Italy; with sketches of Spain and Portugal

This conductor, an old snuffling domestic of the late king, was rather forward in making his remarks upon times present. A sort of Piedmontese in my train, I believe the master of the fonda where I lodge, pointing to a manege now building, asked for whom it was designed, the King or the Duke d’Alcudia? “For both, no doubt,” was the answer; “what serves one serves the other.” In the royal tribune, I was informed, with a woful shrug, that the King, thank God! continued to be exact and fervent in his devotions; never missing mass a single day, and frequently spending considerable time in mental prayer; but that the Queen was scandalously remiss, and seldom appeared in the chapels, except when some slender remains of etiquette render her presence indispensable.

The chapel, repaired after designs of Sabbatini, an old Italian architect, much in favour with Charles the Third, has merit, and is remarkable for the just distribution of light, which produces a solemn religious effect. The three altars are noble, and their paintings good. One in particular, on the right, dedicated to St. Anthony, immediately attracted my attention by the effulgence of glory amidst which the infant Jesus is descending to caress the kneeling saint, whose attitude, and youthful, enthusiastic countenance, have great expression. The colouring is warm and harmonious; Maella is the painter.

I inquired after a remarkable room in this palace, called in the plan Salon de los Funciones, and vulgarly el Coliseo. The ceiling was painted by Mengs, and esteemed one of his capital works: here Ferdinand and Barbara, the most musical of sovereigns, used to melt in ecstasies at the soft warblings of Farinelli and Egiziello – but, alas! the scene of their amusements, like themselves and their warblers, is no more. Not later than last summer, this grand theatrical apartment was divided into a suite of shabby, bandboxical rooms for the accommodation of the Infant of Parma. No mercy was shown to the beautiful roof. In some places, legs and folds of drapery are still visible; but the workmen are hammering and plastering at a great rate, and in a few days whitewash will cover all.

Coming out of the palace, and observing how deserted and melancholy the walks, garden, and avenues appeared, I was told, that in a few weeks a total change would take place, for the court was expected on the 6th of January, to remain six months, and that every pleasure followed in its train. Shoals of gamblers, and ladies of easy virtue of all ranks, ages, and descriptions. Every barrier which Charles the Third, of chaste and pious memory, attempted to oppose to the wanton inclinations of his subjects, has been broken down in the present reign; boundless freedom of conduct prevails, and the most disgusting debauchery riots in these lovely groves, which deserve to be set apart for elegant and rural pleasures.

In my walks I passed a huge edifice lately built for the favourite Alcudia. Common report accuses it of being more magnificently furnished than the royal residence; but as I did not enter it, I shall content myself with noting down, that it boasts nineteen windows in front, and a plain Tuscan portal with handsome granite pillars. Adjoining is a house belonging to the Duchess of Ossuna, full of workmen, painters, and stuccadors: a goggle-eyed Milanese, most fiercely conceited, is daubing the walls with all his might and main. He is an architect too, at least I have his word for it, and claims the merit, a great one as he believes, of having designed a sort of ball-room, with many a festoon and Bohemian glass-chandelier and coarse arabesque. The floor is bricked, upon which thick mats or carpets are spread when dancing is going forward.

I was in hopes this tiresome custom of thumping mats and rugs with the feet, to the brisk airs of boleros and fandangos, was exploded. No music is more inspiring than the Spanish; what a pity they refuse themselves the joy of rising a foot or two into the air at every step, by the help of elastic boards.

Next to this sort of a ball-room is a sort of an oval boudoir, and then a sort of an octagon; all bad sorts of their kind. This confounded painter is covering the oval with landscapes, not half so harmonious or spirited as those which figure on Birmingham snuff-boxes or tea-boards. He has a terrible partiality to blues and greens of the crudest tints. Such colours affect my eyes as disagreeably as certain sounds my teeth, when set on edge. I pity the Duchess of Ossuna, whose liberal desire of encouraging the arts deserves better artists. In music she has been more fortunate: Boccharini directed her band when I was last at Madrid; and I remember with what transport she heard and applauded the Galli, to whom she sent one morning a present of the most expensive trinkets, carelessly heaped up upon a magnificent salver of massive silver, two or three feet in diameter.

The day closed as I was wandering about the Duchess’s mansion, surprised at the slovenly neglect of the furniture, not an article of which has been moved out of the reach of dust, scaffoldings, the exhalations of paint, and the still more pestilential exhalation of garlick-eating workmen. Universal apathy and indifference to everything seems to pervade the whole Iberian peninsula. If not caring what you eat or what you drink is a virtue, so far the evangelical precept is obeyed. So it is in Portugal, and so it is in Spain, and so it looks likely to be world without end: to which, let the rest of Europe say amen; for were these countries to open their long-closed eyes, cast off their trammels, and rouse themselves to industry, they would soon surpass their neighbours in wealth and population.

