Historia de Barcelona

Categoría: Glimpses of Spain

Wallis////Severn Teackle//// //// //// //// ////1849////Glimpses of Spain; or, Notes of an unfinished tour in 1847//// //// ////New York////Harper & Brothers

  • Una llegada en barco

    Arrival at Barcelona

    Next day the wind was heavy and ahead, and nothing kept us of good cheer, but the tidings which some of the more fortunate would occasionally bring down to us of mountain and promontory, as we ran along the coast of Catalonia. It was near nine, of a cloudy, gusty night, when we dropped anchor, at last, in the harbor of Barcelona, our voyage having been longer than usual, by about one-third. The lateness of our arrival of course prevented us from going on shore, so that we lost an opportunity of seeing the «entierro de Cristo,» a grand funeral procession by torchlight, which still forms a part, as we learned, of the Good Friday ceremonial in Barcelona, though it has been abolished in almost all the rest of Spain. Wretched as we were, however, we crept from our state-rooms to the deck, to see what was to be seen: but the ship was out in the throat of the harbor, and still rode heavily, so that the glimpse we caught of the far-off lights of the city was but little worth the penalty we paid for it.

  • Barcelona en 1847: huevos de Pascua, la Mona

    Easter Eggs—La Mona

    Books on symbolism are very much in vogue now, and some of the writers in that line would not be occupying their abilities much less profitably than usual, were they to investigate the mystical connection between Easter and dyed hens’ eggs. But a fortnight before my arrival in Barcelona, I had seen old women, by the score, hawking the last-named commodity about, under the wings of the lion of St. Mark’s, in anticipation of the holy season. Mrs. Butler, in her «Year of Consolation,» tells us that she saw Easter-eggs in Rome, decked with feathers and artificial flowers, but that they were not by any means as beautiful as some that she had seen, from Russia. Every one knows how deadly a blow is given to the hopes of young poultry in embryo, by the approach of the same solemn feast with us in the United States, and if therefore there be any thing in the orthodox maxim, «quod semper et ubique,» &c, the custom in question must be as near orthodoxy as any thing profane can be. Drake says that «Pasche eggs» were eaten in England in the sixteenth century, as emblematic of the resurrection; a ceremony which, he informs us, was recognized by the Ritual of Pope Paul V., wherein there is a form of prayer for their consecration. It would puzzle the most learned symbolist, however, it occurs to me, to fathom the peculiar system of correspondences which the Barcelonese have instituted in the premises. Not only was there every variety of hue and device upon the shells, but in the windows of every pastrycook or baker, and at all the stalls where appetite was tempted, in the public places, there were piles of loaves, shaped very much like shoe-lasts, and having at each end, an egg, strapped and baked nicely and securely in, between two slips of erust or pastry. On Easter-eve, it was edifying to see how women, men, and children («oh dura ilia!«) not having the fear of indigestion before their eyes, thronged to possess themselves of the commodity, with the deliberate intention, of eating it. They called this bread la mona—the monkey—and a challenge to eat the monkey—comer la mona—is one which all the world is ready to give or to accept. A kind acquaintance, native and to the mona born, gave me its history, and commended it to me as a special luxury. Even my Spanish predilections, however, were not equal, I confess, to such a test, and I thus began to learn, what is not altogether useless to an American, that a stranger must be excused, at first, if he is not able to swallow «peculiar institutions,» with a relish.

    The crowd continued, late and busy, on the Rambla, and when I retired, the lights were still blazing in gay vistas along it, though the watchmen were crying «Ave Maria purissima,» in token that it was midnight. I strove to win slumber within my red bed-curtains, but a love-lorn troubadour of a cat, with a strong smack of the Limousin in his accent (and who had probably come up, like my friend the marquis, to the opening of the opera), sang serenades in my sleepless ear till it was almost morning.

