Letters from Spain

by Joseph Blanco White

The hero of the play, designated in the Dramatis Personæ by the title of primer galan (first gallant), is Lucifer, who, dressed in a suit of black velvet and scarlet stockings—the appropriate stage-dress of devils, of whatever rank and station—appears in the first scene mounted upon a griffin, summoning his confidant Asmodeus out of a trap, to acquaint him with the danger to which the newly-established order of Saint Francis exposed the whole kingdom of darkness. Italy (according to the arch-demon) was overrun with mendicant friars; and even Lucca, the scene of the play, where they had met with a sturdy opposition, might, he feared, consent to the building of a Franciscan convent, the foundations of which were already laid. Lucifer, therefore, determines to assist the Lucchese in dislodging the cowled enemies from that town; and he sends Asmodeus to Spain upon a similar service. The chief engine he puts in motion is Ludovico, a wealthy and hard-hearted man, who had just married Octavia, a paragon of virtue and beauty, thus cruelly sacrificed by her father’s ambition. Feliciano, a cousin of Octavia, and the object of her early affection, availing himself of the husband’s ignorance of their now-broken engagement, makes his appearance at Lucca with the determination of seducing the bride and taking revenge on Ludovico. The Guardian of the new convent of Saint Francis, being obliged by the rule of his order to support the friars by daily alms collected from the people, and finding the inhabitants of Lucca determined to starve them out of their city, applies to Ludovico for help. That wicked man thrusts the Guardian and his lay-brother Antolín—the gracioso of the play—out of the house, to be hooted and pelted by the mob. Nothing, therefore, is left for the friars but to quit the town: and now, the poet considering Horace’s rule for supernatural interference as perfectly applicable to such a desperate state of things, the Niño Dios (the Child God),[25] and Michael the archangel, come down in a cloud (you will readily conceive that the actors at our humble theatre dispensed with the machinery), and the last, addressing himself to Lucifer, gives him a peremptory order to assume the habit of Saint Francis, and under that disguise to stop all the mischief he had devised against Octavia; to obtain support from the people of Lucca for the Franciscans; and not to depart till he had built two convents instead of the one he was trying to nip in the bud.

To give, as you say in England, the Devil his due, it must be confessed, that Lucifer, though now and then exclaiming against the severity of his punishment, executes his commission with exemplary zeal. He presents himself to the Guardian, in the garb of the order, and having Brother Antolín appointed as his attendant, soon changes the hearts of the people, and obtains abundant supplies for the convent. The under-plot proceeds in the mean time, involving Octavia in the most imminent dangers. She snatches from Feliciano a letter, in which she had formerly avowed her love to him, which, imperfectly torn to pieces, falls into Ludovico’s hands, and induces him to plan her death. To accomplish this purpose, he takes her into the country, and stabs her in the depth of a forest, a few minutes before Monk Lucifer, who fairly and honestly had intended to prevent the blow, could arrive at the place with his lay-companion.

To be thus taken by surprise puzzles the ex-archangel not a little. Still he observes, that since Octavia’s soul had neither gone to heaven, purgatory, nor hell, a miracle was on the point of being performed. Nor was he deceived in this shrewd conjecture; for the Virgin Mary descends in a cloud, and touching the body of Octavia, restores her to life. Feliciano arriving at this moment, attributes the miracle to the two friars; and the report of this wonder exposes Antolín to a ludicrous mobbing in the town, where his frock is torn to pieces to keep the shreds as relics. Lucifer now endeavours to prove to the resuscitated wife, that, according to the canon law, her marriage has been dissolved by death; but she, distrusting the casuistry of that learned personage, immediately returns to her husband. Her unwilling protector is therefore compelled to prevent a second death, which the desperate Ludovico intends to inflict upon his too faithful wife. After this second rescue of the beautiful Octavia, Lucifer makes a most edifying address, urging Ludovico to redeem his sins, by giving alms to the Franciscans. His eloquence, however, making no impression upon the miser, Saint Michael gives the word from behind the scenes, and the obdurate man is swallowed up by the earth. Michael now makes his appearance; and, upon a very sensible remonstrance of Lucifer, as to the hardship of his present case, he allows the latter to strip off the cowl, and carry on hostilities against the Franciscans by the usual arts he employs against the other religious orders, i. e. assaulting the monks’ virtue by any means except their stomachs. Food the Franciscans must never want, according to the heavenly promise made to their founder.

This curious play is performed, at least once a year, on every Spanish theatre; when the Franciscan friars, instead of enforcing the standing rule, which forbids the exhibition of the monkish dress upon the stage, regularly lend the requisite suits to the actors: so favourable is the impression it leaves in favour of that mendicant order.

