Wanderings in Spain

What we Frenchmen believe to constitute the Spanish type does not exist in Spain; at least, I have not met with it as yet. We generally picture to ourselves, whenever a señora or a mantilla is mentioned, a long, pale, oval face, large black eyes with velvet eyebrows, a sharp nose, slightly arched, a pair of bright red lips, and, to complete the whole, a warm, gold-like tint, bearing out the line in the song, Elle est jaune comme une orange (She is as yellow as an orange). This is the Arabic or Moorish, and not the Spanish type. The women of Madrid are charming creatures, in the fullest acceptation of the word; out of every four, there are three who are pretty; but they do not correspond in the least with the notion we have formed of them. They are short, delicate, and well-shaped; their foot is small, their figure graceful, and their bust full and voluptuous; but their skin is very white, their features fine and irregular, and their mouth formed like a heart, resembling exactly some of our beauties in the time of the Regent.[6 - Philippe d'Orléans.] Many have light chestnut hair, and you cannot take two turns upon the Prado without meeting seven or eight women with fair hair of every possible shade, from the light blond to the most vivid red, like the beard of Charles V. It is an error to suppose that there are no fair-complexioned women in Spain. Blue eyes are very common, but they are not so highly esteemed as black ones.

During the first few days, we had some difficulty in accustoming ourselves to the sight of women with their shoulders exposed as if they were going to a ball, their arms bare, their feet encased in satin shoes, and their fan in their hand, walking about alone in a public thoroughfare, for it is not the custom to offer your arm to a lady unless you are her husband or some near relation; you content yourself with merely walking by her side, at least as long as it is light, for after nightfall, this practice is not so rigorously observed, especially with foreigners who are not used to it.

We had heard people talk a great deal of the manolas of Madrid; the type of the manola has disappeared, like that of the grisette in Paris, and of the transteverini in Rome; it certainly does exist, but it has been stripped of all its primitive characteristics. The manola no longer wears her old costume, which was so spirited and picturesque. The ignoble gown of printed calico has replaced the bright-coloured basquina, embroidered with extravagant patterns; the frightful leather shoe has superseded the satin slipper, and, horrible idea, their gowns are lengthened at least two good inches. In former days, the manolas lent an aspect of variety to the Prado by their lively manner and their singular dress; at present, it is difficult to distinguish them from the wives of the lower class of tradespeople. I looked for the full-blood manola in every corner of Madrid; at the bull-fights, in the Garden de las Delicias, at the Nuevo Recreo, and on the Festival of Saint Anthony, without finding a perfect one. Once, as I was crossing the quarter of the Rastro, the Temple[7 - The Temple in Paris is a sort of large market where old clothes are sold, something like what Monmouth-street used to be.] of Madrid, after I had picked my way between an immense number of dirty wretches, who were stretched out asleep, upon the ground, in the midst of the most horrible collection of rags, I found myself in a little deserted lane. There, for the first time, did I behold the manola I was in search of. She was a tall, strapping girl, about four-and-twenty, which is the greatest age that a manola or a grisette can ever attain. She had a dark complexion, a sorrowful but determined look, rather thick lips, and something strangely African in the general formation of her face. An immense roll of hair that was so intensely black as to appear blue, and plaited like so much basket-work, encircled her head and terminated in a large high-backed comb. A bunch of coral hung from each ear, her tawny neck was adorned with a necklace of the same material; a mantilla of black velvet was wound around her head and shoulders, her robe, which was as short as those of the Swiss girls in the Canton of Berne, was formed of embroidered cloth, and exposed to view her well-shaped nervous legs encased in a pair of tightly-fitting black silk stockings; her shoes were of satin according to the old fashion; and to complete the whole, a red fan fluttered about like a cinnabar butterfly between her fingers, which were loaded with silver rings. The last of the manolas turned round the corner of the lane and disappeared from my sight, leaving me in a state of astonishment at having once, at least, seen walking about in the every-day world a costume so admirably adapted for the masquerades at the Opera! On the Prado, too, I saw some pasiegas from Santander, in their national costume. These pasiegas are accounted the best wet-nurses in Spain, and their affection for their little charges is as proverbial as is the honesty of the natives of Auvergne in France. They wear a red cloth petticoat with large pleats, and a broad silver-lace border, a velvet bodice trimmed with gold, and a variegated bright-coloured silk handkerchief as a headdress, the whole being accompanied with silver trinkets and other barbarous ornaments. These women are extremely handsome, and have a very striking expression of strength and grandeur. Their custom of carrying the child upon their arms causes them to throw their body rather back; this shows off the development of their busts to great advantage. It is looked upon as a kind of luxury to keep a pasiega in full costume, just as it is to have a Klepht standing behind your carriage.

I have said nothing about the dress of the men. Look at the plates of the fashions, six months old, in the shop of some tailor, or in some reading-room, and you will have a correct idea of it. Paris is the object which absorbs the thoughts of every one, and I recollect having once seen written over the shed of a shoe-black, "Boots cleaned here after the Parisian fashion (al estilo de Paris)." The modest aim of the modern hidalgos is to embody the delicious designs of Gavarni; they are not aware that there are but a few of the most elegant Parisians who can succeed in the attempt. We must, however, do them the justice to say, that they are much better dressed than the women; their patent-leather boots are as brilliant, and their gloves as white as it is possible for boots or gloves to be. Their coats are correct, and their trousers very praiseworthy; but the cravat cannot boast of the same purity of taste, and the waistcoat, the only portion of modern costume which offers any scope for the exercise of the fancy, is not always irreproachable.

There is a trade at Madrid of which no one in Paris has an idea. I allude to the retailing of water. The stock in trade of the water-seller consists of a cantaro of white clay, a small reed or tin basket, containing two or three glasses, a few azucarillos (sticks of porous caramel sugar), and sometimes a couple of oranges or limes. There is one class of water-sellers, who have little casks twined round with green branches, which they carry on their back. Some of them even go so far – along the Prado, for instance – as to exhibit painted counters, surmounted by little brass figures of Fame, and small flags, not a whit inferior in magnificence to the displays made by the marchands de coco in Paris. These same water-sellers are generally young muchachos from Gallicia, and are clad in a snuff-coloured cloth jacket, breeches, black gaiters, and a peaked hat. There are also some who are natives of Valencia, with their white linen drawers, their piece of stuff thrown over their shoulder, their legs bronzed by the sun, and their alpargatas bordered with blue. There are also a few women and little girls, whose costumes present nothing worthy of notice, that sell water. They are called, according to their sex, aguadores or aguadoras. In all quarters of the city do you hear their shrill cries, pitched in all sorts of keys, and varied in a hundred thousand manners: Agua, agua, quien quiere agua? Agua helada, fresquita como la nieve! This lasts from five in the morning till ten in the evening, and has inspired Breton de los Herreros, a favourite author of Madrid, with the idea of a song, entitled l'Aguadora, which has been very popular all through Spain. This thirst of the population of Madrid is certainly a most extraordinary thing; all the water in the fountains, and all the snow of the mountains of Guadarrama, are insufficient to allay it. People have joked a great deal about the poor Manzanares, and its Naïad with her dry urn, but I should just like to see what sort of a figure any other river would cut in a town parched up by the same thirst. The Manzanares is drunk up at its very source; the aguadores anxiously lie in wait for the least drop of water, the slightest appearance of humidity which oozes forth between its dry banks, and carry it off in their cantaros and casks; the laundresses wash the linen with sand, and, in the very middle of the bed of the river, a Mahommedan would not find sufficient water to enable him to perform his ablutions. The reader may, perhaps, recollect a delicious feuilleton, in which Méry describes the thirst of Marseilles. Exaggerate this six times, and you will have but a slight idea of the thirst of Madrid. The price of a glass of water is a cuarto (about a farthing). What Madrid most stands in need of, after water, is fire, wherewith to light its cigars; consequently, the cry, Fuego, fuego, is heard in every direction, mingled incessantly with that of agua, agua. There is a desperate struggle between the two elements, each of which appears to be striving which can make the most noise. The fire, which is more inextinguishable than that of Vesta, is carried about by young rascals in little vases filled with coal and fine ashes, with a handle, to prevent the bearers from burning their fingers.

