LETTER IX
Seville, – 1806.
As, in order to help my memory, I have been for some time collecting notes under different heads, relative to the customs, both public and private, which are most remarkable in the annual circle of Sevillian life, I find myself possessed of a number of detached scraps, which, though affording abundant matter for more than one of my usual dispatches, are much too stubborn to bend themselves into any but their original shape. After casting about in my mind for some picturesque or dramatic plan of arrangement, I had, most cowardly, I confess, and like a mere novice in the art of authorship, determined to suppress the detached contents of my common-place book, when it occurred to me that, as they were no less likely to gratify your curiosity in their present state than in a more elaborate form, a simple transcript of my notes would not stand amiss in the collection of my letters. I shall, therefore, present you with the following sample of my Fasti Hispalenses, or Sevillian Almanack, without, however, binding myself to furnish it with the three hundred and sixty-five articles which that name seems to threaten. Or, should you still find the title too ambitious and high-sounding for the mere gossip and prattle of this series of scraps, I beg you will call it (for I have not the heart to send out my productions not only shapeless, but nameless)
MEMORANDUMS OF SOME ANDALUSIAN CUSTOMS AND FESTIVALS
JANUARY 20TH. SAINT SEBASTIAN’S DAY
Carnival has been ushered in, according to an ancient custom which authorises so early a commencement of the gaieties that precede Lent. Little, however, remains of that spirit of mirth which contrived such ample amends for the demure behaviour required during the annual grand fast. To judge from what I have seen and heard in my boyhood, the generation who lived at Seville before me, were, in their love of noisy merriment, but one step above children; and contrived to pass a considerable portion of their time in a round of amusements, more remarkable for jollity than for either show or refinement; yet unmixed with any grossness or indecorum. I shall give a specimen in a family of middle rank, whose circumstances were not the most favourable to cheerfulness.
The joy and delight of my childhood was centered in the house of four spinsters of the good old times, who, during a period of between fifty and sixty years, passed “in single blessedness,” and with claims to respectability, as ample as their means of supporting it were scanty; had waged the most resolute and successful war against melancholy, and were now the seasoned veterans of mirth. Poverty being no source of degradation among us, these ladies had a pretty numerous circle of friends, who, with their young families, frequented their house—one of the old, large, and substantial buildings which, for a trifling rent, may be had in this town, and which care and neatness have kept furnished for more than a century, without the addition or substitution of a single article. In a lofty drawing-room, hung round with tapestry, the faded remnants of ancient family pride, the good old ladies were ready, every evening after sunset, to welcome their friends, especially the young of both sexes, to whom they showed the most good-natured kindness. Their scanty revenue did not allow them to treat the company with the usual refreshments, except on particular days—an expense which they met by a well-planned system of starvation, carried on throughout the year, with the utmost good humour. An ancient guitar, as large as a moderate violoncello, stood up in a corner of the room, ready at a moment’s notice, to stir up the spirits of the young people into a dance of the Spanish Seguidillas, or to accompany the songs which were often forfeited in the games that formed the staple merriment at this season.
The games, in truth, which in England are nearly forgotten, even within their last asylums—ladies’ schools and nurseries,—were thirty years ago a favourite amusement in this country. That they have, at some period, been common to a great part of Europe, will not be doubted by any one who, like myself, may attach such importance to this subject as to be at the trouble of comparing the different sports of that kind which prevail in France, England, and Spain. I wish, indeed, that antiquarians were a more jovial and volatile race than I have found them in general; and that some one would trace up these amusements to their common source. The French, with that spirit of system and scientific arrangement which even their perfumers, Marchandes de Modes, and dancing-masters display, have already, according to a treatise now lying before me, distributed these games into Jeux d’action and Jeux d’esprit.
In marking their similarity among the three nations I have mentioned, I shall pass over the former; for who can doubt that romping (so I will venture, though less elegantly, to express the French action) is an innate principle in mankind, impelling the human animal to similar pranks all over the globe, from the first to the third of his climacterics? But to find that, just at the age when he perceives the necessity of assuming the demureness of maturity, he should, in different places and under a variety of circumstances, fall upon the same contrivances in order to desipere in loco, or to find a loop-hole to indulge himself in playing the fool, is a phenomenon which I beg leave to recommend to the attention of philosophers.
