HISTORICAL AND ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES TO CANTO XI.
The character of Fray Beltrán, as portrayed in this Canto, is meant to represent a portion of the extraordinary and irregular energies which the events of the French Revolution and Invasion produced in Spanish cloisters. It is with a view to impart variety to my subject, that I have dwelt upon love and madness as the shapes which Beltrán’s wild energy assumed, though political propagandism, patriotic denunciation of the French, and even taking up arms, were acts familiar to the Exclaustrados or expelled inmates of religious houses, violated by the ruthless invader—often for the purpose of converting cloisters into stables!
In these transactions, the French took one way of realising Sir Thomas More’s “Happy Republic.” “In no victory do they glory so much, as in that which is gained without bloodshed.” They rejoiced to triumph by fraud, like the ancient Spartans, or liker perhaps the Egyptian Harami—incorporated for plunder. The monks and friars of the Peninsula were not all, however, helpless. Many fled to the mountains and marshalled or joined Guerrilla parties, and there was scarcely a Guerrilla throughout Spain during the War of Independence that had not some monks and friars incorporated with it. This system continues down to the present hour, and the accession of these clerical auxiliaries has ever thrown a sort of halo over the pursuit in a superstitious country. “La Patria y la Religion!” was a potent cry, and the life of perpetual adventure was in the highest degree exciting and romantic.
But the poetical view of the Guerrillas must be counterbalanced by the more strictly historical view of their character. It is questionable whether these irregular levies did not produce nearly as much evil as good. Candour must confess that there was as much robbery as patriotism in the system. Amongst the leaders of the partidas personal interests were too often predominant. Discipline under such a system is of course impossible, and each man’s object is naturally to secure the largest share of the plunder for himself. The leaders of the different partidas were terribly jealous of each other; and one of the first exploits of Espoz y Mina, the most distinguished of all their chiefs, was to slay the leader of a Guerrilla band in his neighbourhood, because he plundered his own countrymen under the mask of patriotism: he was also, doubtless, in Mina’s way. All through Mina’s career, “he would never suffer any partida but his own to be in his district.” (Life of Mina.) The irregularity inherent in the Guerrilla system of warfare encouraged violence, license, and disregard for the rights of property. The partidas were an admirable instrument for raising a whole people against the invader; but the application of the force was subsequently misdirected, and the surprise of Figueras was the only service of first-rate importance that they ever performed in Spain. Their minor exploits were, however, innumerable, and the disparaging observations of Napier, Foy, and St. Cyr, all regular military men, are to be received with caution.
The course of life of the Spanish Guerrillero, commencing often as a soldier, then becoming a deserter, next flying to the mountains and turning robber, and lastly turning soldier on his own account, closely resembles the description of the Roman Spartacus by Florus:—“Ille de stipendiario Thrace miles, de milite desertor, inde latro, deinde in honore virium gladiator.... Exercitum percecidit ... castra delevit ... in primo agmine fortissimè dimicans.” (Lib. iii. cap. 30.)
It is not intended to palliate the numerous acts of jealousy, hatred, treachery, and plunder, which our army sustained from Spanish and Portuguese allies. But many important services were rendered by the Guerrillas, and still more by the regular troops of Portugal. And, in addition to the Guerrilla chiefs, of whom I have already noticed the principal, the regular troops of Spain achieved some successes under the command of Castaños, Palafox, Reding, Blake, O’Donnel, Sarsfield, Downie (these four Generals were Irish or of Irish extraction), Albuquerque, Freyre, Ballasteros, Longa, Giron, Mendizabal, Romana and Morillo.
Amongst the Portuguese officers, who distinguished themselves in these campaigns, must be noticed with praise, besides Saldanha and Terceira, the Condes of Amarante, Villareal, Das Antas and Bomfim, the Freires, Lecor, Leite, Vallongo, and Talaia.
II. “And Young love sits upon a flowery knoll.”
Vide Claudian. Nupt. Honor. et Mariæ. Claudian makes one of the fountains of honey.
“And nerves that with the keenest rapture tingle
Shall haply curse the hour when ceased they to be single!”
Molestæ hæ sunt nuptiæ!
Terent. Andr. act ii. sc. 2.
VI. “Not fairer opened in Alcina’s isle.”
Vide Ariosto, Orlando Furioso, canto vi.
“Where side by side the fruit and blossoms grow.”
Vide Tasso, Gerusalemme, canto xvi.
XX. “But brighter flashed, that thus they came to save
In peril’s hour, the eyes of Isabel.”
Wer rettete vom tode mich,
Von sklaverey?
Hast du nicht alles selbst vollendet,
Heilig glühend herz?
Goethe (Prometheus).
“Who rescued me from death, from slavery? Hast thou not all achieved, holily glowing heart?”
XXII. “In memory of their Armadilla’s pride.”
Armada “a fleet,” Armadilla “a little fleet.”
XXIV. “Hast seen her? Hast thou seen my daughter? Say,
Know’st thou aught of my girl?”
Er rief in das geheul des windes,
Lenorens namen hundertmal;
Doch statt des heissgeliebten kindes,
Antwortet ihm der wiederhall.
Langbein.
“He cried out, ’mid the howling of the winds, Leonora’s name a hundred times; but echo answered him instead of his best-beloved child.”
XXX. “Parad! a voice exclaimed like music dropt.”
Parad, “stop!”
XXXII. “Oh, rapturous embrace, oh tenfold joy,
All sweeter for the racking grief sustained!”
“Idem est beate vivere, et secundum naturam,” says Seneca. This was the great rule of the Stoic philosophy, and may likewise be applied to Christian lovers. Tranquil wedded bliss appears to be its consummation. This living according to Nature will, of course, be varied in its interpretation, according to each man’s individual temperament. “Tot sensus, quot capita,” says Tertullian. And the decision of Protagoras will find too many adherents, who conceived himself to be the only standard of what was right and proper, and believed all things good which seemed so to him. Christianity happily gets rid of the evanescent and impalpable vagueness of the ancient philosophy, which slipt through the fingers like the statues of Dædalus, and comes to our aid with positive precept. In illustration of this vagueness the advocates of the atomic theory as an adjunct of their system made the chief part of man’s happiness consist in pleasure, which an Epicurean would interpret literally to signify the enjoyments of sense, and a Platonist would expound, properly understood, to mean the exercise of virtue. Yet both in their philosophizing would be probably theoretical, and their practice, as in most instances, would be the result of temperament and impulse; for “every man calleth that which pleaseth, and is delightful to himself, good; and evil that which displeaseth him.” (Hobbes, Treatise on Human Nature, c. vii.)
XXXIV. “With old Hidalgo lavishment.”
Que un hidalgo no debe á otro que a Dios y al Rei nada.
(Mendoza, Lazarillo de Tormes.)
“An Hidalgo owes nothing, except to God and the King.” Such were the ideas of justice, which prevailed amongst the noble class in Old Spain. The funds which were denied to creditors were squandered in largesses.
“To aid his daughter when the sky was dark.”
Die hand die uns durch dieses dunkel führt.—Wieland.
“The hand that leads us through this darkness.”
XL. “Earth’s hidden fires the globe cannot confine.”
Nè sì scossa giammai trema la terra,
Quando i vapori in sen gravida serra.
Tasso, Ger. Lib. iv. 3.
Those who may think the beauty of Salustian’s garden, as described in this Canto, exaggerated, I would invite to visit the country between San Sebastian and Ernani, as I did last year, and revel in its groves and orchards.
IBERIA WON.