We call the idea, regarded as intervening in the fact of knowledge, the light, and thus avoid the question whether all knowledge is by similitude or not. It may be that the idea is light because it contains the image or likeness of the object, but that seems to us a question more curious than practically important. We cannot see that the explication of the mystery of knowing is carried any further by calling the idea image or similitude than by simply calling it the intelligible light. The Platonists and peripatetics seem to us to come no nearer the secret of knowledge by so calling it than do our philosophers to the secret of external vision, when they tell us that we do not see the visible object itself, but its image painted by the external light on the retina of the eye. How do I see the image or picture, and connect it with the external object? When I have called the object or the idea light, I seem to myself to have said all that can be said on the point, and to retain substantially the scholastic doctrine of ideas, or intelligible species, which asserts, I add, by the way, what is perhaps very true, but which after all brings us no nearer to the secret of knowledge, or the explanation of how in the last analysis we do or can know at all.
How we do or can know seems to us an inexplicable mystery, as is our existence itself. That we do know is certain. Every man knows, and in knowing knows that be knows; but how he knows no man knows. To deny is as much an act of reason as is to affirm, and no one can deny without knowing that he denies. Men may doubt many things, but universal doubt is a simple impossibility, for whoever doubts knows that be doubts, and never doubts that he doubts or that doubt is doubting. In all things and in all science we arrive at last, if we think long and deep enough, at a mystery which it is in no human power to deny or to explain, and which is explicable only in God by his divine science. Hence it is that philosophy never fully suffices for itself, and always needs to be supplemented by revelation, as nature to attain its end must not only be redeemed from the fall, but supplemented by grace. Man never suffices for himself, since his very being is not in himself; and how, then, shall philosophy, which is his creation, suffice for itself? Let philosophy go as far as it can, but let the philosopher never for a moment imagine that human reason will ever be able to explain itself. The secret as of all things is in God and with him. Would man be God, the creature the Creator?
If we have seized the sense of the scholastic philosophy as represented by St. Thomas, and are right in understanding by the intelligible species of the schoolmen the light by which the object is intelligible, therefore the object itself when the object is intelligibleper se, and the intelligible light when it is not, the ideal is objective and real, and both the old quarrel and the new are voided. Abstractions are null; genera and species are real, but creatures; ideas, as the intelligible light by which we know, are not forms of the subject, but objective and real, and in fact the light of the divine being, which, intelligible by itself, is the intelligibility of all created existences. St. Anselm's argument is, then, rigidly sound and conclusive: I think most perfect beingin re; and therefore such being is, or I could not think it, since what is not cannot be thought. If the most perfect being, a greater than which and the contrary of which cannot be thought, be only in my thought, then I am myself greater than the most perfect being, and my thought becomes the criterion of perfection, and I am greater than God, and can judge him.
This follows from the fact that the ideal is real. The ideas of the universal, the infinite, the perfect, the necessary, the immutable, the eternal cannot be either the intelligible object or the intelligible light, unless they are being. As abstractions, or as abstracted from being, they are simple nullities.To think them is to think real, universal, infinite, perfect, necessary, immutable, and eternal being, theens perfectissimumof St. Anselm, theens necessarium et realeof the theologians, a greater than which or the contrary of which cannot be thought. That thisens, intuitively affirmed to every intellect, is God, is amply shown in the papers on "The Problems of the Age," and also thatensor being creates existences, and hence there is no occasion for us to show it over again.
But it will not do to say, as many do, that we have intuition of God. The idea is intuitive; and we know by intuition that which is God, and that he is would be indemonstrable if we did not; but we do not know by intuition that what is affirmed or presented in intuition is God. When Descartes says, "I think God, therefore God is," he misapprehends St. Anselm, and assumes what is not tenable. St. Anselm does not say he thinks God, and therefore God is; he says, "I think most perfect being, a greater than which cannot be thought," and therefore most perfect being is. The intuition is not God, but most perfect being. So the ideal formula,ens creat existentiasso ably defended in the papers on "The Problems of the Age," would be indefensible, ifDeuswere substituted forens, and it read, God creates existences. That is true, andens, no doubt, isDeus; but we know not that by intuition, and it would be wrong to understand St. Augustine, who seems to teach that we know that God is by intuition, in any other sense than that we have intuition of that which can be demonstrated to be God. We know by intuition that which is God, but not that it is God.
St. Thomas seems to us to set this matter right in his answer to the question,Utrum Deum esse sit per notum?—He holds thatensisper se notum, or self-evident, and that first principles in knowing, as well as in being, evidence themselves, but denies thatDeum esse sit per se notum, because the meaning of the wordDeusor God is not self-evident and known by all. His own words are: "Dico ergo haec propositio, DEUS EST, quantum in se est, per se nota est, quia praedicatum est idem cum subjecto Deus enim est suum esse, ut infra patebit. Sed qua nos non scimus de Deo QUID EST, non est per se nota est, sed indiget demonstrari." [Footnote 39]
[Footnote 39: Summa, pars. 1, quaest. 1 a. ln c.]
St. Thomas adds, indeed, "Sed indiget demonstrari, per ea quae sunt magis nota quoad nos, et minus secundam naturam, scilicet per effectus;" but this is easily explained. The saint argues that it is not self-evident that God is, because it is not self-evident what he is; for, according to the scholastic philosophy, to be able to affirm that a thing is, it is necessary to know its quidity [Footnote 40], since without knowing what the thing is we cannot know that it is. What God is can be demonstrated only by his works, and that it can be so demonstrated St. Paul assures us, Rom. 1:20: "Invisibilia ipsius, a creatura mundi, per ea quae facta sunt, intellecta, conspiciuntur: sempiterna quoqne virtus et divinitas;" or as we venture to English it: "The invisible things of God, even his eternal power and divinity, are clearly seen from the foundation of the world, being understood (or known) by the things that are made." St. Paul appeals to the things that are made not to prove that God is, but to show what he is, or rather, if we may so express ourself, to prove that he is God, and leaves us, as does St. Thomas, to prove, with St. Augustine, St. Anselm, Fénelon, and others, that he is, by the argument derived from intuitive ideas, or first principles, commonly called theargumentum a priori, though that, strictly speaking, it is not, for there is nothing more ultimate or universal in science than is God himself, or, rather, that which is God.
