Spain Part 5

The total length of the telegraph lines is nearly 10,000 miles. The number of public offices is 324, of private, 12; the telegrams despatched amounted in 1877 to 2,023,579, of which about half were private despatches for the interior. The expenses of working were 165,076_l._, and the receipts 156,950_l._, leaving a deficit of 8126_l._

The number of post-offices in 1877 was 2530, of letters 78,446,000; postal cards, 1,040,000; newspapers, 38,479,000; books and samples, 5,767,000. To Great Britain were despatched, in 1879: Letters and postal cards, 1,083,000; books, &c., 317,900; total, 1,400,900. From Great Britain: Letters and postal cards, 931,100; books, &c., 646,100; total, 1,577,200. The receipts from the post-office in 1877 were 361,704_l._, while the expenditure was 297,412_l._, leaving a surplus of 64,292_l._

_The Finances of Spain._

The most prominent circ.u.mstance in the financial condition of Spain is the startling increase of the public debt since the revolution of 1868.

The capital of the debt was then 212,443,600_l._, the interest of which was 5,580,000_l._ The funds, three per cents, were then at 33. In 1880 the capital of the debt amounted to 515,000,000_l._ Since 1870, by abuse of credit, the interest of the debt had been paid from the capital; then one-third of the interest was paid in paper, with a promise to pay the remaining two-thirds in coin; this engagement was soon broken, but the paper was punctually paid until 1874, when the interest of the debt was erased from the budget. In face of the evident bankruptcy of the country, an arrangement was made in 1876 between the Government and the princ.i.p.al foreign fund-holders, by which, from January 1, 1877, to June 30, 1881, inclusive, the interest to be paid on the three per cents was reduced to one per cent., and that on the six per cents to two per cent.

From June 30, 1881, to June 30, 1882, one and a quarter per cent. will be paid, and arrangements as to future payments are to be made before the last-mentioned date, and a return to a full interest of three and six per cent. is to follow at fixed periods. The success of the scheme is shown by the fact that in 1876 the three per cents, still nominally paying three per cent. interest, were at 11-1/2; in January, 1881, paying only one per cent. interest, they were quoted at 22; and the six per cents, paying only two per cent. interest, were at 42.

From the above statement we may gather some idea of what the civil wars of the republic, the cantonal, Carlist, and Cuban insurrections, joined to the expensive experiments of well-intentioned but inexperienced financiers, in remitting taxes while the public burdens were increasing, have cost the nation. A calm observer, Mr. Phipps, in his official report to the British Government, calculates that from 1868 to 1876 the addition to the debt from these causes amounted to at least 260,000,000_l._, considerably more than the total debt of Spain in 1868.

Notwithstanding the plausible balance-sheets annually submitted to Congress, the revenue and expenditure of Spain are still far from being in a satisfactory condition. The writer above quoted states that "enormous deficits in the budgets (however nominally balanced) have been the invariable rule in Spain during a long course of years, under every sort of _regime_ and under all circ.u.mstances." In the last budget, 1879-80, the revenue is stated at 32,494,552_l._, and the expenditure at 33,129,484_l._ Supposing these figures to be correct, the deficit, 634,932_l._, would be far less than for many years past.

The princ.i.p.al sources of Spanish revenue are, in round numbers:--

Direct Taxes 10,500,000 Indirect ditto 5,500,000 Customs 4,500,000 Stamps and Government Monopolies 9,000,000 National Property 1,750,000 Miscellaneous. 1,000,000 ---------- 32,250,000

Of these the items most foreign to an Englishman's notion of taxation are the produce of the seven great tobacco factories, Seville, Madrid, Santander, Gijon, Corunna, Valencia, and Alicante, of which the net revenue is over 2,500,000_l._, the lotteries, which bring in 5000,000_l._ net, the consumo tax, a kind of octroi, and the territorial tax, which together furnish the largest contribution to the revenue. The national property comprises the Almaden quicksilver-mines, valued at over 250,000_l._ per annum, the Linares mines, leased at 20,000_l._, and other sources about 30,000_l._ annually.

