The Museum and Academy of Arts.--Scene on the Prado.--The
Portuguese Ambassador and his comforters.--The Theatre.--A highly
popular dancer.--Seguidillas in all their glory.
Sunday, Dec. 16th, 1787.
The kind, indefatigable Roxas came to conduct us to the Museum and
Academy of Arts. It consists of seven or eight apartments, with cases
all around them, in a plain, good style; the objects clearly arranged,
and exposed to view in a very intelligible manner. There is a vast
collection of minerals, corals, madrepores, and stalactites, from all
the grottoes in the universe; and curious specimens of virgin-gold and
silver. Amongst the latter, a lump weighing seventy pounds, which was
shivered off an enormous mass by a master miner, who, after dining on
it, with twelve or thirteen persons, hacked it to pieces, and
distributed the fragments amongst his guests.
What pleased me most was a collection of Peruvian vases; a polished
stone, which served the Incas for a mirror; and a linen mantle, which
formerly adorned their copper-coloured shoulders, as finely woven as a
shawl, and flowered in very nearly a similar manner, the colours as
fresh and vivid as if new.
In the apartments of the academy is a most valuable collection of casts
after the serene and graceful antique, and several fierce, obtrusive
daubings by modern Spanish artists.
I found our acute, intelligent chargé-d’affaires’[26] card lying on my
table when I got home, and a great many more, of equal whiteness; such a
sight chills me like a fall of snow, for I think of the cold idleness of
going about day after day dropping little bits of pasteboard in return.
Verdeil and I dined tête-à-tête, planning schemes how to escape formal
fussifications. No easy matter, I suspect, if I may judge from
appearances.
Our repast and our council over, we hurried to the Prado, where a
brilliant string of equipages was moving along in two files. In the
middle paraded the state coaches of the royal family, containing their
own precious selves, and their wonted accompaniment of bedchamber lords
and ladies, duly bedizened. It was a gay spectacle; the music of the
Swiss guards playing, and the evening sun shining bright on their showy
uniforms. The botanic garden is separated from the walk by magnificent
railings and pilasters, placed at regular distances, crowned with vases
of aloes and yuccas. The verdure and fountains of this vast enclosure,
terminated by a range of columned conservatories, with an entrance of
very majestic architecture, has a delightful and striking effect.
From the Prado I drove to the Portuguese ambassador’s, who is laid up
with a sore toe. Three diplomatic animals, two males and one female,
were nursing and comforting him. He is most supremely dull, and so are
his comforters. One of them in particular, who shall be nameless, quite
asinine.
The little sympathy I feel for creatures of this genus, made me shorten
my visit as much as I decently could, and return home to take up Roxas,
who was waiting to accompany us to the Spanish theatre. They were acting
the Barber of Seville, with Paesiello’s music, and singing better than
at the opera. The entertainment ended with a sort of intermez, very
characteristic of Spanish manners in low life; in which were introduced
seguidillas. One of the dancers, a young fellow, smartly dressed as a
maxo, so enraptured the audience, that they made him repeat his dance
four times over; a French dancing-master would have absolutely shuddered
at the manner in which he turned in his knees. The women sit by
themselves in a gallery as dingy as limbo, wrapped up in their white
mantillas, and looking like spectres. I never heard anything like the
vociferation with which the pit called out for the seguidillas, nor the
frantic, deafening applause they bestowed on their favourite dancer.
The play ended at eight, and we came back to tea by our fireside.