  • Barcelona en 1847: llegada y burocracia

    Arrival at Barcelona, and Tribulations at the Customhouse

    The next morning I rose as they were warping the steamer into port. The city lay beautifully in the center of its amphitheater of hills. Upon the left, as we faced it, towered up Montjuich, with its lofty and impregnable fortress, so famous, unhappily, in civil broil. To the right and near us, was the fine mole, behind which was the suburb of Barceloneta, with its painted dwellings and its crowd of factories and busy industry. In the inner harbor, just in front of us, lay quite a fleet of vessels, from many nations, all with their colors at half-mast, to betoken the solemnity of the religious festival. The buildings of the city-proper looked white and imposing in the distance, and every thing ashore was inviting enough to make us more and more impatient of the health-officer’s delay. At last, that functionary came: took our papers, as if we had been direct from Constantinople, with the plague sealed up in a dispatch for him: but finding, officially, as he knew, in fact, before, that we were just from La Ciotat, and had with us no contagion, he finally gave us leave to land and be persecuted at the Custom-house. Leaving our luggage to be trundled up in solido after us, we gave ourselves into the hands of the boatmen, who landed us safely charged us mercifully, and bade us «go with God.»

    After a short walk we reached a gate where we were told to halt and give our names to an officer. We dictated and he wrote, but I trust he may not be held to strict account for the perverted and unchristian style in which he handed us down to posterity and the police. Many a more innocent looking word than he made of my name, have I seen (in Borrow’s «Zincali,» for instance) traced all the way back to the Sanscrit. After being thus translated into Catalan we were called up, by our new titles, to be searched. This process was not very easy to bear patiently, for the custom-house officers are the principal agents through whom France fraternizes with Catalonia, in the smuggling-line, and we felt that they might, with a good conscience, have said nothing about our gnats, after having swallowed so many camels of their own. Nevertheless, we all managed to keep temper, except the Italian, who, as he had never gone twenty miles, in his own country, without having to bribe a custom-house squad, felt it his duty to be especially indignant at the same thing, when away from home. He had designed (he said) to give the rascals a «petseta» (as he would persist in calling the peseta, or twenty-cent-piece) but he would not encourage such villainy! The officials shrugged their shoulders, thought that something must be wrong, felt his pockets over again, and after having politely requested him to pull out the contents, begged him to «pasar adelante,» or, in other words, get out of the way, with his nonsense. He was prudent enough to obey, but not without some very didactic observations upon «questi Spagnoli,» in general, and inspectors of the customs, especially. We then marched to the palace-square, upon which the «Cafe de las siete puertas,» opened one of its seven portals to welcome us to breakfast. The Custom-house was opposite, and in due season we became possessed of our carpet-bags, and proceeded to the «Fonda del Oriente,» which had been recommended to us as the best hotel in the city.

    The Fonda is a fine-looking house, fronting on the Rambla, the principal public walk, and would, no doubt, be very comfortable among the orientals, with whom its name asserts consanguinity; but as the cold spring wind still whistled from the hills, it gave us small promise of comfort, with its tiled floors uncarpeted, its unchimneyed walls, and its balconies with long, wide windows, so admirable to look out from, and so convenient for the breeze to enter. I pulled aside the crimson curtains which shut up my bed in an alcove, and there came from it an atmosphere so damp and chill, that I did not wonder at the hoarseness of the artists in the adjoining chamber, who were rehearsing what would have been a trio, had not the influenza added another part. It being very obvious that comfort and amusement were only to be found out of doors, we soon had a rendezvous in the court. The Fonda was a famous gathering-place of diligences, and there was one which had just arrived. We had made large calculations upon the grotesqueness of these vehicles, for we had all read the strange stories which travelers tell of them; but, unhappily, the one before us was a capital carriage, of the latest style and best construction, and the conductor and postillion looked and swore very much after the manner of the best specimens of their class in France and Italy. Only the mules excited our wonder. There were eight of them—tall, powerful animals, and each was shorn to the skin, from hough to shoulder-point, with little tufts upon the extremities of ears and tail. They might readily have passed for gigantic rats, of an antediluvian species with a hard name, or a new variety of Dr. Obed Batteus’s «Vespertilio horribilis Americanus.»