[Transcribers footnote 40: quidity—Real nature of a thing; the essence.]
The ideal formula is true, for it is contained in the first verse of Genesis, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," and in the first article of the creed, "I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and all things visible and invisible;" and what it formulates is, as we have shown, and as is shown more at length in "The Problems of the Age," intuitive, and the human mind could not exists and operate if it were not so; but the formula itself, or, rather, the formulation as an intellectual judgment, is not so. The judgment was beyond the reach of all Gentile philosophy, which nowhere asserts or recognizes the fact of creation; it is beyond the reach of the mass even of the Christian people, who hold that God creates the world as an article of faith rather than as a scientific truth; it is denied by nearly all the systems of philosophy constructed by non-Catholics even in our own day, and it may well be doubted if science, unaided by revelation, could ever have attained to it.
This relieves the formula of the principal objections urged against it. The ideas formulated are the first principles in science with which all philosophy must commence, but the formulation, instead of being at the beginning, does not always appear even at its conclusion. The explanations we have offered show that there is no discrepancy between its assertion and the philosophy of St. Thomas. Indeed, the formula in substance is the common doctrine of all great Catholic theologians in all ages of the church, and may be seen to be so if we will only take the pains to understand them and ourselves. The objection, that the doctrine that we have intuition of most perfect being assumes that we have the intuitive vision of God even in this life, cannot stand, because that vision is vision of God as he is in himself, and this asserts only intuition of him as idea, which we even know not by intuition is God. The result of our discussion is to show that the sounder and better philosophy of our day is in reality nothing but the philosophy of St. Anselm and St. Thomas, and which in substance has been always, and still is, taught with more or less clearness and depth in all our Catholic schools.
"And they crucified him there."Say not 'twas on dread Calvary's mountain top,And in the broad and glaring lightOf noonday sun;With hooting rabble crowded 'roundTo showThe Holy One despite.No, no! But in this guilty breast, alone—God of my love, how could I dare!—The deed was done.Ye angels, look upon this heart;Ye knowI crucified him there!
What is it that we seek for, we Englishmen and Englishwomen, who year by year, about the month of November, are seen crowding the Folkestone and Dover steamboats, with that unmistakable "going abroad" look of travelling—bags and wide-awakes and bundles of wraps and alpaca gowns? I think it may be comprised in one word—sunshine. This dear old land of ours, with all its luxuries and all its comforts and all its associations of home and people, still lacks one thing—and that is climate. For climate means health to one half of us; and health means power of enjoyment; for, without it, the most perfect of homes (and nowhere is that word understood so well as in England) is spoiled and saddened. So, in pursuit of this great boon, a widow lady and her children, with a doctor and two other friends, started off in the winter of 186-, in spite of ominous warnings of revolutions, and grim stories of brigands, for that comparatively unvisited country called Spain. As far as St. Sebastian the journey was absolutely without interest or adventure of any kind. The express train dashed them past houses and villages, and picturesque old towns with fine church towers, from Paris to Bordeaux, and from Bordeaux to Bayonne, and so on past the awful frontier, the scene of so many passages-at-arms between officials and ladies' maids, till they found themselves crossing the picturesque bridge which leads to the little town of St. Sebastian, with its beach of fine sand, washed by the long billowy waves of the Atlantic on the one hand, and its riant, well-cultivated little Basque farms on the other. As to the town itself, time and the prefect may eventually make it a second Biarritz, as in every direction lodging-houses are springing up, till it will become what one of Dickens's heroes would call "the most sea-bathingest place" that ever was! But at present it is a mass of rough stone and lime and scaffolding; and the one straight street leading from the hotel to the church of St. Maria, with the castle above, are almost all that remains of the old town which stood so many sieges, and was looked upon as the key of Northern Spain. The hotel appeared but tolerably comfortable to our travellers, fresh from the luxuries of Paris. When they returned, four or five months later, they thought it a perfect paradise of comfort and cleanliness. After wandering through the narrow streets, and walking into one or two uninteresting churches, it was resolved to climb up to the citadel which commands the town, and to which the ascent is by the fair zigzag road, like that which leads to Dover Castle. A small garrison remains in the keep, which is also a military prison. The officers receiving our party very courteously, inviting them to walk on the battlements, and climb up to the flag-staff, and offering them the use of their large telescope for the view, which is certainly magnificent, especially toward the sea. There is a tiny chapel in the fortress, in which the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. It was pleasant to see the sentinel presenting arms to it each time his round brought him past the ever open door. On the hill side, a few monumental slabs, let in here and there into the rock, and one or two square tombs, mark the graves of the Englishmen killed during the siege, and also in the Don Carlos revolution.Of the siege itself, and of the historical interest attached to St. Sebastian, we will say nothing: are they not written in the book of the chronicles of Napier and Napoleon?
