These considerations have always prevented me from offering any reply to anonymous criticisms. But the passage in the Edinburgh Review, to which I have called attention, displays such marvellous ignorance, that I wish to rescue it from oblivion, and to put it on record as a literary curiosity. The other charges brought against me could, I need hardly say, be refuted with equal ease. Indeed, no reasonable person can possibly suppose that, after years of arduous and uninterrupted study, I should have committed those childish blunders with which my opponents unscrupulously taunt me. Once for all, I may say that I have made no assertion for the truth of which I do not possess ample and irrefragable evidence. But it is impossible for me to arrange and adduce all the proofs at the same time; and, in so vast an enterprise, I must in some degree rely, not on the generosity of the reader, but on his candour. I do not think that I am asking too much in requesting him, if on any future occasion his judgment should be in suspense between me and my critics, to give me the benefit of the doubt, and to bear in mind that statements embodied in a deliberate and slowly-concocted work, authenticated by the author's name, are, as a mere matter of antecedent probability, more likely to be accurate than statements made in reviews and newspapers, which, besides being written hastily, and often at very short notice, are unsigned, and by which, consequently, their promulgators evade all responsibility, avoid all risk, and can, in their own persons, neither gain fame nor incur obloquy.
The simple fact is, that in Spain there have been more earthquakes than in all other parts of Europe put together, Italy excepted. If the destruction of property and of life produced by this one cause were summed up, the results would be appalling. When we moreover add those alarming shocks, which, though less destructive, are far more frequent, and of which not scores, nor hundreds, but thousands have occurred, and which by increasing the total amount of fear, have to an incalculable extent promoted the growth of superstition, it is evident that such phenomena must have played an important part in forming the national character of the Spaniards. Whoever will take the trouble of consulting the following passages will find decisive proofs of the frightful ravages committed by earthquakes in Spain alone; Portugal being excluded. They all refer to a period of less than two hundred years; the first being in 1639, and the last in 1829. Lettres de Madame de Villars, Ambassadrice en Espagne, Amsterdam, 1759, p. 205. Laborde's Spain, London, 1809, vol. i. p. 169. Dunlop's Memoirs of Spain, Edinburgh, 1834, vol. ii. pp. 226, 227. Boisel, Journal du Voyage d'Espagne, Paris, 1669, 4to, p. 243. Mallet's Earthquake Catalogue of the British Association, London, 1858; Report for 1853, p. 146; for 1854, pp. 26, 27, 54, 55, 57, 58, 65, 110, 140, 173, 196, 202. Swinburne's Travels through Spain, London, 1787, vol. i. p. 166. Ford's Spain, London, 1847, p. 178. Bacon's Six Years in Biscay, London, 1838, p. 32, compared with Inglis' Spain, London, 1831, vol. i. p. 393, vol. ii. p. 289–291.
These authorities narrate the ravages committed during a hundred and ninety years. From their account it is manifest, that in Spain hardly a generation passed by without castles, villages, and towns being destroyed, and men, women, or children killed by earthquakes. But according to our anonymous instructor, it is doubtful if there ever was an earthquake in Spain; for he says of the whole Peninsula, including Portugal, ‘the only earthquake known to have occurred there was that of Lisbon.’
[1169] On the superstitious fears caused by earthquakes in Spain, see a good passage in Conde, Historia de la Dominacion de los Arabes, p. 155. ‘En el año 267, dia jeuves, 22 de la luna de Xawâl, tembló la tierra con tan espantoso ruido y estremecimiento, que cayeron muchos alcazares y magnificos edificios, y otros quedaron muy quebrantados, se hundieron montes, se abrieron peñascos, y la tierra se hundió y tragó pueblos y alturas, el mar se retrajo y apartó de las costas, y desaparecieron islas y escollos en el mar. Las gentes abandonaban los pueblos y huian á los campos, las aves salian de sus nidos, y las fieras espantadas dejaban sus grutas y madrigueras con general turbacion y trastorno; nunca los hombres vieron ni oyeron cosa semejante; se arruinaron muchos pueblos de la costa meridional y occidental de España. Todas estas cosas influyeron tanto en los animos de los hombres, y en especial en la ignorante multitud, que no pudo Almondhir persuadirles que eran cosas naturales, aunque poco frecüentes, que no tenían influjo ni relacion con las obras de los hombres, ni con sus empresas, sino por su ignorancia y vanos temores, que lo mismo temblaba la tierra para los muslimes que para los cristianos, para las fieras que para las inocentes criaturas.’ Compare Geddes' Tracts concerning Spain, London, 1730, vol. i. p. 89; and Mariana, who, under the year 1395, says (Historia de España, vol. v. p. 27): ‘Tembló la tierra en Valencia mediado el mes de Diciembre, con que muchos edificios cayéron por tierra, otros quedaron desplomados; que era maravilla y lástima. El pueblo, como agorero que es, pensaba eran señales del cielo y pronosticos de los daños que temian.’ The history of Spain abounds with similar instances far too numerous to quote or even to refer to. But the subject is so important and has been so misrepresented, that, even at the risk of wearying the reader, I will give one more illustration of the use of earthquakes in fostering Spanish superstition. In 1504 ‘an earthquake, accompanied by a tremendous hurricane, such as the oldest men did not remember, had visited Andalusia, and especially Carmona, a place belonging to the Queen, and occasioned frightful desolation there.’ The superstitious Spaniards now read in these portents the prophetic signs by which Heaven announces some great calamity. Prayers were put up in every temple, &c. &c. Prescott's History of Ferdinand and Isabella, Paris, 1842, vol. iii. p. 174.