It is now half-past nine o'clock. The crowd on the Prado begins to thin, and the promenaders direct their steps towards the coffee-houses and botillerias which line the Calle d'Alcala and the neighbouring streets.

To us who are accustomed to the dazzling and fairy-like splendour of the Parisian cafés, the coffee-houses of Madrid appear to be nothing more than mere low, twenty-fifth-rate public-houses. The manner in which they are decorated recalls most successfully to your recollection the wretched sheds in which bearded women and living sirens are shown to the public. But this want of splendour is amply compensated by the excellence and variety of the refreshments. I must frankly own that Paris, so superior in everything else, is behindhand in this respect: the art of the limonadier is with us in its infancy. The most celebrated coffee-houses are those of the Bolsa, at the corner of the Calle de Carretas; the Café Nuevo, which is the rendezvous of the exaltados; the Café de – (I have forgotten the name), where those who belong to the moderate party, and who are called cangrejos, that is to say, "crabs," meet; and the Café del Levante, just by the Puerta del Sol. I do not mean to assert that the others are not good, but simply that those I have mentioned are the most popular. I must not forget the Café del Principe, next the theatre of the same name, and which is the customary resort of the actors and authors.

With your leave, we will enter the Café de la Bolsa, which is ornamented with little mirrors, hollowed out behind, so as to form different designs, such as are to be seen in certain German glasses. Here is the list of the bebidas heladas, of the sorbetes, and of the quesitos. The bebida helada (iced drink) is contained in glasses distinguished by the name of grandes or chicos (large or small), and offers a great variety; there is the bebida de naranja (orange), de limon (lemon), de fresa (strawberry), and de guindas (cherries), which are as superior to those frightful bottles of sour currant juice and citric acid, which the proprietors of the most splendid Parisian cafés are not ashamed to serve up to their customers, as real sherry is to authentic vin de Brie: the bebida helada is a kind of liquid ice, a sort of most delicious purée de neige, of the most exquisite flavour. The bebida de almendra blanca (white almonds) is a delightful beverage, which is unknown in France, where we gulp down a something which is dignified by the name of orgeat, and compounded of a number of horrible medicinal materials of some kind or other. You can also procure iced milk, half strawberry, half cherry, which, while your body is boiling in the torrid zone, causes your throat to revel in all the frosts and snows of Greenland. During the daytime, when the ices are not yet ready, you have the agraz, a kind of beverage made of green grapes, and contained in bottles with extraordinarily long necks; the taste of this agraz is slightly acid and exceedingly pleasant. You can also indulge in a bottle of Cerveza de Santa Barbara con limon; but this requires some little preparation. First of all, a bowl and a large spoon are brought, like that with which punch is stirred round. A waiter then advances, carrying a bottle fastened at the top with wire. He undoes this with a vast amount of care, the cork pops out, and the beer is poured into the bowl, into which a small decanter of lemonade has previously been emptied. The whole is then stirred round with the spoon; you fill your glass, and swallow the contents. If this mixture does not please you, you have only to enter one of the orchaterias de chufas, which are generally kept by natives of Valencia. The chufa is a little berry, of the almond species, which grows in the environs of Valencia, and which, when roasted and beaten in a mortar, forms an exquisite beverage, especially when mixed with snow. Prepared in this manner it is extremely refreshing.

To conclude my account of the coffee-houses, I will remark that the sorbetes differ from those in France by being more solid; that the quesitos are little ices, very hard, and shaped like small cheeses; there are some of all sorts, apricot, pine-apple, orange, and so on, as in Paris; but there are likewise some made up with butter (manteca) and eggs not yet formed, and taken from the hens which have been opened on purpose. This custom is peculiar to Spain, for I never heard of this singular piece of refinement anywhere else but at Madrid. They give you also spumas of coffee, chocolate, and other materials. These spumas are a kind of iced whipt cream, as light as a feather, and sometimes powdered with cinnamon grated very fine. All these various compounds are accompanied by barquilos, a kind of cake or wafer rolled up in a long cylindrical shape, through which you drink your bebida, as you would with a syphon, by sucking slowly one of the ends. This is a little piece of refinement which allows you to enjoy the coolness of the beverage longer than you otherwise could do. Coffee is not served up in cups, but in glasses; it is, however, very rarely taken. All these details will perhaps strike the reader as highly fastidious; but if he were exposed, as I am, to a heat of from 30 to 35 degrees, he would consider them deeply interesting. The papers most frequently met with in the coffee-houses are the Eco del Comercio, the Nacional, and the Diario, which gives a list of the various festivals every day, the hour at which mass is performed and sermons preached in the various churches, the degree of heat, lost dogs, young countrywomen who want situations as wet-nurses, criadas who want places, &c. &c. – But it is striking eleven. It is time to return home; the only persons in the Calle d'Alcala are a few promenaders who have stopped beyond the usual hour. There is no one in the streets but the serenos, with their lantern suspended at the end of a pole, their cloak, which is of the same colour as the walls around them, and their measured cry: all that you hear besides this is a chorus of crickets singing, in their little cages decorated with small glass ornaments, their dissyllabic lament. The people of Madrid have a taste for crickets; each house has one hung up at the window in a miniature cage made of wood or wire. They have also a strange affection for quails, which they keep in open osier coops, and which vary, in a very agreeable manner, by their everlasting pue-pue-pue, the crick-crick of the crickets. As Bilboquet remarks, those who are fond of this particular note must be highly delighted.

