_Spain Revisited. By the author of "A Year in Spain." New York: Harper
and Brothers._
Some three months since we had occasion to express our high admiration
of Lieutenant Slidell's _American in England_. The work now before us
presents to the eye of the critical reader many if not all of those
peculiarities which distinguished its predecessor. We find the same
force and freedom. We recognize the same artist-like way of depicting
persons, scenery, or manners, by a succession of minute and
well-managed details. We perceive also the same terseness and
originality of expression. Still we must be pardoned for saying that
many of the same _niaiseries_ are also apparent, and most especially
an abundance of very bad grammar and a superabundance of gross errors
in syntatical arrangement.
With the _Dedicatory Letter_ prefixed to _Spain Revisited_, we have no
patience whatever. It does great credit to the kind and gentlemanly
feelings of Lieutenant Slidell, but it forms no inconsiderable
drawback upon {390} our previously entertained opinions of his good
taste. We can at no time, and under no circumstances, see either
meaning or delicacy in parading the sacred relations of personal
friendship before the unscrupulous eyes of the public. And even when
these things are well done and briefly done, we do believe them to be
in the estimation of all persons of nice feeling a nuisance and an
abomination. But it very rarely happens that the closest scrutiny can
discover in the least offensive of these dedications any thing better
than extravagance, affectation or incongruity. We are not sure that it
would be impossible, in the present instance, to designate gross
examples of all three. What connection has the name of Lieutenant
Upshur with the present Spanish Adventures of Lieutenant Slidell?
None. Then why insist upon a connection which the world cannot
perceive? The Dedicatory letter, in the present instance, is either a
_bona fide_ epistle actually addressed before publication to
Lieutenant Upshur, intended strictly as a memorial of friendship, and
published because no good reasons could be found for the
non-publication--or its plentiful professions are all hollowness and
falsity, and it was never meant to be any thing more than a very
customary public compliment.
Our first supposition is negatived by the stiff and highly constrained
character of the _style_, totally distinct from the usual, and we will
suppose the less carefully arranged composition of the author. What
man in his senses ever wrote as follows, from the simple impulses of
gratitude or friendship?
In times past, a dedication, paid for by a great literary patron,
furnished the author at once with the means of parading his own
servility, and ascribing to his idol virtues which had no real
existence. Though this custom be condemned by the better taste of the
age in which we live, friendship may yet claim the privilege of
eulogizing virtues which really exist; if so, I might here draw the
portrait of a rare combination of them; I might describe a courage, a
benevolence, a love of justice coupled with an honest indignation at
whatever outrages it, a devotion to others and forgetfulness of self,
such as are not often found blended in one character, were I not
deterred by the consideration that when I should have completed my
task, the eulogy, which would seem feeble to those who knew the
original, might be condemned as extravagant by those who do not.
Can there be any thing more palpably artificial than all this? The
writer commences by informing his bosom friend that whereas in times
past men were given up to fulsome flattery in their dedications, not
scrupling to endow their patrons with virtues they never possessed,
he, the Lieutenant, intends to be especially delicate and original in
his own peculiar method of applying the panegyrical plaster, and to
confine himself to qualities which have a real existence. Now this is
the very sentiment, if sentiment it may be called, with which all the
toad-eaters since the flood have introduced their dedicatory letters.
What immediately follows is in the same vein, and is worthy of the
ingenious Don Puffando himself. All the good qualities in the world
are first enumerated--Lieutenant Upshur is then informed, by the most
approved rules of circumbendibus, that he possesses them, one and
each, in the highest degree, but that his friend the author of "_Spain
Revisited_" is too much of a man of tact to tell him any thing about
it.
If on the other hand it is admitted that the whole epistle is a mere
matter of form, and intended simply as a public compliment to a
personal friend, we feel, at once, a degree of righteous indignation
at the profanation to so hollow a purpose, of the most sacred epithets
and phrases of friendship--a degree, too, of serious doubt whether the
gentleman panegyrized will receive as a compliment, or rather resent
as an insult, the being taxed to his teeth, and in the face of the
whole community, with nothing less than all the possible
accomplishments and graces, together with the entire stock of cardinal
and other virtues.
