Origin of the Bull-fight or Festival, and its Religious
Character--Fiestas Reales--Royal Feasts--Charles I. at
one--Discontinuance of the Old System--Sham Bull-fights--Plaza de
Toros--Slang Language--Spanish Bulls--Breeds--The Going to a
Bull-fight.
Our honest John Bulls have long been more partial to their Spanish
namesakes, than even to those perpetrated by the Pope, or made in the
Emerald Isle; to see a bull-fight has been the emphatic object of
enlightened curiosity, since Peninsular sketches have been taken and
published by our travellers. No sooner had Charles the First, when
prince, lost his heart at Madrid, than his royal
father-in-law-that-was-to-be, regaled him and the fair inspirer of his
tender passion, with one of these charming spectacles; an event which,
as many men and animals were butchered, was thought by the
historiographers of the day to be one that posterity would not willingly
let die; their contemporary accounts will ever form the gems of every
tauromachian library that aspires to be complete.
[Sidenote: BULL FESTIVALS.]
These sports, which recall the bloody games of the Roman amphitheatre,
are now only to be seen in Spain, where the present clashes with the
past, where at every moment we stumble on some bone and relic of
Biblical and Roman antiquity; the close parallels, nay the identities,
which are observable between these combats and those of classical ages,
both as regards the spectators and actors, are omitted, as being more
interesting to the scholar than to the general reader; they were pointed
out by us some years ago in the Quarterly Review, No. cxxiv. And as
human nature changes not, men when placed in given and similar
circumstances, will without any previous knowledge or intercommunication
arrive at nearly similar results; the gentle pastime of spearing and
killing bulls in public and single-handed was probably devised by the
Moors, or rather by the Spanish Moors, for nothing of the kind has ever
obtained in Africa either now or heretofore. The Moslem Arab, when
transplanted into a Christian and European land, modified himself in
many respects to the ways and usages of the people among whom he
settled, just as his Oriental element was widely introduced among his
Gotho-Hispano neighbours. Moorish Andalucia is still the head-quarters
of the tauromachian art, and those who wish carefully to master this,
the science of Spain _par excellence_, should commence their studies in
the school of Ronda, and proceed thence to take the highest honours in
the University of Seville, the Bullford of the Peninsula.
[Sidenote: FIESTAS REALES.]
By the way, our boxing, baiting term bull-_fight_ is a very lay and low
translation of the time-honoured Castilian title, _Fiestas de Toros_,
the feasts, festivals of bulls. The gods and goddesses of antiquity were
conciliated by the sacrifice of hecatombs; the lowing tickled their
divine ears, and the purple blood fed their eyes, no less than the
roasted sirloins fattened the priests, while the grand spectacle and
death delighted their dinnerless congregations. In Spain, the Church of
Rome, never indifferent to its interests, instantly marshalled into its
own service a ceremonial at once profitable and popular;[13] it
consecrated butchery by wedding it to the altar, availing itself of this
gentle handmaid, to obtain funds in order to raise convents; even in the
last century Papal bulls were granted to mendicant orders, authorising
them to celebrate a certain number of _Fiestas de Toros_, on condition
of devoting the profit to finishing their church; and in order to swell
the receipts at the doors, spiritual indulgences and soul releases from
purgatory, the number of years being apportioned to the relative prices
of the seats, were added as a bonus to all paid for places at a
spectacle hallowed by a pious object. So at the _taurobolia_ of
antiquity, those who were sprinkled with bull blood were absolved from
sin. Protestant ministers, who very properly fear and distrust papal
bulls, replace them by bazaars and fancy fairs, whenever a fashionable
chapel requires a new blue slate roofing. Again, when not devoted to
religious purposes, every bull-fight aids the cause of charity; the
profits form the chief income of the public hospitals, and thus furnish
both funds and patients, as the venous circulation of the mob thirsting
for gore, rises to blood heat under a sun of fire, and the subsequent
mingling of sexes, opening of bottles and knives, occasion more deaths
among the lords and ladies of the Spanish creation, than among the
horned and hoofed victims of the amphitheatre.