  • Barcelona en 1847: la Rambla, comparación con Marsella, edificios públicos, la catedral, Colón

    The Rambla and the People on Promenade—Theophile Gautier—Marseilles and Barcelona contrasted—Public Buildings—The Cathedral—Christopher Columbus

    The Rambla, a wide and pleasant promenade, runs from the outer edge of the city, to the water. The trees along its sides had not taken the coloring of spring, and the weather was raw and gusty, but it was a half-holiday, and gentle and simple were taking their noon-day walk. The wealthier classes wore plain colors universally: the men enveloped in their cloaks, the women in rich, black mantillas, the lace of which just flung a shadow on their faces. The poorer people, as in all countries, furnished the picturesque. Full of leisure and independence, for the moment, they went sauntering up and down; the women with gay shawls drawn high around their heads, and their long silver or gold ear-rings, with huge pendants of topaz glancing in the sun; the men in long caps of red or purple, and striped and tasseled mantles, making lively contrast with the rich and various uniforms of the soldiers who were on the stroll. Now and then among the crowd you might discover the peaked hat so general in the south, bedecked with velvet trimmings, and tufts of black wool upon the brim and crown. Accompanying it, there would be a short fantastic jacket, with large bell buttons dangling, while the nether man was gorgeous in breeches of bright blue, with black leggings, and the everlasting alpargata, or hempen sandal. «Who are those troops?» I inquired of an old man, as a squad passed us, half-peasant, half-soldier in costume, their long, blue coats with red facings fluttering loose behind them. » They are the mozos de la escuadra,» he replied. «What is their branch of service?» «To keep the province clear of thieves.» «Are there, then, thieves in Catalonia?» «O! si senor! los hay, creo, en todas partes, como vmd. sabra» («Oh yes, sir, there are some every where, I think, as your worship may know,») said the old rascal, with a knowing leer.

    Theophile Gautier, in his pleasant «Voyage en Espagne,» has sufficient gravity to say that Barcelona has nothing of the Spanish type about it, but the Catalonian caps and pantaloons, barring which, he thinks it might readily be taken for a French city, nay, even for Marseilles, which, to his notion, it strikingly resembles. Now it may be true, as Dumas says, that Theophile professes to know Spain better than the Spaniards themselves; a peculiarity, by-the-by, among travelers, which the Spaniards seem to have had the luck of; but I must be pardoned upon this point, for knowing Marseilles better than he, having been there twice, for my sins, and too recently to be under any illusions on the subject. Dust from my feet I had not shaken off against that dirty city, because dust there was none, when I was there, and the mud, which was its substitute, was too tenacious to be easily disposed of. Yet I had sickening recollections of its dark and inconceivably filthy port, through all of whose multiplied and complicated abominations—solid, liquid, and gaseous—it was necessary to pass, before obtaining the limited relief which its principal but shabby street, «la Cannebière afforded. In the whole city, I saw scarce a public building which it was not more agreeable to walk away from than to visit. What was worth seeing had a new look, and with the exception of a sarcophagus or two, and the title of «Phocéens,» assumed by the Merchant’s Club, in right of their supposed ancestors from Asia Minor, there was really nothing which pretended to connect itself, substantially, with the past. Every thing seemed under the influence of trade—prosperous and ample, it is true, but too engrossing to liberalize or adorn.

    In Barcelona, on the contrary, you look from your vessel’s deck upon the Muralla del Mar, or sea-wall, a superb rampart, facing the whole harbor, and lined with elegant and lofty buildings. Of the churches, I shall speak presently. Upon the Rambla are two theaters : one opened during my visit, and decidedly among the most spacious and elegant in Europe; the other of more moderate pretensions, but tasteful and commodious, with an imposing facade of marble. In the Palace Square, the famous Casa Lonja, or Merchants’ Hall, stands opposite a stately pile of buildings, erected by private enterprise, and rivaling the beauty of the Rue Rivoli of Paris, or its models, the streets of Bologna, where all the side-walks are under arcades. On the other side of the same Plaza, the palace, a painted Gothic, fronts the Custom-house, which, overladen as it is with ornament, has yet no rival in Marseilles. Toward the center of the city, in the Square of the Constitution, you have on one side the ancient Audiencia, or Hall of Justice, whose architectural relics bring back remembrances of Rouen, while on the other side is the Casa Consistorial, or House of the Consistory, associated in its fine architecture and name, if not its present uses, with the days when the troubadour and the gaye science were at home in Barcelona, under the polished rule of the Arragonian kings. Every where throughout the city, you see traces of the past, and of a great and enterprising people who lived in it. Instead of the prostration and poverty which books of travel might prepare you to expect as necessary to a Spanish city, you find new buildings going up, in the place of old ones demolished to make room for them; streets widened; domestic architecture cultivated tastefully (as, indeed, from the ancient dwellings, it would seem to have always been in Barcelona), together with all the evidences of capital and enterprise, made visible to a degree, which Marseilles, with its vastly superior commerce and larger population, does not surpass.

