Letters from Spain. White Joseph Blanco
performed by different sets of fifty persons each. The utmost precision and regularity are observed in the distribution of their time. Roused by a large bell at five in the morning, they immediately assemble in the chapel to begin the meditation appointed for the day. At their meals they observe a deep silence; and no intercourse, even among each other, is permitted, except during one hour in the evening. The settled gloom of the house, the almost incessant reading and meditation upon subjects which, from their vagueness and infinitude, harass and bewilder the fancy, and that powerful sympathetic influence, which affects assemblies where all are intent on the same object and bent on similar feelings, render this house a modern cave of Trophonius, within whose dark cells cheerfulness is often extinguished for ever.
“Unskilful, indeed, must be the hand that, possessed of this engine, can fail to subdue the stoutest mind in which there lurks a particle of superstitious fear. But Father Vega is one of those men who are born to command a large portion of their fellow creatures, either by the usual means, or some contrivance of their own. The expulsion of the Jesuits during his probationship in that order, denied him the ample field on which his early views had been fixed. After a course of theological studies at the University, he became a member of the Oratorio, and soon attracted the notice of the whole town by his preaching. His active and bold mind combines qualities seldom found in the same individual. Clear-headed, resolute, and ambitious, the superstitious feelings which melt him into tears whenever he performs the Mass, have not in the least impaired the mental daringness he originally owes to nature. Though seldom mixing in society, he is a perfect man of the world. Far from compromising his lofty claims to respect, he flatters the proudest nobles of his spiritual train by well-timed bursts of affected rudeness, which, being a mere display of spiritual authority, perfectly consistent with a full acknowledgment of their worldly rank and dignity, give them, in the eyes of the more humble bystanders, the additional merit of Christian condescension. As an instance of this, I recollect his ordering the Marquis del Pedroso, one of the haughtiest men in this town, to fetch up-stairs from the chapel, a heavy gold frame set with jewels, in which the Host is exhibited, for the inspection of the company during the hour of recreation allowed in the Exercises. No man ever shewed such assurance and consciousness of Heaven’s delegated authority as Father Vega, in the Confessional. He reads the heart of his penitent—impresses the mind with the uselessness of disguise, and relieves shame by a strong feeling that he has anticipated disclosure. In preaching, his vehemence rivets the mind of the hearers; a wild luxuriance of style engages them with perpetual variety; expectation is kept alive by the remembered flashes of his wit; while the homely, and even coarse, expressions he allows himself, when he feels the whole audience already in his power, give him that air of superiority which seems to set no bounds to the freedom of manner.
“It is however, in his private chapel that Father Vega has prepared the grand scene of his triumphs over the hearts of his audience. Twice every day, during the Exercises, he kneels for the space of one hour, surrounded by his congregation. Day-light is excluded, and a candle is so disposed in a shade that, without breaking the gloom of the chapel, it shines on a full-length sculpture of Christ nailed to the Cross, who, with a countenance where exquisite suffering is blended with the most lovely patience, seems to be on the point of moving his lips to say—“Father, forgive them!” The mind is at first allowed to dwell, in the deepest silence, on the images and sentiments with which previous reading has furnished it, till the Director, warmed with meditation, breaks forth in an impressive voice, not, however, addressing himself to his hearers, from whom he appears completely abstracted, but pouring out his heart in the presence of the Deity. Silence ensues after a few sentences, and not many minutes elapse without a fresh ejaculation. But the fire gradually kindles into a flame. The addresses grow longer and more impassioned; his voice, choked with sobs and tears, struggles painfully for utterance, till the stoutest hearts are forced to yield to the impression, and the chapel resounds with sighs and groans.