LETTER XVIII

Explore the extremities of the Calle de la Reyna. – Destructive rage for improvement. – Loveliness of the valley of Aranjuez. – Undisturbed happiness of the animals there. – Degeneration of the race of grandees. – A royal cook.

Wednesday, Dec. 2nd, 1795.

IT was near eleven before a thick fog, which had arisen from the groves and waters of Aranjuez, dispersed. I took advantage of a bright sunshine to issue forth on horseback, and explore the extremities of the Calle de la Reyna. Most of the ancient elms which compose this noble avenue, are dead-topped, many have lost their flourishing heads since I was last here, but on every side innumerable plantations of oak, elm, poplar, and plane, are springing up in all the vigour and luxuriance of youth. I was sorry to see many, very many acres of unmeaning shrubbery, serpentine walks, and clumps of paltry flowers, encroaching upon the wild thickets upon the banks of the Tagus.

The King, the Queen, the favourite, are bitten by the rage of what they fancy to be improvement, and are levelling ground, and smoothing banks, and building rock-work, with pagodas and Chinese-railing. The laburnums, weeping-willows, and flowering shrubs, which I admired so much seven years ago in all their native luxuriance, are beginning to be trimmed and tortured into what the gardener calls genteel shapes. Even the course of the Tagus has been thwarted, and part of its waters diverted into a broad ditch in order to form an island; flat, swampy, and dotted over with exotic shrubs, to make room for which many a venerable arbele and poplar has been laid low.

Hard by stands a large brick mansion, just erected, in the dullest and commonest Spanish taste, very improperly called Casa del Labrador. It has nothing rural about it, not even a hen-roost or a hog-sty; but the kitchen is snug and commodious, and to this his Catholic Majesty often resorts, and cooks with his own royal hands, and for his own royal self, creadillas, (alias lamb’s fry,) garlick-omelets, and other savoury messes, in the national style.

Nothing delights the good-natured monarch so much as a pretence for descending into low life, and creeping out of the sight of his court, his council, and his people; therefore Madrid is almost totally abandoned by him, and many capricious buildings are starting up in every secluded corner of the royal parks and gardens. This last is the ugliest and most unmeaning of all. I recollect being pleased with the casinos he built whilst Prince of Asturias, at the Escurial and the Pardo. His present advisers, in matters of taste, are inferior even to those who direct his political movements; and the workmen, who obey the first, still more unskilful and bungling than the generals, admirals, and engineers, who carry the plans of the latter into execution.

If they would but let Aranjuez alone, I should not care. Nature has lavished her charms most bountifully on this valley; the wild hills which close it in, though barren, are picturesquely-shaped; the Tagus here winds along in the boldest manner, overhung by crooked willows and lofty arbeles; now losing itself in almost impervious thickets, now under-mining steep banks, laying rocks bare, and forming irregular coves and recesses; now flowing smoothly through vast tracts of low shrubs, aspens, and tamarisks; in one spot edged by the most delicate greensward, in another by beds of mint and a thousand other fragrant herbs. I saw numerous herds of deer bounding along in full enjoyment of pasture and liberty; droves of horses, many of a soft cream-colour, were frisking about under some gigantic alders; and I counted one hundred and eighty cows, of a most remarkable size, in a green meadow, ruminating in peace and plenty.

The animal creation at Aranjuez seem, undoubtedly, to enjoy all the blessings of an excellent government. The breed is peculiarly attended to, and no pains or expense spared, to procure the finest bulls from every quarter. Cows more beautifully dappled, more comfortably sleek, I never beheld.

If the race of grandees could, by judicious crossing, be sustained as successfully, Spain would not have to lament her present scurvy, ill-favoured generation of nobility. Should they be suffered to dwindle much longer, and accumulate estates and diseases by eternal intermarriages in the same family, I expect to see them on all-fours before the next century is much advanced in its course. These little men, however, are not without some sparks of a lofty, resolute spirit; very few, indeed, have bowed the knee to the Baal of the present hour, to the image which the King has set up. A train of eager, hungry dependants, picked out of inferior and foreign classes, form the company of the Duke of Alcudia. Notwithstanding his lofty titles, unbounded wealth, solid power, and dazzling magnificence, he is treated by the first class with silent contempt and passive indifference. They read the tale of his illustrious descent with the same sneering incredulity, as the patents and decrees which enumerate the services he has done the state. Few instances, perhaps, are upon record, of a more steady, persevering contempt of an object in actual power, stamped with every ornament royal favour can devise to give it credit, value, and currency.

