth, as with a knife. Had it belonged to the Iberi it would have

been Etruscan in all probability, and the Romans would not have called

it Spanish. Manlius Torquatus, indeed, used it when the Romans had no

connexion with Spain: so that it was in Italy, and of course amongst

the remnants of the Siculi and Itali--if these, as I have supposed,

were the same as the Hispani. It must have been preserved in the same

manner as the Spanish cap and shoes of which Seneca speaks.

The single combat between Manlius Torquatus and the Gaul, occurred

nearly two hundred years before the Romans set foot in Spain. The

appearance of this barbarian in his armour appalled the Romans; and the

champion, when found prepared for the combat, by laying aside his Roman

armour, was armed by his companions with other weapons. The historian

describes the combat as if--without understanding its peculiar feature,

_the mode of grasping the weapon_--he were describing a _Palea de

navaja_. “The Roman,” says Livy, “held his sword close to the thigh,

_with the point raised_, getting under the Gaul’s shield, and too

close for the stroke of his long sword; he then with a cut forwards

and back, slit his belly and let out his bowels.”[336] This would have

been impracticable with a sword held in the common manner, or with the

“mucrone surrecto:” thus held it would merely have been plunged in;

whereas it is the slicing of the navaja that he describes in the wound

it made.

Livy, writing four hundred years after, explains in the ordinary

language, the use of an instrument with which he was unacquainted. It

may be objected that a Roman must have been conversant with the sword

of a country with which the Romans had been so long at war, but with

our armies in Spain, with so many military and scientific men, artists,

and philosophers studying its customs, the “Pelea di navaja” has not

been so much as noticed, even as a curiosity. Elsewhere Livy says, that

the Spanish sword was more fitted to wound by its point than its edge:

from its shortness sprang their agility. This is incompatible with the

ancient sword, or modern fencing.

In the description of battles with the Spaniards, the sword is never

mentioned as a weapon used by them, when attacking a heavy-armed body,

or resisting its attack. On more than one occasion their defeat is

attributed to their spears being broken, when they would be expected

to draw their swords: no mention is made of their drawing swords, and

having only the “navaja” and spear. They could not after the loss of

the latter, stand against the united mass of the legion with their

short swords, nor defend themselves against a charge of cavalry; but

they appear to have been superior, man to man, to the Romans,[337] as

these were to the Greek phalangite.

It was not an exchange of one sword for another, but adopting the

Spanish knife as a supplementary weapon. Machiavelli remarks, that by

the distribution of the Roman legion into three ranks, it had three

times to be beaten before a battle could be won; and thus it would seem

that it possessed three kinds of weapons, and three manners of using

them to be employed before any one of the ranks could be ultimately

broken.

This explanation meets all the difficulties of the case. The Spanish

sword was adopted, yet the Roman is not laid aside, nor are these two

swords spoken of conjointly. It accounts for the distinction between

sword and knife, and explains the Greek term, as used by Polybius, and

supports Dr. Arnold’s persuasion that in latter times the Pelites had

a sword. A sword in the ordinary sense, they could not have had, for

a sword requires a long shield, and then constituted the difference

between the heavy and the light-armed. The nature of their tactics made

swords superfluous. The Pelites advanced to skirmish and retreated

through the intervals of the maniples, and formed again behind the

legion. It was quite another thing to carry, as a protection for their

persons, the Spanish navaja.

I do not imagine that this “Spanish sword,” as adopted by the Romans,

was the clasp-knife. It is likely that the model of it is preserved

in the lath foil still used in teaching, and which is the sacrificial

knife.[338] No instrument can be better conceived for ripping up the

bowels of a man, or for cutting the throat of an animal.

