The Duchess of Berwick in all her nonchalance.—Her apartment described.—Her passion for music.—Her señoras de honor.
Thursday, Dec. 13th, 1787.
IT was a heavy damp morning, and I could hardly prevail upon myself to quit my fireside and deliver the archbishop’s most confidential despatches to the Portuguese ambassador Don Diogo de Noronha.
The ambassador being gone to the palace, I drove to the Duchess of Berwick’s, my old acquaintance, with whom I passed so much of my time at Paris eight years ago. Her dear spouse, so well known at Spa, Brussels, Aix-la-Chapelle, and all the gaming-places of Europe, by the name, style, and title of marquis of Jamaica, has been departed these five or six months; and she is now mistress of the most splendid palace in Madrid, of one of the first fortunes, and of the affairs of her only son, the present Duke of Berwick, to whom she is guardian.
The façade of the palace, and the spacious court before it, pleased me extremely. It is in the best style of modern Parisian architecture, simple and graceful. I was conducted up a majestic staircase, adorned with corinthian columns, and through a long suite of apartments, at the extremity of which, in a saloon hung with embroidered India satin, sat reclined madame la duchesse, in all her accustomed nonchalance. She seemed never to have moved from her sofa since I last had the pleasure of seeing her, and is exactly the same good-natured, indolent being, free from malice or uncharitableness; I wish the world was fuller of this harmless, quiet species.
The morning passed most rapidly away in talking over rose-coloured times; I returned home to dine, and as soon as it was dark went back again to madame de Berwick’s, who was waiting tea for me. I like her apartment very much, the angles are taken off by low semicircular sofas, and the space between them and the hangings filled up with slabs of Granadian marble, on which are placed most beautiful porcelain vases with mignonette and rose-trees in full bloom. The fire burnt cheerfully, the table was drawn close to it; the duchess’s little girl, Donna Ferdinanda, sat playing and smiling upon a dog, which she held in her lap, and had swaddled up like an infant.
Soon after tea, the young duke of Berwick and a French abbé, his preceptor, came in and stayed with us the remainder of the evening. The duke is only fourteen and some months, but he is taller than I am, and as plump as the plumpest of partridges. His manners are French, and his address as prematurely formed as his figure. Few, if any, fortunes in Europe equal that which he enjoys, and of which he has expectations; being heir to the house of Alba, seventy thousand a-year at least, and in possession of the Veragua and Liria estates. These immense properties are of course underlet, and wretchedly cultivated. If able exertions were made in their management, his income might be doubled.
Madame de Berwick has not lost her passion for music; operas and sonatas lie scattered all over her apartment; not only singing-books were lying on the carpet, but singers themselves; three of her musical attendants, a page, and two pretty little señoras de honor, having cast themselves carelessly at her feet in the true Spanish, or rather morisco, fashion, ready to warble forth the moment she gave the signal, which was not long delayed, and never did I hear more soothing voices. The inspiration they gave rise to drove me to the piano-forte, where I played and sang those airs Madame de Berwick was so fond of in the dawn of our acquaintance; when, thanks to her cherished indolence, she had the resignation to listen day after day, and hour after hour, to my romantic rhapsodies. How fervid and ecstatic was I in those days; the toy of every impulse, the willing dupe of every gay illusion. The duchess tells me, she thinks from the tone of our conversation in the morning, that I am now a little sobered, and may possibly get through this thorny world without losing my wits on its briars.
The Chevalier de Roxas.—Excursion to the palace and gardens of the Buen Retiro.—The Turkish Ambassador and his numerous train.—Farinelli’s apartments.
Dec. 14th, 1785.
ONE of the best informed and pleasantest of Spaniards, the Chevalier de Roxas, who had been very intimate both with Verdeil and me at Lausanne, came in a violent hurry this morning to give us a cordial embrace. He seems to have set his heart upon showing us about Madrid, and rendering our stay here as lively as he could make it. Fifty schemes did he propose in half a minute, of visiting museums, churches, and public buildings; of goings to balls, theatres, and tertullias.
I took alarm at this busy prospect, drew back into my shell, and began wishing myself in the most perfect incognito; but, alas! to no purpose, it was all in vain.
Roxas, most eager to enter upon his office of cicerone, fidgeted to the window, observed we had still an hour or two of daylight, and proposed an excursion to the palace and gardens of the Buen Retiro. Upon entering the court of the palace, which is surrounded by low buildings, with plastered fronts, sadly battered by wind and weather, I espied some venerable figures in caftans and turbans, leaning against a doorway.
My sparks of orientalism instantly burst into a flame at such a sight: “Who are those picturesque animals?” said I to our conductor. “Is it lawful to approach them?” “As often as you please,” answered Roxas. “They belong to the Turkish ambassador, who is lodged, with all his train, at the Buen Retiro, in the identical apartments once occupied by Farinelli; where he held his state levees and opera rehearsals; drilling ministers one day, and tenors and soprani the other: if you have a mind, we will go up-stairs and examine the whole menagerie.”