The jeux d’esprit, which I find to be used, with some slight variations, in France, England, and Spain, or, at least, in some two of those countries, are—The Aviary, or giving the heart to one bird, committing one’s secret to another, and plucking a feather from a third; at the risk of mistaking the objects of the intended raillery or gallantry, disguised under the name of different birds.—In The Soldier, the players being questioned by the leader about the clothing they mean to give a decayed veteran, must avoid the words yes, no, white, and black. The ingenuity displayed in this game is much of the kind that appears in some of our tales of the seventeenth century, where the author engaged to omit some particular vowel throughout his narrative.—Exhausting a letter, each player being obliged to use three words with the initial proposed by the leader. The English game, I love my love, is a modification of this: in Spanish it is commonly called el Jardin, the Garden.—La Plaza de Toros, or the Bull Amphitheatre, in French, L’Amphigouri, is a story made up of words collected from the players, each of whom engages to name objects peculiar to some trade.—Le mot placé, a refinement on Cross purposes, in Spanish Los Despropósitos, is a game in which every player in the ring, having whispered to his neighbour, on the right, the most unusual word he can think of, questions are put in the opposite direction, the answer to which, besides being pertinent, must contain the given word.—The stool of repentance, (Gallicè) La Sellette, (Hispan.) La Berlina, is, as my French author wisely observes, a dangerous game, where the penitent hears his faults from every one in company through the medium of the leader, till he can guess the person who has nettled him most by his remarks.
I will not deny that a taste among grown people for these childish amusements, bespeaks a great want of refinement; but I must own, on the other hand, that there is a charm in the remnants of primitive simplicity, which gave a relish to these scenes of domestic gaiety, not to be found in the more affected manners of the present day. The French, especially in the provinces, are still addicted to these joyous, unsophisticated family meetings. For my part, I lament that the period is nearly gone by, when neither bigotry nor fastidiousness had as yet condemned those cheap and simple means of giving vent to the overflow of spirits, so common in the youth of all countries, but more especially under this our animating sky; and cannot endure with patience, that fashion should begin to disdain those friendly meetings, where mirth and joy, springing from the young, diffused a fresh glow of life over the old, and Hope and Remembrance seemed to shake hands with Pleasure in the very teeth of Time.
As Carnival approached, the spirit of romping gained fast upon its assiduous votaries, till it ended in a full possession, which lasted the three days preceding Ash-Wednesday.
The custom alluded to by Horace of sticking a tail,37 is still practised by the boys in the streets, to the great annoyance of old ladies, who are generally the objects of this sport. One of the ragged striplings that wander in crowds about Seville, having tagged a piece of paper with a hooked pin, and stolen unperceived behind some slow-paced female, as, wrapt up in her veil, she tells the beads she carries in her left hand; fastens the paper-tail on the back of the black or walking petticoat, called Saya. The whole gang of ragamuffins, who, at a convenient distance, have watched the dexterity of their companion, set up a loud cry of Lárgalo, lárgalo—Drop it, drop it—which makes every female in the street look to the rear, which, they well know is the fixed point of attack with the merry light-troops. The alarm continues till some friendly hand relieves the victim of sport, who, spinning and nodding like a spent top, tries in vain to catch a glance at the fast-pinned paper, unmindful of the physical law which forbids her head to revolve faster than the great orbit on which the ominous comet flies.
Carnival, properly so called, is limited to Quinquagesima-Sunday, and the two following days, a period which the lower classes pass in drinking and rioting in those streets where the meaner sort of houses abound, and especially in the vicinity of the large courts, or halls, called Corrales, surrounded with small rooms or cells, where numbers of the poorest inhabitants live in filth, misery, and debauch. In front of these horrible places are seen crowds of men, women, and children, singing, dancing, drinking, and pursuing each other with handfuls of hair-powder. I have never seen, however, an instance of their taking liberties with any person above their class; yet, such bacchanals produce a feeling of insecurity, which makes the approach of those spots very unpleasant during the Carnival.