_Spain Revisited_, although we cannot think it at all equal to the
_American in England_ for picturesque and vigorous description (which
we suppose to be the forte of Lieutenant Slidell) yet greatly
surpasses in this respect most of the books of modern travels with
which we now usually meet. A moderate interest is sustained
throughout--aided no doubt by our feelings of indignation at the
tyranny which would debar so accomplished a traveller as our
countryman from visiting at his leisure and in full security a region
so well worth visiting as Spain. It appears that Ferdinand on the 20th
August, 1832, taking it into his head that the Lieutenant's former
work "A Year in Spain" (esta indigesta produccion) esta llena de
falsedades y de groceras calumnias contra el Rey N. S. y su augusta
familia, thought proper to issue a royal order in which the book
called _un ano en Espana_ was doomed to seizure wherever it might be
found, and the clever author himself, under the appellation of the
Signor Ridell, to a dismissal from the nearest frontier in the event
of his anticipated return to the country. Notwithstanding this order,
the Lieutenant, as he himself informs us, did not hesitate to
undertake the journey, knowing that, subsequently to the edict in
question, the whole machinery of the government had undergone a
change, having passed into liberal hands. But although the danger of
actual arrest on the above-mentioned grounds was thus rendered
comparatively trivial, there were many other serious difficulties to
be apprehended. In the Basque Provinces and in Navarre the civil war
was at its height. The diligences, as a necessary consequence, had
ceased to run; and the insurgents rendered the means of progressing
through the country exceedingly precarious, by their endeavors to cut
off all communications through which the government could be informed
of their manœuvres. The post-horses had been seized by the Carlist
cavalry to supply their deficiencies, "and only a few mules remained
at some of the post-houses between Bayonne and Vitoria."
The following sketch of an ass-market at Tordesillas seems to embody
in a small compass specimens of nearly all the excellences as well as
nearly all the faults of the author.
By far the most curious part of the fair, however, was the ass-market,
held by a gay fraternity of gipsies. There were about a dozen of
these, for the most part of middle stature, beautifully formed, with
very regular features of an Asiatic cast, and having a copper tinge;
their hands were very small, as of a race long unaccustomed to severe
toil, with quantities of silver rings strung on the fingers. They had
very white and regular teeth, and their black eyes were uncommonly
large, round-orbed, projecting, and expressive; habitually languid and
melancholy in moments of listlessness, they kindled into wonderful
brightness when engaged in commending their asses, or in bartering
with a purchaser. Their jet-black hair hung in long curls down their
back, and they were nearly all dressed in velvet, as Andalusian majos,
with quantities of buttons made from pesetas and half {391} pesetas
covering their jackets and breeches, as many as three or four hanging
frequently from the same eyelet-hole. Some of them wore the Andalusian
leggjn and shoe of brown leather, others the footless stocking and
sandal of Valencia; in general their dress, which had nothing in
common with the country they were then in, seemed calculated to unite
ease of movement and freedom from embarrassment to jauntiness of
effect. All of them had a profusion of trinkets and amulets, intended
to testily their devotion to that religion which, according to the
popular belief, they were suspected of doubting, and one of them
displayed his excessive zeal in wearing conspicuously from his neck a
silver case, twice the size of a dollar, containing a picture of the
Virgin Mary holding the infant Saviour in her arms.
Four or five females accompanied this party, and came and went from
the square and back, with baskets and other trifles, as if engaged at
their separate branch of trade. They had beautiful oval faces, with
fine eyes and teeth, and rich olive complexions. Their costume was
different from any other I had seen in Spain, its greatest peculiarity
consisting in a coarse outer petticoat, which was drawn over the head
at pleasure instead of the mantilla, and which reminded me of the
manta of Peru, concealing, as it did, the whole of the face, except
only a single eye.
I asked a dozen people where these strange beings were from, not
liking to speer the question at themselves; but not one could tell me,
and all seemed to treat the question as no less difficult of solution
than one which might concern the origin of the wind. One person,
indeed, barely hinted the possibility of their being from Zamora,
where one of the faubourgs has a colony of these vermin, for so they
are esteemed. He added, moreover, that a late law required that every
gipsy in Spain should have a fixed domicil, but that they still
managed, in the face of it, to gratify their hereditary taste for an
unsettled and wandering life. He spoke of them as a pack of gay rogues
and petty robbers, yet did not seem to hold them in any particular
horror. The asses which they were selling they had probably collected
in the pueblos with a view to this fair, trading from place to place
as they journeyed, and not a few they had perhaps kidnapped and coaxed
away, taking care, by shaving and other embellishments, to modify and
render them unknown.