    Nor, even as to the people, are the caps and trowsers the only un-French features. The Catalan, of either sex, is not graceful, it is true, or very comely. The women want the beauty, the walk, the style of the Andalusians. The men are more reserved in manner, less elegant and striking in form, more sober in costume and character than their gay southern brethren. But they are not French men or women, notwithstanding. Imagine a Marseillaise in a mantilla! «Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown»—even if it be but the crown of a bonnet; and it is impossible for one who has been bred to the use of those great equalizers of female head-carriage, to realize, much less to attain, the ease of motion, the fine free bearing of the head, neck, and shoulders, which the simple costume of the Spanish women teaches, and requires to make it graceful. Where, in the mincing gait on the trottoirs, will you find the proud, elastic step which the Spanish maiden is born to, even if it be her only inheritance? And where (to speak generally) among the loungers of cafes, and readers of feuilletons, or the proverbially brutal populace about them, do you see the parallel of that all-respecting self-respect, which it is a miracle not to find in the bearing of a Spaniard, be he high or low? It is an easy thing, M. Gautier, to condense a city into a paragraph!

    From the Rambla, we went down, along the sea-wall, to the Palace Square, where we found our way into the Lonja. The chambers of the commercial tribunals were in excellent taste. In each, there hung a portrait of the Queen, and, as all the likenesses were very much alike, I fear that they resembled her. We were shown through a gallery of bad pictures and statues—not very flattering testimonials of Catalonian art. During one of the recent revolutions, some indiscriminating cannon-balls had left these melancholy manifestations untouched, and had done a good deal of damage to the fine Gothic hall of the merchants. None but bullets fired in a bad cause could have conducted themselves so tastelessly. I would fain believe, however, that the more judicious Barcelonese have satisfied themselves, that the practical, not the ideal, is their forte, inasmuch as the extensive schools in the Lonja which are supported by the Board of Commerce, are all directed with a view to usefulness. Those of drawing and architecture are upon a scale to afford facilities, the tithe of which I should be happy to see gratuitously offered to the poor, in any city of our Union.

    An attractive writer (the author of the «Year in Spain») tells us that » the churches of Barcelona are not remarkable for beauty.» Externally, he must have meant, which, to a certain extent, perhaps, is true; but as to their interior, it is impossible to understand such a conclusion. The Cathedral and Santa Maria del Mar are remarkable, not only as graceful specimens, in themselves, of the most delicate Gothic art, but as resembling, particularly, in style, in the color of their dark-gray stone, and in their gorgeous windows, the very finest of the Norman models. Indeed, the great prevalence of this similarity in the churches of the province, has induced the belief, among approved writers, that the Normans themselves introduced the Gothic into Catalonia. Santa Maria del Mar reminds you, at a respectful distance, of St. Ouen, in the boldness and elevation of its columns and arches, and the splendor of its lights. It has an exquisite semi-circular apsis, corresponding to which is a colonnade of the same form surrounding the rear of the high altar; a feature peculiar to the Barcelonese churches, and giving to their interior a finish of great airiness and grace.