The Puerta del Sol is not a gate, as any one would suppose, but the façade of a church, painted rose-colour, and decorated with a clock, which is illuminated at night, and also with a large sun with golden rays. It is from the latter that it derives its name of Puerta del Sol. Before the church is a place, or square, traversed, in its greatest length, by the Calle d'Alcala, and crossed by the Calles de Carretas and de la Montera. The Post-office, a large regular building, occupies the corner of the Calle de Carretas, with its façade looking upon the square. The Puerta del Sol is the rendezvous of the idlers of the town, who, it appears, are rather numerous, for from eight o'clock in the morning there is always a dense crowd on the spot. All these grave personages stand about the place, enveloped in their cloaks, although the heat is overpowering, under the frivolous pretence that what protects you from the cold protects you from the heat, too. From time to time an index and forefinger, as yellow as a guinea, are seen to issue from beneath the straight motionless folds of a cloak, and roll up a paper containing a few pieces of chopped cigar, while, shortly afterwards, there rises from the mouth of the grave personage who wears the cloak a cloud of smoke; proving that he is endowed with the power of respiration, a fact which his perfectly motionless appearance might lead any one to doubt. With regard to the papel Español para cigaritas, I may as well take this opportunity of remarking that, as yet, I have not seen a single packet of it. The natives of the country employ ordinary letter-paper, cut into small pieces; the packets, tinted with liquorice-juice, variegated with grotesque designs, and covered with letrillas, or comic songs, are sent to France, for the use of the amateurs of local colouring. Politics form the principal subject of conversation; the seat of war is a favourite topic, and there is more strategy at the Puerta del Sol than on all the battle-fields of all the campaigns in the world. Balmaseda, Cabrera, Palillos, and other adventurers of more or less importance, at the head of different bands, are, every moment, being brought upon the tapis, when things are related of them which make you shudder – atrocities that have gone out of fashion, and long been looked upon as displaying bad taste, even by the Caribbees and Cherokees. Balmaseda, during his last expedition, advanced to within some twenty miles of Madrid, and, having surprised a village near Aranda, amused himself by breaking the teeth of the ayuntamiento and the alcade, and terminated the pastime by nailing horseshoes on the feet and hands of a constitutional curé. When I expressed some astonishment at the perfect indifference with which this piece of intelligence was received, I received for answer that the affair had taken place in Old Castile, and that, consequently, it concerned nobody. This reply sums up the whole history of Spain at the present moment, and furnishes us with a key to very many things which to us in France appear incomprehensible. The fact is, that an inhabitant of New Castile cares no more for anything that happens in Old Castile, than for what occurs in the moon. As forming one great whole, Spain does not yet exist; it is still the kingdoms of Spain, Castile and Leon, Aragon and Navarre, Granada and Murcia, &c.; it is composed of a number of different races, speaking different dialects, and hating one another most cordially. Being a simple-minded foreigner, I spoke warmly against such a refinement of cruelty, but my attention was called to the fact that the curé was a constitutional curé, which considerably extenuated the matter. Espartero's victories, which appear to us, who have been accustomed to the colossal victories under the Empire, rather mediocre, frequently serve as a text for the politicians of the Puerta del Sol. After one of these triumphs, in which two men have been killed, three made prisoners, and a mule seized carrying one sabre and a dozen cartridges, the town is illuminated, and a distribution of oranges and cigars made to the army, producing a degree of enthusiasm easily described. Formerly, and even at present, the nobles used to go into the shops near the Puerta del Sol, and, ordering a chair to be brought, stop there for a good part of the day, conversing with the customers, to the great annoyance of the shopkeeper, who was afflicted with such a proof of familiarity.

Let us enter, if you please, the Post-office, to see whether there are no letters from France. This hankering after letters is an actual disease. You may be sure that the first public building a traveller visits when he arrives in any city, is the Post-office. At Madrid, every letter addressed poste restante is numbered, and the number and name of the person to whom the letter is sent are posted upon a certain pillar. There is a pillar for January, another for February, and so on. You look for your name, observe the number, and go and ask for your letter at the office, where it is delivered up to you without any further formality. At the expiration of a year, if the letters are not fetched away, they are burnt. Under the galleries surrounding the courtyard of the Post-office, and shaded by large spartum blinds, are established all kinds of reading-rooms, like those under the galleries of the Odéon, at Paris, where you go to see the Spanish and foreign papers. The postage is not dear, and, despite the innumerable dangers to which the couriers are exposed on the road, which is almost invariably infested by insurgents and bandits, the service is conducted as regularly as possible. It is on these pillars, too, that poor students post notices to the effect that they are willing to black the boots of some rich cavalier, in order to procure the means of attending their lectures of rhetoric or philosophy.

Let us now go about the town as chance may lead us, for chance is the best guide, especially as Madrid is not rich in architectural beauties, and as one street is as remarkable as another. The first thing that you perceive on the angle of a house or street directly you raise your nose in the air, is a small porcelain plate with the following inscription —Manzana. vicitac. gener. These plates formerly served to number entire blocks or heaps of houses. At present each house is numbered separately, as in Paris. The quantity of plates that decorate the fronts of the houses and inform you that they are insured against fire, would excite your astonishment, especially in a country where there are no fireplaces and no fires. Everything is insured, including even the public monuments and churches. The civil war, it is said, is the cause of this great alacrity in insuring. As no one is certain of not being more or less fried alive by some Balmaseda or other, he endeavours to save at least his house.

The houses of Madrid are built of lath and plaster, and bricks, save the jambs, the belting courses, and the straps, which are sometimes of grey or blue granite. The whole is rough-cast, and painted fantastically enough, sea-green, bluish ash-colour, fawn-colour, canary, and other hues more or less Anacreontic. The windows are surrounded by imitations of architectural ornaments of every description, with an infinite profusion of volutes, scroll-work, little loves and flower-pots. They have likewise large Venetian blinds with broad blue and white stripes, or spartum matting, which is sprinkled with water in order that it may render the wind cool and humid as it passes through. The modern houses are merely whitewashed, or coloured cream-colour like those in Paris. The balconies and miradores jutting out from the walls, somewhat relieve the monotony of so many straight lines with their regular well-defined shadow, and diversify the naturally flat aspect of all these buildings, in which the portions that should be raised in relief are merely painted, as they would be on a scene in a theatre. Fancy all this lighted up with a blazing sun; at certain distances along these streets bathed in light, place a few long-veiled señoras spreading their fans out like parasols and holding them against their cheeks; a few bronzed and wrinkled beggars, clothed in scraps of cloth and rags as rotten as tinder; some few Valencians, half-naked and looking like Bedouins; imagine that you behold rising up between the housetops the small dwarf cupolas, and little bulging bell-turrets, terminated by leaden balls, and belonging to some church or convent, and the result will be rather a strange kind of scene, which will at least prove that you are no longer in the Rue Lafitte, and that you have decidedly left the Parisian asphalte for the time being, even if your feet, which are cut about by the pointed flint-stones of the pavement, had not already convinced you of the fact.

One circumstance struck me as really most astonishing; I allude to the frequency of the following inscription: Juego de Villar, which is repeated every twenty steps. For fear you should imagine that some mystery lies concealed beneath these three sacramental words, I will instantly translate them. They only signify, Game of Billiards. I cannot possibly conceive what can be the use of having so many billiard-rooms; there are enough for the whole universe. After the Juego de Villar, the most common inscription is, Despacho de Bino (wine stores). In these places you can buy Val-de-Peñas, as well as wines of a better quality. The counters are painted in the most gaudy colours, and ornamented with drapery and foliage. The confiterias and pastelerias are likewise very numerous, and ornamented in a very natty manner. Spanish preserves deserve to be particularly mentioned; there is one sort, known by the name of angel's hair (cabello de angel), which is truly exquisite. The pastry is as good as it can be in a country where there is no butter, or where, at least, butter is so dear and so bad that it can hardly be used. The Spanish pastry rather resembles what we call in France petit four. All these various signs are written in abbreviated characters, with the letters entwined in one another; which renders it at first a difficult task for foreigners to understand them; and if ever there were any persons famous for reading signboards, foreigners are most decidedly those persons.