The following morning, after a fine and crowded service at the church of St. Maria, where they first saw the beautiful Spanish custom of the women being all veiled, and in black, two of the party started at seven in the morning, in a light carriage, for Loyola. The road throughout is beautiful, reminding one of the Tyrol, with picturesque villages, old Roman bridges, quaint manor-houses, with coats of arms emblazoned over their porticoes; rapid, clear trout-streams and fine glimpses of snowy mountains on the left, and of the bright blue sea on the right. The flowers, too, were lovely. There was a dwarf blue bugloss of an intensity of color which is only equalled by the large forget-me-not on the mountainsides of Lebanon. The peasants are all small proprietors. They were cultivating their fields in the most primitive way, father, mother, and children working the ground with a two-pronged fork, called by them a "laya;" but the result was certainly satisfactory. They speak a language as utterly hopeless for a foreigner to understand as Welsh or Gaelic. The saying among the Andalusians is that the devil, who is no fool, spent seven years in Bilboa studying the Basque dialect, and learned three words only; and of their pronunciation they add that the Basque write "Solomon," and pronounce it "Nebuchadnezzar!" Be this as it may, they are a contented, happy, prosperous, sober race, rarely leaving their own country, to which they are passionately attached, and deserving, by their independence and self-reliance, their name of "Bayascogara"—"Somos bastantes."
Passing through the baths Certosa, the mineral springs of which are much frequented by the Spaniards in summer, our travellers came, after a four hours' drive, to Azpeitia, a walled town, with a fine church containing the "pila," or font, in which St. Ignatius was baptized. Here the good-natured curé, Padre G—, met them, and insisted on escorting them to the great college of Loyola, which is about a mile from the town. It has a fine Italian façade, and is built in a fertile valley round the house of St. Ignatius, the college for missionary priests being on one side, and a florid, domed, circular marble church on the other. The whole is thoroughly Roman in its aspect, but not so beautiful as the Gothic buildings of the south. They first went into the church, which is very rich in jaspers, marbles, and mosaics, the marbles being brought from the neighboring mountains. The cloisters at the back are still unfurnished; but the entrance to the monastery is of fine and good proportions, and the corridors and staircase are very handsome. Between the church and the convent is a kind of covered cloister, leading to the "Santuario," the actual house in which the saint was born and lived. The outside is in raised brickwork, of curious old geometrical patterns; and across the door is the identical wooden bar which in old times served as protection to the château. Entering the low door, you see on your right a staircase; and on your left a long low room on the ground floor, in which is a picture of the Blessed Virgin. Here the saint was born: his mother, having a particular devotion to the Virgin, insisted on being brought down here to be confined. Going up the stairs, to a kind of corridor used as a confessional, you come first to the chapel of St. Francis Borgia, where he said his first mass. Next to it is one dedicated to Marianne di Jesu, the "Lily of Quito," with a beautiful picture of the South American saint over the high altar. To the left, again, is another chapel, and here St. François Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, said his mass before starting on his glorious evangelical mission.Ascending a few steps higher, their guide led them into a long low room, richly decorated and gilt, and full of pictures of the different events of the life of the saint. A gilt screen divided the ante-chapel from the altar, raised on the very spot where he lay so long with his wounded leg, and where he was inspired by the Blessed Virgin to renounce the world, and devote himself, body and soul, to the work of God. There is a representation of him in white marble under the altar as he lay; and opposite, a portrait, in his soldier's dress, said to be taken from life, and another of him afterward, when he had become a priest. It is a beautiful face, with strong purpose and high resolve in every line of the features.
In the sacristy is the "baldachino," or tester of his bed, in red silk. It was in this room that he first fell sick and took to reading the Lives of the Saints to amuse himself, there being no other book within reach. Such are the "common ways," which we blindly call "accidents," in which God leads those whom he chooses, like Saul, for his special service. The convent contains thirty fathers and twenty-five lay brothers. There are about 120 students, a fine library, refectory, etc. They have a large day-school of poor children, whom they instruct in Basque and Spanish; and distribute daily a certain number of dinners, soup, and bread, to the sick poor of the neighboring villages, about twenty of whom were waiting at the buttery door for their daily supply.
The English strangers, taking leave of the kind and courteous fathers, had luncheon at a little "posada" close by, where the hostess insisted on their drinking some of the cider of the country, which the doctor, himself a Devonshire man, was obliged to confess excelled that of his own country. The good curé entertained them meanwhile with stories of his people, who appear to be very like the Highlanders, both in their merits and their faults. Some of their customs seemed to be derived from pagan times, such as that of offering bread and wine on the tombs of those they love on the anniversary of their death; a custom in vogue in the early days of Christianity, and mentioned by St. Augustine in his Confessions as being first put a stop to by St. Ambrose, at Milan, on account of the abuses which had crept into the practice. The drive back was, if possible, even more beautiful than that of the morning, and they reached St. Sebastian at eight o'clock, delighted with their expedition.
The next day they started for Burgos, by rail, only stopping for a few minutes on their way to the station to see the "Albergo dei Poveri," a hospital and home for incurables, nursed by the Spanish sisters of charity. They are affiliated to the sisters of St. Vincent de Paul, and follow their rule, but do not wear the "white cornette" of the French sisters.