A thousand interesting reflections arising from this subject crowded my mind as I rode home through the stately and now deserted alleys of Aranjuez. The weather was growing chill, and the withered leaves began to rustle. I was glad to take refuge by a blazing fire. Money, which procures almost everything, had not failed to seduce the best salads and apples from the royal gardens, admirable butter and good game; so I feasted royally, though I dare say I should have done more so, in the most extensive sense of the word, could some supernatural power or Frenchified revolution have procured me the royal cook. His Majesty, I am assured, by those I am far from suspecting of flattery, has real talents for this most useful profession.

The comfortable listlessness which had crept over me was too pleasant to be shaken off, and I remained snug by my fireside the whole evening.

THE END

1

This crucifix was made of the bronze which had formed the statue of the terrible Duke of Alva, swept in its first form from the citadel where it was proudly stationed, in a moment of popular fury.

2

The History of John Bull explains this ridiculous appellation.

3

Hills in the neighbourhood of Canton.

4

Apuleius Met: Lib. 5.

Vehementer iterum ac sæpius beatos illos quiSuper gemmas et monilia calcant!

5

Schönberg, beautiful mountain.

6

Ariosto Orlando Furioso. —Canto 7, stanza 32.

7

A nephew of Bertoni, the celebrated composer.

8

This excellent and highly cultivated woman died at Naples in August 1782. Had she lived to a later period her example and influence might probably have gone great lengths towards arresting that tide of corruption and profligacy which swept off this ill-fated court to Sicily, and threatened its total destruction.

9

Mem. pour la Vie de Petrarque, vol. i. p. 439.

10

The Piscina mirabilis.

11

See Letter VII.

12

See Miss Williams’s poems.

13

Since Marquis of Abrantes.

14

Writers of travels are sadly given to exaggeration. The author of the Tableau du Lisbonne writes, “Il est dix heures, une foule de P. de Ch. s’avance,” &c. From such an account one would suppose the whole line of houses in motion. No such thing. At intervals, to be sure, some accidents of this sort, more or less, slily occur; but by no means in so general and evident a manner.

15

These affecting tones seem to have made a lasting impression indeed upon the heart of a young man, one of the principal clerks in the Secretary of State’s office; he was all admiration, all ardour, his divinity all indifference. After a long period of unavailing courtship, the poor lover, driven to absolute despair, made a donation of all he was worth in the world to the object of his adoration, and threw himself into the Tagus. Providentially he was fished out and brought home, pale and almost inanimate. Such a spectacle, accompanied by so vivid a proof of unlimited passion, had its effect. The lady relented, they were united, and are as happy at this day, I believe, as the recollection of so narrow an escape, and its cause, can make them.

16

An old English housekeeper.

17

For no light specimen of these atrocities, see Southey’s Letters from Spain and Portugal.

18

Don Joaô da Valperra.

19

At the time I wrote this, half Lisbon believed in the individuality of the holy crows, and the other half prudently concealed their scepticism.

20

Don Josè, elder brother of the late king, John VI.

21

Dryden.

22

The royal chapel of the Ajuda, though somewhat fallen from the unequalled splendour it boasted during the sing-song days of the late king, Don Joseph, still displayed some of the finest specimens of vocal manufacture which Italy could furnish. It possessed, at the same time, Carlo Reina, Ferracuti, Totti, Fedelino, Ripa, Gelati, Venanzio, Biagino, and Marini – all these virtuosi, with names ending in vowels, were either contraltos of the softest note, or sopranos of the highest squeakery.

23

Now Marquis of Tancos.

24

About the period of the present king’s accession, several ladies of this description had bounced into the peerage; but as they did not walk at the coronation, somebody observed, it was odd enough that the peeresses best accustomed to a free use of their limbs, declined stirring a step upon this occasion. Horace Walpole mentions this bon mot in some of his letters; I forget to whom he attributes it.

25

The personage in question paid dearly for having listened to evil counsellors and exciting the suspicions of the church. In about a twelvemonth after this conversation, the small pox, not attended to so skilfully as it might have been, was suffered to carry him off, and reduced his imperious widow to a mere cipher in the politics of a court she had begun very successfully to agitate. To this period the cruel distress of the queen’s mind may be traced. The conflict between maternal tenderness and what she thought political duty, may be supposed with much greater probability to have produced her fatal derangement, than all the scruples respecting the Aveiro and Tavoura confiscations which the fanatical, interested priest, who succeeded my excellent friend, excited.

26

A well-known wily diplomatist, afterwards ambassador at Constantinople.

27

He resided afterwards at Paris in a diplomatic character, and is supposed to have been implicated in some of the least amiable events of the revolution. A mysterious passage in the first volume of Soulavie’s Memoirs is said to refer to him. He was particularly intimate with citizen Egalité.

28

A nephew of the famous Angelica, and no indifferent painter himself.

29

I have seen a beautiful portrait, engraved by Selma, of this image, and dedicated in due form to its first lady of the dressing-room, Marchioness of Cogolhudo, Duchess of San Estévan, &c.