At Madrid, where whole quarters of the town, such as Avapiés and Maravillas, are inhabited exclusively by the rabble, these Saturnalia are performed upon a larger scale. I once ventured with three or four friends, all muffled in our cloaks, to parade the Avapiés during the Carnival. The streets were crowded with men, who, upon the least provocation, real or imaginary, would have instantly used the knife, and of women equally ready to take no slight share in any quarrel: for these lovely creatures often carry a poniard in a sheath, thrust within the upper part of the left stocking, and held up by the garter. We were, however, upon our best behaviour, and by a look of complacency on their sports, and keeping at the most respectful distance from the women, came away without meeting with the least disposition to insolence or rudeness.
A gentleman who, either out of curiosity or depraved taste, attends the amusements of the vulgar, is generally respected, provided he is a mere spectator, and appears indifferent to the females. The ancient Spanish jealousy is still observable among the lower classes; and while not a sword is drawn in Spain upon a love-quarrel, the knife often decides the claims of more humble lovers. Yet, love is, by no means, the main instigator of murder among us. A constitutional irritability, especially in the southern provinces, leads, without any more assignable reason, to the frequent shedding of blood. A small quantity of wine, nay, the mere blowing of the easterly wind, called Soláno, is infallibly attended with deadly quarrels in Andalusia. The average of dangerous or mortal wounds, on every great festival at Seville, is, I believe, about two or three. We have, indeed, a well-endowed hospital, named de los Herídos, which, though open to all persons who meet with dangerous accidents, is from this unhappy disposition of the people, almost confined to the wounded. The large arm-chair where the surgeon in attendance examines the patient just as he is brought in, usually upon a ladder, is known in the whole town by the name of the Bullies’ chair—Silla de los Guapos. Every thing, in fact, attests both the generality and inveteracy of that horrible propensity among the Spaniards. I have met with an original unpublished privilege granted in 1511, by King Don Manoel of Portugal, to the German merchants established at Lisbon, whereby their servants, to the number of six, are allowed to carry arms both day and night, provided such privileged servants be not Spaniards.38 Had this clause been inserted after the Portuguese nation had thrown off the Spanish yoke, I should attribute it to political jealousy; but, considering its date, I must look upon it as proving the inveteracy and notoriety of the barbarous disposition, the mention of which has led me into this digression.
The Carnival amusements still in use among the middling ranks of Andalusia are, swinging, playing all manner of tricks on the unwary, such as breaking egg-shells full of powdered talc on the head, and throwing handfuls of small sugar-plums at the ladies, which they repay with besprinkling the assailants with water from a squirt. This last practical joke, however, begins to be disused, and increased refinement will soon put an end to them all. Dancing and a supper to the frequenters of the daily Tertulia, is, on one of the three days of Carnival, a matter of course among the wealthy.
ASH-WEDNESDAY
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.
MID-LENT
We have still the remnants of an ancient custom this day, which shews the impatient feelings with which men sacrifice their comforts to the fears of superstition. Children of all ranks—those of the poor in the streets, and such as belong to the better classes in their houses—appear fantastically decorated, not unlike the English chimney-sweepers on May-day, with caps of gilt and coloured paper, and coats made of the Crusade Bulls of the preceding year. In this attire they keep up an incessant din the whole day, crying, as they sound their drums and rattles, Aserrar la vieja; la pícara pelleja: “Saw down the old woman, the roguish b—ch.” About midnight, parties of the common people parade the streets, knocking at every door, and repeating the same words. I understand that they end this revel by sawing in two, the figure of an old woman, which is meant as the emblem of Lent.