The houses are vast and convenient inside; the rooms are lofty, and the architects have evidently not been cramped for space. In Paris a whole house would be built in the well of certain staircases I have seen here. You traverse a long succession of rooms before reaching that part of the house which is really inhabited, for the furniture of all these said rooms consists only of a little whitewash, or a dull yellow or blue tint, relieved by a fillet of colour and sham panelling. Smoky, black-looking pictures, representing some martyr or other in the act of being beheaded or ripped open, favourite subjects with Spanish painters, are suspended against the walls, most of them having no frames, and hanging in folds on the wood-work. Board flooring is a thing that is not known in Spain – at least, I never saw any there. Every room is paved with bricks; but as these bricks are, during the winter, covered with matting made of grass, and during the summer with matting made of rushes, they are much less disagreeable than they otherwise would be. This matting is made with great taste; it could not be better even if manufactured by savages of the Philippine or Sandwich Islands. There are three things which, in my eyes, determine with the precision of thermometers the state of a people's civilization: these are – its pottery-ware, the degree of skill it possesses in plaiting osiers or straw, and its manner of caparisoning its beasts of burden. If the pottery is handsome, pure in form, as correct as the antique, and with the natural colour of the white or red clay; if the baskets and the matting are fine, wonderfully entwined, and enhanced by arabesques of the most admirably-selected colours; and if the harness is embroidered, stitched, and decorated with bells, tufts of wool, and elegant designs, you may be sure that the people is in a primitive state, still very near that of nature: civilized nations can make neither a pot, a mat, nor a set of harness. At the moment I am writing these lines, there is hanging before me, attached to a column by a small string, the jarra, in which the water I drink is cooling. This jarra is an earthen pot, worth twelve cuartos, – that is to say, about six or seven French sous: its outline is charming, and, with the exception of the productions of Etruscan art, I never saw anything more pure. It spreads out at the top, forming a sort of trefoil with four leaves, each of which has a slight indenture down the middle, so that the water can be poured out in whatever direction the vessel happens to be taken up. The handles, which are ornamented with a small hollow moulding, are most elegantly joined on to the neck and sides; the swell of the latter is delicious. Instead of these charming vases, the wealthy people prefer abominable big-bellied, podgy, ill-shapen English pots, covered with a thick coating of varnish, and resembling large jack-boots polished white. But while talking of boots and pottery we have strayed rather far from our description of the houses; let us resume it without further delay.

The small quantity of furniture found in Spanish houses offers a specimen of the most frightful bad taste, and reminds you of the Goût Messidor and Goût Pyramide. The forms that were popular under the Empire still flourish in all their integrity, and you once more meet mahogany pilasters terminated by sphinxes' heads of green bronze, as well as the brass rods and frame of garlands in the style of Pompeii; all which objects have long since disappeared from the face of the civilized world. There is not a single piece of furniture of carved wood, not a single table inlaid with burgau, not a single Japan cabinet – in a word, there is nothing. The Spain of former days has completely passed away; all that remains of it are a few pieces of Persian carpeting and some damask curtains. On the other hand, however, there is a most extraordinary profusion of straw chairs and sofas. The walls are disfigured with false columns and false cornices, or daubed over with some kind of tint or other which resembles water-colours. On the tables and the étagères are arranged little biscuit-china or porcelain figures, representing troubadours, Mathilda and Malek Adel, and a variety of other subjects equally ingenious, but long since gone out of fashion: there are also poodle dogs blown in glass, plated candlesticks with tapers stuck in them, and a hundred other magnificent things, which would take me too long to describe; what I have already said will perhaps be thought sufficient. I have not the courage to dwell on the atrocious coloured prints, which are hung on the walls under the absurd pretence that they adorn them. There are perhaps some exceptions to this state of things, but they are rare. Do not run away with the notion that the houses of the higher classes are furnished with more taste and richness. My description is most scrupulously exact, and holds good of the houses of persons keeping their carriage, and six or eight servants. The blinds are always drawn down and the shutters half closed, so that the light which reigns in the apartments is about a third only of that outside. A person must become accustomed to this darkness before he can discern the different objects, especially if he comes from the street. Those who are in the room see perfectly, but those who enter it are blind for eight or ten minutes, especially if one of the rooms they have to traverse is lighted up, which is often the case.

The heat at Madrid is excessive, and breaks out suddenly without any spring to prepare people for it. This has given rise to the saying with regard to the temperature of Madrid: "Three months of winter, and nine months of – :" the reader can perhaps supply the deficiency. It is impossible to protect yourself from this flood of fire otherwise than by remaining in low rooms, which are almost buried in complete obscurity, and where the humidity is constantly kept up by a continual watering. This craving for coolness has given rise to the fashion of having bucaros, a savage and strange piece of refinement which would certainly possess no charm for our French ladies, but which appears to the Spanish beauties to be a most useful and elegant invention.

The bucaros are a sort of pot, formed of red American earth, rather similar to that of which the bowls of Turkish pipes are formed; they are of all sizes and of all forms, some being gilt along the rims, and decorated with coarsely-painted flowers. As they are no longer manufactured in America, these bucaros are becoming very scarce, and in a few years will be as fabulous and as difficult to be met with as old Sèvres china; of course when this is the case, every one will want to possess some.

The manner of using the bucaros is as follows: – Six or eight of them are placed upon small marble tables or the projecting ledges round the room, and filled with water. You then retire to a sofa, in order to wait until they produce the customary effect and to enjoy it with the proper degree of calm. The clay soon assumes a deeper tint, the water penetrates through its pores, and the bucaros begin to perspire, and emit a kind of perfume which is very like the odour of wet mortar, or of a damp cellar that has not been opened for some time. This perspiration of the bucaros is so profuse, that at the expiration of an hour half the water has evaporated. That which is left has got a nauseous, earthy, cisterny taste, which is, however, pronounced delicious by the aficionados. Half-a-dozen bucaros are sufficient to charge the air of a drawing-room with such an amount of humidity that it immediately chills any one entering the apartment, and may be considered as a kind of cold vapour-bath. Not content with merely enjoying the perfume and drinking the water, some persons chew small pieces of the bucaros, which they swallow after having reduced them to powder.

I went to a few parties, or tertulias, but they did not offer any very peculiar features. The guests dance to the piano as they do in France, but in a still more modern and lamentable fashion. I cannot conceive why people who dance so little do not at once make up their minds not to dance at all. This would be much more reasonable and quite as amusing. The fear of being exposed to a charge of indulging in a bolero, a fandango, or a cachuca, renders the ladies perfectly motionless. Their costume is very simple compared to that of the men, who invariably resemble the plates of the fashions. I noticed the same thing at the Palace de Villa Hermosa on the occasion of a representation for the benefit of the Foundling Hospital, Niños de la Cuna, which was graced by the presence of the queen-mother, the little queen, and all the nobility and fashionables of Madrid. Women who could boast of possessing two titles of duchess and four of marchioness, wore such toilettes as a Parisian dressmaker going to a party at a milliner's would despise; Spanish women have forgotten how to dress in the Spanish fashion, and have not yet learned how to dress in the French style: if they were not pretty, they would frequently run the risk of appearing ridiculous. At one ball only did I see a lady with a rose-coloured short satin petticoat, ornamented with five or six rows of black blond, like that worn by Fanny Elssler in "The Devil upon Two Sticks;" but she had been to Paris, and it was there that she had learnt the mystery of Spanish costume. The tertulias cannot be very expensive. The refreshments are remarkable for their absence; there is neither tea, ices, nor punch. On a table in one of the rooms are a dozen glasses of perfectly pure water and a plate of azucarillos; but a man is generally considered as indiscreet and sur sa bouche, as Henri Monnier's Madame Desjardins would express it, if he pushes his Sardanapalism so far as to take one of the latter to sweeten the water. This is the case in the richest houses; it is not the result of avarice, but custom. Such, however, is the hermit-like sobriety of the Spanish, that they are perfectly satisfied with this regimen.