    From Santa Maria, we rambled up to the Cathedral, through many by-streets and cross-ways, passing through the oldest and quaintest portion of the city, and occasionally creeping under a queer, heavy archway, that seemed to date back almost to the days of Ramon Berenguer. Fortunately, we entered the church by one of the transept doors, and thus avoided seeing, until afterward, the unfinished, unmannerly facade. It would not be easy to describe the impression made on me by my first view of the interior of this grand temple, without the use of language more glowing, perhaps, than critical. When we entered, many of the windows were shaded; and it was some time before our eyes, fresh from the glare of outer day, became sufficiently accustomed to the gloom, to search out the fairy architecture in it. But, by degrees, the fine galleries, the gorgeous glass, the simple and lofty arches in concentering clusters, the light columns of the altar-screen, and the perfect fret-work of the choir, grew into distinctness, until they bewildered us with their beautiful detail. What treatises, what wood-cuts, what eulogies, should we not have, if the quaint carvings, of which the choir is a labyrinth, were transferred to Westminster, and the stalls and canopies of the Knights of the Golden Fleece were side by side with those of Henry the Seventh’s far-famed chapel! The same dark heads of Saracens which looked down on us from the «corbels grim,» had seen a fair gathering of chivalry, when Charles V., surrounded by many of the gallant knights whose blazons were still bright around us, held the last chapter of his favorite order there! Perhaps—and how much more elevating was the thought than all the dreams of knighthood !—perhaps, in the same solemn light which a chance ray of sunshine flung down the solitary nave, Columbus might have knelt before that very altar, when Barcelona hailed him as the discoverer of a world ! Let us tread reverently ! He may have pressed the very stones beneath our feet, when, in his gratitude, he vowed to Heaven, that with horse and foot he would redeem the Holy Sepulcher! «Satan disturbed all this,» he said, long after, in his melancholy way, when writing to the Holy Father; «but,» then he adds, «it were better I should say nothing of this, than speak of it lightly.» May it not have been, even in the moments of his first exultation, that here, in the shadow of these gray and awful aisles, he had forebodings of hopes that were to be blighted, and proud projects of ambitious life cast irretrievably away?

  • Misa en la catedral, Domingo de Resurrección. Una cabalgata a Gracia y Montjuic. La «Compañia Anglo-Americana» en la plaza de toros. Apertura del gran teatro del Liceo de Isabel II: el Liceo, bonito, las mujeres, feas

    High Mass on Easter Sunday

    Our first enterprise, on Easter Sunday, was to endeavor to mount one of the Cathedral towers, and to have, as it was a bright day, a bird’s-eye view of the city and its environs. In prosecution of our plan we entered the body of the church, about half an hour before high mass had ended. The aisles which we had seen all lonely the day before, were crowded with zealous worshipers—the high altar was blazing with a multitude of soft lights; the ceremonial and vestments were very rich; the choir was full, and a fine orchestra (for Barcelona is very musical) aided the sweet-toned organ. High over all, the morning sun streamed through the painted windows, and you could see the incense which was fragrant hefore the altar, curling around the capitals, and clinging to the arches. The whole was deeply impressive, and I could not but observe the contrast of the congregation, in its silent and attentive worship, with the restless, and sometimes noisy devotions of which I had seen so much in Italy. Here were no marchings to and fro; no gazing at pictures; no turning of backs upon the altar; no groups, for conversazione, round the columns; nothing to mar the solemnity of the occasion, or break the echoes of the majestic music, as they swept along the lofty roof, seeming almost to stir to motion the old pennons that hang above the altar, so high, and now so much the worse for time, that their proud quarterings are visible no more. At last, the service came to its end, and the people went their ways to—buy tickets for the theater. At all events, we met a considerable portion of the congregation, thus occupied, when we went down the street soon after. The sacristan would not allow us to ascend the tower without a permit, which it was then too late to procure, so that after straying a little while through the beautiful cloisters, where fine orange and lemon-trees and bright, fragrant flowers charmed away the sadness of the worn gray stone, we returned to our Fonda, to seek the means of visiting some of the environs.