It is a common but very great mistake, to suppose that bull-fights are
as numerous in Spain as bandits; it is just the contrary, for this may
there be considered the tip-top æsthetic treat, as the Italian Opera is
in England, and both are rather expensive amusements; true it is that
with us, only the salt of the earth patronises the performers of the
Haymarket, while high and low, vulgar and exquisite, alike delight in
those of the Spanish fields. Each bull-fight costs from 200_l._ to
300_l._, and even more when got up out of Andalucia or Madrid, which
alone can afford to support a standing company; in other cities the
actors and animals have to be sent for express, and from great
distances. Hence the representations occur like angels’ visits, few and
far between; they are reserved for the chief festivals of the church and
crown, for the unfeigned devotion of the faithful on the holy days of
local saints, and the Virgin; they are also given at the marriages and
coronations of the sovereign, and thence are called Fiestas _reales_,
_Royal_ festivals--the ceremonial being then deprived of its religious
character, although it is much increased in worldly and imposing
importance. The sight is indeed one of surpassing pomp, etiquette, and
magnificence, and has succeeded to the _Auto de Fé_, in offering to the
most Catholic Queen and her subjects the greatest possible means of
tasting rapture, that the limited powers of mortal enjoyment can
experience in this world of shadows and sorrows.
[Sidenote: AN INVOLUNTARY CHAMPION.]
They are only given at Madrid, and then are conducted entirely after the
ancient Spanish and Moorish customs, of which such splendid descriptions
remain in the ballad romances. They take place in the great square of
the capital, which is then converted into an arena. The windows of the
quaint and lofty houses are arranged as boxes, and hung with velvets and
silks. The royal family is seated under a canopy of state in the balcony
of the central mansion. There we beheld Ferdinand VII. presiding at the
solemn swearing of allegiance to his daughter. He was then seated where
Charles I. had sat two centuries before; he was guarded by the unchanged
halberdiers, and was witnessing the unchanged spectacle. On these royal
occasions the bulls are assailed by gentlemen, dressed and armed as in
good old Spanish times, before the fatal Bourbon accession obliterated
Castilian costume, customs, and nationality. The champions, clad in the
fashions of the Philips, and mounted on beauteous barbs, the minions of
their race, attack the fierce animal with only a short spear, the
immemorial weapon of the Iberian. The combatants must be hidalgos by
birth, and have each for a _padrino_, or god-father, a first-rate
grandee of Spain, who passes before royalty in a splendid equipage and
six, and is attended by bands of running footmen, who are arrayed either
as Greeks, Romans, Moors, or fancy characters. It is not easy to obtain
these _caballeros en plaza_, or poor knights, who are willing to expose
their lives to the imminent dangers, albeit during the fight they have
the benefit of experienced _toreros_ to advise their actions and cover
their retreats.
In 1833 a gentle dame, without the privity of her lord and husband,
inscribed his name as one of the champion volunteers. In procuring him
this agreeable surprise, she, so it was said in Madrid, argued thus:
“Either _mi marido_ will be killed--in that case I shall get a new
husband; or he will survive, in which event he will get a pension.” She
failed in both of these admirable calculations--such is the uncertainty
of human events. The terror of this poor _héros malgré lui_, on whom
chivalry had been thrust, was absolutely ludicrous when exposed by his
well-intentioned better-half, to the horns of this dilemma and bull. Any
other horns, my dearest, but these! He was wounded at the first rush,
did survive, and did not get a pension; for Ferdinand died soon after,
and few pensions have been paid in the Peninsula, since the land has
been blessed with a _charte_, constitution, liberty, and a
representative government.
[Sidenote: CHARLES I. AT A BULL-FIGHT.]
One anecdote, where another lady is in the case, may be new to our fair
readers. We quote from an ancient authentic chronicler:--“It will not be
amiss here to mention what fell out in the presence of Charles the First
of Blessed Memory, who, while Prince of Wales, repaired to the court of
Spain, whether to be married to the Infanta, or upon what other design,
I cannot well determine: however, all comedies, playes, and festivals
(this of the bulls at Madrid being included), were appointed to be as
decently and magnificently gone about as possible, for the more
sumptuous and stately entertainment of such a splendid prince.
Therefore, after three bulls had been killed, and the fourth a coming
forth, there appeared four gentlemen in good equipage; not long after, a
brisk lady, in most gorgeous apparel, attended with persons of quality,
and some three or four grooms, walked all along the square a-foot.