No sooner said, no sooner done. I cleared four steps at a leap, to the great delight of his sublime excellency’s pages and attendants, and entered a saloon spread with the most sumptuous carpets, and perfumed with the fragrance of the wood of aloes. In a corner of this magnificent chamber sat the ambassador, Achmet Vassif Effendi, wrapped up in a pelisse of the most precious sables, playing with a light cane he had in his hand, and every now and then passing it under the noses of some tall, handsome slaves, who were standing in a row before him. These figures, fixed as statues, and to all appearance equally insensible, neither moved hand nor eye. As I advanced to make my salam to the grand seignor’s representative, who received me with a most gracious nod of the head; his interpreter announced to what nation I belonged, and my own individual warm partiality for the Sublime Porte.
As soon as I had taken my seat in a ponderous fauteuil of figured velvet, coffee was carried round in cups of most delicate china, with gold enamelled saucers. Notwithstanding my predilection for the east and its customs, I could hardly get this beverage down, it was so thick and bitter; whilst I was making a few wry faces in consequence, a low murmuring sound, like that of flutes and dulcimers, accompanied by a sort of tabor, issued from behind a curtain which separated us from another apartment. There was a melancholy wildness in the melody, and a continual repetition of the same plaintive cadences, that soothed and affected me.
The ambassador kept poring upon my countenance, and appeared much delighted with the effect his music seemed to produce upon it. He is a man of considerable talent, deeply skilled in Turkish literature; a native of Bagdad; rich, munificent, and nobly born, being descended from the house of Barmek; gracious in his address, smooth and plausible in his elocution; but not without something like a spark of despotism in a corner of his eye. Now and then I fancied that the recollection of having recommended the bow-string, and certain doubts whether he might not one day or other be complimented with it in his turn, passed across his venerable and interesting physiognomy.
My eager questions about Bagdad, the tomb of Zobeida, the vestiges of the Dhar al Khalifat, or palace of the Abbassides, seemed to excite a thousand remembrances which gave him pleasure; and when I added a few quotations from some of his favourite authors, particularly Mesihi, he became so flowingly communicative, that a shrewd dapper Greek, called Timoni, who acted as his most confidential interpreter, could hardly keep pace with him.
Had not the hour of prayer arrived, our conversation might have lasted till midnight. Rising up with much stateliness, he extended his arms to bid me a good evening, and was assisted along by two good-looking Georgian pages, to an adjoining chamber, where his secretaries, dragoman, and attendants, were all assembled to perform their devotions, each on his little carpet, as if in a mosque; and it was not unedifying to witness the solemnity and abstractedness with which these devotions were performed.
The Museum and Academy of Arts.—Scene on the Prado.—The Portuguese Ambassador and his comforters.—The Theatre.—A highly popular dancer.—Seguidillas in all their glory.
Sunday, Dec. 16th, 1787.
THE kind, indefatigable Roxas came to conduct us to the Museum and Academy of Arts. It consists of seven or eight apartments, with cases all around them, in a plain, good style; the objects clearly arranged, and exposed to view in a very intelligible manner. There is a vast collection of minerals, corals, madrepores, and stalactites, from all the grottoes in the universe; and curious specimens of virgin-gold and silver. Amongst the latter, a lump weighing seventy pounds, which was shivered off an enormous mass by a master miner, who, after dining on it, with twelve or thirteen persons, hacked it to pieces, and distributed the fragments amongst his guests.
What pleased me most was a collection of Peruvian vases; a polished stone, which served the Incas for a mirror; and a linen mantle, which formerly adorned their copper-coloured shoulders, as finely woven as a shawl, and flowered in very nearly a similar manner, the colours as fresh and vivid as if new.
In the apartments of the academy is a most valuable collection of casts after the serene and graceful antique, and several fierce, obtrusive daubings by modern Spanish artists.
I found our acute, intelligent chargé-d’affaires’[26] card lying on my table when I got home, and a great many more, of equal whiteness; such a sight chills me like a fall of snow, for I think of the cold idleness of going about day after day dropping little bits of pasteboard in return. Verdeil and I dined tête-à-tête, planning schemes how to escape formal fussifications. No easy matter, I suspect, if I may judge from appearances.
Our repast and our council over, we hurried to the Prado, where a brilliant string of equipages was moving along in two files. In the middle paraded the state coaches of the royal family, containing their own precious selves, and their wonted accompaniment of bedchamber lords and ladies, duly bedizened. It was a gay spectacle; the music of the Swiss guards playing, and the evening sun shining bright on their showy uniforms. The botanic garden is separated from the walk by magnificent railings and pilasters, placed at regular distances, crowned with vases of aloes and yuccas. The verdure and fountains of this vast enclosure, terminated by a range of columned conservatories, with an entrance of very majestic architecture, has a delightful and striking effect.
From the Prado I drove to the Portuguese ambassador’s, who is laid up with a sore toe. Three diplomatic animals, two males and one female, were nursing and comforting him. He is most supremely dull, and so are his comforters. One of them in particular, who shall be nameless, quite asinine.