The heaviest item in the expenditure is the interest on the national debt, over 11,500,000_l._; the ministry of war and the navy exceeds 6,000,000_l._, while pensions absorb 1,750,000_l._, public works over 3,000,000_l._, finance over 5,000,000_l._, administration of justice more than 2,000,000_l._; the ministry of the interior, Cortes, the civil list, &c., make up the remainder.

The total imports and exports of Spain were:--

Imports. Exports.

In 1877, 16,340,672 18,175,140 In 1878, 15,910,016 17,172,596 In 1879, 17,730,756 20,155,964

But of this increased prosperity far more than her share has fallen to France, owing chiefly to its being put in the same category with Germany, Italy, Belgium, and Austria, as _most favoured_ nations, who import their goods under the customs tariff of July 17, 1877, while England and the United States continue-under the old tariff, as _favoured_ nations only. This disproportion will probably be still more marked, owing to the immense importation of Spanish wines into France required to make up for losses by the phylloxera disease; while the exportation of sherry to England has been gradually lessening for some years, and now we take only some 4 per cent, of the quant.i.ty, and 12 per cent in value, of the wine exported from Spain. One of our chief imports into Spain, coal, is likely also to diminish, owing to the development of the native coal-fields in the Asturias and in Andalusia. Our other chief exports from Spain in fruits and minerals largely increase. The present wine tariff of England, by which she virtually refuses to purchase the bulk of Spanish wines in their natural state, while importing them largely when mixed with inferior French white wines, and treated as clarets, &c., is felt by Spaniards to be so unfair that, until this system is modified there is little hope of obtaining a better tariff for English manufactures; while the making Gibraltar an immense depot for a contraband trade is a wrong that rankles in the mind of all southern Spaniards. The decline of the English import trade into Spain would be much more marked but for the immense amount of English capital employed in the larger mining and industrial enterprises.

The battle between protection and free trade is not yet fought out in Spain. The manufacturing districts of Catalonia and the east coast clamour loudly for protection, while the mining and agricultural and wine-growing interests demand free trade. It is impossible to say on which side the balance may turn. A conservative Government would probably favour the former, while a liberal ministry might venture upon the latter system.

Heavy as the public debt of Spain undoubtedly is, and serious as are the charges imposed upon her by the still unsettled political condition of the country and of its princ.i.p.al colony--Cuba, she might more than pay the interest of her debts at the present rate of interest, and balance the expenditure, but for the administrative corruption and utter want of political morality, the fruit of long years of financial abuses, and which has become almost a fixed habit amongst all cla.s.ses of the inhabitants. The Government seems to be a mark for fraud to every cla.s.s, from millionaire bankers and the largest landed proprietors down to the ill-paid _employe_ who ekes out his scanty salary by accepting petty bribes, and the labourer or fisherman on the frontier who never misses the occasion of smuggling. It is easy to prove the truth of these a.s.sertions. In 1877, in an official report, Mr. Phipps writes: "A few English, French, and Spanish bankers advance money to Spain, with safe security, on conditions as disastrous to the treasury as they are discreditable to themselves." The territorial tax, which forms one-fourth of the whole internal revenue is notoriously levied on only 54 per cent, of the whole area of the country. In some provinces not two-thirds of the whole is returned at all, and much land that is productive is returned as uncultivated. From the extent of the contraband trade and the corruption of the custom-house officers, the amount levied on imports and exports can hardly be above two-thirds of their proper value. In fact, what Spain needs above everything at present is an honest and impartial administration. The causes of her poverty lie not so much in bad laws or a faulty const.i.tution, but in a corrupt and negligent administration. The system of empleomania, whereby nearly every ill-paid _employe_ is almost forced to pillage, the preference of this ill-paid idleness and of professional poverty to honest toil in trade or agriculture--these are the true foes to the prosperity of Spain. For party and political purposes, taxes are relaxed for those who should bear their equal share of the burden, only to fall with crus.h.i.+ng weight on the honest workers, unconnected with, or who refuse to bribe the administration.

CHAPTER VII.

EDUCATION AND RELIGION.