On my return to England, I was one day in the room of the British

Museum, when Mr. Warshaw, of Copenhagen, brought some bronze

instruments from a Celtic cairn; one of these I at once recognized

as the “Spanish sword,” although the form was new to me. Symptoms

of incredulity, as was natural, manifesting themselves, I asked the

gentlemen present to handle the weapon. It was tried all round, and no

one could grasp it so as to use it, in consequence of a sharp-turned

hook from the hilt which prevented it from being held, either as a

sword or a dagger; but which left space for the points of the fingers,

as the Spaniards hold the navaja. I showed it to be what I said it

was, by taking hold of it in the manner in which it had to be used.

There are now four at the British Museum: they are of the Roman period,

in bronze--in case 46, of the Bronze-room. One of them is fitted to

go into a wooden socket, or handle, and is but one step from the

clasp-knife.

[Illustration: Spanish sword]

Now at last, knowing what the Spanish sword was, I looked to the coins,

and found one of the Carisia family, which, in the plates of Florey and

Morel, have, together with other armour, an instrument resembling it.

Fortunately, this coin is in the British Museum: it is in beautiful

preservation, and there is the very weapon with the strange handle,

which had been discovered by Mr. Warshaw. Here it is given as a Spanish

weapon; and on the same coin are the other two distinguishing arms of

Spain, the _Lance_ and _Cetra_. The name of the former was taken by the

testimony of the Romans, from the Spaniard: the second is mentioned as

a Spanish weapon, and Cæsar uses it as a distinguishing sign. The name

also is Spanish.[339] On this one coin we have the complete ancient

armour of the Hispani.

[Illustration: coin]

In the centre of the cetra is a star with _seven_ points. The Basque

names for the days of the week show also the division by seven.

[335] “Taking the poniard, called Puntilla, by the blade,

he poised it for a few moments, and jerked it with such

unerring aim, on the bull’s neck, as he lay on his bent legs,

that he killed the animal with the quickness of lightning.”--

DOBLADO’S _Letters_, p. 156.

[336] “Pedestre scutum capit, Hispano cingitur gladio ad

propiorem habili pugnam.”

“Ubi constitere inter duas acies, Gallus velut moles

superne imminens projecto lævâ scuto, in advenientis arma

hostis vanum, cæsim, cum ingente sonitu ensem dejecit.

Romanus mucrone surrecto, cum scuto scutum imum perculisset,

totoque corpore interior periculo vulneris factus, insinuasset

se inter corpus armaque, uno alteroque subinde ictu ventrem

atque inguina hausit, et in spatium ingens ruentem porrexit

hostem.”--LIVY, vii.

Τῶν δ’ Ἰβήρων καὶ Κέλτων ὁ μὲν θύρεος ἦν παραπλήσιος, τὰ

δὲ ξίφη τὴν ἐνάντιον εἶχε διάθεσιν, τῆς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔλαττον

τὸ κέντημα τῆς διαφόρας ἴσχυε πρὸς τὸ βλάπτειν, ἡ δὲ Γαλατικὴ

μαχαῖρα μίαν εἶχε χρείαν, τὴν ἐκ καταφόρας, καὶ αὐτὴν τὴν ἐξ

ἀποστασέως.

[Tôn d’ Ibêrôn kai Keltôn ho men thyreos ên paraplêsios,

ta de xiphê tên enantion eiche diathesin, tês men gar ouk

elatton to kentêma tês diaphoras ischye pros to blaptein, hê

de Galatikê machaira mian eiche chreian,tên ek kataphoras,

kai autên tên ex apostaseôs.]--POLYB. iii. 15.

[337] The author of Murray’s “Handbook” makes the Spaniards

such dastardly foes, as to fly from the Romans, _before they

come in sight_, and he quotes authorities too. “The very aspect,”

says Seneca, himself a Spaniard, “of a Roman Legion, was enough,

'_Hispani_ antequam legio visetur cedunt.’”--_Handbook_, p. 312.

What Seneca says is, that the Spaniards slaughtered the

Germans before the Roman Legion came even in sight.

“Germanis quid est animosius, quid ad incursum acrius?