The little sympathy I feel for creatures of this genus, made me shorten my visit as much as I decently could, and return home to take up Roxas, who was waiting to accompany us to the Spanish theatre. They were acting the Barber of Seville, with Paesiello’s music, and singing better than at the opera. The entertainment ended with a sort of intermez, very characteristic of Spanish manners in low life; in which were introduced seguidillas. One of the dancers, a young fellow, smartly dressed as a maxo, so enraptured the audience, that they made him repeat his dance four times over; a French dancing-master would have absolutely shuddered at the manner in which he turned in his knees. The women sit by themselves in a gallery as dingy as limbo, wrapped up in their white mantillas, and looking like spectres. I never heard anything like the vociferation with which the pit called out for the seguidillas, nor the frantic, deafening applause they bestowed on their favourite dancer.
The play ended at eight, and we came back to tea by our fireside.
Visit to the Escurial.—Imposing site of that regal convent.—Reception by the Mystagogue of the place.—Magnificence of the choir.—Charles the Fifth’s organ.—Crucifix by Cellini.—Gorgeous ceiling painted by Luca Giordano.—Extent and intricacy of the stupendous edifice.
Thursday, Dec. 19th, 1787.
I HATE being roused out of bed by candlelight on a sharp wintry morning; but as I had fixed to-day for visiting the Escurial, and had stationed three relays on the road, in order to perform the journey expeditiously, I thought myself obliged to carry my plan into execution.
The weather was cold and threatening, the sky red and deeply coloured. Roxas was to be of our party, so we drove to his brother, the Marquis of Villanueva’s, to take him up. He is one of the best-natured and most friendly of human beings, and I would not have gone without him upon any account; though in general I abhor turning and twisting about a town in search of any body, let its soul be never so transcendent.
It was past eight before we issued out of the gates of Madrid, and rattled along an avenue on the banks of the Mançanares full gallop, which brought us to the Casa del Campo, one of the king’s palaces, wrapped up in groves and thickets. We continued a mile or two by the wall of this enclosure, and leaving La Sarsuela, another royal villa, surrounded by shrubby hillocks, on the right, traversed three or four leagues of a wild, naked country, and, after ascending several considerable eminences, the sun broke out, the clouds partially rolled away, and we discovered the white buildings of this far-famed monastery, with its dome and towers detaching themselves from the bold back-ground of a lofty, irregular mountain.
We were now about a league off: the country wore a better aspect than near Madrid. To the right and left of the road, which is of a noble width, and perfectly well made, lie extensive parks of greensward, scattered over with fragments of rock and stumps of oak and ash-trees. Numerous herds of deer were standing stock-still, quietly lifting up their innocent noses, and looking us full in the face with their beautiful eyes, secure of remaining unmolested, for the King never permits a gun to be discharged in these enclosures.
The Escurial, though overhung by melancholy mountains, is placed itself on a very considerable eminence, up which we were full half an hour toiling, the late rains having washed this part of the road into utter confusion. There is something most severely impressive in the façade of this regal convent, which, like the palace of Persepolis, is overshadowed by the adjoining mountain; nor did I pass through a vaulted cloister into the court before the church, solid as if hewn out of a rock, without experiencing a sort of shudder, to which no doubt the vivid recollection of the black and blood-stained days of our gloomy queen Mary’s husband not slightly contributed. The sun being again overcast, the porches of the church, surmounted by grim statues, appeared so dark and cavern-like, that I thought myself about to enter a subterraneous temple set apart for the service of some mysterious and terrible religion. And when I saw the high altar, in all its pomp of jasper-steps, ranks of columns one above the other, and paintings filling up every interstice, full before me, I felt completely awed.
The sides of the recess, in which this imposing pile is placed, are formed by lofty chapels, almost entirely occupied by catafalques of gilt enamelled bronze. Here, with their crowns and sceptres humbly prostrate at their feet, bare-headed and unhelmed, kneel the figures, large as life, of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and his imperious son, the second Philip, accompanied by those of their unhappy consorts and ill-fated children. My sensations of dread and dreariness were not diminished upon finding myself alone in such company; for Roxas had left me to deliver some letters to his right reverence the prior, which were to open to us all the arcana of this terrific edifice, at once a temple, a palace, a convent, and a tomb.
Presently my amiable friend returned, and with him a tall old monk, with an ash-coloured forbidding countenance, and staring eyes, the expression of which was the farthest removed possible from anything like cordiality. This was the mystagogue of the place—the prior in propria persona, the representative of St. Jerome, as far as this monastery and its domain was concerned, and a disciplinarian of celebrated rigidness. He began examining me from head to foot, and, after what I thought rather a strange scrutiny, asked me in broad Spanish what I wished particularly to see. Then turning to Roxas, said loud enough for me to hear him, “He is very young; does he understand what I say to him? But, as I am peremptorily commanded to show him about, I suppose I must comply, though I am quite unused to the office of explaining our curiosities. However, if it must be, it must; so let us begin, and not dally. I have no time to spare, you well know, and have quite enough to do in the choir and the convent.”
