Any attempt to describe, one after the other, all the riches of the cathedral, would be an absurd piece of folly; it would require a whole year to see it thoroughly, and even that would not be sufficient; whole volumes would not so much as contain the catalogue of the various remarkable objects. The sculptures in stone, in wood, and in silver, by Juan de Arfe, Joan Mellan, Montañes, and Roldan; the paintings by Murillo, Zurbaran, Pierre Campana, Roëlas, Don Luiz de Villegas, the two Herreras, Juan Valdes and Goya, completely fill the chapels, sacristies, and chapter-house. You are crushed by all kinds of magnificence, worn out and intoxicated with chefs d'œuvre, and do not know which way to turn; the desire to see everything, and the impossibility of doing so, cause you to experience a sort of feverish giddiness; you wish not to forget a single thing, and you feel every moment, that some name is escaping you, some lineament is becoming confused in your brain, some particular is usurping the place of another. You make the most desperate appeals to your memory, and lay strict injunctions on your eyes not to let slip a single glance; the least rest, even the time necessary for eating and sleeping, appears a robbery you are committing on yourself, for you are hurried on by imperious necessity; you will shortly be obliged to leave the place; the fire is already blazing under the boiler of the steam-boat; the water boils and hisses, and the chimney emits its volumes of white smoke. Tomorrow you will quit all these marvels, which, in all probability, you are not destined ever to behold again!
Being unable to mention everything, I will confine myself to mentioning the Saint Anthony of Padua, by Murillo, which ornaments the chapel of the baptistry. Never was the magic of painting carried to a greater length. The saint is kneeling in a state of ecstasy in the middle of his cell, all the poor details of which are rendered with that vigorous reality which characterises the Spanish school. Through the half-open door is seen one of those long, white, arched cloisters, so favourable to reverie. The upper portion of the picture, which is inundated with white, transparent, vapoury light, is occupied by groups of angels, of the most truly ideal beauty. Attracted by the force of his prayers, the infant Jesus is descending from cloud to cloud, to place himself between the arms of the saint, whose head is surrounded by rays of glory, and who is leaning back in a fit of celestial delight. I think that this divine picture is superior to that of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary in the Academy of Madrid, superior to Moses, superior to all the Virgins and Children by the same master, however beautiful and pure they may be. Whoever has not seen the Saint Anthony of Padua, does not know the finest production of the Sevillian painter; he is like those who fancy they know Rubens, and have never beheld the Antwerp Magdalene.
Every style of architecture is to found in the Cathedral of Seville. The severe gothic, the style of the renaissance, that which the Spaniards term plateresco, or jewellery-work, and which is distinguished by a profusion of incredible ornaments and arabesques, the rococo, the Greek and Roman styles, are all there without a single exception, for each age has built its chapel or retablo, after its own peculiar taste, and even now the edifice is not completely finished. Many of the statues which fill the niches of the portals, and represent patriarchs, apostles, saints, and archangels, are made of baked earth only, and placed there temporarily. On the same side as the courtyard de los Naranjeros, on the top of the unfinished portal, rises the iron crane, as a symbol that the edifice is not yet terminated, and that the works will be resumed at some future period. This kind of gallows is also to be seen on the summit of the church at Beauvais, but when will the day come, when the weight of a stone slowly drawn up through the air by the workmen returned to their work, shall cause its pulley, that has for ages been rusting away, once more to creak beneath its load? Never, perhaps; for the ascensional movement of Catholicism has stopped, and the sap which caused this efflorescence of cathedrals to shoot up from the ground, no longer rises from the trunk into the branches. Faith, which doubts nothing, wrote the first strophes of all these great poems of stone and granite; Reason, which doubts everything, has not dared to finish them. The architects of the Middle Ages were a race of religious Titans, as it were, who heaped Pelion on Ossa, not to dethrone the Deity they adored, but to admire more closely the mild countenance of the Virgin-Mother smiling on the Infant Jesus. In our days, when everything is sacrificed to some gross and stupid idea or other of comfort, people no longer understand these sublime yearnings of the soul towards the Infinite, which were rendered by steeples, spires, bell-turrets, and ogives, stretching their arms of stone heavenwards, and joining them, above the heads of the kneeling crowd, like gigantic hands clasped in an attitude of supplication. Political economists shrug their shoulders with pity at all these treasures lying idle without returning anything. Even the people are beginning to calculate how much the gold of the pyx is worth: they who once scarcely dared to raise their eyes on the white sun of the host, whisper to themselves that pieces of glass would do quite as well to decorate the monstrance as the diamonds and precious stones; the church is, at present, hardly frequented by any one save travellers, beggars, and horrible old hags, atrocious dueñas clad in black, with owl-like looks, death's-head smiles, and spider hands, who never move without a rattling, as if of rusty bones, medals and chaplets, and, under pretence of soliciting arms, murmur atrocious propositions concerning raven tresses, rosy complexions, burning glances and ever-budding smiles. Spain itself is no longer Catholic!