_Hos_ tamen _Hispani_ Gallique et Asiæ Syriæque molles bello

viri, antequam legio visatur cœdunt, ob nullam rem aliam

opportunos quàm ob iracundiam.”--_De Ira_, lib. i. c. 11.

[338] In playing at lawn billiards, the Moorish children

use the same for driving the ball, and hold it as the

Spaniards do the navaja.

[339] The Spanish (Castilian dictionaries) do not give

the word. In the Basque, it is claimed as their own.

“_Cetra_, voz antigua Española y por esso Bascongada,

aunque oy se ignore sa raiz. Cetra significaba broquel de

cuero.”--LARRAMENDI, _Dic. Triling._

CHAPTER V.

THE DANCE.

Edere lascivos ad Bætica crusmata gestus,

Ex Gaditanis ludere docta modis.--MARTIAL.

Fourteen days at Seville sparkled through their course, but I neither

counted hours nor felt fatigue. Time seemed to stand still, though

the greater and lesser lights rose and set. In constant haste, yet

in unbroken abstraction, the diversity of objects seemed to create

fresh senses, and to feed exhausted strength. I knew no sleep, but was

in a dream that never broke while I sojourned in this city--no, not

city--this sea-shore--this forest of cedars--Alhambra--Island of the

Cyclades--Vale of Tempe,--for such sort of habitation is fitted for

such golden memories.

Its marvels were many; its mysteries were one, and that the dance. It

was not the bolero of the streets, or the ballet of the boards, but a

dance of reserve and tradition. I had not heard of it, and went not in

search of it;--it broke upon me, and in a series of surprises.

“Would you like to see the Sevillian dances?” was asked me in a

whisper, and, assenting, I found that it was no public performance to

which I was recommended or invited, but a representation, in private,

of dancers who did not appear on the stage. My natural question was,

“Are these dances indecent?” The reply was,“No.” “Why, then, are they

not performed in public?” and the answer, “The people would go mad.”

I was told that they might be seen but could not be described, and a

dancing-master would get the dancers and invite some friends.

At the time appointed, I was conducted up a crazy flight of stairs to

a low-roofed room, some fifteen feet by thirty, paved with square,

coarse, and ill-laid tiles; lighted with three or four common lamps,

stuck in the plastered walls. There was a narrow bench all round, on

which were seated men, women, and children of homely appearance. Though

called a ball, none were to take part but the attired dancers--four

girls, one of them a child--all bespangled and bedizened in white and

pink, in satins and flowers. In Spain no preparation has to be made

for music: the Greeks dance μετὰ στόμα [meta stoma], “with the mouth;”

the Spaniards dance with mouth and palm, or castanet, which, if not in

the dancer’s hand, vibrates in those of the spectators: they beat time

with their hands and sing the choruses. Our music consisted of a single

guitar. I was not without suspicions and misgivings respecting the

nature of the performance; but although there was in the decked girls

that conscious slouching gait of a wild animal that has a nature of

its own, the gloom of the place, the meanness of the apartment, and the

ungainly aspect of the morose assembly, discouraged the expectations

that had been raised, and I would gladly have retreated.

The twang of the guitar was heard, the space cleared, and two of the

dancers were balancing their bodies and wreathing their arms, and

retreat was impossible. But it only was the fandango--no dexterity to

astonish, no excesses to shock, no blandishments to seduce.

The fandango done, a _mesclo_ succeeded--a sort of olla podrida or

ballet, composed of gallegada, back to back, the Hola Aragonese, the

seguadilla marchega with its strathspey time and step; the couples

setting to each other, and the Highland snap and shout. This, too, was

decorous, and I began to wonder what all the mystery had been about,

and when would arise the madness we were to witness, and perchance to

share.