The fame of the Spanish universities has greatly fallen from what it was in the early Middle Ages, when Salamanca ranked with Bologna, Paris, and Oxford, as one of the four great universities in Europe; when its halls were thronged with thousands of eager though needy scholars, and it was the centre whence Semitic learning and civilization spread to the rest of Europe. Even in a later day, in the sixteenth century, under the patronage of Cardinal Ximenes, the university of Alcala de Henares (Complutum) flashed into sudden fame as one of the great offshoots of the Renaissance, with its 7800 students, and its n.o.ble production of the first great Polyglot Bible since primitive times. In the eighteenth century, however, this learning had all but disappeared from Spain, and the education given in its universities was all but worthless. Little was effected towards any true revival or improvement until 1845, though something had been attempted before this in secondary education by the successive reforms of 1771, 1807, and especially of 1824 and 1836.

The universities of Spain are now ten: Madrid, with 6672 students; Barcelona with 2459; Valencia, 2118; Seville, 1382; Granada, 1225; Valladolid, 880; Santiago de Compostella, 779; Saragossa, 771; Salamanca, 372; and Oviedo with 216: making a total of 16,874 university students. The number of regular professors is 415, with 240 supernumeraries and a.s.sistants, making a total of 655; that is, one professor to every 26 students. The salary of the professors varies from 120_l._ to 260_l._ per annum, except in Madrid, where it is from 160_l._ to 300_l._ The budget of the whole universities is a little over 1,000,000_l._, and the expenditure slightly in excess, leaving a deficit in 1879 of 4600_l._. The average cost of each student to the university is a little over 6_l._.

Though the above inst.i.tutions are all cla.s.sed as universities by the State, yet the course of instruction is by no means the same in all. At Madrid alone the whole programme of university education is followed out. This comprises the faculties of civil, canon, and administrative law, of philosophy and literature, of science, of medicine, and of pharmacy. Since 1868 theology is no longer studied in the universities, but in the seminaries, of which there is one in each diocese, under the direction of the bishop. The total number of pupils studying in these inst.i.tutions is 8562. At Valladolid are two theological colleges for English, Scotch, and Irish students, established, one at the close of the sixteenth, the other by the Jesuits at the close of the eighteenth century.

Law is studied in all the Spanish universities, and medicine in all but one--Oviedo; Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, and Compostella have faculties of pharmacy, under which head a certain amount of natural science is taught; of the exact sciences there are chairs only at Madrid, Barcelona, and Salamanca; philosophy and literature are studied in Madrid, Barcelona, Granada, Salamanca, Seville, and Saragossa. In Oviedo, Santiago, Valencia, Valladolid, only the first year's or preparatory course of law is read, this consists of Latin, general literature, and universal history.

Besides these State universities, there are several inst.i.tutions supported by the provincial deputations; for instance, there is a faculty of medicine in Seville supported by the province, another in Salamanca at the joint expense of the province and of the munic.i.p.ality.

In addition to these there are technical schools for the study of special branches of industry or of administration, such as those of roads, ca.n.a.ls, and harbours, of mines, and of forests, in Madrid and Villa Viciosa. A school of industrial engineering, and of the application of chemistry and mechanics, is working at Barcelona. There are technical schools of commerce at Madrid and at Barcelona. Schools or colleges of veterinary science are to be found in Madrid, Saragossa, Cordova, and Leon. Naval schools are established in Santa Cruz (Teneriffe), in Palma (Majorca), in Masnou (Barcelona), in San Sebastian, supported by the funds of the provinces; there is also one at Gijon, in the Asturias, founded by Jovellanos; two other private foundations also exist at Lequeito and Santurce in Biscay. In Madrid there is a special school of architecture, and also one of painting, sculpture, and engraving. Excellent schools of the fine arts exist in Barcelona, Cadiz, Corunna, Granada, Malaga, Oviedo, Seville, Valencia, Valladolid, Saragossa, and at Palma in the Balearic Isles; this last is remarkable for the number of its pupils and its generally flouris.h.i.+ng condition.

In each of the forty-nine provinces of Spain are inst.i.tutions of superior or secondary education. With the exception of the inst.i.tutes of Cardinal Cisneros and of San Isidro at Madrid, which depend on the Government, and which hold the first and third rank as to the number of their pupils, these inst.i.tutions are supported by the funds of the provinces or munic.i.p.alities, but the professors are nominated by the Government; besides those in the capital of each province, there are also 11 others in various large towns in Spain. There are also 356 colleges of secondary education affiliated to the inst.i.tutes, 58 of which are under religious corporations, making a total of 417 establishments of secondary education, with 2730 professors who have all taken degrees in science or literature.