As for the morals of the country, it is not in six weeks that a person can penetrate the character of a people, or the habits of any one class. Strangers, however, are apt to receive certain impressions on their first arrival; which wear off after a long stay. It struck me that, in Spain, women have the upper hand, and enjoy a greater degree of liberty than they do in France. The behaviour of the men towards them appeared to be very humble and submissive; they are most scrupulously exact and punctual in paying their addresses, and express their passion in verses of all kinds, rhymed, assonant, sueltos, and so on. From the moment they have laid their hearts at some beauty's feet, they are no longer allowed to dance with any one save their great-great-grandmothers. They may only converse with women of fifty years of age, whose ugliness is beyond the shadow of a doubt. They may no longer visit a house in which there is a young woman. A most assiduous visitor will suddenly disappear, and not return for six months or a year, because his mistress had prohibited him from frequenting the house. He is as welcome as if he had only left the evening before; no one takes the least offence. As far as any one can judge at first sight, I should say that the Spanish women are not fickle in love: the attachments they form frequently last for years. After a few evenings passed in any house, the various couples are easily made out and are visible to the naked eye. If the host wishes to see Madame – , he must invite Mr. – , and vice versâ. The husbands are admirably civilized, and equal the most good-natured Parisian husbands; they display none of that antique Spanish jealousy which has formed the subject of so many dramas and melodramas. But what completely does away with all illusion on the subject is that every one speaks French perfectly, and, thanks to some few élégants who pass the winter in Paris, and go behind the scenes at the Opera, the most wretched ballet-girl and the most humble beauty are well known at Madrid. I found there, for instance, something that does not exist, perhaps, in any other place in the world: a passionate admirer of Mademoiselle Louise Fitzjames, whose name conducts us, by a natural transition, from the tertulia to the stage.

The internal arrangements of the Teatro del Principe are very comfortable. The performances consist of dramas, comedies, saynetes, and interludes. I saw a piece by Don Antonio Gil y Zarate, entitled "Don Carlos el Heschizado," and constructed entirely after the Shakspearian model. Don Carlos was very like the Louis XIII. of Marion de Lorme, and the scene of the monk in the prison is imitated from the scene of the visit which Claude Frollo makes Esmeralda in the dungeon where she is awaiting her death. The character of Carlos was sustained by Julian Romea, a most talented actor, who has no rival that I know, except Frederick Lemaître, in a totally opposite style: it is impossible for any one to carry the power of illusion further, or remain more true to nature. Mathilda Diez, also, is a first-rate actress; she marks all the various shades of a character with exquisite delicacy, and with an astonishing degree of nice appreciation. I have only one fault to find with her, and that is, the extreme rapidity of her utterance, which, however, is no fault in the opinion of Spaniards. Don Antonio Guzman, the gracioso, would not be out of place on any stage. He reminded me very much of Legrand, and, at certain times, of Arnal. Fairy pieces, also, with dances and divertissements, are sometimes played at the Teatro del Principe; I saw one of this description, entitled "La Pata de Cabra: " it was an imitation of "Pied de Mouton," that used to be played at the Théâtre de la Gaieté. The choreographic portions were remarkably poor; their first-rate danseuses are not even as good as the ordinary doubles at the Opera; but, on the other hand, the supernumeraries display a great amount of intelligence, and the "Pas des Cyclopes" was executed with uncommon neatness and precision. As for the baile national, such a thing does not exist. At Vittoria, Burgos, and Valladolid, we had been told that the good danseuses were at Madrid; in Madrid we are informed the true dancers of the cachuca exist only in Andalusia, at Seville. We shall see; but I am very much afraid that in the matter of Spanish dancers, we must depend upon Fanny Elssler, and the two sisters Noblet. Dolores Serral, who produced such a lively sensation in Paris, where I was one of the first to call attention to the bold passion, the voluptuous suppleness, and the petulant grace, which characterized her style of dancing, appeared several times at Madrid, without making the least impression, so incapable are the Spaniards now-a-days of understanding and enjoying the old national dances. Whenever the jota aragonesa or the bolero is danced, all the fashionable portion of the audience rise and leave the house; the only spectators left are foreigners, and persons of the lower classes, in whom it is always a more difficult task to extinguish the poetic instinct. The French author most in repute at Madrid is Frederick Soulié; almost all the dramas translated from the French are attributed to him. He appears to have succeeded to the popularity which Monsieur Scribe formerly enjoyed.

As we are now pretty well acquainted with theatrical matters, let us proceed to view the public buildings; they will not detain us long. The Queen's Palace is a square solid building of fine stones strongly put together, with a great profusion of windows, and a corresponding number of doors, Ionic columns, Doric pilasters, and all the other elements of what is termed architectural good taste. The immense terraces which support it, and the snow-covered mountains of the Guadarrama rising behind, relieve any tendency to sameness or vulgarity which its outline might otherwise present. In the interior, Velasquez, Maella, Bayen, and Tiepolo, have painted some of the ceilings in a more or less allegorical style. The grand staircase is very fine, and was considered by Napoleon to be superior to that at the Tuileries.

The building in which the Cortes meet is interspersed with Pæstumian columns, and lions in long perukes, exhibiting the most abominable want of taste; I doubt very much whether good laws can be made in an edifice of this description. Opposite the chamber of the Cortes, in the middle of the square, is a bronze statue of Miguel Cervantes. It is, doubtless, a very praiseworthy action to erect a statue to the immortal author of "Don Quixote," but I think they should have erected a better one.

The monument raised to the memory of the victims of the Dos de Mayo is situated on the Prado, not far from the picture-gallery. On perceiving it, I thought for a moment that I was suddenly transported to the Place de la Concorde, at Paris, and beheld, as if in some fantastic mirage, the venerable obelisk of Luxor, which, up to that time, I had never suspected of any taste for vagabondism. The monument is composed of a kind of grey granite cippus, surmounted by an obelisk of reddish granite, the tone of which is very similar to that of the Obelisk at Paris. It is a pity that the Spanish obelisk is not made of a single block. The names of the victims are engraved in golden letters on the sides of the pedestal. The Dos de Mayo is an heroic and glorious episode, which the Spaniards have a slight tendency to make the most of; you perceive engravings and pictures of it wherever you go. You will have no difficulty in believing that we Frenchmen are not represented in them as being very handsome; we look as frightful as the Prussians of the Cirque Olympique.