[1170] Buckle's History of Civilization, vol. i. p. 43. See also Laborde's Spain, vol. iv. p. 42.
[1171] A writer early in the eighteenth century notices ‘el gran numero de pastores que hay.’ Uztariz, Theorica y Practica de Comercio, 3rd ed. Madrid, 1757, folio p. 20. As to the Arabic period, see Conde, Historia de la Dominacion, p. 244: ‘Muchos pueblos, siguiendo su natural inclinacion, se entregaron á la ganaderia.’ Hence ‘the wandering life so congenial to the habits of the Spanish peasantry,’ noticed in Cook's Spain, vol. i. p. 85, where, however, the connexion between this and the physical constitution of the country is not indicated. The solution is given by Mr. Ticknor with his usual accuracy and penetration: ‘The climate and condition of the Peninsula, which from a very remote period had favoured the shepherd's life and his pursuits, facilitated, no doubt, if they did not occasion, the first introduction into Spanish poetry of a pastoral tone, whose echoes are heard far back among the old ballads.’ … ‘From the Middle Ages the occupations of a shepherd's life had prevailed in Spain and Portugal to a greater extent than elsewhere in Europe; and, probably, in consequence of this circumstance, eclogues and bucolics were early known in the poetry of both countries, and became connected in both with the origin of the popular drama.’ Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, London, 1849, vol. iii. pp. 9, 36. On the pastoral literature of Spain, see Bouterwek's History of Spanish Literature, London, 1823, vol. i. pp. 123–129; and on the great number of pastoral romances, Southey's Letters from Spain, Bristol, 1799, p. 336. But these writers, not seizing the whole question, have failed to observe the relation between the literary, physical, and social phenomena.
[1172] See the memoir by Jovellanos, in Laborde's Spain, vol. iv. p. 127. This was the necessary consequence of those vindictive attacks by which, for several centuries, both Mohammedans and Christians seemed resolved to turn Spain into a desert; ravaging each other's fields, and destroying every crop they could meet with. Conde, Dominacion de los Arabes, pp. 75, 188, 278, 346, 396, 417, 418, 471, 499, 500, 505, 523, 539, 544, 551, 578, 645, 651, 658. To quote one of these instances, late in the eleventh century: ‘La constancia de Alfonso ben Ferdeland en hacer entradas y talas en tierra de Toledo dos veces cada año, fué tanta que empobreció y apuró los pueblos;’ … ‘el tirano Alfonso taló y quemó los campos y los pueblos.’ Conde, p. 346. As such havoc, which was continued with few interruptions for about seven hundred years, has done much towards forming the national character of the Spaniards, it may be worth while to refer to Mariana, Historia de España, vol. iii. p. 438, vol. iv. pp. 193, 314, vol. v. pp. 92, 317, 337; and to Circourt, Histoire des Arabes d'Espagne, Paris, 1846, vol. i. p. 99.
[1173] The unsettled chronology of the early history of Spain appears from the different statements of various writers respecting the duration of Arianism, a point of much more importance than the death and accession of kings. Antequera (Historia de la Legislacion Española, Madrid, 1849, p. 37) says, ‘La secta Arriana, pues, segun las epocas fijadas, permaneció en España 125 años;’ Fleury (Histoire Ecclésiastique, vol. vii. p. 586, Paris, 1758) says ‘environ 180 ans;’ and M'Crie, generally well informed, says in his History of the Reformation in Spain, Edinburgh, 1829, p. 7, ‘Arianism was the prevailing and established creed of the country for nearly two centuries:’ for this, he refers to Gregory of Tours. With good reason, therefore, does M. Fauriel term it ‘une question qui souffre des difficultés.’ See his able work, Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale, Paris, 1836, vol. i. p. 10.
[1174] In 496, the orthodox clergy looked on Clovis as ‘un champion qu'il peut opposer aux hérétiques visigoths et burgondes.’ Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale, vol. ii. p. 41. They also likened him to Gideon, p. 66. Compare Fleury, Histoire Ecclésiastique, vol. vii. pp. 89, 90. Ortiz is so enthusiastic that he forgets his patriotism, and warmly praises the ferocious barbarian who made war, indeed, on his country, but still whose speculative opinions were supposed to be sound. ‘Mientras Alarico desfogaba su encono contra los Católicos, tuvo la Iglesia Galicana el consuelo de ver Católico á su gran Rey Clodoveo. Era el único Monarca del mundo que á la sazón profesaba la Religion verdadera.’ Ortiz, Compendio de la Historia de España, vol. ii. p. 96, Madrid, 1796.
[1175] Thus, in 531, Childebert marched against the Visigoths, because they were Arians. Fauriel, Histoire de la Gaule Méridionale, vol. ii. p. 131; and in 542, Childebert and Clotaire made another attack, and laid siege to Saragossa, p. 142. ‘No advertian los Godos lo que su falsa creencia les perjudicaba, y si lo advertian, su obcecacion les hacia no poner remedio. Los reyes francos, que eran católicos, les movian guerras en las Galias por arrianos, y los obispos católicos de la misma Galia gótica deseaban la dominacion de los francos.’ Lafuente, Historia de España, vol. ii. p. 380, Madrid, 1850.