The inst.i.tutes give instruction to 14,872 pupils, and the colleges to almost the same number, 14,290; home or private education absorbs 4476; making a total in 1880 of 33,638; more than three times the number in 1848, and, including the episcopal seminaries, giving one pupil to every 398 inhabitants. All these pupils are admitted to the official examinations, and take their degrees equally on pa.s.sing them. It is found that 13 per cent of the candidates are rejected at the examinations, 43.8 per cent. simply pa.s.s, and 43.1 gain honours of various kinds; while 9 per cent. take the degree of Bachelor from the colleges, and 37.2 proceed to take it from the universities.

The salary of the masters is from 120_l._ to 180_l._ (except in Madrid where it is from 160_l._ to 220_l._), with a right to a portion of the fees for matriculation and degrees. The supernumerary masters receive 60_l._ in Madrid and 40_l._ in the provinces; auxiliary masters are unpaid. Pensions of 20_l._ are sometimes given to poor but distinguished pupils. The cost of all the inst.i.tutes is 118,935_l._, the income, 44,818_l._, leaving a deficit of 74,117_l._ to be supplied either by the State, the provinces, or the munic.i.p.alities.

The course of instruction is two-fold, general and special. The general comprises: Spanish and Latin grammar, two courses; rhetoric and poetry, geography, history of Spain, universal history, psychology, logic and ethics, arithmetic and algebra, geometry and trigonometry, physics and the elements of chemistry, natural history, physiology and hygiene, and elementary agriculture. The special courses are those of agriculture, the fine arts, manufactures and commerce.

Of public schools of primary instruction there are about 23,000 of all grades and cla.s.ses, 1308 are infant schools and 1400 are for male and 100 for female adults.

The great drawback in the higher education of Spain is the disproportionate number of students in law, medicine, or pharmacy, in comparison with the few who cultivate the special branches of agriculture, industrial or commercial science. Hence the former professions are overstocked, with results productive of far-reaching evils to the country and to the administration. Notwithstanding its far inferior population the number of students in Spain who take their degrees in law and medicine is almost treble that of France and of Germany, while the total of degrees conferred in all the faculties of Spain is equal to that of France, which has double the population.

Nothing more plainly shows the character of the people, and the mischief of "_empleomania_" than such a fact in a country whose natural riches in agriculture and mining are so great and so little developed, where there is so large a field for industrial enterprises of many kinds, and where the fruits of all these are at present almost wholly reaped by foreigners.

The primary education of Spain, though nominally everywhere alike, is really so very varied as to defy any average description. A few of her infant schools are equal to the best of those of other countries. Where the provincial deputations or the munic.i.p.alities take an interest in education the primary schools are very fair, but in other parts the education is little more than nominal, and the schoolmaster's appointment is well-nigh a sinecure both in pay and labour; and probably at the present moment, notwithstanding the great improvements of late years, two-thirds of the people can still neither read nor write.