There is little ground, however, for these peevish feelings against old Lent, among the class that exhibits them most; for few of the poorer inhabitants of large towns taste any meat in the course of the year, and, living as they do upon a very scanty pittance of bread and pulse, can ill afford to confine themselves to one meal in the four-and-twenty hours. The privations of the fasting season are felt chiefly by that numerous class who, unable the other hand, a strong sense of religious duty; submit like unwilling slaves to the unwelcome task which they dare not omit. Many, however, fall off before the end of Lent, and take to their breakfasts and suppers under the sanction of some good-natured Doctor, who declares fasting injurious to their health. Others, whose healthy looks would belie the dispensing physician, compound between the Church and their stomachs by adding an ounce of bread to the cup of chocolate which, under the name of Parvedad, our divines admit as a venial infraction. There is, besides, a fast-day supper, which was introduced by those good souls the primitive Monks at their evening conferences, where, finding that an empty stomach was apt to increase the hollowness of their heads, they allowed themselves a crust of bread and a glass of water, as a support to their fainting eloquence. This relaxation of the primitive fast took the name of Collatio, or conference, which it preserves among us. The Catholic casuists are not agreed, however, on the quantity of bread and vegetables, (for any other food is strictly excluded from the collation,) which may be allowed without being guilty of a deadly sin. The Probabilistæ extend this liberty as far as six ounces by weight, while the Probabilioristæ will not answer for the safety of a hungry soul, who indulges beyond four ounces. Who shall decide when doctors disagree? I have known an excellent man who weighed his food on these occasions till he brought it within some grains of four ounces. But few are inclined to take the matter so seriously, and, confiding in the deceitful balance of their eyes, use a system of weights in which four ounces fall little short of a pound.39
PASSION, OR HOLY WEEK
Pandite, nunc, Helicona, Deæ, might I say, in the true spirit of a native of Seville, when entering upon a subject which is the chief pride of this town. To tell the honest truth, we are quizzed every where for our conceit of these solemnities; and it is a standing joke against the Sevillians, that on the arrival of the King in summer, it was moved in the Cabildo, or town corporation, to repeat the Passion-week for the amusement of his Majesty. It must be owned, however, that our Cathedral service on that solemn Christian festival yields not in impressiveness to any ceremonies of modern worship, to dispel their superstitious fear, and wanting, on with which I am acquainted, either by sight or description.
It is impossible to convey in words an adequate idea of architectural grandeur. The dimensions of a temple do not go beyond a certain point in augmenting the majesty of effect. A temple may be so gigantic as to make the worshippers mere pigmies. An immense structure, though it may be favourable to contemplation, must greatly diminish the effect of such social rites as aim at the imagination through the senses. I have been told by a native of this town, who visited Rome, and on whose taste and judgment I greatly depend, that the service of the Passion-week at Saint Peter’s, does not produce a stronger effect on the mind than that of our Cathedral. If this impression did not arise from the power of early habit, I should account for it from the excessive magnitude of the first temple in Christendom. The practice, also, of confining the most striking and solemn ceremonies to the Sixtine Chapel seems to shew that the Romans find the Church of Saint Peter unfavourable to the display of religious pomp. I shall add, though fearful of venturing too far upon a subject with which I am but slightly acquainted, that the ancients appear to have been careful not to diminish the effect of their public worship by the too large dimensions of the temples.
The size of our Cathedral seems to me happily adapted to the object of the building. Three hundred and ninety-eight feet long by two hundred and ninety-one broad—the breadth distributed into five aisles, formed by one hundred and four arches, of which those of the centre are one hundred and thirty-four feet high, and the rest ninety-six—remove the limits of an undivided structure enough to require that effort of the eye and pause of the mind before we conceive it as a whole, which excites the idea of grandeur. This, I believe, is the impression which a temple should produce. To aim at more is to forget the solemn performances for which the structure is intended. Let the house of prayer, when solitary, appear so ample as not to exclude a single suppliant in a populous town; yet let the throng be visible on a solemn feast. Let the loftiness of the aisles soften the noise of a moving multitude into a gentle and continuous rustling; but let me hear the voice of the singers and the peals of the organ returned in deep echoes; not lost in the too distant vaults.
