The Ingoldsby Legends :: :: University of Virginia Library

There is not a nation in Europe but labours
To toady itself and to humbug its neighbours—
“Earth has no such folks—no folks such a city,
So great or so grand, or so fine, or so pretty,”
Said Louis Quatorze, “As this Paris of ours!”
—Mr. Daniell O'Connell exclaims, “By the Pow'rs,
Ould Ireland's on all hands admitted to be
The first flow'r of the earth, and first Gim of the sea!”—
—Mr. Bull will inform you that Neptune,—a lad he,
With more of affection than rev'rence, styles, “Daddy,”—
Did not scruple to “say To Freedom, one day,”
That if ever he chang'd his aquatics for dry land,
His home should be Mr. B.'s “Tight little Island.”—

He adds, too, that he, The said Mr. B.,
Of all possible Frenchmen can fight any three;
That, with no greater odds, he knows well how to treat them
To meet them, defeat them, and beat them, and eat them.—
—In Italy, too, 'tis the same to the letter;
There each Lazzarone Will cry to his crony,
“See Naples, then die! and the sooner the better!”
The Portuguese say, as a well understood thing,
“Who has not seen Lisbon has not seen a good thing!”—
While an old Spanish proverb runs glibly as under,
“Quien no ha visto Sevilla No ha visto maravilla!
‘He who ne'er has viewed Seville has ne'er view'd a Wonder!”
And from all I can learn this is no such great blunder.
In fact, from the river, The famed Guadalquiver,
Where many a knight's had cold steel through his liver,
The prospect is grand. The Iglesia Mayor
Has a splendid effect on the opposite shore,
With its lofty Giralda, while two or three score
Of magnificent structures around, perhaps more,
As our Irish friends have it, are there “to the fore:”
Then the old Alcazar, More ancient by far,
As some say, while some call it one of the palaces
Built in twelve hundred and odd by Abdalasis,
With its horse-shoe shaped arches of Arabesque tracery,
Which the architect seems to have studied to place awry,
Saracenic and rich; And more buildings “the which,”
As old Lily, in whom I've been looking a bit o' late,
Says, “You'd be bored should I now recapitulate;”

In brief, then, the view Is so fine and so new,
It would make you exclaim, 'twould so forcibly strike ye,
If a Frenchman, “Superbe!”—if an Englishman, “Crikey!”
Yes! thou art “Wonderful!”—but oh,
'Tis sad to think, 'mid scenes so bright
As thine, fair Seville, sounds of woe,
And shrieks of pain and wild affright,
And soul-wrung groans of deep despair,
And blood, and death should mingle there!

Yes! thou art “Wonderful!”—the flames
That on thy towers reflected shine,
While earth's proud Lords and high-born Dames,
Descendants of a mighty line,
With cold unalter'd looks are by
To gaze, with an unpitying eye,
On wretches in their agony.

All speak thee “Wonderful”—the phrase
Befits thee well—the fearful blaze
Of you piled faggots' lurid light,
Where writhing victims mock the sight,—
The scorch'd limb shrivelling in its chains,—
The hot blood parch'd in living veins,—
The erackling nerve—the fearful knell
Wrung out by that remorseless bell,—
Those shouts from human fiends that swell,—
That withering scream,—that frantic yell,—
All, Seville,—all too truly tell
Thou art a “Marvel”—and a Hell!
God!—that the worm whom thou hast made
Should thus his brother worm invade!
Count deeds like these good service done,
And deem THINE eye looks smiling on!!

Yet there at his ease, with his whole Court around him,
King Ferdinand sits “in his Glory”—confound him!—
Leaning back in his chair, With a satisfied air

And enjoying the bother, the smoke and the smother,
With one knee cocked carelessly over the other;
His pouncet-box goes To and fro at his nose,
As somewhat misliking the smell of old clothes,
And seeming to hint, by this action emphatic,
That Jews, e'en when roasted, are not aromatic;
There, too, fair Ladies From Xeres, and Cadiz,
Catalinas, and Julias, and fair Iñesillas,
In splendid lace veils, and becoming mantillas;
Elviras, Antonias, and Claras and Floras,
And dark-eyed Jacinthas and soft Isidoras,
Are crowding the “boxes,” and looking on coolly as
Though 'twas but one of their common tertulias,
Partaking, as usual, of wafers and ices,
Snow-water, and melons cut out into slices,
And chocolate,—furnished at coffee-house prices;
While many a suitor, And gay coadjutor
In the eating-and-drinking line scorns to be neuter;
One, being perhaps just return'd with his tutor
From travel in England, is tempting his “future”
With a luxury neat as imported, “The Pewter,”
And charming the dear Violantes and Iñeses
With a three-corner'd Sandwich, and soupcon of “Guinness's;”
While another, from Paris but newly come back,
Hints “the least taste in life” of the best cogniac.
Such ogling and eyeing, In short, and such sighing
And such complimenting (one must not say l—g),
Of smart Cavaliers with each other still vying,
Mix'd up with the crying, And groans of the dying
All hissing, and spitting, and broiling, and frying,
Form a scene which, although there can be no denying
To a bon Catholique it may prove edifying,
I doubt if a Protestant smart Beau, or merry Belle,
Might not shrink from it as somewhat too terrible.
It's a question with me if you ever survey'd a
More stern-looking mortal than old Torquemada,
Renown'd Father Dominic, famous for twisting dom
-estic and foreign necks all over Christendom;