Astonishment seized upon the beholders, that one of the female sex could
assume the unheard boldness of exposing herself to the violence of the
most furious beast yet seen, which had overcome, yea almost killed, two
men of great strength, courage, and dexterity. Incontinently the bull
rushed towards the corner where the lady and her attendants stood; she
(after all had fled) drew forth her dagger very unconcernedly, and
thrust it most dexterously into the bull’s neck, having catched hold of
his horn; by which stroak, without any more trouble, her design was
brought to perfection; after which, turning about towards the king’s
balcony, she made her obeysance, and withdrew herself in suitable state
and gravity.”
At the _jura_ of 1833 ninety-nine bulls were massacred; had one more
been added the hecatomb would have been complete. These wholesale
slaughterings have this year been repeated at the marriage of the same
“_innocent_” Isabel, the critical events of whose life are
death-warrants to quadrupeds. Bulls, however, represent in Spain the
coronation banquets of England. In that hungry, ascetic land, bulls have
always been killed, but no beef eaten; a remarkable fact, which did not
escape the learned Justin in his remarks on the no-dinner-giving crowned
heads of old Iberia.
These genuine ancient bull-fights were perilous and fatal in the
extreme, yet knights were never wanting--valour being the point of
honour--who readily exposed their lives in sight of their cruel
mistresses. To kill the monster if not killed by him, was, before the
time of Hudibras, the sure road to women’s love, who very properly
admire those qualities the best, in which they feel themselves to be the
most deficient:--
[Sidenote: RUIN OF OLD BULL-FIGHT.]
“The ladies’ hearts began to melt,
Subdued by blows their lovers felt;
So Spanish heroes, with their lances,
At once wound bulls and ladies’ fancies.”
The final conquest of the Moors, and the subsequent cessation of the
border chivalrous habits of Spaniards, occasioned these love-pastimes to
fall into comparative disuse. The gentle Isabella was so shocked at the
bull-fights which she saw at Medina del Campo, that she did her utmost
to put them down; but she strove in vain, for the game and monarchy were
destined to fall together. The accession of Philip V. deluged the
Peninsula with Frenchmen. The puppies of Paris pronounced the Spaniards
and their bulls to be barbarous and brutal, as their _artistes_ to this
day prefer the _bœuf gras_ of the Boulevards to whole flocks of
Iberian lean kine. The spectacle which had withstood her influence, and
had beat the bulls of Popes, bowed before the despotism of fashion. The
periwigged courtiers deserted the arena, on which the royal Bourbon eye
looked coldly, while the sturdy people, foes--then as now--to Frenchmen
and innovations, clung closer to the sports of their forefathers. Yet a
fatal blow was dealt to the combat: the art, once practised by knights,
degenerated into the vulgar butchery of mercenary bull-fighters, who
contended not for honour, but base lucre; thus, by becoming the game of
the mob, it was soon stripped of every gentlemanlike prestige. So the
tournament challenges of our chivalrous ancestors have sunk down to the
vulgar boxings of ruffian pugilists.
[Sidenote: CRAVING FOR BULLS AND BREAD.]
Baiting a bull in any shape is irresistible to the lower orders of
Spain, who disregard injuries to the bodies, and, what is worse, to
their cloaks. The hostility to the horned beast is instinctive, and
grows with their growth, until it becomes, as men are but children of a
larger growth, a second nature. The young urchins in the streets play at
“_toro_,” as ours do at leap-frog; they go through the whole mimic
spectacle amongst each other, observing every law and rule, as our
schoolboys do when they fight. Few adult Spaniards, when journeying
through the country, ever pass a herd of cows without this dormant
propensity breaking out; they provoke the animals to fight by waving
their cloaks or _capas_, a challenge hence called _el capeo_. The
villagers, who cannot afford the expense of a regular bull-fight, amuse
themselves with baiting _novillos_, or bull-youngsters--calves of one
year old; and _embolados_, or bulls whose horns are guarded with tips
and buttons. These innocent pastimes are despised by the regular
_aficion_, the “fancy;” because, as neither man nor beast are exposed to
be killed, the whole affair is based in fiction, and impotent in
conclusion. They cry out for Toros de _muerte_--bulls of _death_.