The simultaneous impression of architectural and ritual magnificence produced at the Cathedral of Seville is, I conceive, difficult to be rivalled. The pillars are not so massive as to obstruct the sight at every turn; and were the influence of modern taste strong enough to prevail over the canonical vanity which blocks up the middle of every Cathedral with the clumsy and absurd inclosure of the choir, it would be difficult to imagine a more striking view than that which our Church presents on Holy Thursday.—In one respect, and that a most important one, it has the advantage over Saint Peter’s at Rome. The scene of filth and irreverence which, according to travellers, sometimes disgusts the eye and revolts the mind at the Church of the Vatican—those crowds of peasants and beggars, eating, drinking, and sleeping, on Christmas eve, within the precincts of the temple; are not to be seen at Seville. Our Church, though almost thronged day and night on the principal festivals, is not profaned by any external mark of indevotion. The strictest watch is kept by members of the chapter appointed for that purpose, who, attended by their vergers, go their rounds for the preservation of order. The exclusion of every kind of seats from the Church, though rather inconvenient for the people, prevents its being made a lounging-place; and, besides allowing the beautiful marble pavement to appear unbroken, avoids that dismal look of an empty theatre, which benches or pews give to churches in the intervals of divine service.
Early on Palm-Sunday the melancholy sound of the Passion-bell announces the beginning of the solemnities for which the fast of Lent is intended to prepare the mind. This bell is one of the largest which are made to revolve upon pivots. It is moved by means of two long ropes, which, by swinging the bell into a circular motion, twine gently at first, round the massive arms of a cross, of which the bell forms the foot, and the head its counterpoise. Six men then draw back the ropes till the enormous machine conceives a sufficient impetus to coil them in an opposite direction; and thus alternately, as long as ringing is required. To give this bell a tone appropriate to the sombre character of the season, it has been cast with several large holes disposed in a circle round the top—a contrivance which, without diminishing the vibration of the metal, prevents the distinct formation of any musical note, and converts the sound into a dismal clangour.
The chapter, consisting of about eighty resident members, in their choral robes of black silk with long trains and hoods, preceded by the inferior ministers, by thirty clergymen, in surplices, whose deep bass voices perform the plain or Ambrosian chaunt, and by the band of wind-instruments and singers, who execute the more artificial strains of modern or counterpoint music; move in a long procession round the farthest aisles, each holding a branch of the oriental or date palm, which, overtopping the heads of the assembled multitude, nod gracefully, and bend into elegant curves at every step of the bearers. For this purpose, a number of palm-trees are kept with their branches tied up together, that, by the want of light, the more tender shoots may preserve a delicate yellow tinge. The ceremony of blessing these branches is solemnly performed by the officiating priest, previously to the procession; after which they are sent by the clergy to their friends, who tie them to the iron bars of the balconies, to be, as they believe, a protection against lightning.
At the long church-service for this day, the organ is silent, the voices being supported by hautboys and bassoons. All the altars are covered with purple or grey curtains. The holy vestments, during this week, are of the first-mentioned colour, except on Friday, when it is changed for black. The four accounts of our Saviour’s passion appointed as gospels for this day, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, are dramatized in the following manner. Outside of the gilt-iron railing, which incloses the presbytery, are two large pulpits of the same materials, from one of which, at the daily high-mass, the subdeacon chaunts the epistle, as the deacon does the gospel from the other. A moveable platform with a desk, is placed between the pulpits on the Passion-days; and three priests or deacons, in albes (the white vestment, over which the dalmatic is worn by the latter, and the chasuble by the former) appear on these elevated posts, at the time when the gospel should be said. These officiating ministers are chosen among the singers in holy orders; one a bass, another a tenor, and the third a counter-tenor. The tenor chaunts the narrative, without changing from the key note, and makes a pause whenever he comes to the words of the interlocutors mentioned by the Evangelist. In those passages the words of our Saviour are sung by the bass, in a solemn strain. The counter-tenor, in a more florid style, personates the inferior characters, such as Peter, the Maid, and Pontius Pilate. The cries of the priests and the multitude, are imitated by the band of musicians within the choir.