The Armeria does not come up to the ideas generally entertained of it. The Museum of Artillery at Paris is, beyond comparison, far richer and more complete. In the Armeria at Madrid there are very few entire suits, with the various portions of which they are composed belonging to one another; helmets of one period being stuck upon breastplates of another as well as of quite a different style. The reason given for this confusion is, that at the time of the French invasion all these curious relics were hidden away in lofts and other places, where they were so mixed up and jumbled together that it was subsequently impossible to reunite the different parts with any certainty. No degree of credit can therefore be placed in the description of the guides. We were shown a carriage of admirably-carved wood-work, said to be that of Joanna of Aragon, mother of Charles V., but it evidently could not be more ancient than the reign of Louis XIV. The chariot of Charles V., with its leather cushions and curtains, struck us as far more authentic. There are very few Moorish weapons: two or three shields, and a few yatagans form the whole collection. The greatest curiosities are the embroidered saddles, studded with gold and silver stars, and covered with steel scales; these are very numerous and of all kinds of strange shapes, but it is impossible to say to what period or to whom they belonged. The English admire very much a kind of triumphal hackney-coach made of wrought iron, and presented to Ferdinand somewhere about the year 1823 or 1824.

I may here mention some fountains of a very corrupt rococo style, but very amusing; the bridge of Toledo, a specimen of bad taste, very rich and highly ornamented with ovalos and chicory leaves, and a few strangely-variegated churches surmounted by Muscovite turrets. We will now direct our steps towards the Buen Retiro, a royal residence situated at the distance of a few paces from the Prado. We Frenchmen, who possess Versailles and Saint Cloud, and could formerly boast of Marly, are difficult to please in the matter of royal residences. The Buen Retiro strikes us as being the realization of the dreams of some well-to-do tallowchandler. It is a garden filled with the most ordinary but glaring flowers, and little basins ornamented with vermicular rustic rock-work, and small fountains like those we see in certain fishmongers' shops. It also contains pieces of green water, on which swim wooden swans painted white and varnished, besides an infinity of other marvels of a very ordinary description. The natives fall into ecstasies before a certain rustic pavilion built of small round blocks, the interior of which has rather strong claims to being considered Hindoo in style. The first Jardin Turc at Paris, the primitive and patriarchal Jardin Turc, with its kiosks and windows filled with small coloured panes, through which you saw a blue, green, or red landscape, was far superior both in taste and magnificence. There is also a certain Swiss cottage, which is the most ridiculous and absurd affair it is possible to imagine. At the side of this cottage is a stable, furnished with a goat and a kid both stuffed, and also with a sow of grey stone, suckling a litter of young pigs of the same material. A few paces from the cottage the guide suddenly leaves you, and opens the door in a mysterious manner. When, at last, he calls you and gives you leave to enter, you hear low rumbling of wheels and balance-weights, and find yourself in the presence of a number of frightful automatons, who are churning, spinning, or rocking, with their wooden feet, children equally wooden, and sleeping in carved cradles: in the next room is the grandfather ill in bed, while his medicine is standing on a table beside him. Such is a very accurate summary of the principal wonders of the Buen Retiro. A fine equestrian statue in bronze of Philip V., the pose of which resembles that of the statue of Louis XIV. in the Place des Victoires at Paris, makes up in some degree for all these absurdities.

The description of the Museum at Madrid would require a whole volume. It is rich in the extreme, and contains a very large number of the works of Titian, Raphael, Paolo Veronese, Rubens, Velasquez, Ribeira, and Murillo. The pictures are hung in an excellent light, and the architectural style of the building is tolerably good, especially in the interior. The Façade looks on the Prado, and is a specimen of bad taste, but taken altogether the building does honour to the architect, Villa Nueva, who drew the plans. After the Museum, the next place to be visited is the Cabinet of Natural History, containing the mastodon, or dinotherium giganteum, a marvellous specimen of the fossil world, with bones like bars of iron. It must at least be the behemoth mentioned in the Bible. The collection also contains a lump of virgin gold weighing sixteen pounds, a number of Chinese gongs, the sound of which, in spite of what people say, very much resembles that which is produced if you kick a copper, and a succession of pictures representing all the possible varieties which can be produced by crossing white, black, and copper-coloured races. I must not forget in the academy three admirable pictures by Murillo, – namely, the Foundation of Santa Maria Mayora (two pictures), and Saint Elizabeth washing the heads of persons afflicted with scurvy; two or three admirable Ribeiras; a Burial, by El Greco, some portions of which are worthy of Titian; a fantastic sketch by the same artist, representing monks performing different acts of penance, and surpassing the most mysterious and gloomy creations of Lewis or Anne Radcliffe; and a charming woman in Spanish costume, lying on a divan, by the good old Goya, that pre-eminently national painter, who seems to have come into the world expressly to collect the last vestiges of the ancient manners and customs of his country, which were about to disappear for ever.

Francisco Goya y Lucientes, was the last who could be recognised as a descendant of Velasquez. After him come Aparicio, Lopez, and others of the same stamp. The decadence of art is complete: the cyclus is closed! Who shall ever recommence it? Goya is, indeed, a strange painter – a most singular genius! Never was originality more decided – never was a Spanish painter more local. One of Goya's sketches, consisting of four touches of his graver in a cloud of aquatint, tells you more about the manners of the country than the longest description. From his adventurous kind of life, his impetuosity, and his manifold talents, Goya seems to belong to the best period of the art; and yet he was in some sort a contemporary, having died at Bordeaux in 1828.

Before attempting to judge his works, let us give a summary sketch of his biography. Don Francisco Goya y Lucientes was born in Aragon. His parents were not affluent, but their circumstances were sufficiently easy to offer no obstacle to his natural talents. His taste for drawing and painting was developed at an early age. He travelled, studied for some time at Rome, and returned to Spain, where he very soon made a fortune at the court of Charles IV., who conferred on him the title of Painter to the King. He was received at the Queen's, the Prince of Benavente's, and the Duchess d'Alba's; and lived in the same grand style as Rubens, Van Dyck, and Velasquez – a mode of existence so highly favourable to the development of picturesque genius. He had, in the neighbourhood of Madrid, a delicious casa de campo, where he used to give fêtes, and where he had his studio.

Goya was very prolific; he painted sacred subjects, frescoes, portraits, and sketches of manners, besides producing etchings, aquatints, and lithographic drawings. In everything he did, even in the slightest sketches, he gave proof of the most vigorous talent; the hand of the lion is evident in his most careless works. Although his talent was perfectly original, it is a strange mixture of Velasquez, Rembrandt, and Reynolds; reminding you in turns, or at the same time, of all these masters, but as the son reminds you of his ancestors, without any servile imitation, – or rather, more by a certain congeniality of taste than by any formal wish.

His pictures in the Museum at Madrid consist of the portraits of Charles IV. and his Queen on horseback: the heads are admirably painted, and are full of life, delicacy, and intelligence; a Picador, and the "Massacre of the Second of May," a scene from the French Invasion. The Duke d'Ossuna possesses several of Goya's works, and there is hardly a family of consequence that has not some portrait or sketch of his. The interior of the church of San Antonio de la Florida, where there is a fête which is pretty numerously attended, at the distance of half a league from Madrid, is painted in fresco by Goya, with that boldness and effect which characterize him. At Toledo, in one of the capitular rooms, we saw a painting of his, representing Jesus betrayed by Judas. The effect of night is such as Rembrandt would not have disowned; indeed, I should have attributed the picture to him, had not a canon pointed out to me the signature of the famous painter of Charles IV. In the sacristy of the cathedral at Seville there is also a picture of great merit by Goya, representing Saint Justine and Saint Ruffine, virgins and martyrs, who were both daughters of a potter, a circumstance that is indicated by the alcarazas and cantaros grouped at their feet.