Morescoes or Jews, Not a penny to choose,
If a dog of a heretic dare to refuse
A glass of old port, or a slice from a griskin,
The good Padre soon would so set him a frisking,
That I would not, for—more than I'll say—be in his skin.

'Twas just the same thing with his own race and nation,
And Christian Dissenters of every persuasion,
Muggletonian or Quaker, Or Jumper or Shaker,
No matter with whom in opinion partaker,
George Whitfield, John Bunyan, or Thomas Gat-acre,
They'd no better chance than a Bonze or a Fakir;
If a woman, it skill'd not—if she did not deem as he
Bade her to deem touching Papal supremacy,
By the Pope, but he'd make her! From error awake her,
Or else—pop her into an oven and bake her!

No one, in short, ever came half so near, as he
Did, to the full extirpation of heresy;
And if, in the times of which now I am treating,
There had been such a thing as a “Manchester Meeting,”
“Pretty pork” he'd have made “Moderator” and “Minister,”
Had he but caught them on his side Cape Finisterre;—
Pye Smith, and the rest of them once in his bonfire, hence-forth
you'd have heard little more of the “Conference.”
And—there on the opposite side of the ring,
He, too, sits “in his Glory,” confronting the King,
With his cast-iron countenance frowning austerely
That matched with his en bon point body but queerly,
For, though grim his visage, his person was pursy,
Belying the rumour Of fat folks' good humour;
Above waves his banner of “Justice and Mercy,”
Below and around stand a terrible band adding
much to the scene—viz. The “Holy Hermandad,’
That's “Brotherhood,”—each looking grave as a Grand-dad.
Within the arena Before them is seen a
Strange, odd-looking group, each one dress'd in a garment
Not “dandified” clearly, as certainly “varment,”
Being all over vipers and snakes, and stuck thick

With multiplied silhouette profiles of Nick;
And a cap of the same, All devils and flame,
Extinguisher-shaped, much like Salisbury Spire,
Except that the latter's of course somewhat higher;
A long yellow pin-a-fore Hangs down each chin afore,
On which, ere the wearer had donn'd it, a man drew
The Scotch badge, a Saltire, or Cross of St. Andrew;
Though I fairly confess I am quite at a loss
To guess why they should choose that particular cross,
Or to make clear to you What the Scotch had to do
At all with the business in hand,—though it's true
That the vestment aforesaid, perhaps from its hue,
Viz. yellow, in juxta-position with blue,
(A tinge of which latter tint could but accrue
On the faces of wretches, of course, in a stew
As to what their tormentors were going to do,)
Might make people fancy, who no better knew,
They were somehow connected with Jeffrey's Review;
Especially too As it's certain that few
Things would make Father Dominic blither or happier
Than to catch hold of it, or its Chef, Macvey Napier.—
No matter for that—my description to crown,
All the flames and the devils were turn'd upside down
On this habit, facetiously term'd San Benito,
Much like the dress suit Of some nondescript brute
From the show-van of Wombwell, (not George,) or Polito.
And thrice happy they, Dress'd out in this way
To appear with éclat at the Auto-da-fé,—
Thrice happy indeed whom the good luck might fall to
Of devils tail upward, and “Fuego revolto,”
For, only see there, In the midst of the Square,
Where, perch'd up on poles six feet high in the air
Sit, chained to the stake, some two, three, or four pair
Of wretches, whose eyes, nose, complexion, and hair
Their Jewish descent but too plainly declare,
Each clothed in a garment more frightful by far, a
Smock-frock sort of gaberdine, call'd a Samarra,

With three times the number of devils upon it,—
A proportion observed on the sugar-loaf'd bonnet,
With this farther distinction—of mischief a proof—
That every fiend Jack stands upright on his hoof!
While the pictured flames, spread Over body and head,
Are three times as crooked, and three times as red!
All, too, pointing upwards, as much as to say,
“Here's the real bonne bouche of the Auto-da-fé.”