After this not very gracious exordium, we set forth on our tour. First we visited some apartments with vaulted roofs, painted in arabesque, in the finest style of the sixteenth century; and then a vast hall, which had been used for the celebration of mass, whilst the great church was building, where I saw the Perla in all its purity, the most delicately-finished work of Raphael, the Pesce, with its divine angel, graceful infant; and devout young Tobit, breathing the very soul of pious, unaffected simplicity. My attention was next attracted by that most profoundly pathetic of pictures, Jacob weeping over the bloody garment of his son; the loftiest proof in existence of the extraordinary powers of Velasquez in the noblest work of art.
These three pictures so absorbed my admiration, that I had little left for a host of glorious performances by Titian and the highest masters, which cover the plain, massive walls of these conventual rooms with a paradise of glowing colours; so I passed along almost as rapidly as my grumbling cicerone could desire, and followed him up several flights of stairs, and through many and many an arched passage and vestibule, all of the sternest doric, into the choir, which is placed over the grand western entrance, right opposite, at the distance of more than two hundred feet, to the high altar and its solemn accompaniments. No regal chamber I ever beheld can be compared, in point of sober harmonious majesty, to this apartment, which looks more as if it belonged to a palace than to a church. The series of stalls, designed in a severer taste than was common in the sixteenth century, are carved out of the most precious woods the Indies could furnish. At the extremity of this striking perspective of onyx-coloured seats, columns, and canopies, appears suspended upon a black velvet pall that revered image of the crucified Saviour, formed of the purest ivory, which Cellini seems to have sculptured in moments of devout rapture and inspiration. It is by far his finest work; his Perseus, at Florence, is tame and laboured in comparison.
In a long narrow corridor which runs behind the stalls, panelled all over like an inlaid cabinet, I was shown a beautiful little organ, in a richly chased silver case, which accompanied Charles the Fifth in his African expedition, and must often have gently beguiled the cares of empire, for he played on it, tradition says, almost every evening. That it is worth playing upon even now I can safely vouch, for I never touched any instrument with a tone of more delicious sweetness; and touch it I did, though my austere conductor, the sour-visaged prior, looked doubly forbidding on the occasion.
The stalls I have just mentioned are much less ornamented than those I have seen in Pavia, and many other monasteries; the ceiling of this noblest of choirs, displays the utmost exuberance of decoration—the richest and most gorgeous of spectacles, the heavens and all the powers therein. Imagination can scarcely conceive the pomp and prodigality of pencil with which Luca Giordano has treated this subject, and filled every corner of the vast space it covers with well-rounded forms, that seem actually starting from the glowing clouds with which they are environed.
“Is not this fine?” said the monk; “you can have nothing like it in your country. And now be pleased to move forward, for the day is wasting, and you will have little time left to examine our inestimable relics, and the jewelled shrines in which they are deposited.”
We went down from the choir, I can scarcely tell whither, such is the extent and intricacy of this stupendous edifice. We passed, I believe, through some of the lateral chapels at the great church, into several quadrangles, one in particular, with a fountain under a cupola in the centre, surrounded by doric arcades, equal in justness of proportion and architectural terseness to Palladio’s court in the convent of S. Giorgio Maggiore.
Mysterious cabinets.—Relics of Martyrs.—A feather from the Archangel Gabriel’s wing.—Labyrinth of gloomy cloisters.—Sepulchral cave.—River of death.—The regal sarcophagi.
My lord the prior, not favouring a prolonged survey, I reluctantly left this beautiful court, and was led into a low gallery, roofed and wainscoted with cedar, lined on both sides by ranges of small doors of different-coloured Brazil-wood, looking in appearance, at least, as solid as marble. Four sacristans, and as many lay-brothers, with large lighted flambeaux of yellow wax in their hands, and who, by the by, never quitted us more the remainder of our peregrinations, stood silent as death, ready to unlock those mysterious entrances.
The first they opened exhibited a buffet, or credence, three stories high, set out with many a row of grinning skulls, looking as pretty as gold and diamonds could make them; the second, every possible and impossible variety of odds and ends, culled from the carcasses of martyrs; the third, enormous ebony presses, the secrets of which I begged for pity’s sake might not be intruded upon for my recreation, as I began to be heartily wearied of sightseeing; but when my conductors opened the fourth mysterious door, I absolutely shrank back, almost sickened by a perfume of musk and ambergris.
A spacious vault was now disclosed to me—one noble arch, richly panelled: had the pavement of this strange-looking chamber been strewn with saffron, I should have thought myself transported to the enchanted courser’s forbidden stable we read of in the tale of the Three Calenders.
The prior, who is not easily pleased, seemed to have suspicions that the seriousness of my demeanour was not entirely orthodox; I overheard him saying to Roxas, “Shall I show him the Angel’s feather? you know we do not display this our most-valued, incomparable relic to everybody, nor unless upon special occasions.”—“The occasion is sufficiently special,” answered my partial friend; “the letters I brought to you are your warrant, and I beseech your reverence to let us look at this gift of heaven, which I am extremely anxious myself to adore and venerate.”
