“_A little work that gave an amusing Miracle of the Virgin for every
Day in the Year._” p. 70.
The book alluded to in the text is the _Año Virgineo_. The moral
tendency of this and similar books may be shewn by the following
story--technically named an _Example_--which I will venture to give
from memory:--A Spanish soldier, who had fought in the Netherlands,
having returned home with some booty, was leading a profligate and
desperate life. He had, however, bled for the Faith: and his own was
perfectly orthodox. A large old picture of the Virgin Mary hung over
the inside of the door of his lodgings, which, it seems, did not
correspond in loftiness to the brave halberdier’s mind and demeanour.
Early every morning he used to sally forth in pursuit of unlawful
pleasure; but, though he never did bend his knees in prayer, he
would not cross the threshold without a loud _Hail Mary!_ to the
picture, accompanied by an inclination of the halbert, which partly
from his outrageous hurry to break out of the nightly prison, partly
from want of room for his military salute, inflicted many a wound on
the canvass. Thus our soldier went on spending his life and money,
till a sharp Spanish dagger composed him to rest, in the heat of a
brawl. “He died and made no sign.” The Devil, who thought him as
fair a prize as any that had ever been within his grasp, waited only
for the sentence which, according to Catholics, is passed on every
individual immediately after death, in what they call the _Particular
Judgment_. At this critical moment the Virgin Mary presented herself
in a black mantle, similar to that which she wore in the picture,
but sadly rent and slit in several places. “These are the marks,”
she said to the affrighted soul, “of your rude, though certainly
well-meant civility. I will not, however, permit that one who has so
cordially saluted me every day, should go into everlasting fire.”
Thus saying, she bade the evil spirit give up his prisoner, and the
gallant soldier was sent to purge off the dross of his boisterous
nature, in the gentler flames of purgatory.--A portion of the book
from which I recollect this story, was, for many years, read every
evening in one of the principal parishes at Seville. I observed the
same practice at a town not far from the capital of Andalusia; and,
for any thing I know to the contrary, it may be very common all over
Spain. Such is the doctrine which, disowned in theory by the divines
of the Roman church, but growing out of the system of saint-worship,
constitutes the main religious feeling of the vulgar, and taints
strongly the minds of the higher classes in Spain. The Chronicles
of the Religious Orders are full of narratives, the whole drift of
which is to represent their patron saint as powerful to save from the
very jaws of hell. The skill of the painter has often been engaged
to exhibit these stories to the eye, and the Spanish convents abound
in pictures more encouraging to vice than the most profligate prints
of the Palais Royal. I recollect one at Seville in the convent of
the Antonines--a species of the genus _Monachus Franciscanus_ of the
_Monachologia_--so strangely absurd, that I hope the reader will
forgive my lengthening this note with its description. The picture I
allude to was in the cloisters of the convent of San Antonio, facing
the principal entrance, so late as the year 1810, when I was last at
Seville. The subject is the hairbreadth escape of a great sinner,
whom St. Francis saved against all chances. An extract from the
Chronicles of the Order, which is found in a corner of the painting,
informs the beholder that the person whose soul is represented on the
canvass, was a lawless nobleman, who, fortified in his own castle,
became the terror and abhorrence of the neighbourhood. As neither the
life of man, nor the honour of woman, was safe from the violence of
his passions, none willingly dwelt upon his lands, or approached the
gate of the castle. It chanced, however, that two Franciscan friars,
having lost the way in a stormy night, applied for shelter at the
wicked nobleman’s gate, where they met with nothing but insult and
scorn. It was well for them that the fame of St. Francis filled the
world at that time. The holy saint, with the assistance of St. Paul,
had lately cut the throat of an Italian bishop, who had resisted the
establishment of the Franciscans in his diocese.[66]
[66] This curious scene is the subject of another picture in the
cloisters of Saint Francis, at Seville. The bishop is seen in
his bed, where Saint Francis has neatly severed the head from
the body with Saint Paul’s sword, which he had borrowed for this
pious purpose. As the good friars might have been suspected of
having a hand in this miracle, the saint performed an additional
wonder. The figures of Saint Paul and Saint Francis stood side
by side in a painted glass window of the principal convent
of the order. The apostle had a sword in his hand, while his
companion was weaponless. To the great surprise of the fathers,
it was observed, one morning, that Saint Paul had given away the
sword to his friend. The death of the bishop, which happened
that very night, explained the wonder, and taught the world
what those might expect who thwarted the plans of Heaven in the
establishment of the Franciscans.
The fear of a similar punishment abated the fierceness of the
nobleman, and he ordered his servants to give the friars some clean
straw for a bed, and a couple of eggs for their supper. Having given
this explanation, the painter trusts to the appropriate language of
his art, and takes up the story immediately after the death of the
noble sinner. Michael the archangel--who by a traditional belief,
universal in Spain, and probably common to all Catholic countries, is
considered to have the charge of weighing departed souls with their
good works, against the sins they have committed--is represented
with a large pair of scales in his hand. Several angels, in a group,
stand near him, and a crowd of devils are watching, at a respectful
distance, the result of the trial. The newly-departed soul, in the
puny shape of a sickly boy, has been placed, naked, in one scale,
while the opposite groans under a monstrous heap of swords, daggers,
poisoned bows, love-letters, and portraits of females, who had been
the victims of his fierce desires. It is evident that this ponderous
mass would have greatly outweighed the slight and nearly transparent
form which was to oppose its pressure, had not Saint Francis, whose
figure stands prominent in the painting, assisted the distressed
soul by slipping a couple of eggs and a bundle of straw into its own
side of the balance. Upon this seasonable addition, the instruments
and emblems of guilt are seen to fly up and kick the beam. It appears
from this that the Spanish painter agrees with Milton in the system
of weighing Fate; and that, since the days of Homer and Virgil,
superior weight is become the sign of victory, which with them was
that of defeat--_quo vergat pondere lethum_.