“I cannot but shudder at the recollection that my mind was made to undergo such an ordeal at the age of fifteen; for it is a custom of the diocese of Seville to prepare the candidates for orders by the Exercises of Saint Ignatius; and even those who are to be incorporated with the clergy by the ceremony of the First Tonsure, are not easily spared this trial. I was grown up a timid, docile, yet ardent boy. My soul, as I have already mentioned, had been early made to taste the bitterness of remorse, and I now eagerly embraced the offer of those expiatory rites which, as I fondly thought, were to restore lost innocence, and keep me for ever in the straight path of virtue. The shock, however, which my spirits felt, might have unnerved me for life, and reduced my faculties to a state little short of imbecility, had I not received from nature, probably as a compensation for a too soft and yielding heart, an understanding which was born a rebel. Yet, I cannot tell whether it was my heart or my head, that, in spite of a frighted fancy, endued me with resolution to baffle the blind zeal of my confessor, when, finding, during these Exercises, that I knew the existence of a prohibited book in the possession of a student of divinity, who, out of mere good nature, assisted my early studies; he commanded me to accuse my friend before the Inquisition. Often have I been betrayed into a wrong course of thinking, by a desire to assimilate myself to those I loved, and thus enjoy that interchange of sentiment which forms the luxury of friendship. But even the chains of love, the strongest I know within the range of nature, could never hold me, the moment I conceived that error had bound them. This, however, brings me to the history of my mind.
“An innate love of truth, which shewed itself on the first developement of my reason, and a consequent perseverance in the pursuit of it to the extent of my knowledge, that has attended me through life, saved me from sinking into the dregs of Aristotelic philosophy, which, though discountenanced by the Spanish government, are still collected in a few filthy pools, fed by the constant exertions of the Dominicans. Unfortunately for me, these monks have a richly endowed college at Seville, where they give lectures on Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, to a few young men whom they recruit at the expense of flattering their parents. My father’s confessor was a Dominican, and he marked me for a divine of his own school. My mother, whose heart was with the Jesuits, would fain have sent me to the University, where the last remnant of their pupils still held the principal chairs. But she was informed by the wily monk, that heresy had began to creep among the new professors of philosophy—heresy of such a horrible tendency, that it nearly amounted to polytheism. The evidence on which this charge was grounded, seemed, indeed, irresistible; for you had only to open the second volume of one Altieri, a Neapolitan friar, whose Elements of philosophy are still used as a class-book at the University of Seville, and you would find, in the first pages, that he makes space uncreated, infinite, and imperishable. From such premises the consequence was evident; the new philosophers were clearly setting up a rival deity.
“With the usual preparation of a little Latin, but in absolute want of all elementary instruction, I was sent to begin a course of logic at the Dominican college. My desire of learning was great indeed; but the Categoriæ ad mentem Divi Thomæ Aquinatis, in a large quarto volume, were unsavoury food for my mind, and, after a few vain efforts to conquer my aversion, I ended in never opening the dismal book. Yet, untrained as I was to reading, books were necessary to my happiness. In any other country I should have met with a variety of works, which, furnishing my mind with facts and observations, might have led me into some useful or agreeable pursuit. But in Spain, the chances of lighting on a good book are so few, that I must reckon my acquaintance with one that could open my mind, among the fortunate events of my life. A near relation of mine, a lady, whose education had been superior to that commonly bestowed on Spanish females, possessed a small collection of Spanish and French books. Among these were the works of Don Fray Benito Feyjoo, a Benedictine monk, who, rising above the intellectual level of his country, about the beginning of the present (18th) century, had the boldness to attack every established error which was not under the immediate patronage of religion. His mind was endowed with extraordinary clearness and acuteness; and having, by an extensive reading of Latin and French works, acquired a great mass of information on physical and historical subjects, he displayed it, with peculiar felicity of expression, in a long series of discourses and letters, forming a work of fourteen large closely printed volumes.13
“It was not without difficulty that I obtained leave to try whether my mind, which had hitherto lain a perfect waste, was strong enough to understand and relish
Feyjoo died in 1765. Several of his Essays were published in English by John Brett, Esq. 1780.