Forth stalked the prior, and drawing out from a remarkably large cabinet an equally capacious sliding shelf—(the source, I conjecture, of the potent odour I complained of)—displayed lying stretched out upon a quilted silken mattress, the most glorious specimen of plumage ever beheld in terrestrial regions—a feather from the wing of the Archangel Gabriel, full three feet long, and of a blushing hue more soft and delicate than that of the loveliest rose. I longed to ask at what precise moment this treasure beyond price had been dropped—whether from the air—on the open ground, or within the walls of the humble tenement at Nazareth; but I repressed all questions of an indiscreet tendency—the why and wherefore, the when and how, for what and to whom such a palpable manifestation of archangelic beauty and wingedness had been vouchsafed.
We all knelt in silence, and when we rose up after the holy feather had been again deposited in its perfumed lurking-place, I fancied the prior looked doubly suspicious, and uttered a sort of humph very doggedly; nor did his ill-humour evaporate upon my desiring to be conducted to the library. “It is too late for you to see the precious books and miniatures by daylight,” replied the crusty old monk, “and you would not surely have me run the risk of dropping wax upon them. No, no, another time, another time, when you come earlier. For the present, let us visit the tomb of the catholic kings; there, our flambeaux will be of service without doing injury.”
He led the way through a labyrinth of cloisters, gloomy as the grave; till ordering a grated door to be thrown open, the light of our flambeaux fell upon a flight of most beautiful marble steps, polished as a mirror, leading down between walls of the rarest jaspers to a portal of no great size, but enriched with balusters of rich bronze, sculptured architraves, and tablets of inscriptions, in a style of the greatest magnificence.
As I descended the steps, a gurgling sound, like that of a rivulet, caught my ear. “What means this?” said I. “It means,” answered the monk, “that the sepulchral cave on the left of the stairs, where repose the bodies of many of our queens and infantas, is properly ventilated, running water being excellent for that purpose.” I went on, not lulled by these rippling murmurs, but chilled when I reflected through what precincts flows this river of death.
Arrived at the bottom of the stairs, we passed through the portal just mentioned, and entered a circular saloon, not more than five-and-thirty feet in diameter, characterized by extreme elegance, not stern solemnity. The regal sarcophagi, rich in golden ornaments, ranged one above the other, forming panels of the most decorative kind; the lustre of exquisitely sculptured bronze, the pavement of mottled alabaster; in short, this graceful dome, covered with scrolls of the most delicate foliage, appeared to the eye of my imagination more like a subterranean boudoir, prepared by some gallant young magician for the reception of an enchanted and enchanting princess, than a temple consecrated to the king of terrors.
My conductor’s visage growing longer and longer every minute, and looking pretty nearly as grim as that of the last-mentioned sovereign, I whispered Roxas it was full time to take our leave; which we did immediately after my intimating that express desire, to the no small satisfaction, I am perfectly convinced, of my lord the prior.
Cold and hungry, for we had not been offered a morsel of refreshment, we repaired to a warm opulent-looking habitation belonging to one of my kind companion’s most particular friends, a much favoured attendant of his catholic Majesty’s; here we were received with open arms and generous hospitality; and it grew pitch dark before we quitted this comfortable shelter from the piercing winds, which blow almost perpetually over the Escurial, and returned to Madrid.
A concert and ball at Senhor Pacheco’s.—Curious assemblage in his long pompous gallery.—Deplorable ditty by an eastern dilettante.—A bolero in the most rapturous style.—Boccharini in despair.—Solecisms in dancing.
The mules galloped back at so rapid a rate, and their conductors bawled and screamed so lustily to encourage their exertions, that half my recollections of the Escurial were whirled out of my head before I reached my old quarters at the Cruz de Malta. I had quite forgotten, amongst other things, that I had actually accepted a most pressing invitation to a concert and ball at Pacheco’s this very evening.
Pacheco is an old Portuguese, immensely rich, and who had been immensely favoured in the days of his youth by his august countrywoman, Queen Barbara, the consort of Ferdinand the sixth, and the patroness of Farinelli. He is uncle to madame Arriaga, her most Faithful Majesty’s most faithful and favourite attendant, and a person of such worship, that courtiers, ministers, and prelates, are too happy to congregate at his house, whenever he takes it into his head to allow them an opportunity.
Though I had been half petrified by my cold ramble through the Escurial, under the prior’s still more chilling auspices, I had quite life enough left to obey Pacheco’s summons with alacrity; and as I expected to dance a great deal, I put on my dancing-dress, that of a maxo, with ties and tags, and trimmings and buttons, redecilla and all.
I must confess, however, that I felt rather abashed and disappointed, upon entering Pacheco’s long pompous gallery, to find myself in the midst of diplomatic and ministerial personages, assembled in stiff gala to do honour to Achmet Vassif, whose musicians were seated on the carpet howling forth a deplorable ditty, composed, as the Armenian interpreter informed me, by one of the most impassioned and lovesick dilettantes of the east; no strain I ever heard was half so lugubrious, not even that of a dog baying the moon, or owls making their complaints to it.
I could not help telling the ambassador, without the smallest circumlocution, that his tabor and pipe people I heard the other day accompanying a dulcimer, were far more worthy of praise than his vocal attendants; but this truth, like most others, did not exactly please; and I fear my reputation for musical connoisseurship was completely forfeited in his excellency’s estimation, for he looked a little glum upon the occasion. What surprised me most, after all, was the patience with which the whole assembly listened for full three-quarters of an hour to these languorous wailings.
