SAINT BARTHOLOMEW.
The commemoration of this Apostle takes place on the 24th of August. It is not, however, to record any external circumstance connected with this church festival—which, in fact, is scarcely distinguished by any peculiar solemnity—that I take notice of it, but for a private superstitious practice which strikes me as a most curious modification of one used by the pious housewives in the days of Augustus.
Intermittent fevers, especially the Tertian and Quartan, are very common in most parts of Andalusia. The season when they chiefly attack the inhabitants, is summer; and whether the unbounded use, which all sorts of people, but particularly the poor, make of grapes and melons, contributes to the production of the disease, or whether the mere coincidence of the two facts is, as usual, taken for cause and effect; it is an established opinion in this part of the country that, if fruit is not the original source of the ague, an abstinence from that kind of food is indispensable to avoid a relapse into that treacherous complaint.
That there should be a particular Saint, to superintend the medical department of curing the ague, is so perfectly consistent with the Catholic notions, that a deficiency on that point would more surprise me than to find a toe not under the influence of some heavenly aspect in the Vox Stellarum, which was one of my wonders in England. That province, in fact, is allotted to Saint Bartholomew. Now, ninepence is a sufficient inducement for any of our sons of Esculapius to mount his mule as well as his wig, and dose you with the most compound electuary he is master of; but how to fee a supernatural doctor, would be a puzzling question, were it not that tradition teaches the method of propitiating every individual mentioned in the calendar. Each Saint has a peculiar fancy—from Saint Anthony of Padua, who will often delay the performance of a miracle till you plunge him into a well, or nail his print topsy-turvy upon the wall, to Saint Pasqual Baylon, who is readiest to attend such as accompany their petitions with some lively steps and a final caper. As to Saint Bartholomew, nothing will induce him to cure an ague but a vow to abstain, on the day of his festival, from all food except bread and fruit—the very means which, but for his miraculous interference, would, according to common opinion, cause either a return, or an aggravation of the complaint.
Mark, now, the vow employed by the Roman matrons for the cure of intermittents. It is recorded by Horace, and thus translated by Francis:—
“Her child beneath a quartan fever lies
For full four months, when the fond mother cries,
Sickness and health are thine, all-powerful Jove;
Then, from my son this dire disease remove,
And when your priests thy solemn fast proclaim,
Naked the boy shall stand in Tiber’s stream.
Should chance, or the physician’s art, upraise
Her infant from the desperate disease;
The frantic dame shall plunge her hapless boy,
Bring back the fever, and the child destroy.”[45]
The existence of Heathen superstitions adapted to Christian worship is too common to excite surprise; nor is it any similarity in the externals of the two practices I have just compared, that constitutes their analogy. My mind is struck alone by the unchangeable spirit of superstition, which, attributing in all ages and nations, our own passions and feelings to supernatural beings, endeavours to obtain their favour by flattering their vanity. Both the ancient Roman and modern Spanish vow for the cure of the ague, seem to set at defiance the supposed and most probable causes of the disease, from which the devotees seek deliverance; as if to secure to the patron deities the undoubted and full honour of the miracle.