The railroad in this part of Spain has been carried through most magnificent scenery, which appeared to our travellers like a mixture of Poussin and Salvator Rosa. Fine purple mountains, still sprinkled with snow, with rugged and jagged peaks standing out against the clear blue sky, and with waterfalls and beautiful streams rushing down their sides; an underwood of chestnut and beach trees; deep valleys, with little brown villages and bright white convents perched on rising knolls, and picturesque bridges spanning the little streams as they dashed through the gorges; and then long tracks of bright rose-colored heather, out of which rose big boulder-stones or the wayside cross; the whole forming, as it were, a succession of beautiful pictures such as would delight the heart of a painter, both as to composition and coloring. No one can say much for the pace at which the Spanish railways travel; yet are they all too quick in scenery such as this, when one longs to stop and sketch at every turn.Suddenly, however, the train came to a stand-still: an enormous fragment of rock had fallen across the line in the night, burying a luggage-train, but fortunately without injury to its drivers; and our party had no alternative but to get out, with their manifold bags and packages, and walk across thedébristo another train, which, fortunately, was waiting for them on the opposite side of the chasm. A little experience of Spanish travelling taught them to expect such incidents half a dozen times in the course of the day's journey; but at first it seemed startling and strange. They reached Burgos at six, and found themselves in a small but very decent "fonda," where the daughter of the landlord spoke a little French, to their great relief. They had had visions of Italian serving nearly as well as Spanish for making themselves understood by the people; but this idea was rudely dispelled the very first day of their arrival in Spain. Great as the similarity may be in reading, the accent of the Spaniard makes him utterly incomprehensible to the bewildered Italian scholar; and the very likeness of some words increases the difficulty when he finds that, according to the pronunciation, a totally different meaning is attached to them. For instance, one of the English ladies, thinking to please the mistress of the house, made a little speech to her about the beauty and cleanliness of her kitchen, using the right word (cocina), but pronouncing it with the Italian accent. She saw directly she had committed a blunder, though Spanish civility suppressed the laugh at her expense. She found afterward that the word she had used, with the "ci"soft, meant a female pig. And this was only a specimen of mistakes hourly committed by all who adventured themselves in this unknown tongue.
A letter of introduction procured for our travellers an instant admission to the cardinal archbishop, who received them most kindly, and volunteered to be their escort over the cathedral. He had been educated at Ushaw, and spoke English fluently and well. He had a very pretty little chapel in his palace, with a picture in it of Sta. Maria della Pace at Rome, from whence he derives his cardinal's title.
The cathedral at Burgos, with the exception of Toledo, is the most beautiful Gothic building in Spain. It was begun by Bishop Maurice, an Englishman, and a great friend of St. Ferdinand's, in the year 1220. The spires, with their lacework carving; the doorways, so rich in sculpture; the rose-windows, with their exquisite tracery; the beautiful lantern-shaped clerestory; the curious double staircase of Diego de Siloe; the wonderful "retablos" behind the altars, of the finest wood-carving; the magnificent marble and alabaster monuments in the side chapels, vying with one another in beauty and richness of detail; the wonderful wood-carving of the stalls in the choir; the bas reliefs carved in every portion of the stone; in fact, every detail of this glorious building is equally perfect; and even in Southern Spain, that paradise for lovers of cathedrals, can scarcely be surpassed. The finest of the monuments are those of the Velasco family, the hereditary high-constable of Castile. They are of Carrara marble, resting upon blocks of jasper: at the feet of the lady lies a little dog, as the emblem of "Fidelity." Over the doorway of this chapel, leading to a tiny sacristy, are carved the arms of Jerusalem. In the large sacristy is a Magdalen, by Leonardo da Vinci; and some exquisite church plate, in gold and enamel, especially a chalice, a processional cross, a pax, etc. In the first chapel on the right, as you enter by the west door, is a very curious figure of Christ, brought from the Holy Land, with real hair and skin; but painful in the extreme, and almost grotesque from the manner in which it has been dressed. This remark, however, applies to almost all the images of Christ and of the Blessed Virgin throughout Spain, which are rendered both sad and ludicrous to English eyes from the petticoats and finery with which modern devotion has disfigured them.This crucifix, however, is greatly venerated by the people, who call it "The Christ of Burgos," and on Sundays or holidays there is no possibility of getting near it, on account of the crowd. In the Chapel of the Visitation are three more beautiful monuments, and a very fine picture of the Virgin and Child, by Sebastian del Piombo. But it was impossible to take in every portion of this cathedral at once; and so our travellers went on to the cloisters, passing through a beautiful pointed doorway, richly carved, which leads to the chapter-house, now a receptacle for lumber, but containing the chest of the Cid, regarding which the old chronicle says: "He filled it with sand, and then, telling the Jews it contained gold, raised money on security." In justice to the hero, however, we are bound to add, that when the necessities of the war were over, he repaid both principal and interest. Leaving, at last, the cloisters and cathedral, and taking leave of the kind archbishop, our party drove to the Town Hall, where, in a walnut-wood urn, are kept the bones of the Cid, which were removed twenty years ago from their original resting-place at Cardena. The sight of them strengthened their resolve to make a pilgrimage to his real tomb, which is in a Benedictine convent about eight miles from the town. Starting, therefore, in two primitive little carriages, guiltless of springs, they crossed the river and wound up a steep hill till they came in sight ofMiraflores, the great Carthusian convent, which, seen from a distance, strongly resembles Eton College Chapel. It was built by John II. for a royal burial-place, and was finished by Isabella of Castile. Arriving at the monastery, from whence the monks have been expelled, and which is now tenanted by only one or two lay brothers of the order, they passed through a long cloister, shaded by fine cypresses, into the church, in the chancel of which is that which may really be called one of the seven wonders of the world. This is the alabaster sepulcher of John II. and his wife, the father and mother of Queen Isabella, with their son, the Infante Alonso, who died young. In richness of detail, delicacy of carving, and beauty of execution, the work of these monuments is perfectly unrivalled—the very material seems to be changed into Mechlin lace. The artist was Maestro Gil, the father of the famous Diego de Siloe, who carved the staircase in the cathedral. He finished it in 1493; and one does not wonder at Philip II.'s exclamation when he saw it: "Wehave done nothing at the Escurial." In the sacristy is a wonderful statue of St. Bruno, carved in wood, and so beautiful and life-like in expression that it was difficult to look at anything else.
