The letters of Richard Ford, 1797-1858

by Richard Ford

Pray consider this house at your disposal if ever you may be inclined to come to Seville; I think we shall be able to make you comfortable.

At Seville Ford remained for the next six months. There he laid the foundations of his unrivalled knowledge of Spanish life. There, sketchbook in hand, he studied the various styles of architecture, both ecclesiastical and civil, of which the city was an epitome, sketching the Prout-like subjects which every turn of the labyrinthine streets afforded. There he studied the ceremonial, origin, and meaning of the religious functions, nowhere more magnificent, and especially of the quaint pageants of Holy Week. He learnt by heart the pictures in the cathedral, the churches, the university, the museum, the private galleries, and picked up for himself not a few of the treasures of Spanish art. Under the crumbling battlements and long arches of the aqueduct at the Plaza de la Carne he watched the Easter sales of paschal lambs, reminded of Murillo by living originals, as the children led off their lambs decorated with ribbons, or as shepherds strode by, holding the animals by the four legs so as to form a tippet round their necks. With much gossip and cigar-smoking he ransacked the shop of the Greek Dionysio, the tall, gaunt bookseller in the Calle de Genoa, for rare volumes, or chaffered with the jewellers in the arcades of the Plaza for Damascene filigree and cinque-cento work, or bargained at the weekly markets of La Feria among the piled-up stalls of fish, fruit, flesh and fowl. At Seville he learned the useful art of ridding himself of the importunity of beggars. There also he masqueraded at the carnivals, flirted with the Andalusian beauties in the Plaza del Duque, and mastered, in the best of schools, the intricacies of the art of bull-fighting. At the fair of Mairena he noted every detail of the glittering dresses of the majos, the dandies who there displayed their finest dresses and feats of horsemanship. He revelled in the colours and costumes, the grouping and attitudes of the washerwomen, who screamed and chattered in the Corral del Conde. He followed with the keenest interest every step in the national bolero at the theatre, every movement of the wilder saraband, danced to the accompaniment of castanets and tambourines by the gipsies in the suburb of Los Humeros. Among the horse-dealers, jockeys, and cattle-dealers, who thronged the Alameda Vieja, he had many friends, and from them probably learned some of the secrets of horse-keeping which he knew to perfection. For his pencil he found endless subjects on the sunny flats beyond the Moorish walls in the groups of idlers, who, under the vine trellises, played cards the livelong day for wine or love or coppers; or in the suburb of La Macarena, the home of the agricultural labourer, where the women, clad in the rainbow rags of picturesque poverty, and the naked urchins, rich in every variety of brown and yellow, gathered in front of their hovels behind their carts and implements and animals.

Of society in Seville he saw as much as there was to be seen. Writing to Addington in November or December 1830, he says:

This place is dull enough for people inclined to balls and dinners; but we are very well pleased. The climate delicious beyond description, open doors and windows, with the sun streaming in. We have had a good deal of rain, but no cold. I have a good fireplace in my sitting-room, which is a rarity here, and indeed is not much wanted. The habits of the natives are very unsocial, never meeting in each other’s houses, and only going to the theatre Thursdays and Mondays. Politics, and a want of money, contribute much to this, and, more, their natural indolence and love of hugger-muggery at home in their shawls and over the Brasero. Their customs are droll and inconvenient. Nothing more so than that of visiting in grand costume, white gloves and necklaces, from 12 to 2; then they dine, and what they do afterwards, God knows. The day is pretty well consumed in doing nothing. However, we dine at half-past 5, and contrive to get a morning for walking, sketching, reading, etc.

The principal people are very civil, especially the Assistente, Arjona, and a General Giron, Marquis of Amarillas, a friend of the Duke of Wellington. They talk politics to me; but that is a subject nobody touches on here.

As far as I can see, mixing much with bankers, canonigos, and grandees, there is no appearance whatever of anything unpleasant, and I am sure at Cadiz still less; either they do not talk about these matters, or do not care. I am inclined to think the latter. I saw a captain of an English brig yesterday, twelve days from Plymouth, who says that everything is quite quiet in the south-west part of England—no burnings or meetings.

I have had no news yet from my Whig friends in London. Now would be the time for me to be looking out for something; but there are ten Pigs no doubt for every Teat, and the Whigs are much more hungry from long abstinence than the Tories who have been sucking away this fifty years. I will venture to opine that they will not meddle with you. Lord Palmerston is a great friend of Lord Dudley’s and they were in office together, and I am sure Lord D. is a good friend of yours. I hope they won’t for all sorts of reasons, and a selfish one of looking forward to paying you a visit at Madrid next April.

I am going on Sunday to the Coto del Rey for a week’s shooting, the Assistente having ordered an officer to go with me and see that I have the best of it and good lodgings in the Palacio.

Mr. Williams[4] has a very fine collection of pictures of the Spanish school, which I own disappoints me, a sort of jumble of Rubens and Carlo Maratti. However, I have not seen much yet.