The Giralda, which serves as a campanila to the cathedral, and rises above all the spires of the town, is an old Moorish tower, erected by an Arabian architect, named Geber or Guever, who invented algebra, which was called after him. The appearance of the tower is charming and very original; the rose-coloured bricks and the white stone of which it is built, give it an air of gaiety and youth, which forms a strange contrast with the date of its erection, which extends as far back as the year 1000, a very respectable age, at which a tower may well be allowed to have a wrinkle or two, and be excused for not being remarkable for a fresh complexion. The Giralda, in its present state, is not less than three hundred and fifty feet high, while each side is fifty feet broad. Up to a certain height the walls are perfectly even; there are then rows of Moorish windows with balconies, trefoils, and small white marble columns, surrounded by large lozenge-shaped brick panels. The tower formerly ended in a roof of variously coloured varnished tiles, on which was an iron bar, ornamented with four gilt metal balls of a prodigious size. This roof was removed in 1568, by the architect, Francisco Ruiz, who raised the daughter of the Moor Guever, one hundred feet higher in the pure light of heaven, so that his bronze statue might overlook the sierras, and speak with the angels who passed. The feat of building a belfry on a tower was in perfect keeping with the intentions of the members composing that admirable chapter, of whom we have spoken, and who wished posterity to imagine they were mad. The additions of Francisco Ruiz consist of three stories; the first of these is pierced with windows, in whose embrasures are hung the bells; the second, surrounded by an open balustrade, bears on the cornice of each of its sides these words—"Turris fortissima nomen Domini;" and the third is a kind of cupola or lantern, on which turns a gigantic gilt bronze figure of Faith, holding a palm in one hand and a standard in the other, and serving as a weathercock, thereby justifying the name of Giralda given to the tower. This statue is by Bartholomew Morel. It can be seen at a very great distance; and when it glitters through the azure atmosphere, really looks like a seraph lounging in the air.
You ascend the Giralda by a series of inclined ramps, so easy and gentle, that two men on horseback could very well ride up to the summit, whence you enjoy an admirable view. At your feet lies Seville, brilliantly white, with its spires and towers, endeavouring, but in vain, to reach the rose-coloured brick girdle of the Giralda. Beyond these stretches the plain, through which the Guadalquiver flows, like a piece of watered silk, and scattered around are Santi-Pouce, Algaba, and other villages. Quite in the background is the Sierra Morena, with its outlines sharply marked, in spite of the distance, so great is the transparency of the air in this admirable country. On the opposite side, the Sierras de Gibram, Zaara, and Morou, raise their bristling forms, tinged with the richest hues of lapis lazuli and amethyst, and completing this magnificent panorama, which is inundated with light, sunshine, and dazzling splendour.
A great number of fragments of columns, shaped into posts, and connected with each other by chains, except where spaces are left for persons to pass, surround the cathedral. Some of these columns are antique, and come either from the ruins of Italica, or from the remains of the ancient mosque, whose former site is now occupied by the cathedral, and of which the only remaining vestiges are the Giralda, a few old walls, and one or two arches, one of which serves as the entrance to the courtyard de los Nanjeros. The Lonja (Exchange) is a large and perfectly regular edifice, built by the heavy and wearisome Herrera, that architect of ennui, to whom we owe the Escurial, which is decidedly the most melancholy building in the world; the Lonja, also, like the cathedral, is surrounded by the same description of posts. It is completely isolated, and presents four similar façades; it stands between the cathedral and the Alcazar. In it are preserved the archives of America, and the correspondence of Christopher Columbus, Pizarro, and Fernand Cortez; but all these treasures are guarded by such savage dragons, that we were obliged to content ourselves with looking at the outside of the pasteboard boxes and portfolios, which are stowed away in mahogany compartments, like the goods in a draper's shop. It would be a most easy thing to place five or six of the most precious autographs in glass-cases, and thus satisfy the very legitimate curiosity of travellers.
HALL OF DON PEDRO, THE ALCAZAR, SEVILLE.