Leaving Miraflores, our travellers broke tenderly to their coachmen their wish to go on to Cardena. One of them utterly refused, saying the road was impassable; the other,moyennantan extra gratuity, undertook to try it, but stipulated that the gentlemen should walk, and the ladies do the same, if necessary. Winding round the convent garden walls, and then across a bleak wild moor, they started, and soon found themselves involved in a succession of ruts and sloughs of despond which more than justified the hesitation of their driver. On the coach-box was an imp of a boy, whose delights consisted in quickening the fears of the most timid among the ladies by invariably making the horses gallop at the most difficult and precipitous parts of the road, and then turning round and grinning at the fright he had given them. It is needless to say that the carriage was not his property. At last, the horses came to a stand-still; they could go no further, and the rest of the way had to be done on foot. But our travellers were not to be pitied; for the day was lovely, and the path across the moor was studded with flowers. At last, on climbing over a steep hill which had intercepted their view, they came on a lovely panorama, with a background of blue mountains tipped with snow; a wooded glen, in which the brown convent nestled, and a wild moor foreground, across which long strings of mules with gay trappings, driven by peasants in Spanish costumes, exactly as represented in Ansdell's paintings, were wending their way toward the city.Tired as some of our party were, this glorious view seemed to give them fresh strength, and they rapidly descended the hill by the hollow path leading to the convent. Over the great entrance is a statue of the Cid, mounted on his favorite horse, "Babicca," who bore him to his last resting-place, and was afterward buried beside the master he loved so well. But the grand old building seemed utterly deserted, and a big mastiff, fastened by an ominously slight chain to the doorway, appeared determined to defy their attempts to enter. At last, one of them, more courageous than the rest, tempting the Cerberus with the remains of her luncheon, got past him, and wandered through the cloister, up a fine staircase to a spacious corridor, in hopes of finding a guide to show them the way to the chapel, where lay the object of their expedition, that is, the monument of the Cid. But she was only answered by the echo of her own footsteps. The cells were empty; the once beautiful library gutted and destroyed; the refectory had nothing in it but bare walls—the whole place was like a city of the dead. At last, she discovered a staircase lending down to a cloister on the side opposite the great entrance, and there a low-arched door, which she found ajar, admitted her into the deserted church. The tomb of the Cid has been removed from the high altar to a side Chapel; and there is interred likewise, his faithful and devoted wife Ximena, and their two daughters. On his shield is emblazoned the "tizona," or sparkling brand, which the legends affirm he always carried in his hand, and with which he struck terror into the hearts of the infidels. This church and convent, built for the Benedictines by the Princess Sancho, in memory of her son Theodoric, who was killed out hunting, was sacked by the Moors in the ninth century, when 200 of the monks were murdered. A tablet in the south transept still remains, recording the massacre; but the monument of Theodoric has been mutilated and destroyed. The Christian spoilers have done their work more effectually than the Moslem! Sorrowfully our travellers left this beautiful spot, thinking bitterly on the so-called age of progress which had left the abode of so much learning and piety to the owls and the bats; and partly walking, partly driving, returned without accident to the city. One more memento of the Cid at Burgos deserves mention. It is the lock on which he compelled the king, Alonso VI., to swear that he had had no part in his brother Sancho's assassination at Zamora. All who wished to confirm their word with a solemn oath used to touch it, till the practice was abolished by Isabella, and the lock itself hung up in the old church of St. Gadea, on the way to the castle hill, where it still rests. This is the origin of the peasant custom of closing the hand and raising the thumb, which they kiss in token of asseveration; and in like manner we have the old Highland saying: "There's my thumb. I'll not betray you."
Another charming expedition was made on the following day to Las Huelgas, the famous Cistercian nunnery, built in some gardens outside the town by Alonso VIII. and his wife Leonora, daughter of our King Henry II.
When one of the ladies had asked the cardinal for a note of introduction to the abbess, be had replied laughing: "I am afraid it would not be of much use to you. She certainly is not under my jurisdiction, and I am not sure whether she does not think I am under hers!" No lady abbess certainly ever had more extraordinary privileges. She is a Princess Palatine—styled "By the grace of God"—and has feudal power over all the lands and villages round. She appoints her own priests and confessors, and has a hospital about a mile from the convent, nursed by the sisters, and entirely under her control.After some little delay at the porter's lodge, owing to their having come at the inconvenient hour of dinner, our party were ushered into the parlor, and there, behind a grille, saw a beautiful old lady, dressed in wimple and coif, exactly like a picture in the time of Chaucer. This was the redoubtable lady abbess. There are twenty-seven choir nuns and twenty-five lay sisters in the convent, and they follow the rule of St. Bernard. The abbess first showed them the Moorish standard, beautifully embroidered, taken at the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, in 1180. A curious old fresco representing this battle remains over the arch of the church. She then took them to the choir, which is very rich in carving, and contains the tombs of the founders, Alonso and Leonora, and also of a number of infantas, whose royal bodies are placed in richly carved Gothic sepulchres, resting on lions, on each side of the choir. In the church is a curious hammered iron gilt pulpit, in which St. Vincent de Ferrer preached. Here St. Ferdinand and Alonso XI. knighted themselves, and here our own king, Edward I., received the honor of knighthood at the hands of Alonso el Sabio.
The church is a curious jumble of different dates of architecture; but there is a beautiful tower and doorway, some very interesting old monuments, and a fine double rose-window. The cloisters are very beautiful, with round-beaded arches, grouped pillars, and Norman capitals. The lady abbess then ordered one of the priests of the convent to take her English visitors to see their hospital, called "Del Rey," the walk to which from the convent is through pleasant fields like English meadows. It is admirably managed and nursed by the nuns. Each patient has a bed in a recess, which makes, as it were, a little private room for each, and this is lined with "azulejos," or colored tiles, up to a certain height, giving that clean bright look which distinguishes the Spanish hospitals from all others. At the end of each ward was a little altar, where mass is daily performed for the sick. There are fifty men and fifty women, and the surgical department was carefully supplied with all the best and newest instruments, which the surgeon was eager to show off to the doctor, the only one of the party worthy of the privilege. The wards opened into a "patio," or court, with seats and bright flowers, where the patients who could leave their beds were sitting out and sunning themselves. Altogether, it is a noble institution; and one must hope that the ruthless hand of government will not destroy it in common with the other charitable foundations of Spain.