Torquemada, meanwhile, With his cold, cruel smile,
Sits looking on calmly, and watching the pile,
As his hooded “Familiars” (their names, as some tell, come
From their being so much more “familiar” than “welcome,”)
Have, by this time, begun To be “poking their fun,”
And their firebrands, as if they were so many posies
Of lilies and roses, Up to the noses
Of Lazarus Levi and Money Ben Moses;
While similar treatment is forcing out hollow moans
From Aby Ben Lasco and Ikey Ben Solomons,
Whose beards—this a black, that inclining to grizzle—
Are smoking, and curling, and all in a fizzle;
The King, at the same time, his Dons and his visitors,
Sit, sporting smiles, like the Holy Inquisitors,—

Enough!—no more!— Thank Heaven, 'tis o'er
The tragedy's done! and we now draw a veil
O'er a scene which makes outraged humanity quail;
The last fire's exhausted, and spent like a rocket,
The last wretched Hebrew's burnt down in his socket!
The Barriers are open, and all, saints and sinners,
King, Court, Lords, and Commons, gone home to their dinners,
With a pleasing emotion Produced by the notion
Of having exhibited so much devotion,
All chuckling to think how the Saints are delighted
At having seen so many “Smouches” ignited:—
All, save Privy-purse Humez, Who sconced in his room is,
And, Cocker in hand, in his leather-backed chair,
Is puzzling to find out how much the “affair”

(By deep calculations, the which I can't follow,) cost,—
The tottle, in short, of the whole of the Holocaust.

Perhaps you may think it a rather odd thing,
That, while talking so much of the Court and the King,
In describing the scene Through which we've just been
I've not said one syllable as to the Queen;
Especially, too, as her Majesty's “Whereabouts,”
All things considered, might well be thought thereabouts;
The fact was, however, although little known,
Sa Magestad had hit on a plan of her own,
And suspecting, perhaps, that an Auto alone
Might fail in securing this “Heir to the throne,”
Had made up her mind, Although well inclined
Towards galas and shows of no matter what kind,
For once to retire, And bribe the Saints higher
Than merely by sitting and seeing a fire,—
A sight, after all, she did not much admire;
So she locked herself up, Without platter or cup,
In her Oriel, resolved not take bite or sup,
Not so much as her matin-draught (our “early purl”)
Nor put on her jewels, nor e'en let the girl,
Who helped her to dress, take her hair out of curl,
But to pass the whole morning in telling her beads,
And in reading the lives of the Saints, and their deeds
And in vowing to visit, without shoes or sandals,
Their shrines, with unlimited orders for candles,
Holy water, and Masses of Mozart's and Handel's.
And many a Pater, and Ave, and Credo
Did She, and her Father Confessor, Quevedo,
(The clever Archbishop, you know, of Toledo,)
Who came, as before, at a very short warning,
Get through, without doubt, in the course of that morning;

Shut up, as they were, With nobody there
To at all interfere with so pious a pair;
And the Saints must have been stony-hearted indeed,
If they had not allow'd all these pains to succeed.
Nay, it's not quite clear to me but their very ability
Might, Spain throughout, Have been brought into doubt,
Had the Royal bed still remain'd cursed with sterility;
St. Jago, however, who always is jealous
In Spanish affairs as their best authors tell us,
And who, if he saw Anything like a flaw
In Spain's welfare, would soon sing, “Old Rose, burn the bellows!”
Set matters to rights like a King of good fellows:
By his interference, Three-fourths of a year hence,
There was nothing but capering, dancing, and singing,
Cachucas, Boleros, and bells set a ringing,
In both the Castilles, Triple-bob-major peals,
Rope-dancing, and tumbling, and somerset-flinging,
Seguidillas, Fandangos, While ev'ry gun bang goes;
And all the way through, from Gibraltar to Biscay,
Figueras and Sherry make all the Dons frisky,
(Save Moore's “Blake's and O'Donnell's,” who stick to the whisky;)
All the day long The dance and the song
Continue the general joy to prolong;
And even long after the close of the day
You can hear little else but “Hip! hip! hurray!”
The Escurial, however, is not quite so gay,
For, whether the Saint had not perfectly heard
The petition the Queen and Archbishop preferred,—
Or whether his head, from his not being used
To an Auto-da-fé, was a little confused,—
Or whether the King, in the smoke and the smother,
Got bother'd, and so made some blunder or other,
I am sure I can't say; All I know is, that day
There must have been some mistake?—that, I'm afraid, is
Only too clear, Inasmuch as the dear
Royal Twins,—though fine babies,—proved both little Ladies!

“Vedi Napoli e poi mori!”

“Quem não tem visto Lisboa Não tem visto cousa boa.”

“Rio verde, Rio Verde, &c.” “Glassy water, glassy water, Down whose current clear and strong, Chiefs, confused in mutual slaughter, Moor and Christian, roll along.”—Old Spanish Romance.

Cum multis aliis quæ nunc perscribere longum est. Propria quæ maribus.

O fortunati nimium sua si bona nôrint!

That is, She would have ordered them—but none are known, I fear, as his, For Handel never wrote a Mass, and so She'd David Perez's— Bow! wow! wow! Fol, lol. &c. &c.” (Posthumous Note by the Ghost of James Smith, Esq.)