The assembly had gradually fired--that fluid power which matter will,

by motion, engender: the dancers gathered and discharged, and shock by

shock the spectators vibrated to their motion, and trembled with their

pulse. As speech is not teeth or tongue, but all the features; so is

the dance not legs, but all the figure. We indeed look out on it by the

eyes alone, and are pleased to be surprised with an effort, charmed

with an attitude, enchanted by a form. There is here nothing of the

sort, nor is it an “epic.” There is no “poem:” there may be a story;

there is poetry; but it is neither our pantomime nor our ballet, any

more than it is our zephyr groups or _poses_. These constitute our

dancing, and if I were conveying my impressions by word of mouth, I

would pause here, nor proceed until we had got at all the sources of

gratification, which we either experience from dancing, or conceive to

belong to it. Then I could show that the dance in Spain calls into play

another set of nerves. Its fascination may be exerted without beauty,

agility, or grace. Now I knew that ours was only prose, for I had

learned metre.

With us the limbs move hither or thither, lifting the body about;

the triumph of art is to veil the mechanism. The limbs are indeed

exposed in their outline, but our ideal would be achieved if the body

were to appear to rise and descend without their aid. The Spanish

dance is an inward action; the limbs only manifest it. It is deep

as a fountain--now sealed, and still now bubbling up with tremulous

motion; now overflowing in devious courses, now bursting forth in wild

contortions, then arrested, and returning to its source. Gesture is its

voice, movement its sound: it fills the air, settles on the beholder:

it is felt not seen, and might be perceived with the eyes shut, if you

could but close them. The ecstacies it produces, and which astound the

stranger by their vehemence and delicacy--by a frenzy that has rules,

and a passion that glows but does not burn, arises from this, that the

performance is not witnessed but shared. Compared to our dancing, it is

as expression to grimace--the living countenance to a pasteboard mask.

The Spanish--no, the Iberian--the Phrygian--dancer before me sought not

to float in air: she belonged to earth, and envied neither the bird

his wing, nor the cloud its texture. She could pause, stand, stamp,

plant herself--then defy. This is no part pantomime, but all dance: the

earth, not the air, was her element: it was to her what it is to the

wrestler, to the statue, to the antelope, to the tree.

But I anticipate.--What I have said was suggested by two dances which

were reserved--the _ole_ and the _beto_, and which are no more to be

conceived by the fandango, than that is by a _pas de fascination_ in

a ballet. Borrowing a hat--the Spanish broad-brimmed, high-peaked,

festooned hat--the dancer places it on her head, tosses and shifts

it; beats with her foot, toe, heel; squares her arms: as a snake’s,

her body undulates: she looks round, watches, tosses her head again,

snorts, sniffs the air. Is it instinct--is it passion--is it a foe--is

it a rival? will she fly--will she charge--are they weapons she

prepares, or charms?

That figure, which at the distance of the remote seats of a theatre,

would have appeared motionless and, by its grotesque attire, might have

awakened merriment--has now riveted every glance. The guitar’s tones

partake of the disorder, and give forth--so to speak--a sympathetic

provocation. She starts, wavers, selects, and springs upon her foe.

It is the bull in the arena! One by one, she runs at Picador and

Chulo, falters, swerves, and runs upon another. Peals of merriment

follow each feint. When her choice is fixed, the contortions, as

she approaches, subside, the limbs are subdued, defiance changes to

fascination, and the bull becomes the woman. A handkerchief is spread

on the ground as she advances: she places her foot on it; stooping,

the knee is bent; she pauses, then slightly raising the heel, moves it

to and fro, while pinching, with forefinger and thumb, the bosquina at

the knee, and lifting it twice or thrice. Heads and shoulders press

forward to witness this ceremony, and as she bounds away, hats and

jackets are cast upon the ground, amidst a burst of intoxication, and a

chorus of “Salero! Salero!” whilst the happy swain, the object of these

attentions, gathers up the handkerchief, on which her foot has been

placed, and treasures its dust in his bosom.