But the cold winds blew sharply, and our travellers resolved to hurry south, and reserve the further treasures of Burgos for inspection on their return. The night train conveyed them safely to Madrid, where they found a most comfortable hotel in the "Ville de Paris," lately opened by an enterprising Frenchman, in the "Puelta del Sol;" and received the kindest of welcomes from the English minister, the Count T. D., and other old friends. It was Sunday morning, and the first object was to find a church near at hand. These are not wanting in Madrid, but all are modern, and few in good taste: the nicest and best served is undoubtedly that of "St. Louis des Français," though the approach to it through the crowded market is rather disagreeable early in the morning. The witty writer of "Les Lettres d'Espagne" says truly: "Madridne me dit rien:c'est moderne, aligné, propre et civilisé." As for the climate, it is detestable: bitterly cold in winter, the east wind searching out every rheumatic joint in one's frame, and pitilessly driving round the corners of every street; burning hot in summer, with a glare and dust which nearly equal that of Cairo in a simoom.
The Gallery, however, compensates for all. Our travellers had spent months at Florence, at Rome, at Dresden, and fancied that nothing could come up to the Pitti, the Uffizi, or the Vatican—that no picture could equal the "San Sisto;" but they found they had yet much to learn. No one who has not been in Spain can so much as imagine what Murillo is. In England he is looked upon as the clever painter of picturesque brown beggar-boys: there is not one of these subjects to be found in Spain, from St. Sebastian to Gibraltar! At Madrid, at Cadiz, but especially at Seville, one learns to know him as he is—that is, the great mystical religious painter of the seventeenth century, embodying in his wonderful conceptions all that is most sublime and ecstatic in devotion, and in the representation of divine love. The English minister, speaking of this one day to a lady of the party, explained it very simply, by saying that the English generally only carried off those of his works in which the Catholic feeling was not so strongly displayed. It would be hopeless to attempt to describe all his pictures in the Madrid Gallery. The Saviour and St. John, as boys, drinking out of a shell, is perhaps the most delicate and exquisite in coloring and expression; but the "Conception" surpasses all. No one should compare it with the Louvre pictures of the same subject. There is a refinement, a tenderness, and a beauty in the Madrid "Conception" entirely wanting in the one stolen by the French. Then there is Velasquez, with his inimitable portraits; full of droll originality, as the "AEsop;" or of deep historical interest, as his "Philip IV.;" or of sublime piety, as in his "Crucifixion," with the hair falling over one side of the Saviour's face, which the pierced and fastened hands cannot push aside: each and all are priceless treasures, and there must be sixty or seventy in that one long room. Ford says that "Velasquez is the Homer of the Spanish school, of which Murillo is the Virgil." Then there are Riberas, and Zurbarans, Divino Morales, Juan Joanes, Alonso Caño, and half-a-dozen other artists, whose very names are scarcely known out of Spain, and all of whose works are impregnated with that mystic, devotional self-sacrificing spirit which is the essence of Catholicism. The Italian school is equally magnificently represented. There are exquisite Raphaels, one especially, "La Perla," once belonging to our Charles I., and sold by the Puritans to the Spanish king; the "Spasimo," the "Vergin del Pesce," etc.; beautiful Titians, not only portraits, but one, a "Magdalen," which is unknown to us by engravings or photographs in England, where, in a green robe, she is flying from the assaults of the devil, represented by a monstrous dragon, and in which the drawing is as wonderful as the coloring; beautiful G. Bellinis, and Luinis, and Andrea del Sartos (especially one of his wife), and Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian and Milanese schools. In a lower room there are Dutch and Flemish chefs-d'oeuvre without end: Rubens, and Vandyke, and Teniers, and Breughel, and Holbein, and the rest. It is a gallery bewildering from the number of its pictures, but with the rare merit of almost all being good; and they are so arranged that the visitor can see them with perfect comfort at any hour of the day. In the ante-room to the long gallery are some pictures of the present century, but none are worth looking at save Goya's pictures of the wholesale massacre of the Spanish prisoners by the French, which are not likely to soften the public feeling of bitterness and hostility toward that nation.
There is nothing very good in sculpture, only two of the antiques being worth looking at; but there is a fine statue of Charles V., and a wonderfully beautiful St. John of God, carrying a sick man out of the burning hospital on his back, which is modern, but in admirable taste.Neglected, in some side cupboards, and several of them broken and covered with dust and dirt, are some exquisite tazzas of Benvenuto Cellini, D'Arphes, and Beceriles, in lapis, jade, agate, and enamel, finer than any to be seen even in the Grüne Gewölbe of Dresden. There is a gold mermaid, studded with rubies, and with an emerald tail, and a cup with an enamelled jewelled border and stand, which are perfectly unrivalled in beauty of workmanship. Then, in addition to this matchless gallery, Madrid has its "Academia," containing three of Murillo's most magnificent conceptions. One is "St. Elizabeth of Hungary," washing the wounds of the sick, her fair young face and delicate white hands forming a beautiful contrast with the shrivelled brown old woman in the foreground. The expression of the saint's countenance is that of one absorbed in her work and yet looking beyond it. [Footnote 41] The other is the "Dream," in which the Blessed Virgin appears to the founder of the church of St. Maria della Neve (afterward called St. Maria Maggiore) and his wife, and suggests to them the building of a church on a spot at Rome, which would be indicated to them by a fall of snow, though it was then in the month of August. In the third picture the founder and his wife are kneeling at the feet of the Pope, telling him of their vision, and imploring his benediction on their work. These two famous pictures were taken by Soult from Seville, and are of a lunette shape, being made to fit the original niche for which they were painted: both are unequalled for beauty of color and design, and have recently been magnificently engraved, by order of the government.
