533. Robert Southey to Thomas
Southey [fragment], 22 June 1800
*
June 22. 1800.
My dear Tom,
We are just returned from a bull-feast, and I write to you while
the feelings occasioned by this spectacle are fresh. I had never before seen
one. The buffoonery of teazing bullocks at Madrid was rather foolish than cruel,
and its extreme folly excited laughter, as much at the spectators as the thing
itself. This is widely different. The handbill was pompous: – ‘Antonio de
Cordeiro, who had so distinguished himself last year, was again to perform. The
entertainment would deserve the approbation of a generous public. Ten bulls were
to be killed, four to be tormented; they were picked bulls, of the Marquis de
––’s breed (I forget his name), and chosen out for their courage and ferocity.’
Yesterday the bull-fighters paraded the streets, as you may have seen
rope-dancers and the ‘equestrian troop’ at Bristol fair; they were strangely
disfigured with masques; one fellow had a paunch and a Punch-hump-back, and all
were dressed in true tawdry style. Hot weather is always the season, and Sunday
always the day, the amusement being cool and devout! At half after four it
began: the hero was on horseback, and half a dozen men on foot to assist him;
about ten more sat with pitchforks to defend themselves, ready when wanted: the
bulls were all in the area till the amusement opened; they were not large, and
not the same breed as in England; they had more the face of the cow than the
short sulky look of gentlemen, – quiet, harmless animals, whom a child might
safely have played with, and a woman would have been ashamed to fear. So much
for their ferocity! Courage, indeed, they possessed; they
attacked only in self-defence, and you would, like me, have been angry to see a
fellow with a spear, provoking a bull whose horns were tipt with large balls,
the brave beast, all bleeding with wounds, still facing him with reluctant
resistance: once I saw crackers stuck into his neck to irritate him, and heard
them burst in his wounds; you will not wonder that I gave the Portuguese a
hearty and honest English curse. It is not an affair of courage; the horse is
trained, the bull’s horns muffled, and half a dozen fellows, each ready to
assist the other, and each with a cloak, on which the poor animal wastes his
anger: they have the rails to leap over, also, and they know that when they drop
the cloak he aims always at that; there is, therefore, little danger of a
bruise, and none of anything else. The amusement is, therefore, as cowardly as
cruel. I saw nine killed; the first wound sickened Edith, and my own eyes were not
always fixed upon the area. My curiosity was not, perhaps, strictly excusable,
but the pain which I endured was assuredly penalty enough. The fiercest of the
whole was one of the four who were only tormented; two fellows on asses attacked
him with goads, and he knocked them over and over with much spirit; two more
came on, standing each in the middle of a painted horse, ridiculously enough –
and I fancy those fellows will remember him for the next fortnight whenever they
turn in bed – and their sham horses were broken to pieces. Three dogs were
loosed at another bull, and effectually sickened. I hate bull-dogs; they are a
surly, vicious breed, ever ready to attack, mischievous and malicious enough to
deserve parliamentary praise from Mr. Wyndham and Mr. Canning. [1] A large theatre was completely full;
men, women, and children were clapping their hands at every wound, and watching
with delight the struggles of the dying beasts. It is a damnable sport! and much
to the honour of the English here they all dislike it – very rarely does an
Englishman or Englishwoman witness it a second time.
You will find in Thalaba one accurate image which I observed this
evening: a death-sweat darkening the dun hide of the
animal. [2] This amusement must
have mischievous effects; it makes cruelty familiar: and as for the assertion,
that bull-baiting, or bull-butchering, keeps up the courage of the nation, only
Wyndham and Canning could have been absurd enough and unfeeling enough to
believe it; – if it were true, the Spaniards ought to be the bravest nation in
the world, because their amusement is the most cruel; and a butcher ought to
make the best soldier.
On Thursday we go to Cintra; this, therefore, will be my last letter of Lisbon anecdote.
In Africa a Portuguese saw an ouran-outang, the most human beast that has yet
been discovered, walking quietly with a stick in his hand; he had the wickedness
to shoot him, and was not, as he ought to have been, hung for wilful murder. The
head and hands were sent here; I have seen them in the Museum, in spirits. I
have seen many an uglier fellow pass for a man, in spite of the definition that
makes him a reasoning animal: he has eyebrows, and a woolly head, almost like a
negro’s, but the face not black.
Fielding [3] died and was buried here. By a singular
fatality, four attempts have been made to erect a monument, and all have
miscarried. A Frenchman set on foot a subscription for this purpose, and many of
the factory engaged for one, two, or three moidores; circumstances took him from
Lisbon, and this dropped. Another Frenchman had a monument made at his own
expense, and paid for it; there was a fine French inscription, that, as his own
countrymen had never given the great Fielding a monument, it was reserved for a
Frenchman to honour his country by paying that respect to genius: he also went
away, and is now following the French Pretender; [4] and his monument lies among
masonry and rubbish, where I have sought for it in vain. Then De Visme [5] undertook the affair; and
the bust of Fielding, designed for this purpose, is still in the house which
belonged to him here. I know not what made this scheme abortive. Last, the
Prince of Brazil [6] went to work, and
the monument was made. The Lady Abbess of the New Convent [7] wished to see it; it was sent to her; she took a fancy to it,
and there it has remained ever since: and Fielding is still without a
monument.
De Visme introduced the present fashion of painting rooms in
stucco, with landscapes on the walls, and borders of flowers or arabesque; the
fashion is, I believe, Italian. The workmen whom he employed had taste enough to
be pleased with it, and it is general in all new houses. The ceilings are now
painted; thus, instead of the huge layer of boards which was usual, nothing can
look more cool, or be more convenient, for a cloth and soap cleans it.
In the larger old houses, here and in Spain, in the country,
there is usually a room with no windows, but, instead, arches quite open to the
air; the appearance is strange and picturesque, and I should esteem it one of
the inconveniences of Lisbon, that the intolerable dust prevents the enjoyment
of these open rooms there – the dust is a huge evil.
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We had the hot wind for three
days this week; a detestable burning blast, a bastard sort of siroc, tamed by
crossing the sea and the land, but which parches the lips, and torments you with
the Tantalus plague of fanning your cheek and heating it at the same time. The
sea breeze is, on the other hand, as delightful: we feel it immediately; it
cools the air, and freshens up all our languid feelings. In the West Indies they
call this wind the doctor – a good seamanly phrase for its healing and
comfortable effect.
At the time the aqueduct was built, a large reservoir was made
for its waste water. In winter, much water runs to waste; in summer, more is
wanted, and the watermen wait a long time round the fountain before they can in
turn fill their barrels: but these people, in building the reservoir, never
calculated the weight of the water till the building was finished, – so it
stands still uncovered, a useless pile, and a rare monument of the national
science. I saw a funeral from the country pass the window at night, the
attendants holding torches, and the body in the trunk coffin carried upon a
litter (that is, like a sedan chair carried by mules instead of men).
The servants here, in marketing, think it a part of their fair
profits to cheat you as much as they can, and have no idea that this is
dishonesty; it is a sort of commission they think they are entitled to. This is
so much the case, that one of these fellows, when he was stipulating about
wages, thought them too little, and inquired if he was to go to market; he was
told yes, and then he said he would come.
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The Queen’s stables serve as an asylum. Rogues and murderers go
there and do the work for nothing; they are safe by this means, and the people,
whose business it is to hire and pay the servants, pocket the money, so that
they infest the neighbourhood: they quarrelled with our dragoons, who broke into
the stables and thrashed them heartily, to the great satisfaction of the people
near.
God bless you! Edith’s love.
Yours,
R. S.