Here is a history--here are rites and rules, mysteries to me and to

themselves. It was the bull, but it was something more too. Is it the

horned Isis or the Minotaur? But the _ludus_ did not end here. After

skipping around and between, and avoiding or sparing the _sombreros_

(hats),[340] she suddenly rushed at one of them, and,--what shall I

say?--_gored it_;--she sprang upon, and pounded it with her feet--left

it--returned to it again, to toss the prostrate foe: approaching its

owner, her victim, as the bull,--as the woman, taking from her head the

hat which she had worn, and crowning him with it--“King of the lists.”

This was the _dénouement_ of the dance--or game, or ceremony, or orgy,

or myth, or combat--call it which you will.

“Salero” thrilled through me. The interpretation was unknown. It is

inexplicable, and like the “hugmeneh” of the Highlands--the Phrygian

cry of which I had found in Barbary the interpretation--of what could

“salero”[341] remind one, if not the _Salii_?

That the motions of animals should have suggested primitive dances is

but natural; and what animal could more entrance the Spanish spirit

than the bull? It is not a passion of yesterday: we have the bullring

on early Etruscan vases. I have since found a confirmation of this idea

in the dances of New Holland so striking, that I subjoin a description

from an eye-witness.[342]

In contrasting Spanish and European dancing, I have put gesture aside,

as no part of the former; but, in fact, we have no gesture. There is

more in the turn of a gipsy’s head, and the wave of her arm, than in

all the practising of the ballerinas.

The Andalusians have a peculiar manner of rendering “the body’s gait.”

They say, “_Aire e meneo_;” the nearest approach to which is, “air

and mien:” but the nearer the words the farther the sense;--meneo

(from _meneh_, the Sabæan festival,) is not our processional gait, but

the cadenced flow of the long and graceful line as it undulated over

strewed flowers, between lifted palms and burning censers.

The Reformation is attributed to the study of the classics. The

classics themselves must have been still more rational. How, then,

did the old worship stand so long, shamed by the life of the

Christian, and stained by the blood of the martyr? The world then was

neither devout nor ignorant: the sceptic taught in the schools, the

scoffer entered the sanctuary. The phenomenon was now explained, or

rather--comprehending somewhat of the spell which bound the senses

of Greek and Roman--I perceived the problem by the solution. Seeing

what dancing could be, even as divested of all pomp, circumstance, and

honour, I could imagine what in all its branches must have been that

religion of art, that “worship of the beautiful,” which we hold at once

to be the glory and the shame of Greece.

We only understand vice as the antagonist of Christianity: assailed by

vice, it was itself the assailant of “art;”--thus did Mars and Jupiter

reign long as statues, if not as gods.

But an esthetic life of sentiment was not alone engendered. These

excellences were part of the institutions of the land. The songs of

Tyrtæus had their chorus; from the games of Elis the Greeks repaired

to Marathon, nor had they lost the Pyrrhic phalanx, had they saved

the Pyrrhic dance. The interval is not great with the patriarchs and

worthies of Israel. What would sound more Pagan, if we listened for the

sense, than David dancing before the ark? We read it with an awkward

feeling--half ridicule, half reproach.[343] It is we who have reduced

the dance to an amusement, or an exhibition; we have chased away every

thought not trivial or mercenary; we have left to it no occasion to be

grave, and suffer it in no ceremony that is solemn. Nowhere, but here,

is there a rent in that heavy veil, which has for nearly two thousand

years shrouded the memory of that wonderful union of the harmonies of

sound and gesture, which was the charm of the ancient world.

The descriptions of mythological ceremonies, the investigation of

ancient history, the turning over the pages of poets for seductive

images, the pacing of galleries for noble forms, the indulging in the

reveries of the sea-shore, or the mountain-side--all these could not

furnish what that Sevillian room, floored with brick, supplied.