[Footnote 41: This picture was stolen from the Carldad, at Seville, by the French, and afterward sent back to Madrid, where it still remains.]
But apart from its galleries, Madrid is a disappointment; there is no antiquity or interest attached to any of its churches or public buildings. The daily afternoon diversion is the drive on the Prado; amusing from the crowd, perhaps, but where, with the exception of the nurses, all national costume has disappeared. There are scarcely any mantillas; but Faubourg St.-Germain bonnets, in badly assorted colors, and horrible and exaggerated crinolines, replacing the soft, black, flowing dresses of the south. It is, in fact, a badréchaufféof the Bois de Boulogne. The queen, in a carriage drawn by six or eight mules, surrounded by her escort, and announced by trumpeters, and the infantas, following in similar carriages, form the only "event" of the afternoon. Poor lady! how heartily sick she must be of this promenade! She is far more pleasing-looking than her pictures give her credit for, and has a frank kind manner which is an indication of her good and simple nature. Her children are most carefully brought up, and very well educated by the charming English authoress, Madame Calderon de la Barca, well known by her interesting work on Mexico. On Saturdays, the queen and the royal family always drive to Atocha, a church at the extreme end of the Prado, in vile taste, but containing the famous image of the Virgin, the patroness of Spain, to whom all the royalties are specially devoted. It is a black image, but almost invisible from the gorgeous jewels and dresses with which it is adorned.
One of the shows of Madrid is the royal stables, which are well worth a visit. There are upward of two hundred and fifty horses, and two hundred fine mules; the backs of the latter are invariably shaved down to a certain point, which gives them an uncomfortable appearance to English eyes, but is the custom throughout Spain. One lady writer asserts that "it is more modest!" There is a charming little stud belonging to the prince imperial, which includes two tiny mules not bigger than dogs, but in perfect proportions, about the size required to drag a perambulator. Some of the horses are English and thoroughbred, but a good many are of the heavy-crested Velasquez type. The carriages are of every date, and very curious. Among them is one in which Philip I. (le Bel) was said to have been poisoned, and in which his wife, Jeanne la Folle, still insisted on dragging him out, believing he was only asleep.
More interesting to some of our party than horses and stables were the charitable institutions in Madrid, which are admirable and very numerous. It was on the 12th of November, 1856, that the Mère Dévos, afterward Mère Générale of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, started with four or five of her sisters of charity to establish their first house in Madrid. They had many hardships and difficulties to encounter, but loving perseverance conquered them all. The sisters now number between forty and fifty, distributed in three houses in different parts of the city, with more than one thousand children in their schools and orphanages, the whole being under the superintendence of the Soeur Gottofrey, the able and charming French "provincial" of Spain. The queen takes a lively interest in their success, and most of the ladies of her court are more or less affiliated to them. There are branch houses of these French sisters at Malaga, Granada, Barcelona, and other towns; and they are now beginning to undertake district visiting, as well as the care of the sick and the education of children—a proceeding which they were obliged to adopt with caution, owing to the strong prejudice felt in Spain toward any religious order's being seen outside their "clausura," and also toward their dress, the white cornette, which, to eyes unaccustomed to anything but black veils, appeared outrageous and unsuitable. The Spanish sisters of charity, though affiliated to them, following the rule of St. Vincent, and acknowledging N. T. H. Père Étienne as their superior, still refuse to wear the cornette, and substitute a simple white cap and black veil. These Spanish sisters have the charge of the magnificent Foundling Hospital, which receives upward or one thousand children; of the hospital called Las Recogidas, for penitence; of the General Hospital, where the sick are admirably cared for and to which is attached a wing for patients of an upper class, who pay a small sum weekly, and have all the advantages of the clever surgery and careful nursing of the hospital (an arrangement sadly needed in our English hospitals); of the Hospicio de St. Maria del Cármen, founded by private charity, for the old and incurables; of the infant school, or "salle d'asile," where the children are fed as well as taught; and of the Albergo dei Poveri, equivalent to what we should call a workhouse in England, but which we cannot desecrate by such a name when speaking of an establishment conducted on the highest and noblest rules of Christian charity, and where the orphans find not only loving care and tender watchfulness, but admirable industrial training, fitting them to fill worthily any employments to which their natural inclination may lead them. The Sacré Coeur have a large establishment for the education of the upper classes at Chaumartin de la Rosa, a suburb of Madrid, about four miles from the town. It was founded by the Marquesa de Villa Nueva, a most saint-like person, whose house adjoins, and in fact forms part of the convent—her bedroom leading into a tribune overlooking the chapel and the blessed sacrament. The view from the large garden, with the mountains on the one hand, and the stone pine woods on the other, is very pretty, and unlike anything else in the neighborhood of Madrid. The superior, a charming person, showed the ladies all over the house, which is large, commodious, and airy, and in which they have already upward of eighty pupils. They have a very pretty chapel, and in the parlor a very beautiful picture of St. Elizabeth, by a modern artist.