Nothing short of the reality of blood can allay their excitement. They
despise the makeshift spectacle, as much as a true gastronome does
mock-turtle, or an old campaigner a sham fight.
[Sidenote: THE PLAZA DE TOROS.]
In the wilder districts of Andalucia few cattle are ever brought into
towns for slaughter, unless led by long ropes, and partially baited by
those whose poverty prevents their indulgence in the luxury of real
bull-fights and beef. The governor of Tarifa was wont on certain days to
let a bull loose into the streets, when the delight of the inhabitants
was to shut their doors, and behold from their grated windows the
perplexities of the unwary or strangers, pursued by him in the narrow
lanes without means of escape. Although many lives were lost, a governor
in our time, named Dalmau, otherwise a public benefactor to the place,
lost all his popularity in the vain attempt to put the custom down. When
the Bourbon Philip V. first visited the _plaça_ at Madrid, all the
populace roared, _Bulls! give us bulls, my lord_. They cared little for
the ruin of the monarchy; so when the intrusive Joseph Buonaparte
arrived at the same place, the only and absorbing topic of public talk
was whether he would grant or suppress the bull-fight. And now, as
always, the cry of the capital is--“_Pan y toros_; bread and bulls:”
these constitute the loaves and fishes of the “only modern court,” as
_Panes et Circenses_ did of ancient Rome. The national scowl and frown
which welcomed Montpensier at his marriage, was relaxed for one moment,
when Spaniards beheld his well-put-on admiration for the tauromachian
spectacle. Nothing, since the recent vast improvements in Spain, has
more progressed than the bull-fight--convents have come down, churches
have been levelled, but new amphitheatres have arisen. The diffusion of
useful and entertaining knowledge, as the means of promoting the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, has thus obtained the best
consideration of those patriots and statesmen who preside over the
destinies of Spain; the bull is master of his ground. This last remnant
and representative of Spanish nationality defies the foreigner and his
civilization; he is a _fait accompli_, and tramples _la charte_ under
his feet, although the honest Roi citoyen swears that it is désormais
une _vérité_.
In Spain there is no mistaking the day and time that the bull-fight
takes place, which is generally on Saint Monday, and in the afternoon,
when the mid-day heats are past.
The arena, or _Plaza_, is most unlike a London Place, those enclosures
of stunted smoke-blacked shrubs, fenced in with iron palisadoes to
protect aristocratic nurserymaids from the mob. It is at once more
classical and amusing. The amphitheatre of Madrid is very spacious,
being about 1100 feet in circumference, and will hold 12,000 spectators.
In an architectural point of view this ring of the model court, is
shabbier than many of those in provincial towns: there is no attempt at
orders, pilasters, and Vitruvian columns; there is no adaptation of the
Coliseum of Rome: the exterior is bald and plain, as if done so on
purpose, while the interior is fitted up with wooden benches, and is
scarcely better than a shambles; but for that it was designed, and there
is a business-like, murderous intention about it, which marks the
inæsthetic Gotho-Spaniard, who looked for a sport of blood and death,
and not to a display of artistical skill. He has no need of extraneous
stimulants; the _réalité atroce_, as a tender-hearted foreigner
observes, “is all-sufficing, because it is the recreation of the savage,
and the sublime of common souls.” The locality, however, is admirably
calculated for seeing; and this combat is a spectacle entirely for the
eyes. The open space is full of the light of heaven, and here the sun is
brighter than gas or wax-candles. The interior is as unadorned as the
exterior, and looks positively “mesquin” when empty; around the sanded
centre rise rows of wooden seats for the humbler classes, and above them
a tier of boxes for the fine ladies and gentlemen; but no sooner is the
theatre filled than all this meanness is concealed, and the general
appearance becomes superb.
[Sidenote: BULL-FIGHT SLANG.]