Goya's mode of painting was as eccentric as his talent. He kept his colours in tubs, and applied them to the canvass by means of sponges, brooms, rags, and everything that happened to be within his reach. He put on his tones with a trowel, as it were, exactly like so much mortar, and painted touches of sentiment with large daubs of his thumb. From the fact of his working in this offhand and expeditious manner, he would cover some thirty feet of wall in a couple of days. This method certainly appears somewhat to exceed even the licence accorded to the most impetuous and fiery genius; the most dashing painters are but children compared with him. He executed, with a spoon for a brush, a painting of the "Dos de Mayo," where some French troops are shooting a number of Spaniards. It is a work of incredible vigour and fire; but, curious as it is, it is dishonourably banished to the antechamber in the museum at Madrid.

The individuality of this artist is so strong and so determined, that it is difficult to give even the faintest notion of it. Goya is not a caricaturist like Hogarth, Bunbury, or Cruikshank; Hogarth was serious and phlegmatic, as exact and minute as one of Richardson's novels, always impressing some moral lesson on the mind of the spectator; Bunbury and Cruikshank, so remarkable for their sly humour and their comic exaggeration, have nothing in common with the author of the "Caprichos." Callot might at first appear to be more like him, for Callot was half Spaniard, half gipsy; but Callot is distinct, delicate, clear, definite, and true to nature, despite the mannerism of his forms and the extravagant and braggart style of his costume; his most singular devilries are rigorously possible; his etchings are always remarkable for their strong light, for the minute attention to the various details in them is fatal to effect and chiaro-oscuro, which can only be obtained by sacrificing them. The compositions of Goya are enveloped in the deepest gloom of night, traversed merely by an unexpected ray of light, which brings out some pale outlines or strange phantoms.

Goya's works are a mixture of those of Rembrandt, Watteau, and the comical dreams of Rabelais; a strange union! Add to all this, a strong Spanish flavour, a strong dose of the picaresque spirit of Cervantes, when he drew the portraits of the Escalanta and the Gananciosa in Rinconete and Cortadillo, and even then you will only have an imperfect notion of Goya's talent. We will endeavour to explain it more exactly, if, indeed, it is possible to do so by mere words.

Goya's drawings are executed in aquatinta, touched up and picked out with aquafortis; nothing can be more frank, more free, and more easy. A single stroke expresses a whole physiognomy, and a trail of shade serves as a background, or allows the spectator to catch a glimpse of some landscape only half-sketched in, or some pass of a sierra, fit scenes for a murder, a witches' sabbath, or a tertulia of gipsies; but this is rare, for the background cannot be said to exist in Goya's works. Like Michael Angelo, he completely despises external nature, and only takes just sufficient to enable him to group his figures, and very often he composes his background of clouds alone. From time to time, there is a portion of a wall cut off by a large angle of shade, a hedge hardly indicated, and that is all. For the want of a better word, we have said that Goya was a caricaturist. But his caricatures are in the style of Hoffmann, where fancy always goes hand in hand with criticism, and often rises to the gloomy and the terrible. It seems as if all these grinning heads had been drawn by the talons of Smarra, on the wall of some suspicious alcove, lighted by the flickering of an expiring lamp. You feel transported into some unheard-of, impossible, but still real world. The trunks of the trees look like phantoms, the men resemble hyenas, owls, cats, asses, or hippopotamuses; their nails may be talons, their shoes covered with bows may conceal cloven feet; that young cavalier may be some old corpse, and his trunk hose, ornamented with ribbons, envelop perhaps a fleshless thigh-bone and two shrunk legs; never did more mysterious and sinister apparitions issue from behind the stove of Dr. Faustus.

It is said that Goya's caricatures contain certain political allusions, but they are few in number. They are directed against Godoy, the old Duchess de Benavente, the favourites of the queen, and some of the noblemen of the court, whose vices and ignorance they stigmatize. But you must seek their meaning through the folds of the thick veil with which they are covered. Goya executed, also, other drawings for his friend, the Duchess d'Alba; but they have never been made public, doubtless, on account of the ease with which they could be applied to the persons caricatured in them. Some of them ridicule the fanaticism, gluttony, and stupidity of the monks, while others represent subjects of public manners or witchcraft.

The portrait of Goya serves as a frontispiece to the collected edition of his works. He is represented as a man of about fifty, with a quick oblique glance, a large eyelid and a sly, mocking, crow's-foot beneath. The chin is curved upwards, the upper lip is thin, and the lower one prominent and sensual. The face is surrounded by whiskers of a description peculiar to natives of southern climates and the head is covered by a hat à la Bolivar. The whole physiognomy is that of a man of strongly-developed character.

The first plate represents a money match, a poor young girl sacrificed by her avaricious parents, to a cacochymical and horrible old man. The bride looks charming with her little black velvet mask, and her basquina ornamented with deep fringe, for Goya represents Andalusian and Castilian beauty most marvellously; her parents are hideous with rapacity and envious misery, resembling in the most astounding manner sharks and crocodiles. The poor child is laughing through her tears, like the sun piercing an April shower. All around is a mere mass of eyes, claws, and teeth: the intoxicating effects of dress prevent the girl from yet feeling the whole extent of her misfortune. This is a subject which often returns to the point of Goya's pencil, and he always succeeds in producing very striking effects. Further on, we have el Coco, "Bogy," who frightens little children, and who would frighten many others of more mature age, for, with the exception of the ghost of Samuel in Salvator Rosa's picture of the "Witch of Endor," I do not know of anything more horrible than this goblin. Then, again, we see a number of majos whispering soft things to dapper young damsels on the Prado – handsome creatures with tightly-fitting silk stockings, little pointed slippers, which are only kept on the foot by the tip of the great toe, high-backed tortoiseshell combs, with open carving, and more lofty than the mural crown of Cybele; black lace mantillas, worn like a hood, and casting a velvety shadow on the finest black eyes in the world; short-skirted petticoats loaded with lead, the better to show off the rich form of the hips; beauty spots placed most murderously at the corner of the mouth, and near the temples; heart-breakers sufficient to break all the hearts in Spain, and large fans spread out like the tail of a peacock. There are also hidalgos in pumps and prodigious coats, with flat cocked-hats under their arms, and large bunches of seals and keys hanging on their stomach making their bows à trois temps, leaning over the backs of the chairs, in order to puff, like the smoke of their cigars, clouds of light-hearted madrigals into some thick mass of beautiful black hair, or leading about some divinity of more or less doubtful character, by the tips of their white kid gloves. In another page, again, you see a number of complaisant mothers, giving their too obedient daughters advice worthy of the Macette of Régnier, washing and greasing them to go to the witches' sabbath. The type of the "Complaisant Mother" is marvellously rendered by Goya, who, like all the Spanish painters, possesses a ready and profound sense of the ignoble. It is impossible to fancy anything more grotesquely horrible, more viciously deformed. Each of these frightful old shrews unites in her own person the ugliness of the seven capital sins; compared to them, the Prince of Darkness himself is pretty. Just fancy whole ditches and counterscarps of wrinkles; eyes like live coals that have been extinguished in blood; noses like the neck of an alembic, covered with warts and other excrescences; nostrils like those of the snout of a hippopotamus rendered formidable by stiff bristles; whiskers like a tiger's; a mouth like the slit in the top of a money box, contracted by a horrible and convulsive grin; a something between the spider and the multiped, which makes you feel the same kind of disgust as if you had placed your foot upon the belly of a toad. Such are Goya's works as far as the actual world is concerned, but it is when he abandons himself to his demonographic inspirations that he is especially admirable: no one can represent as he can, floating in the warm atmosphere of a stormy night, dark masses of clouds loaded with vampires, goblins and demons, or make a cavalcade of witches stand out with such startling effect from the sinister background of the horizon.