One more "lion" was visited before leaving Madrid, and that was the armory, which is indeed well worth a long and careful examination. The objects it contains are all of deep historical interest.There is a collar-piece belonging to Philip II., with scenes from the battle of St. Quentin exquisitely carved; a helmet taken from the unfortunate Boabdil, the last Moorish king of Granada; beautiful Moorish arms and Turkish banners taken at the battle of Lepanto, in old Damascus inlaid-work; the swords of Boabdil, and of Ferdinand and Isabella; the armor of the Cid, of Christopher Columbus, of Charles V., of St. Ferdinand, and of Philip II.; the carriage of Charles V., looking like a large bassinet; exquisite shields, rapiers, swords, and helmets; some very curious gold ornaments, votive crowns, and crosses of the seventh century; and heaps of other treasures too numerous to be here detailed. But our travellers were fairly exhausted by their previous sight-seeing, and gladly reserved their examination of the rest to a future day. At all times, a return to a place is more interesting than a first visit; for in the latter one is oppressed by the feeling of the quantity to be seen and the short time there is to see it in, and so the intense anxiety and fatigue destroy half one's enjoyment of the objects themselves. That evening they were to leave the biting east winds of Madrid for the more genial climate of sunny Malaga; and so, having made sundry very necessary purchases, including mantillas and chocolate, and having eaten what turned out to be their last good dinner for a very long time, they started off by an eight o'clock train for Cordova, which was to be their halting place midway. On reaching Alcazar, about one o'clock in the morning, they had to change trains, as the one in which they were branched off to Valencia; and for two hours they were kept waiting for the Cordova train. Oh! the misery of those wayside stations in Spain! One long low room filled with smokers and passengers of every class, struggling for chocolate, served in dirty cups by uncivil waiters, with insufficient seats and scant courtesy: no wonder that the Spaniards consider our waiting-rooms real palaces. You have no alternative in the winter season but to endure this foetid, stifling atmosphere, and be blinded with smoke, or else to freeze and shiver outside, where there are no benches at all, and your only hope is to get a corner of a wall against which you can lean and be sheltered from the bitter wind. The arrival of the up train brought, therefore, unmixed joy to our party, who managed to secure a compartment to themselves without any smokers (a rare privilege in Spain), and thus got some sleep for a few hours. At six o'clock the train stopped, the railroad went no further; so the passengers turned out somewhat ruefully, in the cold, and gazed with dismay at the lumbering dirty diligences, looking as if they had come out of the Ark, which were drawn up, all in a row, at the station door, with ten, twelve, or fourteen mules harnessed to each, and by which they and their luggage were to be conveyed for the next eight hours. The station master was a Frenchman, and with great civility, during the lading of the diligences, gave up to the ladies his own tiny bedroom, and some fresh water to wash themselves a little, and make themselves comfortable after their long night journey, for there was no pretence of a waiting-room at this station.
Reader, did you ever go in a Spanish diligence? It was the first experience of most of our party of this means of locomotion, and at first seemed simply impossible. The excessive lowness of the carriages, the way in which the unhappy passengers are jammed in, either into thecoupéin front, or into the square box behind, unable to move or sit upright in either; while the mules plunge and start off in every direction but the right one, their drivers every instant jumping down and running by the side of the poor beasts, which they flog unmercifully, vociferating in every key; and that, not at first starting, but all the way, up hill and down dale, with an energy which is as inexhaustible as it is despairing, till either a pole cracks or a trace breaks, or some accident happens to a wheel, and the whole lumbering concern stops with a jerk and a lurch which threaten to roll everything and everybody into the gorge below.Each diligence is accompanied by a "mayoral," or conductor, who has charge of the whole equipage, and is a very important personage. This functionary is generally gorgeously dressed, with embroidered jacket, scarlet sash round the waist, gaiters with silver buttons and hanging leather strips, and round his head a gay-colored handkerchief and a round black felt hat with broad brim and feather, or else of the kind denominated "pork pie" in England; he is here, there, and everywhere during the journey, arranging the places of the passengers, the stations for halts, and the like. Besides this dignitary, there is the "moto" or driver, whose business is to be perpetually jumping down and flogging the far-off mules into a trot, which he did with such cruelly that our travellers often hoped he would himself get into trouble in jumping up again, which, unfortunately, he was always too expert to do. Every mule has its name, and answers to it. They are harnessed two abreast, a small boy riding on the leaders; and it is on his presence of mind and skill that the guidance and safety of the whole team depend. On this occasion, the "mayoral" and "moto" leant with their backs against what was left of the windows of thecoupé, which they instantly smashed, the cold wind rushed in, and the passengers were alternately splashed from head to foot with the mud cast up in their faces by the mules' heels, or choked and blinded with dust. For neither misfortune is there either redress or sympathy. The lower panels of the floor and doors have holes cut in them to let out the water and mud; but the same agreeable arrangement, in winter, lets in a wind which threatens to freeze off your feet as you sit. A small boy, who, it is to be supposed, was learning his trade, held on by his eyelids to a ledge below, and was perpetually assisting in screaming and flogging. A struggle at some kind of vain resistance, and then a sullen despair and a final making up one's mind that, after all, it can't last forever, are the phases through which the unhappy travellers pass during these agreeable diligence journeys. It was some little time before our party could get sufficiently reconciled to their misery to enjoy the scenery. But when they could look about them, they found themselves passing through a beautiful gorge, and up a zigzag road, like the lower spurs of an Alpine pass, over the Sierra Morena. Then began the descent, during which some of the ladies held their breath, expecting to be dashed over the parapet at each sharp turn in the road; the pace of the mules was never relaxed, and the unwieldy top-heavy mass oscillated over the precipice below in a decidedly unpleasant manner. Then they came into a fertile region of olives and aloes, and so on by divers villages and through roads which the late rains had made almost impassable, and in passing over which every bone in their bodies seemed dislocated in their springless vehicle, till, at two o'clock in the afternoon, they reached the station, where, to their intense relief, they again came upon a railroad. Hastily swallowing some doubtful chocolate, they established themselves once more comfortably in the railway carriage; but after being in the enjoyment of this luxury for half an hour, the train came, all of a sudden, to a stand-still; and the doors being opened, they were politely told that they mustwalk, as a landslip had destroyed the line for some distance. Coming at last to a picturesque town with a fine bridge over the Guadalquiver, they were allowed once more to take their seats in the carriages, and finally arrived at Cordova at eight o'clock at night, after twenty-four hours of travelling, alternating from intense cold to intense heat, very tired indeed, horribly dusty and dirty, and without having had any church all day.
To be continued