Four massive columns, embellished with allegorical sculptures, form the transept, and above them the main arches spring. Angels bear aloft a banner, inscribed, “I will praise thee in thy temple, and I will glorify thy name, thou whose works are miracles.”
Just here, for we were coming toward the high altar, Antanazio dropped upon his knees, on the marble floor. A little bell had been rung, and all the Catholics in the cathedral bent to the ground as the host was elevated for their adoration in the celebration of the mass. We stood before the high altar, resplendent above and about it with wrought silver and gold and rich carving and sculpture, in which the life and death of the blessed Saviour are inscribed in mute yet expressive symbols. In the choir are more than a hundred stalls or seats of carved walnut, each one of them an elaborate work of art, rich with figures of men and beasts, the virgin and saints in martyrdom and in glory; and one of these saints is astride of the devil, in memory of the fact that the devil did carry this saint from Spain to Rome in one night. That’s better time than any of the Spanish railroads can make.
We were led by a kind sacristan through the various chapels, all rich in tombs of costly workmanship, and some containing relics which, to the believer in their virtue, are of priceless value; one of these precious treasures being a statue of Christ on the cross, which we were expected to behold with deep reverence. It is asserted and believed to have been carved by Nicodemus just after he had buried the Saviour. It is, therefore, an authentic likeness; and if any doubt existed of its being a genuine work, it is removed by the facts that the hair, the beard, the eyelashes even, and the thorns, are all natural, real; that it sweats every Friday; that it sometimes actually bleeds; and that it has performed many miracles. It would have been more impressive on my unbelieving mind if it had not been girt about with a red petticoat!
THE ESCORIAL.
The castle has a history in which the names of all the great warriors of the last thousand years have a part; it has been the prison of some kings, and the bridal-chamber of queens, and the birth-place of more. In modern times Napoleon conquered it. And what is more remarkable, Wellington tried to drive out the French, and failed. It is now a heap of ruins; for when the French abandoned it they blew it up, but so bunglingly that some three hundred of them went up with it. The explosion destroyed the painted windows of the cathedral, an irreparable loss.
There is nothing in Burgos to see but the cathedral; and that is worth going to Spain to see, though you may have to put up at and with a Burgos tavern.
Philip II. came to the throne of Spain in 1556, less than twenty years before the massacre of St. Bartholomew’s day in France, and in the same century with the Reformation led on by Luther. His history and his character are familiar to the world. Cold, cruel, bigoted, intolerant, morose, gloomy, superstitious, the grandson of a woman who was known by the name of Crazy Jane, and who earned the title, the son of the great Emperor of Germany, Charles V., who was also Charles I. of Spain, this Philip II., thus descended and thus endowed, was less a king than a monk, and in the cloister or the cell was more at home than on the throne. He was the husband of Bloody Mary of England, and, like her, verily thought to please God by persecuting the saints and mortifying himself. Perhaps his queer grandmother had put the idea of a palace and a monastery and a tomb into his head. Perhaps his father, in the gloomy hours when he meditated retirement and abdication of his sovereignty, inspired the son with this strange purpose. Or, more likely, the conception with him was original, and as no monarch, before him or since, had such a heart under the guide of such a head, it is only just to give him all the credit of devising and achieving one of the most stupendous follies and gigantic monuments that was ever executed by the hands of men.
The Spaniards reckon the Escorial as the eighth wonder of the world!
About twenty-five miles north of Madrid, in the midst of the dreariest wilderness of barren, rocky, all but uninhabitable hills, a region where no beauty of scenery cheers the eye, no silver river winds along through fertile vales, no verdant slopes are covered with grazing herds, and no forests with their cool shades invite the tired traveller or the weary citizen to seek repose,—here, in the last of all places for such an edifice, is placed the Escorial, the largest and grandest edifice in Spain, and the most remarkable building now standing on the earth. What Egypt had when Karnak and Thebes were in their prime, what Babylon and Nineveh knew in the days of their now buried glory, we have but faint knowledge. This house covers a square of five hundred thousand feet! It is about 750 feet long, and 600 feet wide. It is a royal palace. It is a monastery. It is the sepulchre of the royal family of Spain. It is a church; and in that church, the chapel of this strange house, there is more wealth lavished on the pulpits and altars than on any other that I have seen, in this or any other country. Yet all this is in a wilderness, far away from cities and the abodes of men who might be supposed to admire and enjoy such grandeur,—a temple in a desert, a palace and a sepulchre.