Letters from Spain. White Joseph Blanco

so much as suspecting the existence of elegant literature, had it not been for my acquaintance with an excellent young man, much my senior at the university, who, by his own unassisted industry, had made some progress in the study and imitation of the classics.16 To him I owed my first acquaintance with Spanish poetry, and my earliest attempts at composition in my own language. My good fortune led me, but a short time after, to a member of the Colegio Mayor of this town—another self-improved man, whose extraordinary talents having enabled him, at the age of nineteen, to cast a gleam of good taste over the system of his own university of Osuna, made him subsequently, at Seville, the centre of a small club of students.17 Through the influence of his genius, and the gratuitous assistance he gave them in their studies, some of his private pupils rose so far above the mass of their academical fellows, as to shew by the fair, though scanty, produce of their minds, the rich promise which the state of their country yearly blasts.

      “In all the Spanish universities with which I am acquainted, I have observed a similar struggle between enterprising genius and constituted ignorance. Valencia, Granada, the college of San Fulgencio at Murcia; Salamanca, above all, and Seville, the least among them; have exhibited symptoms of rebellion, arising from the undaunted ardour of some young members, who having opened for themselves a path to knowledge, would, at some time or other, make a desperate effort to allure the rising generation to follow their steps. The boldest champions in this hopeless contest, have generally started among the professors of moral philosophy. Government had confined them to the puny Elements of Jacquier and Heinnecius; but a mind once set on “the proper study of mankind,” must be weak indeed not to extend its views beyond the limits prescribed by the ignorance of a despot or his ministers. With alarm and consternation to the white-tasselled heads,18 and thrilling hopes to their secret enemies, connected series of Theses have of late appeared among us, which, in spite of the studied caution of their language, betrayed both their origin and tendency. Genuine offspring of the French school, the very turn of their phrases gave strong indications of a style formed in defiance of the Holy Inquisition. But these fits of restless impatience have only secured the yoke they were intended to loosen. I have visited Salamanca after the great defeat of the philosophical party, the strongest that ever was formed in Spain. A man of first-rate literary character among us,19 whom merit and court favour had raised to one of the chief seats in the judicature of the country, but whom court caprice had, about this time, sent to rusticate at Salamanca, was doing me the honours of the place, when, approaching the convocation-hall of the university, we perceived the members of the faculty of divinity strolling about, while waiting for a meeting of their body. A runaway slave, still bearing the marks of the lash on his return, could not have shrunk more instinctively at the sight of the planters meeting at the council-room, than my friend did at the view of the cowls, ‘white, black, and grey,’ which partially hid the sleek faces of his offended masters. He had, it is true, been lucky enough to escape the imprisonment and subsequent penance in a monastery which was the sad lot of the chief of his routed party; but he himself was still suspected and watched closely. The rest of his friends, the flower of the university, had been kept for three or four years, in constant fear of their personal liberty, being often called before the secret tribunal to answer the most captious interrogatories about themselves and their acquaintance, but never put in possession of every count of the indictment. After this and a few such examples, we have, at last, perceived the folly of engaging in a desperate game, where no possible combination can, for the present, give the dissenting party a single chance of success.

      “French philosophy had not found its way to the university of Seville, at the time when I was studying divinity. Even the knowledge of the French language was a rare acquirement both among the professors and their hearers. I have mentioned, at the beginning of this sketch, that one of the few books which delighted my childhood was a Spanish translation of Telemachus. A fortunate incident had now thrown into my hands the original of my old favourite, and I attempted to understand a few lines by comparing them with the version. My success exceeded my hopes. Without either grammar or dictionary, I could, in a few weeks, read on: guessing a great deal, it is true, but visibly improving my knowledge of the idiom by comparing the force of unknown words in different passages. An odd volume of Racine’s tragedies was my next French book. Imperfectly as I must have understood that tender and elegant poet, his plays gave me so much pleasure, that by repeated readings I found myself able to understand French poetry. It was about this time that I made my invaluable acquaintance at our college. My friend had learned both French and Italian in a similar manner with myself. He was acquainted with one of the judges of our Audiencia, or provincial court of judicature, a man of great literary celebrity,20 who possessed a very good library, from whence I was indulged with French books, as well as Italian; for by a little ingenuity and the analogy of my own language, I had also enabled myself to read the language of Petrarch.

      “Hitherto I had never had courage enough to take a forbidden book in my hands. The excommunication impending over me by the words ipso facto, was indeed too terrific an object for my inexperienced mind. Delighted with my newly acquired taste for poetry and eloquence, I had never brooded over any religious doubts—or rather, sincerely adhering to the Roman Catholic law, which makes the examination of such doubts as great a crime as the denial of the article of belief they affect, I had always shrunk with terror from every heterodox suggestion. But my now intimate friend and guide had made canon law his profession. Ecclesiastical history, in which he was deeply versed, had, without weakening his Catholic principles, made him a pupil of that school of canonists who, both in Germany and France, having exposed the forgeries, by means of which papal power had made itself paramount to every human authority, were but too visibly disposed to a separation from Rome. My friend denied the existence of any power in the Church to inflict excommunication, without a declaratory sentence in consequence of the trial of the offender. Upon the strength of this doctrine, he made me read the ‘Discourses on Ecclesiastical History,’ by the Abbé Fleury—a work teeming with invective against monks and friars, doubts on modern miracles, and strictures on the virtues of modern saints. Eve’s heart, I confess, when

      ——her rash hand in evil hour

      Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck’d, she ate,

      could not have beaten more convulsively than mine, as I opened the forbidden book. Vague fears and doubts haunted my conscience for many days. But my friend, besides being a sound Catholic, was a devout man. He had lately taken priest’s orders, and was now not only my literary but my spiritual director. His abilities and his affection to me had obtained a most perfect command over my mind, and it was not long before I could match him in mental boldness, on points unconnected with articles of faith.