On entering the ring when thus full, the stranger finds his watch put
back at once eighteen hundred years; he is transported to Rome under the
Cæsars; and in truth the sight is glorious, of the assembled thousands
in their Spanish costume, the novelty of the spectacle, associated with
our earliest classical studies, are enhanced by the blue expanse of the
heavens, spread above as a canopy. There is something in these
out-of-door entertainments, _à l’antique_, which peculiarly affects the
shivering denizens of the catch-cold north, where climate contributes so
little to the happiness of man. All first-rate connoisseurs go into the
pit and place themselves among the mob, in order to be closer to the
bulls and combatants. The _real thing_ is to sit near one of the
openings, which enables the fancy-man to exhibit his embroidered gaiters
and neat leg. It is here that the character of the bull, the nice traits
and the behaviour of the bull-fighter are scientifically criticised. The
ring has a dialect peculiar to itself, which is unintelligible to most
Spaniards themselves, while to the sporting-men of Andalucia it
expresses their drolleries with idiomatic raciness, and is exactly
analogous to the slang and technicalities of our pugilistic craft. The
newspapers next day generally give a detailed report of the fight, in
which every round is scientifically described in a style that defies
translation, but which being drawn up by some Spanish Boz, is most
delectable to all who can understand it; the nomenclature of praise and
blame is defined with the most accurate precision of language, and the
delicate shades of character are distinguished with the nicety of
phrenological subdivision. The foundation of this lingo is gipsy Romany,
metaphor, and double entendre; to master it is no easy matter; indeed, a
distinguished diplomat and tauromachian philologist, whom we are proud
to call our friend, was often unable to comprehend the full pregnancy of
the meaning of certain terms, without a reference to the late Duke of
San Lorenzo, who sustained the character of Spanish ambassador in London
and of bull-fighter in Madrid with equal dignity; his grace was a living
lexicon of slang. Yet let no student be deterred by any difficulty,
since he will eventually be repaid, when he can fully relish the
Andalucian wit, or _sal Andaluça_, the salt, with which the reports are
flavoured: that it is seldom Attic must, however, be confessed. Nor let
time or pains be grudged; there is no royal road to Euclid, and life,
say the Spanish fancy, is too short to learn bull-fighting. This
possibly may seem strange, but English squires and country gentlemen
assert as much in regard to fox-hunting.
[Sidenote: SPANISH BULLS.]
The day appointed for a bull-feast is announced by placards of all
colours; the important particulars decorate every wall. The first thing
is to secure a good place beforehand, by sending for a _Boletin de
Sombra_, a shade-ticket; and as the great object is to avoid glare and
heat, the best places are on the northern side, which are in the shade.
The transit of the sun over the Plaza, the zodiacal progress into
Taurus, is decidedly the best calculated astronomical observation in
Spain; the line of shadow defined on the arena is marked by a gradation
of prices. The different seats and prices are everywhere detailed in the
bills of the play, with the names of the combatants and the colours of
the different breeds of bulls.
[Sidenote: BEST BREED OF BULLS.]
The day before the fight, the bulls destined for the spectacle are
driven towards the town, and pastured in a meadow reserved for their
reception; then the fine amateurs never fail to ride out to see what the
cattle is like, just as the knowing in horseflesh go to Tattersall’s of
a Sunday afternoon, instead of attending evening service in their parish
churches. According to Pepe Illo, who was a very practical man, and the
first author on the modern system of the arena, of which he was the
brightest ornament, and on which he died in the arms of victory, the
“love of bulls is inherent in man, especially in the Spaniard, among
which glorious people there have been bull-fights ever since there were
bulls, because the Spanish men are as much more brave than all other
men, as the Spanish bull is more fierce and valiant than all other
bulls.” Certainly, from having been bred at large, in roomy unenclosed
plains, they are more active than the animals raised by John Bull, but
as regards form and power they would be scouted in an English
cattle-show; a real British bull, with his broad neck and short horns,
would make quick work with the men and horses of Spain; his “spears”
would be no less effective than the bayonets of our soldiers, which no
foreigner faces twice, or the picks of our _Navvies_, three and
three-eighths of whom are calculated by railway economists to eat more
beef and do more work than five and five-eighths of corresponding
foreign material. By the way, the correct Castilian word for the bull’s
_horns_ is _astas_, the Latin _hastas_, spears. _Cuernos_ must never be
used in good Spanish society, since, from its secondary meaning, it
might give offence to present company: allusions to common calamities
are never made to ears polite, however frequent among the vulgar, who
call things by their improper names--nay, roar them out, as in the time
of Horace: “Magnâ compellens voce cucullum.”