    A ride to Gracia—Montjuich

    After we had waited for an hour, a fellow made his appearance in the court-yard, driving a huge lumbering vehicle, covered with green and gold, very square and peculiar in shape, but, on the whole, sufficiently coachiform, and drawn by a pair of long-tailed blacks, with collars, on which jingled many bells. We made our bargain, and were cheated, of course, as we afterward found; horse and coach-dealing being, here as elsewhere, greatly subversive of moral principle. Away we went, up the Rambla, at a great pace, to the astonishment and apparent amusement of the crowd. Once outside the walls, our coachman gave us the benefit of slow jolts over a rough road to Gracia, a little village some two miles from the city, which is surrounded, and in some degree formed, by country-houses and their appurtenances. No doubt, in the summer season, this excursion may be a pleasant one, but the cold driving wind which came down from the mountains as we took it, made it bleak enough to us. Hedges of roses, it is true, were in luxuriant bloom, and the fertile fields of the Pla (plain) were as green as spring could make them. The aloe and the prickly-pear too, did their best to look tropical, but it was a useless effort, for the wind beat and battered them rudely, and they and the painted torres (towers), or country-boxes, looked uncomfortably out of place, naked, desolate, and chilly. To turn our backs upon the breeze, we directed our driver to carry us to Montjuich, which, as I have said, is a commanding eminence to the southwest, on the left hand as you enter the harbor. Creeping slowly around the outside of the city walls, which are heavy, strong, and well guarded, we passed by the quarter where the forest of tall chimneys indicated the business hive of the manufacturers, and then, crossing a fertile plateau beautifully irrigated and in high cultivation, we were set down at the foot of Montjuich. Up the hill we toiled, faithfully and painfully, on foot. Ford calls it a «fine zig-zag road.» I will testify to the zig-zig—but as to the fineness must beg leave to distinguish. At last we reached the fortress, which sits impregnable upon the summit, and to our chagrin were quietly informed by the sentinel at the postern, that we could not enter, without a permit. This we had not provided, through ignorance of its necessity, and we accordingly put in our claim to their politeness, as strangers. The sentinel called the corporal, the corporal went to his officer, the officer hunted up the governor, and by the same gradations a polite message descended to us, to the effect, that, as we were strangers, the usual requisitions would be waived, if we knew any body in the castle by name, whom we could go through the form of asking for. We knew no one, and being reasonable people, went on our way in ill humor with no one but ourselves. Not being, any of us, military men, which in a company of three, from our land of colonels, was quite a wonder, we persuaded ourselves that we had not lost much, for from the base of the fortress we had a charming view of the white city; its fine edifices, public and private, with their flat roofs and polygonal towers; the harbor, with all its festive banners streaming; the green valley, carrying plenty up into the gorges of the hills; and the sea, rolling far as eye could reach, a few dim specks of canvas here and there whitening its bosom.

    The Plaza de Toros, and Yankee Company

    Returning to the city, we crossed to the Garden of the General, a sweet little spot, prettily laid out, and planted with box and innumerable flowering shrubs, which were in delicious fragrance and bloom. There were fountains and aviaries there; fish-ponds, duck-ponds, and even goose-ponds, and all manner of people, of all sorts and ages. This garden, with a little walk beside it, is the last of a series of beautiful promenades which lead into each other, traversing the whole city, from the groves upon its outskirts to the splendid terraces along the shore.

    By this time we were well-nigh fatigued enough, but there was still an exhibition to be witnessed, which it did not become us, as good patriots, to neglect. The Plaza de Toros, or bull-amphitheater, was the gathering-place of the whole population; not, however, to behold the fierce combats peculiar to its arena, for with such things the tumultuous burghers of Barcelona were not to be trusted. A harmless substitute there was, in the shape of the «Compañia Anglo-Americana,» or Yankee company, who were delighting the sons of the troubadours with their gymnastics. Every body remembers the remoteness of the regions, into which the Haytien dignitary had the assurance to say that our estimable countrymen would follow a bag of coffee. Here was a parallel case. As we entered, Jonathan was performing a hornpipe, on stilts, much more at his ease (it being Sunday) than if he had been at home within sight of Plymouth Rock. He then gave them a wrestling match, after the manner which is popularly ascribed to «the ancients;» afterward, a few classical attitudes, with distortions of muscle, according to the Michael Angelesque models, and, finally, made his appearance as a big green frog, so perfectly natural, both in costume and deportment, that in Paris he would have run the risk, scientific and culinary, of having his nether limbs both galvanized and fried. We paid him the respect of our presence and applause for a little while, and lingered to witness the excitement of the immense assemblage, so strange and picturesque, and to hear their wild cries and saucy jests. The afternoon then being quite well advanced, we were trundled home, in due magnificence, to a worse dinner than we had earned.