Amongst the audience, none bore the severe infliction with a greater degree of evangelical resignation than the grand inquisitor and the archbishop of Toledo; both these prelates have not only the look, but the character of beneficence, which promises a truce to the faggot and pitch-barrel; the expression of the archbishop’s countenance in particular is most engagingly mild and pleasing. He came up to me without the least reserve or formality, and taking me by the hand, said with a cheerful smile, “I see you are equipped for a dance, and have adopted our fashion; we all long to judge whether an Englishman can enter (as I hear you can) into the extravagant spirit of our national dances. I will speak to Pacheco, and desire him to form a diversion in your favour, by calling off these doleful minstrels to the rinfresco prepared for them.” And so he did, and there was an end of the concert, to my infinite joy, and the no less delight of the villa mayors and sabbatinis, with whom, without a moment’s farther delay, I sprang forth in a bolero.
Down came all the Spanish musicians from their formal orchestra, too happy to escape its trammels; away went the foreign regulars, taking vehement pinches of snuff, with the most unequivocal expressions of anger and indignation. A circle was soon formed, a host of guitars put in immediate requisition, and never did I hear such wild, extravagant, passionate modulations.
Boccharini, who led and presided over the Duchess of Ossuna’s concerts, and who had been lent to Pacheco as a special favour, witnessed these most original deviations from all established musical rule with the utmost contempt and dismay. He said to me in a loud whisper, “If you dance and they play in this ridiculous manner, I shall never be able to introduce a decent style into our musical world here, which I flattered myself I was on the very point of doing. What possesses you? Is it the devil? Who could suppose that a reasonable being, an Englishman of all others, would have encouraged these inveterate barbarians in such absurdities. There’s a chromatic scream! there’s a passage! We have heard of robbing time; this is murdering it. What! again! Why, this is worse than a convulsive hiccup, or the last rattle in the throat of a dying malefactor. Give me the Turkish howlings in preference; they are not so obtrusive and impudent.”
So saying, he moved off with a semi-seria stride, and we danced on with redoubled delight and joy. The quicker we moved, the more intrepidly we stamped with our feet, the more sonorously we snapped our fingers, the better reconciled the sublime Effendi appeared to be with me. He forgot my critiques upon his vocal performers: he rose up from his snug cushion, and nodded his turbaned head, and expressed his delight, not only by word and gesture, but in a most comfortable orientalish sort of chuckling. As to the rest of the company, the Spanish part at least, they were so much animated, that not less than twenty voices accompanied the bolero with its appropriate words in full chorus, and with a glow of enthusiasm that inspired my lovely partners and myself with such energy, that we outdid all our former outdancings.
“Is it possible,” exclaimed an old fandango-fancier of great notoriety—“is it possible, that a son of the cold north can have learnt all our rapturous flings and stampings?”—“The French never could, or rather never would,” observed a Monsieur Gaudin, one of the Duke de la V——’s secretaries, who was standing by perfectly astounded.
Who persecute like renegades? who are so virulent against their former sect as fresh converts to another? This was partly my case; though my dancing and musical education had been strictly orthodox, according to the precepts of Mozart and Sacchini, of Vestris and Gardel, I declared loudly there was no music but Spanish, no dancing but Spanish, no salvation in either art out of the Spanish pale, and that, compared with such rapturous melodies, such inspired movements, the rest of Europe afforded only examples of dullness and insipidity. I would not allow my former instructors a spark of merit; and at the very moment I was committing solecisms in good dancing at every step, and stamping and piaffing like a courser but half-broken in at a manège, I felt and looked as firmly persuaded of the truth of my impudent assertions as the greatest bigot of his nonsense in some untried new-fangled superstition. Success, founded or unfounded, is everything in this world. We too well know the sad fate of merit. I am more than apt to conjecture we were but very slightly entitled to any applause; yet the transports we called forth were as fervid as those the famous Le Pique excited at Naples in the zenith of his popularity.
The British and American ministers, who were standing by the whole time, enjoyed this amusing proof of Spanish fanaticism, in its profane mood, with all the zest of intelligent and shrewd observers. Pisani, the Venetian ambassador, inclined decidedly to the southern side of the question. He was bound, heart and soul, by a variety of silken ties to the Spanish interest, and had almost forgotten the fascinations of Venice in those of Andalusia. Consequently I had his vote in my favour. Not so that of the Duchess of Ossuna, Boccharini’s patroness. She said to me in the plainest language, “You are making the greatest fool of yourself I ever beheld; and as to those riotous self-taught hoydens, your partners, I tell you what, they are scarcely worthy to figure in the third rank at a second-rate theatre. Come along with me, and I will present you to my mother, the Countess of Benevente, who gives a very different sort of education to the charming young women she admits to her court.”
I had heard of this court and its delectabilities, and at the same time been informed that its throne was a faro-table, to which the initiated were imperatively expected to become tributaries. The sovereign, old Benevente, is the most determined hag of her rout-giving, card-playing species in Europe, of the highest birth, the highest consequence, and the principal disposer, by long habit and old cortejo-ship, of Florida Blanca’s good graces.
