42

MORE ENDOWMENTS.

Irish; yet they now barely support their name. Navarre, Biscay, and the fine province of Aragon had each a general institution of the kind; but it is consolatory to reflect, that along with their power of administering to the wants of the necessitous, the sick, the hurt, and the aged, many of those abuses which had crept in, have in a great measure disappeared. At Madrid, the women are still received at that of Our Lady of the Peace; orphans of distinguished birth at St. Elizabeth; orphans of all classes at St. Ildefonso; and, almost to the other day, priests of all nations in the hospital of St. Peter. There is even one, that of St. Catherine de los Donados, endowed as an asylum for twelve decayed gentlemen, hidalgos we presume of the old school, too old to commence life again.

We have not yet done. There is a hospital of the court of St. Ferdinand, established by Queen Mary of Austria, in which they taught the indigent, the maimed, the blind, with poor children, some light useful trade, or found them employment. Nor, in better times, were the associations of benevolence for specific purposes in less active operation, especially those of the female nobility, to rescue from degradation, from prison, from suffering of any kind, the wretched and the fallen of their own sex. We saw several women of high birth, the young, the beautiful, besides those of societies and the sisters of charity, engaged in good and pious works, which do honour to human nature and to the Spanish character.

NATIONAL TRAITS.

43

CHAPTER II.

MADRID TO SALAMANCA.

Madrid―Threatening Appearances Spanish Characteristics— Warm-blooded People - Cold-blooded Statesmen-Conversations by the Way-Philosophy-Comedy and MasqueradeVisits-Various Modes of banishing Ennui-State PrisonsAnecdotes-Terrific and touching Scenes-Leave MadridSt. Ildefonso La Granja — Quit Segovia-Sheep-shearers and Comedians-Fertile Country-Consolatory Reflections— Huerta Catholic Service Young Dominicans - Learned Doctors-Columbus-Salamanca-Neighbourhood-Battle

Students-Mendicants-Excursions-Vale and River.

WE had little time at Madrid, on our second visit, to look about us. From the appearance of every thing on our arrival, I thought we had got into a "very pretty considerable scrape," as our transatlantic friends feelingly express it; or to speak more poetically, "embarked upon a sea of troubles." But nothing of the kind; we were neither égorgés, as the French so shockingly will call it, nor yet eaten up alive. And I must say, that if Spain is one of the most pleasant, and by far one of the most romantic countries you can travel in, Spaniards are the most amusing, singular people in all the world. They are like no other, ever in extremes; their whole picture lights and shadows, they have no idea of middle tints. With them a review or a revolt, a festival or a revolution,

a bull-fight or an execution, are taken as matters of equal importance and ordinary occurrence, without ruffling the natural serenity and dignity of the national mind. "From grave to gay, from tender to severe," there is but one step; and the political horizon, which frowned black and louring upon our entrance, grew clear and serene; the Cortez was no longer in a state of siege, the national guard shook hands with the garrison, the queen with the constitution, and the new ministers, just as if the war were at the Antipodes, set to work with the steadiness and gravity of Dutch statesmen. The people as quickly resumed their old avocations, and, instead of the palace and the government, laid siege only to the public walks and theatres. You every where met pleasant and happy faces, threats and maledictions turned to loyal shouts and plaudits, and military conflicts, assassinations, and executions, with the same rapid transition, to encounters of the wits, popular sports, the gay fandango, the saints' processions, and the favourite bull-fight.

To me, all this was as unexpected as it was delightful; for in my first alarm I had thought of getting out of the capital as soon as I could, a step from which I was only diverted by the amusing arguments of my companion, the German artist. He effectually rallied me out of my doubts and misgivings; observing, with mock gravity, that supposing the worst, and that the whole city rose against us, we had still a chance for our lives by taking sanctuary at the British embassy, or with the beautiful regent at La

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NATIONAL PHILOSOPHY.

45

Granja. 'Besides," he added, your idea of pressing on at once for Leon, Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia, a wild Carlist expedition after all, because, forsooth, you have to describe them; and your idea of not enjoying any pleasure in this glorious capital because you have already described it, are about equally wise and logical. Indeed, my good friend, instead of making your duty a pleasure, like me, you seem to make even pleasure a duty-you are pleased only by compulsion, all which comes of your overscrupulous, conscientious oddities, as when you nearly broke your neck mounting the top of that crazy old tower at Xeres, when you might have seen all you wanted from the walls. With you English, I think, it is all duty-work-that dray-horse, yoked fast to business, business,-money, money, as if you owned no lord and master but Mammon; and let him drive you to death with double stripes of anxiety, toil, and pain. Why, my friend, the Spaniard-even the Spanish peasant, is a philosopher compared with you. He sets you a noble example; he is not such a fool as to run the wine of life out for others, and put up with the mere lees. Listen to such philosophy, like the fine young fellow who refused to go an errand for me, say what I would, because he had that morning, he said, earned more already than would last him for the whole day, without putting himself to any farther trouble. How I honour him!"

"On the same principle," I replied, humouring my friend's argument, "you must admire the custom we saw so amusingly illustrated the other evening, when

46

TRAVELLING CHIT-CHAT.

the visitors, having partaken of their host's table to their hearts' content, fell to pillaging the remnants, sweets and all,-assisted too by the ladies, because here they might live on a true epicurean philosophy by doing nothing at all. It is a convenient doctrine adapted to all ranks; the poor Spaniard shows that he understands it almost as well as the rich. See him at home with his black bread and garlic, and in his holiday-dress when the village-revels have once begun to the song and the guitar; at a saint's feast, or a bullfeast; a Sunday wake or a week-day fair; you think you see two different beings: and so it is in higher circles, but which is the philosopher would puzzle even a Spanish saint to tell. But a truce to philosophy! and as we are here, I agree with you that we ought to turn our time to some good account. Shall we visit the museum, the prisons, the churches, the academy?" "Or list but to the voice that calls

To plays, to concerts, and to balls?"

was the reply. "I am sure a little of the dulce mixed with your eternal utile will do us both good. Let that miserable wrinkled old fellow, business, wait; come; the theatre or the masquerade? Say both!"

It was done; and we repaired from the inn of the Holy Ghost, for Spaniards are very careful to keep religion ever before the eye and the ear, to the theatre of the Cross. Comedy was the order of the night; and to La Mogigata, a sort of female hypocrite of Moratin's, there succeeded The Enraged Chestnut Women, both of them not a little national, and still more laughable and ludicrous, in their way. But to