Our truly Thespian entertainment was just concluded, when we heard the church-bell toll what in Spain is called Las Animas—the Souls. A man, bearing a large lantern with a painted glass, representing two naked persons enveloped in flames, entered the court, addressing every one of the company in these words:—The Holy Souls, Brother! Remember the Holy Souls. Few refused the petitioner a copper coin, worth about the eighth part of a penny. This custom is universal in Spain. A man, whose chief employment is to be agent for the souls in purgatory, in the evening—the only time when the invisible sufferers are begged for about the towns—and for some saint or Madonna, during the day, parades the streets after sunset, with the lantern I have described, and never fails to visit the inns, where the travellers, who generally entrust their safety from robbers to the holy souls, are always ready to make some pecuniary acknowledgement for past favours, or to engage their protection in future dangers. The tenderness of all sorts of believing Spaniards for the souls in purgatory, and the reliance they place on their intercession with God, would almost be affecting, did it not originate in the most superstitious credulity.

The doctrine of purgatory is very easily, nay, consistently embraced by such as believe in the expiatory nature of pain and suffering. The best feelings of our hearts are, besides, most ready to assist the imagination in devising means to keep up an intercourse with that invisible world, which either possesses already, or must soon possess, whatever has engaged our affections in this. Grief for a departed friend loses half its bitterness with a Catholic who can firmly believe that not a day shall pass without repeated and effectual proofs of attachment, on his part, till he join the conscious object of his love in bliss. While other articles of the Catholic faith are too refined and abstract for children, their tender and benevolent minds eagerly seize on the idea of purgatory fire. A parent or a brother, still kind to them in another world, yet suffering excruciating pains that may be relieved, shortened, and perhaps put an end to by some privation or prayer, are notions perfectly adapted to their capacity and feelings. Every year brings round the day devoted by the church to the relief of the departed souls. The holy vestments used at the three masses, which, by a special grant, every priest is allowed to perform that morning, are black. Large candles of yellow wax are placed over the graves within the churches; and even the church-yards, those humble places of repose appointed among us for criminals and paupers, are not neglected on that day of revived sorrows. Lights are provided for them at the expense of the society established in every town of Spain for the relief of the friendless spirits, who, for want of assistance, may be lingering in the purifying flames; and many of the members, with a priest at their head, visit these cemeteries for nine successive evenings.

Thus, even benevolence, under the guidance of superstition, degenerates into absurdity. It does not, however, stop here; but, rushing headlong into the ludicrous, forces a smile upon the face of sympathy, and painfully compels our mirth where our tears were ready to flow. The religious ingenuity of the Catholics has gone so far as to publish the scheme of a lottery for the benefit of such souls as might otherwise escape their notice. It consists of a large sheet of paper fixed in a frame, with an open box beneath it. Under different heads, numbered from one to ninety, the inventor of this pious game has distributed the most interesting cases which can occur in the debtors’ side of the infernal Newgate, allotting to each a prayer, penance or offering. In the box are deposited ninety pieces of card, distinguished by numbers corresponding to the ninety classes. According as the pious gambler draws the tickets, he performs the meritorious works enjoined in the scheme—generally a short prayer or slight penance—transferring their spiritual value to the fortunate souls to whom each card belongs. Often in my childhood, have I amused myself at this good-natured game. But the Inquisition is growing fastidious; and though the lottery of purgatory is as fairly grounded on the doctrines of Rome, as the papal bulls for the release of suffering souls, which are sold for sixpence, with a blank for inserting the name of the person in whose behalf it is purchased; the inquisitors, it seems, will not allow the liberation of the departed to become a matter of chance, and the lottery scheme has lately been prohibited. Fortunately, we still have various means of assisting our friends in Hades; for, besides masses, Bulls, prayers, and penances, the Pope has established eight or ten days in the year, on which every Spaniard (for the grant is confined to Spain) by kneeling at five different altars, and there praying for the extirpation of heresy, is entitled to send a species of habeas animam writ to any of his friends in purgatory. The name of the person whose liberation is intended should, for fear of mistakes, be mentioned in the prayers. But, lest the order of release should find him already free, or perhaps within those gates to which no Pope has ever ventured to apply his keys, we are taught to endorse the spiritual bill with other names, addressing it finally to the most worthy and disconsolate.

These privileged days are announced to the public by a printed notice, placed over the bason of holy water, which stands near every church-door; and, as no one enters without wetting his forehead with the blessed fluid, there is no fear that the happy season should pass unheeded by the pious. The words written on the tablet are plain and peremptory: Hoy se saca Anima; literally, “This is a soul-drawing day.” We must, however, proceed on our uninterrupted journey.

Osuna, where we arrived on the second day after leaving Seville, is built on the declivity of one of the detached hills which stand as out-posts to the Sierra de Ronda, having in front a large ill-cultivated plain, from whence the principal church, and the college, to which the university of that town is attached, are seen to great advantage. The great square of the town is nearly surrounded by an arcade or piazza, with balconies above it, and is altogether not unlike a large theatre. Such squares are to be found in every large town of Spain, and seem to have been intended for the exhibition of tournaments and a kind of bull-fights, less fierce and bloody than those of the amphitheatre, which bear the name of regocijos (rejoicings.)