There is one plate especially which is altogether fantastic, and realizes the most frightful nightmare that ever any human being perceived in his dreams. It is entitled "Y aun no se van." It is frightful; and even Dante himself never reached such a degree of suffocating terror. Fancy a bare mournful plain, over which a shapeless cloud, like a crocodile that has been ripped open, creeps with difficulty along, and a large stone, the top of some tomb or other, which a shrivelled, thin figure is attempting to raise. The stone is, however, too heavy for the fleshless arms that support it, and which you feel are on the point of snapping, and falls to the ground in spite of all the efforts of the spectre and of other smaller phantoms, who are simultaneously stiffening their shadowy arms; many of these smaller phantoms are crushed beneath the stone, which has been raised for a moment. The expression of despair depicted on all these cadaverous physiognomies, in all these eyeless sockets, that see that their labour is useless, is truly tragic, and presents the most melancholy symbol of powerless labour, the most sombre piece of poetry and bitter derision ever produced on the subject of the dead. The plate called "Buen Viage," representing a flight of demons, pupils of the seminary of Barahona, who are winging their course with all possible speed towards some deed without a name, is remarkable for its energy and vivacity. It seems as if you actually heard all these membranes, covered with hair and furnished with claws like the wings of a bat, palpitating in the thick night air. The collection concludes with these words: "Y es ora" (It is the hour); the cock crows, and the phantoms disappear; for it is again day.

As to the esthetic and moral meaning of these works, what was it? We do not know. Goya seems to have given his opinion on the subject in one of his drawings, which represents a man with his head leant upon his arms, and a number of owls and storks flying around. The motto is, El sueño de la razón produce monstruos. This is true, but it is terribly severe.

The Caprichos are the only productions of Goya in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris. He has, however, produced other works, – namely, the "Tauromaquia," a collection of thirty-three plates; "Scenes of the Invasion," which make twenty plates, and ought to make more than forty; the etchings after Velasquez and many others.

The "Tauromaquia" is a collection of scenes representing various episodes of the bull-fights, from the time of the Moors down to the present day. Goya was a finished aficionado, passing a considerable portion of his time with the torreros, so that he was the most competent person in the world to treat the matter thoroughly. Although the attitudes, positions, the defence and the attack, or, to speak technically, the various suertes and cogidas are remarkable for their irreproachable exactitude; Goya has invested the different scenes with his mysterious shadows and fantastic colouring. What strange and ferocious heads! What savage and odd dresses! What fury in the action! His Moors, treated somewhat in the manner of the Turks in the time of the Empire, as far as costume is concerned, have the most characteristic physiognomies imaginable – a stroke roughly scratched in, a black spot, a streak of light, is sufficient to form a personage who lives, who moves, and whose physiognomy remains for ever impressed upon your memory. The bulls and horses, although sometimes fabulous in their proportions, have an expression of life and vigour which is often wanting in the works of animal painters by profession: the exploits of Gazul, of the Cid, of Charles V., of Romero, of the Student of Falces, and of Pepe Illo, who perished miserably in the arena, are traced with a truthfulness altogether Spanish. Like the "Caprichos," the plates of the "Tauromaquia" are executed in aquatinta, touched with aquafortis.

The "Scenes of the Invasion" would afford matter for a curious comparison with the "Horrors of War," by Callot. They consist of one long series of persons hanged, heaps of dead being stripped of all they possess, women being violated, wounded persons being carried away, prisoners being shot, convents being sacked, a population in the act of flight, families reduced to beggary, and patriots being strangled; all represented with such fantastic accessories and so exorbitant an aspect as would lead any one to suppose that he was looking at an invasion of Tartars in the fourteenth century. But what delicacy, what a profound knowledge of anatomy, is displayed in all these groups, which seem to owe their existence to mere chance and the whim of the etching-needle! Does the antique Niobe surpass in depth of desolation and nobleness of expression that mother kneeling in the midst of her family before the French bayonets? Among these drawings, which admit of an easy explanation, there is one fearfully terrible and mysterious, the meaning of which, that we can dimly understand, fills you with horror and affright. It is a corpse, half-buried in the earth; it is supporting itself on its elbow, and, without looking at what it is writing, traces with its bony hand, on a paper placed near it, one word —Nada (nothingness) – which is alone worth the most terrible things Dante ever penned. Around its head, on which there is just enough flesh left to render it more frightful than a mere skull, flit, scarcely visible in the darkness of the night, a number of monstrous spectres, lighted up here and there by flashes of livid lightning. A fatidical hand holds a pair of scales, which are in the act of turning upside down. Can you conceive anything more sinister or more heartrending?

At the very conclusion of his life, which was a long one, for he was more than eighty when he died at Bordeaux, Goya improvised upon stone some lithographic sketches, entitled "Dibersion de España," and representing bull-fights. Even in these plates, traced by the hand of an old man, who had long been deaf, and who was almost blind, you can still perceive the vigour and movement of the Caprichos and the Tauromaquia. It is a most curious thing that these lithographs remind you very much of the style of Eugène Delacroix, in his illustrations to Faust.

In Goya's tomb is buried ancient Spanish art, all the world, which has now for ever disappeared, of torreros, majos, manolas, monks, smugglers, robbers, alguazils, and sorceresses; in a word, all the local colour of the Peninsula. He came just in time to collect and perpetuate these various classes. He thought that he was merely producing so many capricious sketches, when he was in truth drawing the portrait and writing the history of the Spain of former days, under the belief that he was serving the ideas and creed of modern times. His caricatures will soon be looked upon in the light of historical monuments.

CHAPTER VIII

VISIT TO THE ESCURIAL

Aridity and Desolation of the Country – First View of the Escurial – Sombre appearance of the building – The Church – The blind Cicerone – The Pantheon Pictures – Anecdote of Spanish Robbers.

In order to proceed to the Escurial, we hired one of those fantastic vehicles, of which we have already had occasion to speak, covered with grey cupids and other ornaments in the Pompadour style, dragged by four mules, and enhanced by the presence of a zagal in a tolerable masquerading suit. The Escurial is situated about seven or eight leagues from Madrid, not far from Guadarrama, at the foot of a chain of mountains. It is impossible to imagine anything more arid and desolate than the country you have to pass through in order to reach it. There is not a single tree, not a single house; nothing but a succession of steep declivities and dry ravines, which the presence of several bridges points out as the beds of different torrents, and here and there a long vista of blue mountains capped with snow or clouds. Such as it is, however, the view is not without a certain kind of grandeur; the absence of all vegetation gives an extraordinary degree of boldness and severity to the outline of the ground. In proportion as you proceed further from Madrid, the stones with which the way is thickly strewed become larger, and evince, more and more, an ambitious feeling of being taken for rocks. They are of a bluish grey, and appear, as they are scattered over the scale-like soil, like so many warts upon the wrinkled back of a centenarian crocodile; they form a thousand strange shapes upon the outline of the hills, which resemble the ruins of gigantic edifices.