The frolics of Carnival are sometimes carried on till the dawn of
this day, the first of the long fast of Lent, when a sudden and most
unpleasant transition takes place for such as have set no bounds to
the noisy mirth of the preceding season. But, as the religious duties
of the church begin at midnight, the amusements of Shrove-Tuesday
cease, in the more correct families, at twelve, just as your Opera is
hurried, on Saturdays, that it may not encroach on the following day.
Midnight is, indeed, a most important period with us. The obligation
of fasting begins just when the leading clock of every town strikes
twelve; and as no priest can celebrate mass, on any day whatever,
if he has taken the smallest portion of meat or drink after the
beginning of the civil day, I have often seen clergymen devouring
their supper against time, the watch upon the table, and the anxious
eye upon the fatal hand, while large mouthfuls, chasing one
another down their almost convulsed throats, appeared to threaten
suffocation. Such hurry will seem incredible to your well-fed
Englishmen, for whom supper is an empty name. Not so to our worthy
divines, who, having had their dinner at one, and a cup of chocolate
at six, feel strongly the necessity of a substantial supper before
they retire to bed. A priest, therefore, who, by some untoward
accident, is overtaken by “the dead waste and middle of the night,”
with a craving stomach, having to perform mass at a late hour next
morning, may well feel alarmed at his impending sufferings. The
strictness, in fact, with which the rule of receiving the Sacrament
into a fasting stomach is observed, will hardly be believed in a
Protestant country. I have known many a profligate priest; yet never
but once met with any who ventured to break this sacramental fast.
The infraction of this rule would strike horror into every Catholic
bosom; and the convicted perpetrator of such a daring sacrilege as
dividing the power of digestion between the Host and common food,
would find it difficult to escape the last vengeance of the Church.
This law extends to the laity whenever they intend to communicate.
I must now acquaint you with the rules of the Roman Catholic fast,
which all persons above the age of one-and-twenty, are bound to
observe during Lent, Sundays excepted. One meal alone, from which
flesh, eggs, milk, and all its preparations, such as cheese and
butter, called _Lacticinia_, are excluded, is allowed on a fast day.
It is under this severe form that your English and Irish Catholics
are bound to keep their Lent. But we Spaniards are the darlings
of our Mother Church of Rome, and enjoy most valuable privileges.
The _Bull of the Crusade_, in the first place, dispenses with our
abstinence from eggs and milk. Besides throwing open the hen-house
and dairy, the said Bull unlocks the treasure of laid-up merits,
of which the Pope keeps the key, and thus we are refreshed both in
body and soul, at the trifling cost of about three-pence a-year.
Yet we should have been compelled to live for forty days on your
Newfoundland fish--not a savoury food in these hot countries--had
it not been for a new kind of hostilities which our Government, in
concert with the Pope, devised against England, I believe during
the siege of Gibraltar. By allowing the Spaniards to eat meat four
days in the Lent weeks, it was proposed to diminish the profits
which Great Britain derives from the exportation of dried fish. We
had accordingly another privilege, under the title of _Flesh-Bull_,
at the same moderate price as the former. This additional revenue
was found too considerable to be relinquished on the restoration of
peace; and the Pope, who has a share in it, soon discovered that the
weakness of our constitutions requires more solid nutriment than the
dry chips of the Newfoundland fish can afford.
The _Bull of the Crusade_ is proclaimed, every year before Lent,
by the sound of kettle-drums and trumpets. As no one can enjoy the
privileges expressed in these papal rescripts without possessing a
printed copy thereof, wherein the name of the owner is inserted;
there is a house at Seville with a printing-office, by far the
most extensive in Andalusia, where, at the expense of Government,
these Bulls are reprinted every year, both for Spain and Spanish
America. Now, it has been wisely arranged that, on the day of the
yearly publication, copies for the preceding twelvemonth shall
become absolutely stale and unprofitable; a measure which produces a
most prodigious hurry to obtain new Bulls, in all who wish well to
their souls and do not quite overlook the ease and comfort of their
stomachs.
The article of _Bulls_ hold a conspicuous station in the Spanish
budget. The price of the copies being, however, more than double in
Spanish America, it is from thence that the chief profit of this
spiritual juggle arises. Cargoes of this holy paper are sent over
every year by Government to all our transatlantic possessions, and
one of the most severe consequences of a war with England, is the
difficulty of conveying these ghostly treasures to our brethren of
the New World, no less than that of bringing back the worldly, yet
necessary, dross, which they give in exchange to the Mother-country.
But I fear I am betraying state secrets.