Not every bull will do for the Plaza, and none but the fiercest are
selected, who undergo trials from the earliest youth; the most
celebrated animals come from Utrera near Seville, and from the same
pastures where that eminent breeder of old Geryon, raised those
wonderful oxen, which all but burst with fat in fifty days, and were
“lifted” by the invincible Hercules. Señor _Cabrera_, the modern Geryon,
was so pleased with Joseph Buonaparte, or so afraid, that he offered to
him a hundred bulls, as a hecatomb for the rations of his troops, who,
braver and hungrier than Hercules, would otherwise have infallibly
followed the demigod’s example. The Manchegan bull, small, very
powerful, and active, is considered to be the original stock of Spain;
of this breed was “Manchangito,” the pet of the Visconde de Miranda, a
tauromachian noble of Cordova, and who used to come into the
dining-room, but, having one day killed a guest, he was destroyed after
violent resistance on the part of the Viscount, and only in obedience to
the peremptory mandate of the Prince of the Peace.
The capital is supplied with animals bred in the valleys of the Jarama
near Aranjuez, which have been immemorially celebrated. From hence came
that _Harpado_, the magnificent beast of the magnificent Moorish ballad
of Gazul, which was evidently written by a practical _torero_, and on
the spot: the verses sparkle with daylight and local colour like a
Velazquez, and are as minutely correct as a Paul Potter, while Byron’s
“Bull-fight” is the invention of a foreign poet, and full of slight
inaccuracies.
The _encierro_, or the driving the bulls to the arena, is a service of
danger; they are enticed by tame oxen, into a road which is barricadoed
on each side, and then driven full speed by the mounted and
spear-bearing peasants into the _Plaza_. It is an exciting, peculiar,
and picturesque spectacle; and the poor who cannot afford to go to the
bull-fight, risk their lives and cloaks in order to get the front
places, and best chance of a stray poke _en passant_.
[Sidenote: THE ENCIERRO.]
The next afternoon all the world crowds to the _Plaza de toros_. You
need not ask the way; just launch into the tide, which in these Spanish
affairs will assuredly carry you away. Nothing can exceed the gaiety and
sparkle of a Spanish public going, eager and full-dressed, to the
_fight_. They could not move faster were they running away from a real
one. All the streets or open spaces near the outside of the arena
present of themselves a spectacle to the stranger, and genuine Spain is
far better to be seen and studied in the streets, than in the saloon.
Now indeed a traveller from Belgravia feels that he is out of town, in a
new world and no mistake; all around him is a perfect saturnalia, all
ranks are fused in one stream of living beings, one bloody thought beats
in every heart, one heart beats in ten thousand bosoms; every other
business is at an end, the lover leaves his mistress unless she will go
with him,--the doctor and lawyer renounce patients, briefs, and fees;
the city of sleepers is awakened, and all is life, noise, and movement,
where to-morrow will be the stillness and silence of death; now the
bending line of the _Calle de Alcalá_, which on other days is broad and
dull as Portland Place, becomes the aorta of Madrid, and is scarcely
wide enough for the increased circulation; now it is filled with a dense
mass coloured as the rainbow, which winds along like a spotted snake to
its prey. Oh the din and dust! The merry mob is everything, and, like
the Greek chorus, is always on the scene. How national and Spanish are
the dresses of the lower classes--for their betters alone appear like
Boulevard quizzes, or tigers cut out from our East end tailors’
pattern-book of the last new fashion; what _Manolas_, what reds and
yellows, what fringes and flounces, what swarms of picturesque
vagabonds, cluster, or alas, clustered, around _calesas_, whose wild
drivers run on foot, whipping, screaming, swearing; the type of these
vehicles in form and colour was Neapolitan; they alas! are also soon
destined to be sacrificed to civilization to the ’bus and common-place
cab, or vile fly.
[Sidenote: FILLING THE THEATRE.]