    Opening of the Great Opera House—Social Habits of the Barcelonese—Musical Tastes

    About seven in the evening, a kind gentleman of the city called, by arrangement, to conduct me to the opening of the new Opera-house, the Liceo de Ysabel Segunda. There was a crowd around the entrances, and we found it difficult to make our way in, so that I had time enough to see that the façade, which looked paltry by day-light, was no better with the benefit of the grand illumination. The front, however, and some few of the minor arrangements of the interior, were all that could be reasonably found fault with; for the establishment is really magnificent, and full of the appliances of taste and luxury. Its cost was one hundred and fifty thousand dollars; and the stockholders had no doubt of being able to realize the interest of this large sum, and more, from the rent of the elegant shops upon the ground floor. I mention this fact, as an evidence both of enterprise and prosperity. The grand circle of the theater is larger, by measurement, than that of the San Carlo at Naples, or the Scala of Milan; and being finished, like the Italian Opera-house at Paris, with balconies, or galleries, in front of the boxes and slightly below their level, it has a far more graceful and amphitheater-like effect than the perpendicular box-fronts of the Italian houses, and especially the close, dingy walls of the Scala. The ornaments, though abundant, are neither profuse nor tawdry. The magnificent gas chandelier, aided by a thousand lesser lights, developed all the beautiful appointments of the boxes, with their drapery of gold and crimson, and the fine seen, cry, dresses, and decorations of the stage. I had seen nothing but the Italiens of Paris to rival the effect of the whole picture. The boxes of the lower tier are private property belonging to the contributors, or members of the Lyceum. My intelligent companion informed me that this is a species of property in very general request, there being scarcely a respectable family without a box, or, at all events, some special accommodations of its own, in some one of the theaters. The rights of the owners, he told me, are the subject of litigation almost as often as those relating to real property. They (the boxes and the law suits) descend from father to son.

    Each box in the Liceo has two apartments, as usual in Europe. In the outer one, which you enter from the lobby, and which is a sort of retiring room, you leave your cloak and hat, and perhaps meet those members of the family you visit, who are not interested in the performance and prefer a quiet chat. The inner boxes, of course, open on the body of the theater, and every one was in them on the evening of my visit. The assemblage was immense, and it would not be easy to find, any where, one indicating good taste and refinement more decidedly. The gentle sex must pardon me, however, for admitting that, to my eye, beauty was the exception that night, rather than the rule. I had expected more, for M. de Balzac had said somewhere of the Catalonian women, that their eyes were composed of «velvet and fire;» but I soon discovered that the remark had less foundation in fact, than in that peculiarity of the French imagination, which is so fond, in the descriptive, of mingling fancy with fancy-goods. I may be wrong, it is true, for the Imperial Frederick, seven centuries ago, in his best Limousin, declared—

    «I love the noble Frenchman,
    And the Catalonian maid.»

    And yet, I should not wonder if both the Gaul and the fair Catalan have undergone a change since those days.

    I learned, in the course of conversation in the evening, that the theater has much to do with the social enjoyments of Barcelona. Morning visits form the principal intercourse of ladies in their own houses. Evening parties are very rare, and it is only at the theaters that the higher classes meet, with freedom and frequency. The usages of etiquette are very easy and pleasant. If you are a friend, you drop in sans façon, and drop out when you like. If you are a stranger, you are presented to the lady of the box, and that formality gives you the freedom of the circle, and of all the conversation that goes round it—imposing the payment of no tribute but that of your best bow to each and all, when it pleases you to retire. There is no knowing what a quantity of pleasant business you can attend to during the progress of a long opera—making your pilgrimage to many shrines. Neither is it easy to calculate how much aid and comfort you may find from a solo or an orchestral movement, in those pauses of conversation, which, under ordinary circumstances, are so often uncomfortable, if not melancholy. It is difficult to discover whether fondness for music produced this custom in Barcelona, or whether the custom produced the fondness. One thing, however, is very certain: the Barcelonese are good musicians, and generally keep an excellent company. My friend the marquis, who was himself a director of an opera at home, informed me, that they pay so liberally for good artists, as to take a great many of the best second-rate performers from Italy. Their musical predilections are of long standing. A gentleman who knew, told me, in proof of it, that some of the earliest republications of Metastasio’s works were made at Barcelona. The prices of admission to the theaters are very low—so much so, that there is scarce a laborer too poor to find his way to the opera, on Sundays or feast days. By the returns of the ticket-offices, as published in the journals, the day after Easter, there were four thousand six hundred spectators at the opening of the Lyceum; over one thousand attended the Teatro nuevo; and between nine hundred and one thousand were at the Teatro principal. As music is what they generally hear, it will not seem strange that the humblest of them should be fond of it, and generally fair judges of its quality. This last, however, is more than I can honestly profess to be; and, therefore, I was rather pleased than otherwise that they had selected a historical play, for the opening of the Lyceum. It was by Ventura de la Vega, a living poet of considerable reputation and merit, and was founded on the popular and noble story of Ferdinand the First of Aragon, called «He of Antequera.» The piece of itself is full of fine passages, with excellent dramatic situations and effect, and was gotten up with great brilliancy. The part of Ferdinand was by the famous La Torre, considered the first master, and one of the best performers in Spain. He is a quiet actor, of fine personal appearance; something like Charles Kemble in his style, and, unhappily, a good deal like him in his voice, for he is growing old. His reading and articulation were admirable, but a great deal was lost, the house being too large for any thing but opera, ballet, or spectacle.