Seville preserves the Hebrew ceremony as well as the Pagan orgy. On the

Saturday evening before Easter, and during the following se’nnight,

a dance is performed in front of the high altar, by youths in the

old Spanish dress, sky-blue satin and white muslin, high-crowned hat

of blue, with a white and flowing plume. The music of the cathedral

is replaced by an orchestra, by the rails of the altar. The dancers

are seated facing each other, on each side the altar. The music of

the cathedral ceases. After a pause, the band of worldly instruments

strikes up a valtz or a cachouca; presently the voices of the boys

join; then they start to their legs. The song is a lyric composition:

they sing and dance together, moving solemnly through a variety of

figures. The music is in two or three metres, like the Greek chorusses.

The first act completed, they return to their seats. The second is more

animated, for by word of command they place their hats on their heads,

and then the rattling of the castanets, which hitherto have been silent

and concealed in their hands, is heard through the aisles, and this

terminates a performance solemn and impressive to the Andalusian, which

to our ideas would be nothing short of sacrilege or insanity.

In the midst of another scene--a bull-fight--the dance is thus

described by M. Quinet:--“Scarcely had the mules dragged out the

carcasses, when the sound of castanets was heard; the barrier was

opened again, and a long train of dancers entered, divided into groups

according to the provinces of Spain: each wore the costume of their

own province: the Basque with long flowing hair upon their shoulders;

the Valencians (half Arabs) with a plaid; the Catalonians with their

large embroidered belt; the Aragonese with their dark mantles; but

the most brilliant and gorgeous are the Andalous, with their large

hats and light jackets, embroidered in a thousand colours, and with

intermingled points of steel. The troop pass along with pomp; the

people gaze on them with pride; and on the still warm and bloody earth

the dance commences. The fandango and bolero balance each other with a

characteristic monotony, recalling the noble simplicity of the ancient

vases. From carelessness to gravity; from gravity to languor; from

languor to intoxication and the exhaustion of passion. There is the

moment at which the whole assembly is struck. Each Andalous dancer

stoops to the earth, as if to gather flowers for the head of his

partner, and immediately after he leans his head upon his hand, his

elbow on the shoulder of the Andalusian--and he remains immoveable. I

know not if this is one of the ordinary features of the dance, or if it

was a sudden thought; but this single movement seized instantaneously

the ten thousand spectators: they rose at once, and a burst of

enthusiasm came forth such as I have never before heard. There was

not one man of the people who did not feel to the bottom of his soul

this poetry without words; and all the provinces of Old Spain were

again confounded together in that instant. The crowd disappeared and I

remained alone in the vast amphitheatre, fixed to my seat. This mixture

of murder and of grace--of enchantment, of carnage, and of dance, have

left me overwhelmed with stupor: I still see this blood, these smiles,

these horrible gashes and odious agonies, the thrill of the fandango,

and that Andalusian that stops to dream.”

Of what other country of Europe could such things be written? To admire

or to comprehend is quite enough at one time; and it is seldom that we

can at once enjoy both these gratifications. Let those who can admire

Spain be content, nor spoil that pleasure by the hopeless attempt to

comprehend her.

[340] A Matadore is in like manner complimented, by hats

being thrown into the arena.

[341] When I asked the meaning of it, all they could say,

was, that it meant “salt.” Mr. A. Dumas, who has given, if not

an accurate description of the dance, at least a vivid

delineation of his own sensations, has, from thinking salero

to be nonsense, written _salado_, and makes the performers be

gratified by being called “_très salées_.” He is the only

writer who has published this mystery.

[342] “After rest and refreshment, they began another

dance, in which a portion of them, taking tufts of grass in

their mouths, imitated the actions of the kangaroo. After

quietly feeding and hopping about for a while like the

kangaroos, they were followed by the rest of the party, who

in their real characters began to creep after the kangaroos

to surprise them. The ludicrous bounds and manœuvres of

pursuit and escape were quite astonishing, and the act ended

by the pretence of putting one of the representatives of the

captured kangaroos on the fire to be roasted. This they

called the kangaroo dance: they then gave us the emu dance,

in which--with one arm raised to form the neck of the bird,

the hand twisted to represent the head--with the body

stooped, they went through all the actions of this bird, and

with the most amazing effect.”