The _plaza_ is the focus of a fire, which blood alone can extinguish;
what public meetings and dinners are to Britons, reviews and razzias to
Gauls, mass or music to Italians, is this one and absorbing bull-fight
to Spaniards of all ranks, sexes, ages, for their happiness is quite
catching; and yet a thorn peeps amid these rosebuds; when the dazzling
glare and fierce African sun calcining the heavens and earth, fires up
man and beast to madness, a raging thirst for blood is seen in flashing
eyes and the irritable ready knife, then the passion of the Arab
triumphs over the coldness of the Goth: the excitement would be terrific
were it not on pleasure bent; indeed there is no sacrifice, even of
chastity, no denial, even of dinner, which they will not undergo to save
money for the bull-fight. It is the birdlime with which the devil
catches many a female and male soul. The men go in all their best
costume and _majo_-finery: the distinguished ladies wear on these
occasions white lace mantillas, and when heated, look, as the Andaluz
wag Adrian said, like sausages wrapped up in white paper; a fan,
_abanico_, is quite as necessary to all as it was among the Romans. The
article is sold outside for a trifle, and is made of rude paper, stuck
into a handle of common cane or stick, and the gift of one to his
nutbrown _querida_ is thought a delicate attention to her complexion
from her swarthy swain; at the same time the lower Salamander classes
stand fire much better on these occasions than in action, and would
rather be roasted fanless alive _á la auto de fe_ than miss these hot
engagements.
The place of slaughter, like the _Abattoirs_ on the Continent, is
erected outside the towns, in order to obtain space, and because horned
animals when over driven in crowded streets are apt to be ill-mannered,
as may be seen every Smithfield market-day in the City, as the Lord
Mayor well knows.
[Sidenote: SEAT OF THE CLERGY.]
The seats occupied by the mob are filled more rapidly than our shilling
galleries, and the “gods” are equally noisy and impatient. The anxiety
of the immortals, wishes to annihilate time and space and make
bull-fanciers happy. Now his majesty the many reigns triumphantly, and
this--church excepted--is the only public meeting allowed; but even
here, as on the Continent, the odious bayonet sparkles, and the soldier
picket announces that innocent amusements are not free; treason and
stratagem are suspected by coward despots, when one sole thought of
pleasure engrosses every one else. All ranks are now fused into one mass
of homogeneous humanity; their good humour is contagious; all leave
their cares and sorrows at home, and enter with a gaiety of heart and a
determination to be amused, which defies wrinkled care; many and not
over-delicate are the quips and quirks bandied to and fro, with an
eloquence more energetic than unadorned; things and persons are
mentioned to the horror of periphrastic euphuists; the liberty of
speech is perfect, and as it is all done quite in a parliamentary way,
none take offence. Those only who cannot get in are sad; these rejected
ones remain outside grinding their teeth, like the unhappy ghosts on the
wrong side of the Styx, and listen anxiously to the joyous shouts of the
thrice blessed within.
At Seville a choice box in the shade and to the right of the president
is allotted as the seat of honour to the canons of the cathedral, who
attend in their clerical costume; and such days are fixed upon for the
bull-fight as will not by a long church service prevent their coming.
The clergy of Spain have always been the most uncompromising enemies of
the stage, where they never go; yet neither the cruelty nor profligacy
of the amphitheatre has ever roused the zeal of their most elect or most
fanatic: our puritans at least assailed the bear-bait, which induced the
Cavalier Hudibras to defend them; so our methodists denounced the
bull-bait, which was therefore patronised by the Right Hon. W. Windham,
in the memorable debate May 24, 1802, on Mr. _Dog_ Dent. The Spanish
clergy pay due deference to bulls, both papal and quadruped; they
dislike being touched on this subject, and generally reply “_Es
costumbre_--it is the custom--_siempre se ha praticado asi_--it has
always been done so, or _son cosas de España_, they are things of
Spain”--the usual answer given as to everything which appears
incomprehensible to strangers, and which they either can’t account for,
or do not choose. In vain did St. Isidore write a chapter against the
amphitheatre--his _chapter_ minds him not; in vain did Alphonso the Wise
forbid their attendance. The sacrifice of the bull has always been mixed
up with the religion of old Rome and old and modern Spain, where they
are classed among acts of charity, since they support the sick and
wounded; therefore all the sable countrymen of Loyola hold to the
Jesuitical doctrine that the end justifies the means.
[Sidenote: COMMENCEMENT OF THE BULL-FIGHT.]