I was greatly amused in observing the ingenious mode in which they
kept their beasts together in the midst of such a crowd and so much
confusion, or separated them for the purpose of making a sale. They
were strung at the side of the parapet wall, overlooking the river,
with their heads towards it and pressing against it, as if anxious to
push it over, but in reality out of sedulousness to avoid the frequent
showers of blows which were distributed from time to time, without
motive or warning, on their unoffending hinder parts, and withdraw
them as far as possible from the direction whence they were inflicted.
As they were very much crowded together, there was quite scuffling
work for an ass to get in when brought back from an unsuccessful
effort to trade, or when newly bought, for these fellows, in the true
spirit of barter, were equally ready to buy or sell. The gipsy's
staff, distributing blows on the rumps of two adjoining beasts, would
throw open a slight aperture, into which the nose of the intruding ass
would be made to enter, when a plentiful encouragement of blows would
force him in, like a wedge into a riven tree. The mode of extracting
an ass was equally ingenious, and, if any thing, more singular;
continually pressing their heads against the wall with all their
energy, it would have required immense strength, with the chance of
pulling off the tail if it were not a strong one, to drag them
forcibly out; a gipsy, taking the tail of the required animal in one
hand, would stretch his staff forward so as to tap him on the nose,
and, thus encouraged, gently draw him out.
The ingenuity of these gipsies in getting up a bargain, trusting to be
able to turn it to their own account, was marvellous. Mingling among
the farmers, and engaging them in conversation on indifferent
subjects, they would at length bring them back to the favorite theme
of asses, and eventually persuade them to take a look at theirs. "Here
is one," measuring the height of an individual with his staff, "which
will just suit you;--what will you give for him? Come, you shall have
him for half his worth, for one hundred reals--only five dollars for
an ass like this," looking at him with the admiration of a connoisseur
in the presence of the Apollo; "truly, an animal of much merit and the
greatest promise--_de mucho merito y encarecimiento_--he has the
shoulders and breast of an ox; let me show you the richness of his
paces," said the gipsy, his whole figure and attitude partaking of his
earnestness, and his eye dilating and glowing with excitement. He had
brought the unwary and bewildered countryman, like a charmed bird, to
the same point as the eloquent shopkeeper does his doubting customer
when he craves permission to take down his wares, and does not wait to
be denied. Vaulting to the back of the animal, he flourished his staff
about its head, and rode it up and down furiously, to the terror of
the by-standers' toes, pricking it on the spine with his iron-pointed
staff to make it frisky, and pronouncing the while, in the midst of
frantic gesticulations an eloquent eulogium on its performances and
character, giving it credit, among other things, for sobriety,
moderation, long suffering, and the most un-asslike qualification of
chastity. To add to the picturesque oddity of the scene, an old monk
stood hard by, an interested spectator of some chaffering between a
young woman and a seller of charms and trinkets stationed beneath an
awning, and no accessory was wanting to render the quaint little
picture complete.
In our notice of the _American in England_, we found much fault with
the _style_--that is to say, with the mere English of Lieutenant
Slidell. We are not sure whether the volumes now before us were
written previously or subsequently to that very excellent work--but
certain it is that they are much less abundant than it, in simple
errors of grammar and ambiguities of construction. We must be
pardoned, however, for thinking that even now the English of our
traveller is more obviously defective than is becoming in any well
educated American--more especially in any well educated American who
is an aspirant for the honors of authorship. To quote individual
sentences in support of an assertion of this nature, might bear with
it an air of injustice--since there are few of the best writers of any
language in whose works single faulty passages may not readily be
discovered. We will therefore take the liberty of commenting in detail
upon the English of an entire page of _Spain Revisited_.--See page
188, vol. i.
Carts and wagons, caravans of mules, and files of humbler asses came
pouring, by various roads, into the great vomitory by which we were
entering, laden with the various commodities, the luxuries as well as
the necessaries of life, brought from foreign countries or from remote
provinces, to sustain the unnatural existence of a capital which is so
remote from all its resources, and which produces scarce any thing
that it consumes.
This sentence, although it would not be too long, if properly managed,
is too long as it stands. The ear repeatedly seeks, and expects the
conclusion, and is repeatedly disappointed. It expects the close at
the word "_entering_"--at the word "_life_"--at the word
"_provinces_"--and at the word "_resources_." Each additional portion
of the sentence after each of the words just designated by inverted
commas, has the air of an after-thought engrafted upon the original
idea. The use of the word "_vomitory_" in the present instance is
injudicious. Strictly speaking, a road which serves as a vomitory, or
means of egress, for a population, serves also as a means of ingress.
