A Sketch of the Court of Madrid, in the Reign of Charles Events connected with the Beginning of the French Invasion. -The Escurial at the Time of the Arrest of the Prince of State of Spain at the time of the general Rising against the LETTERS FROM SPAIN. LETTER I. Seville, May 1798. I AM inclined to think with you, that a Spaniard, who, like myself, has resided many years in England, is, perhaps, the fittest person to write an account of life, manners, and opinions as they exist in this country, and to shew them in the light which is most likely to interest an Englishman. The most acute and diligent travellers are subject to constant mistakes; and perhaps the more so, for what is generally thought a circumstance in their favour-a moderate knowledge of foreign languages. A traveller who uses only his eyes, will confine himself to the description of external objects; and though his narrative may be deficient in many topics of interest, it will cer B tainly be exempt from great and ludicrous blunders. The difficulty, which a person, with a smattering of the language of the country he is visiting, experiences every moment in the endeavour to communicate his own, and catch other men's thoughts, often urges him into a sort of mental rashness, which leads him to settle many a doubtful point for himself, and to forget the unlimited power, I should have said tyranny, of usage, in whatever relates to language. I still recollect the unlucky hit I made on my arrival in London, when, anxious beyond measure to catch every idiomatic expression, and reading the huge inscription of the Cannon Brewery at Knightsbridge, as the building had some resemblance to the great cannon-foundery in this town, I settled it in my mind that the genuine English idiom, for what I now should call casting, was no other than brewing cannon. This, however, was a mere verbal mistake. Not so that which I made when the word nursery stared me in the face every five minutes, as in a fine afternoon I approached your great metropolis, on the western road. Luxury and wealth, said I to myself, in a strain approaching to philosophic indignation, have at last blunted the best feelings of nature among the English. Surely, if I am to judge from this endless string of nurseries, the English ladies have gone a step beyond the unnatural practice of devolving their first maternal duties upon domestic hirelings. Here, it seems, the poor helpless infants are sent to be kept and suckled in crowds, in a decent kind of Foundling-Hospitals. You may easily guess that I knew but one signification of the words nursing and nursery. Fortunately I was not collecting materials for a book of travels during a summer excursion, otherwise I should now be enjoying all the honour of the originality of my remarks on the customs and manners of Old England. From similar mistakes I think myself safe enough in speaking of my native country; but I wish I could feel equal confidence as to the execution of the sketches you desire to obtain from me. I know you too well to doubt that my letters will, by some chance or other, find their way to some of the London Magazines, before they have been long in your hands. And only think, I intreat you, how I shall fret and fidget under the apprehension that some of your pert newspaper writers may fill up a whole column in some of their Suns or Stars, which, in spite of intervening seas and mountains, shall dart its baneful influence, and blast the character of infallibility, as an English scholar, which I have acquired since my return to Spain. I have so strongly rivetted the admiration of the Irish merchants in this place, that, in spite of their objection to my not calling tea ta, they submit to my decision every intricate question about your provoking shall and will: and surely it would be no small disparagement, in this land of proud Dons, to be posted up in a London paper as a murderer of the King's English. How fortunate was our famous Spanish traveller, my relative, Espriella* (for you know that there exists a family connexion between us by my mother's side) to find one of the best writers in England, willing to translate his letters! But since you will not allow me to write in my native language, and since, to say the truth, I feel a pleasure in using that which reminds me of the dear land which has been my second home-the land where I drew my first breath of liberty-the land which taught me how to retrieve, though imperfectly and with pain, the time which, under the influence of ignorance and superstition, I had lost in early youth-I will not delay a task which, should circumstances allow me to complete it, I intend as a token of friendship to you, and of gratitude and love to your country. * See Espriella's "Letters from England." |