Notwithstanding the severe regulations against gambling societies, most severely enforced at Madrid; notwithstanding the prime minister’s morality, and the still higher morality of his royal master, this great lady’s aberrations of every kind are most complaisantly winked at; she is allowed not only to set up under her own princely roof a refuge for the desolate, in the most delicate style of Spanish refinement, for the kind purpose of enchanting all persons sufficiently favoured by fortune to merit admission to her parties, by every blandishment and languishment the most seductive eyes of Seville and Cadiz she had collected together could throw around them; but so sure as the hour of midnight arrived, and Florida Blanca (who never fails paying his devoirs to the countess every evening) had made his retiring bow, so sure a confidential party of illuminati, of unsleeping partners in the gambling-line, made their appearance, heavily laden with well-stored caskets.
Now came the tug of play, and hope, and fear in all their thrilling and throbbing alternations; but, to say truth, I was so completely jaded and worn-out that I partook of neither, and was too happy, after losing almost unconsciously a few dobras, to be allowed to retire; old Benevente calling out to me, with the croak of a vulture scenting its prey from afar, Cavallero Inglez, a mañana a la misma hora.
Palace of Madrid.—Masterly productions of the great Italian, Spanish, and Flemish painters.—The King’s sleeping apartment.—Musical clocks.—Feathered favourites.—Picture of the Madonna del Spasimo.—Interview with Don Gabriel and the Infanta.—Her Royal Highness’s affecting recollections of home.—Head-quarters of Masserano.—Exhibition of national manners there.
Monday, 24th Dec. 1787.
I SHALL have the megrims for want of exercise, like my friend Achmet Vassif, if I don’t alter my way of life. This morning I only took a listless saunter in the Prado, and returned early to dinner, with a very slight provision of fresh air in my lungs. Roxas was with me, hurrying me out of all appetite that I might see the palace by daylight; and so to the palace we went, and it was luckily a bright ruddy afternoon, the sun gilding a grand confusion of mountainous clouds, and chequering the wild extent of country between Madrid and the Escurial with powerful effects of light and shade.
I cannot praise the front of the palace very warmly. In the centre of the edifice starts up a whimsical sort of turret, with gilt bells, the vilest ornament that could possibly have been imagined. The interior court is of pure and classic architecture, and the great staircase so spacious and well-contrived that you arrive almost imperceptibly at the portal of the guard-chamber. Every door-case and window recess of this magnificent edifice gleams with the richest polished marbles: the immense and fortress-like thickness of the walls, and double panes of the strongest glass, exclude the keen blasts which range almost uninterrupted over the wide plains of Castile, and preserve an admirable temperature throughout the whole extent of these royal rooms, the grandeur, and at the same time comfort, of which cannot possibly be exceeded.
The king, the prince of Asturias, and the chief part of their attendants, were all absent hunting in the park of the Escurial; but the reposteros, or curtain-drawers of the palace, having received particular orders for my admittance, I enjoyed the entire liberty of wandering about unrestrained and unmolested. Roxas having left me to join a gay party of the royal body-guard in Masserano’s apartments, I remained in total solitude, surrounded by the pure unsullied works of the great Italian, Spanish, and Flemish painters, fresh as the flowers of a parterre in early morning, and many of them as beautiful in point of hues.
Not a door being closed, I penetrated through the chamber of the throne even into the old king’s sleeping-apartment, which, unlike the dormitory of most of his subjects, is remarkable for extreme neatness. A book of pious orisons, with engravings by Spanish artists, and containing, amongst other prayers in different languages, one adapted to the exclusive use of majesty, Regi solo proprius, was lying on his praying-desk; and at the head of the richly-canopied, but uncurtained bed, I noticed with much delight an enamelled tablet by Mengs, representing the infant Saviour appearing to Saint Anthony of Padua.
In this room, as in all the others I passed through, without any exception, stood cages of gilded wire, of different forms and sizes, and in every cage a curious exotic bird, in full song, each trying to out-sing his neighbour. Mingled with these warblings was heard at certain intervals the low chime of musical clocks, stealing upon the ear like the tones of harmonic glasses. No other sound broke in any degree the general stillness, except, indeed, the almost inaudible footsteps of several aged domestics, in court-dresses of the cut and fashion prevalent in the days of the king’s mother, Elizabeth Farnese, gliding along quietly and cautiously to open the cages, and offer their inmates such dainties as highly-educated birds are taught to relish. Much fluttering and cowering down ensued in consequence of these attentions, and much rubbing of bills and scratching of poles on my part, as well as on that of the smiling old gentlemen.
As soon as the ceremony of pampering these feathered favourites had been most affectionately performed, I availed myself of the light reflected from a clear sun-set to examine the pictures, chiefly of a religious cast, with which these stately apartments are tapestried; particularly the Madonna del Spasimo, that vivid representation of the blessed Virgin’s maternal agony, when her divine son, fainting under the burthen of the cross, approached to ascend the mount of torture, and complete the awful mystery of redemption. Raphael never attained in any other of his works such solemn depth of colour, such majesty of character, as in this triumph of his art. “Never was sorrow like unto the sorrow” he has depicted in the Virgin’s countenance and attitude; never was the expression of a sublime and God-like calm in the midst of acute suffering conveyed more closely home to the human heart than in the face of Christ.