“I asked the king what this dance meant, and he pointed

to the moon then full above our head, and said, ‘good to

black fellow.’ No doubt he would have proceeded to acknowledge

that the ceremony was in honour of the moon, had not one of

the others who had stood his grog better than king Caboa,

stepped up and said, ‘New Zealandman’s dance.’ He meant the

name to mislead, for they are very secret in all their

religious ceremonies.”

[343] In the synagogues of Morocco, the congregation,

when the name of God occurs, spring up and down on their toes

in token of rejoicing. The first time I saw this I was

utterly confounded.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF CANAAN AND MOROCCO.

What we consider in architecture is form or order. The masonry of Rome

and her teachers, the Etruscans, of the Pelasgi, the Cyclopes, the

Druids, and the Egyptians, present us with colossal and imperishable

monuments. These depend entirely on mathematical principles and

mechanical adjustments, because stone alone was used, nor have we any

idea of another manner of building. There was, however, still another

race than these, which delighted in lofty towers and massive walls,

who, without stones, built Babel and Babylon.

The first point in architecture is, therefore, the material, and by

that originally used must its subsequent forms and order have been

established. We have, indeed, kept this primary condition in view,

and carried our application of it to the most extravagant excess.

The cave of the Trogloditæ, the timber origin of the Hindoo, Ancient

Persian, and the Greek, the essentially rock origin of the Cyclopic,

have been fully illustrated; and applying our rule in every case

whence we had not a natural original, we created it. We have caused

the Gothic to spring out of the interlacing branches of the forests of

the North. Warburton[344] was, I think, the first who put forward this

extravagance, supporting it by historical suggestions which consisted

in anachronisms; but the same proposition recurs over and over again,

as it furnishes a theme for that sort of stilted composition which has

become the staple of the recent trade of book-making on art.[345]

Architecture moulds itself into the shapes of things in use _for

building_; it does not copy the independent works of nature. The column

and entablature, the volute, abacus and plinth, are imitations in stone

of the woodwork of primitive huts; they are not copies of the growing

tree. The origin of the Gothic is still to find; an earlier material

than stones is to be looked for; and if we would go back to the origin,

we must figure to ourselves the art of building as devised for defence,

before descending to embellishments, or to the lowly habitations out

of which those temples arose, which have been distributed into and

constitute the five orders of architecture.

The Arameans, the elder branch of the human family and the inheritors

of early light, first occupied and permanently retained that fertile

and well-watered region, which lies between the great limbs of the

earth and the subdivisions of the ocean. There, neither strong

positions were to be found, nor stones to be procured for the

construction of defences. Their very existence depended upon the

invention of a process by which the earth itself could be converted

into walls. The soil containing a large proportion of alumine, durable

walls might be made from it without the aid of any art, save that of

beating and ramming down. Factitious stones might be obtained, or the

mass formed at once by cases into a wall. Against injury from rain they

had ready to their hand a preservative, in the bitumen with which the

country abounded, and with which they cemented the bricks and besmeared

the walls.[346]

These walls, whether made in pieces (brick) or in blocks, were however

soft and perishable without the aid of fire, which gives brick (burnt)

and lime two compositions, of which, like air and water, we do not

know the value, by enjoying constantly their use. These discoveries I

imagine to have been connected with the sacrifice as practised by the

early Arameans. The Jews were forbidden to make an altar of stone,

and when they set up stones, they were forbidden to raise on them a

tool of _iron_.[347] They were, moreover, ordered to make the altar of

_earth_,[348] and traces of this practice are to be found elsewhere, as

among the Phrygians[349] and the Greeks.