A good writer, however, will consider not only whether, in all
strictness, his words will admit of the meaning he attaches to them,
but whether in their implied, their original, or other collateral
meanings, they may not be at variance with some portion of his
sentence. When we hear of "a _vomitory_ by which we were _entering_,"
not all the rigor of the most exact construction will reconcile us to
the phrase--since we are accustomed to connect with the word
_vomitory_, notions precisely the reverse of those allied to the
subsequent word "_entering_." Between the participle "_laden_" and the
nouns to which it refers (carts, {392} wagons, caravans and asses) two
other nouns and one pronoun are suffered to intervene--a grammatical
arrangement which when admitted in any degree, never fails to
introduce more or less obscurity in every sentence where it is so
admitted. Strict syntatical order would require (the pronoun "we"
being followed immediately by "laden") that--not the asses--but
Lieutenant Slidell and his companions should be laden with the various
commodities.
And now, too, we began to see horsemen jantily dressed in slouched
hat, embroidered jacket, and worked spatterdashes, reining fiery
Andalusian coursers, each having the Moorish carbine hung at hand
beside him.
Were horsemen, in this instance, a _generic_ term--that is, did the
word allude to horsemen generally, the use of the "_slouched hat_" and
"_embroidered jacket_" in the singular, would be justifiable--but it
is not so in speaking of individual horsemen, where the plural is
required. The participle "_reining_" properly refers to
"_spatterdashes_," although of course intended to agree with
"_horsemen_." The word "_each_," also meant to refer to the
"_horsemen_," belongs, strictly speaking, to the "_coursers_." The
whole, if construed by the rigid rules of grammar, would imply that
the horsemen were dressed in spatterdashes--which spatterdashes reined
the coursers--and which coursers had each a carbine.
Perhaps these were farmers of the better order; but they had not the
air of men accustomed to labor; they were rather, perhaps, Andalusian
horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers, of those who so greatly abound
about the capital, who for the moment, had laid aside their
professional character.
This is an exceedingly awkward sentence. The word "_maybe_" is, we
think, objectionable. The repetition of the relative "_who_" in the
phrases "_who so greatly abound_" and "_who for the moment had laid
aside_," is the less to be justified, as each "_who_" has a different
antecedent--the one referring to "_those_" (the robbers, generally,
who abound about the capital) and the other to the suspected
"_robbers_" then present. But the whole is exceeding ambiguous, and
leaves a doubt of the author's true meaning. For, the words
"_Andalusian horse-dealers, or, maybe, robbers of those who abound
about the capital_," may either imply that the men in question were
some of a class of robbers who abounded, &c. or that they were men who
robbed (that is, robbers of) the Andalusian horse-dealers who
abounded, &c. or that they were either Andalusian horse-dealers, or
robbers of those who abound about the capital--i.e. of the inhabitants
of the suburbs. Whether the last "_who_" has reference to _the
robbers_, or to _those who abound_, it is impossible to learn from any
thing in the sentence itself--which, taken altogether, is unworthy of
the merest tyro in the rules of composition.
At the inn of the Holy Ghost, was drawn up a highly gilded carriage,
hung very low, and drawn by five gaily decorated mules, while two
Andalusians sat on the large wooden platform, planted, without the
intervention of springs, upon the fore-wheels, which served for a
coach-box.
This sentence is intelligible enough, but still badly constructed.
There is by far too great an interval between the antecedent
"_platform_" and its relative "_which_," and upon a cursory perusal
any reader would be led to suppose (what indeed the whole actually
implies) that the coach-box in question consisted not of the platform,
but actually of the fore-wheels of the carriage. Altogether, it may
safely be asserted, that an entire page containing as many grammatical
errors and inaccuracies of arrangement as the one we have just
examined, will with difficulty be discovered in any English or
American writer of even moderate reputation. These things, however,
can hardly be considered as more than inadvertences, and will be
avoided by Lieutenant Slidell as soon as he shall feel convinced
(through his own experience or through the suggestions of his friends)
how absolutely necessary to final success in any undertaking is a
scrupulous attention to even the merest _minutiæ_ of the task.