I stood fixed in the contemplation of this holy vision—for such I almost fancied it to be—till the approaching shadows of night had overspread every recess of these vast apartments: still I kept intensely gazing upon the picture. I knew it was time to retire,—still I gazed on. I was aware that Roxas had been long expecting me in Masserano’s apartments,—still I could not snatch myself away; the Virgin mother with her outstretched arms still haunted me. The song of the birds had ceased, as well as the soft diapason of the self-playing organs;—all was hushed, all tranquil. I departed at length with the languid unwillingness of an enthusiast exhausted by the intensity of his feelings and loth to arouse himself from the bosom of grateful illusions.
Just as I reached the portal of the great stairs, whom should I meet but Noronha advancing towards me with a hurried step. “Where are you going so fast?” said he to me, “and where have you been staying so long? I have been sending repeatedly after you to no purpose; you must come with me immediately to the Infanta and Don Gabriel, they want to ask you a thousand questions about the Ajuda: the letters you brought them from Marialva, and the archbishop in particular, have, I suppose, inspired that wish; and as royal wishes, you know, cannot be too speedily gratified, you must kiss their hands this very evening. I am to be your introductor.”—“What!” said I, “in this unceremonious dress?”—“Yes,” said the ambassador, “I have heard that you are not a pattern of correctness in these matters.” I wished to have been one in this instance. At this particular moment I was in no trim exteriorly or interiorly for courtly introductions. I thought of nothing but birds and pictures, and had much rather have been presented to a cockatoo than to the greatest monarch in Christendom.
However, I put on the best face I was able, and we proceeded together very placidly to that part of the palace assigned to Don Gabriel and his blooming bride. The doors of a coved ante-chamber flew open, and after passing through an enfilade of saloons peopled with ladies-in-waiting and pages, (some mere children,) we entered a lofty chamber hung with white satin, formed into compartments by a rich embroidery of gold and colours, and illuminated by a lustre of rock crystal.
At the farther extremity of the apartment, stood the Infant Don Gabriel, leaning against a table covered with velvet, on which I observed a case of large golden antique medals he was in the very act of contemplating: the Infanta was seated near. She rose up most graciously to hold out a beautiful hand, which I kissed with unfeigned fervour: her countenance is most prepossessing; the same florid complexion, handsome features, and open exhilarating smile which distinguishes her brother the Prince of Brazil.
“Ah,” said her royal highness with great earnestness, “you have then lately seen my dear mother, and walked perhaps in the little garden I was so fond of; did you notice the fine flowers that grow there? particularly the blue carnation; we have not such flowers at Madrid; this climate is not like that of Portugal, nor are our views so pleasant; I miss the azure Tagus, and your ships continually sailing up it; but when you write to your friend Marialva and the archbishop, tell them, I possess what no other prospect upon earth can equal, the smiles of an adored husband.”
The Infant now approached towards me with a look of courteous benignity that reminded me strongly of the Bourbons, nor could I trace in his frank kindly manner the least leaven of Austrian hauteur or Spanish starchness. After inquiring somewhat facetiously how the Duke d’Alafoens and the Portuguese academicians proceeded on their road to the temple of fame, he asked me whether our universities continued to be the favoured abode of classical attainments, and if the books they printed were as correct and as handsome now as in the days of the Stuarts; adding that his private collection contained some copies which had formerly belonged to the celebrated Count of Oxford. This was far too good an opportunity of putting in a word to the praise and glory of his own famous translation of Sallust, to be neglected; so I expressed everything he could have wished to hear upon the subject.
“You are very good,” observed his royal highness; “but to tell you the truth, it was hard work for me. I began it, and so I went on, and lost many a day’s wholesome exercise in our parks and forests: however, such as it is, I performed my task without any assistance, though you may perhaps have heard the contrary.”
It was now Noronha’s turn to begin complimenting, which he did with all the high court mellifluence of an accredited family ambassador: whether, indeed, the Infant received as gospel all the fine things that were said to him I won’t answer, but he looked even kinder and more gracious than at our first entrance. The Infanta recurred again and again to the subject of the Ajuda, and appeared so visibly affected that she awakened all my sympathies; for I, too, had left those behind me on the banks of the Tagus for whom I felt a fond and indelible regard. As we were making our retiring bows, I saw tears gathering in her eyes, whilst she kept gracefully waving her hand to bid us a happy night.
The impressions I received from this interview were not of a nature to allow my enjoying with much vivaciousness the next scene to which I was transported—the head-quarters of Masserano, whom I found in unusually high spirits surrounded by a train of gay young officers, rapping out the rankest Castilian oaths, quaffing their flowing cups of champagne and val de peñas, and playing off upon each other, not exactly the most decorous specimens of practical wit.
Roxas looked rather abashed at so unrefined an exhibition of national manners: Noronha had taken good care to keep aloof, and I regretted not having followed his example.