  • Una salida en barco para Valencia

    Departure for Valencia—The Coast

    We were early on board the Barcino, but it was full half-past nine, before we were rid of the motley crowd of carabineros and idlers, whom our approaching departure had gathered together. I can not say that I felt at all distressed, when the tinkling of the little bell admonished our white-headed English engineer to set his machinery in motion. I was tired of Barcelona, for reasons, not very satisfactory, perhaps, in the abstract, but altogether so to me. The Fonda was chilly, dirty, and unsavory; the weather was cold and blustering, and I was an invalid, tired of vain seeking after genial sunshine and balmy breezes. With any thing, therefore, but reluctance, I saw the waves beat on the beach as we rode gallantly away beneath Montjuich, and watched the city, till, like a beautiful white wreath, it sank upon the bosom of the sea. Then Montserrat appeared, and disappeared, and came again, combing the fleecy clouds with its crest of innumerable pinnacles ; and through a gap we now and then might see a spur of the snowy, far-off Pyrenees. The breeze, though brisk, was not troublesome, and so I sate on deck all day, enjoying the glimpses of white towns sparkling here and there upon the arid surface of the hills; or watching the graceful sweep of the feluccas and mystics and other lateen sailed vessels, farther out at sea. Toward evening we passed abreast of the Ebro, and wondered at the sudden change of the waters, from blue to green or greenish, which marked the tribute paid by this great river to the Mediterranean.

    We had parted, at Barcelona, with our friends, the marquis and the philosophical Frenchman, and had been reinforced by a company of Spaniards, mostly from the south, who made themselves very merry with the lieutenant and his spy-glass, and with a little Catalonian doctor, who had just written a pamphlet on the mineral waters of la Puda [de Montserrat], near Barcelona, and was starting on a journey of speculation, to excite some interest in behalf of his sulphur. As the clear night set in, they gathered in a group by the ship’s side and talked politics—a subject, under the circumstances, particularly interesting, even to one who had come from a country where there is never any stint in the domestic article. One and all seemed to bewail the absence of what they called Españolismo—Spanish spirit-among their rulers. The people, they thought well and liberally enough disposed—patriotiocally, too—but their leaders, and especially the army-officers who moved the springs of government, they all concurred in branding as a pack of sorry knaves, most of whom oould bo won to any policy by a. few crosses and pesetas. They accounted, very sensibly, for the corruption among the officers of the customs, by referring to the fact, that the ordinary carabineros receive but six reals (thirty cents) per day, on which it is a known and obvious fact that they can not live. They are compelled, therefore, to «take provoking gold» in order to keep soul and body together. Smuggling, however (they said) had greatly diminished since the introduction of steam-vessels as guardacostas, and the appointment, to their command, of officers of the navy, who are generally men of higher tone and character. The navy itself (they told me) was increasing steadily though slowly. A lieutenant, who was in the company, said that its demands were beyond the actual supply of officers. This fiery young gentleman was quite radical in his notions as to the mode of reforming existing abuses, for he made bold to say, that until Spain should have gone through a revolution like that of France, with a practical application of the guillotine to one half of the high heads, there would be no permanent change for the better. The Catalan doctor seemed to think, on the whole, that he would prefer the continuance of the contraband trade, to so executive a remedy. When I went to sleep, they had not settled the question.