_Church and Religion._

From the time of the OEc.u.menical Council of Nicea, A.D. 325, with the brief exception of the reigns of the Arian Visigoth kings, Spain has been the champion of orthodoxy in religion. From early times too the demarcation between Church and State has been less marked, or rather the influence of the former over the latter has been more constant and more powerful, than in perhaps any other European kingdom. The great councils of Toledo were scarcely more ecclesiastical than civil a.s.semblies. The recognition of the sovereign, the order of succession, the validity of the laws, were either settled or sanctioned therein. Later, in the great struggle with the Moors, through the antagonism of exclusive beliefs, the war a.s.sumed the character of a religious crusade. The semi-monastic Spanish military orders, the preaching of the monks, the sanction and the bulls of the Popes--auxiliaries which the kings of Spain were forced to summon to their aid--gave a complexion to the conquest and to the national character quite different to what might have been the case had the contest been fought out by the sovereign, the lay warriors, and the civil power alone. Thus the triumph of the Christian over the Moor became in some sort also the triumph of the Roman over the national Spanish Church. The Mozarabic liturgy gave way to that of Rome. The peculiar inst.i.tution of the inquisition, following on that of the Santa Hermandad in civil matters, developed in Spain a degree of power to which it never attained in other lands. The certainty and the secrecy of its proceedings, the mingled pomp and horror of its "autos de fe," the whispers and the shudder with which men told of the tortures of its hidden processes, deeply impressed and captivated the imagination of a people singularly greedy of, and susceptible to, strong and vivid emotions. The chivalrous respect for women, heightened by the reserve and half-seclusion which the Spanish knights had learned from the Moors, was transformed in the sphere of religion into an almost ardent pa.s.sion of devotion to the Blessed Virgin. Centuries before the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed by Pius IX. the cry of the Spanish beggar heard at every door throughout her vast dominions was, "Ave Maria purisima, sin pecado concebida." Spain had been the champion of Christendom against the Jews and against the Moors; she had without remorse violated every compact she had sworn with the latter, and she became equally the champion of Roman Catholicism against the Reformation. Though Philip II. failed in his great armed struggle with the northern powers, and wasted and destroyed therein all the real resources of Spain, yet Spanish theologians were among the most eloquent and the most learned in the Council of Trent; and it was the Jesuits of Spain who headed the reaction of the seventeenth century, and who won back all but the Teutonic and Scandinavian races to the allegiance of Rome. This glory of Catholicism is never absent from the heart of a Spaniard. His whole literature is steeped in it; it inspires Spain's greatest painters. It is this deep but unconscious feeling that Protestanism is un-Spanish which is the real stronghold of Catholicism in Spain, and which, in spite of spoliation and political subjection, still gives the clerical party there a greater power than they possess in other countries. Yet the few Spaniards who embraced the reformed doctrines in the sixteenth century were not inferior to those of other lands in earnestness, in learning, in eloquence, or in high position, both in Church and State. There was just a moment when the court of Charles V. hovered on the verge of protest against Rome. When, as before related, the liberties of Spain fell beneath the iron rule of the Austrian sovereigns, it was the Church, by the hand of one of its greatest ornaments, Cardinal Ximenes, which became the willing instrument of despotism. In return for the servility of the court, and the presence and the sanction of the sovereign at the "autos," the inquisition lent its aid to the monarchy, and its a.s.sistance was called in to suppress the trade in horses, so senselessly forbidden, on the northern frontier. In the seventeenth century, however, the Spanish court fell under the influence of the French encyclopaedists. The Jesuits were banished in 1767. We need not detail again the various vicissitudes of the abolition and re-establishment of the inquisition, of the suppression of t.i.thes, of the sale of Church property, the destruction of the monasteries, and the exile of the monks, the effects of which have been sufficiently indicated above.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VESPERS.]

Since the Concordat of 1851, Spain is ruled ecclesiastically by nine archbishops; those of Toledo (the primate of all Spain), Burgos, Saragossa, Tarragona, Valencia, Granada, Seville, Valladolid, and Compostella, under whom are forty-six bishops, with their chapters, and about 35,000 clergy. The mode of episcopal appointment is this: the king presents three names to the Pope, of which his Holiness selects one, who is forthwith nominated to the vacant see. Since 1868, theological education is entirely under the hands of the bishops, who have a seminary in each diocese. The clergy are paid by the State; but the stipends of the country priests are said to be frequently in arrear.

In some parts of Spain, as in the manufacturing towns of Barcelona, religion has to a great extent lost its hold upon the people; in other parts, as in the Basque Provinces, the majority are still devout. Since 1871 a reaction from extremes of scepticism and advanced socialistic views is manifest in many of the most popular writers. A small but increasing body of Protestants has been established since 1868; but the vicissitudes of revolution and reaction, and the present ambiguous state of the law have acted unfavourably on the movement. The pastors have honourably distinguished themselves by their zeal for the education of the cla.s.ses utterly neglected by the dominant Church. On the whole, the clerical party in Spain, considered as a political body, seems gradually sinking into a like condition to that of France. It is powerful enough to thwart and check the policy of its opponents, but impotent to carry out its own measures. The extreme Ultramontane party, for whom the Comte de Chambord is too liberal and Pope Leo XIII. too comprehensive, has lately adopted the banner of the Carlists. Whatever the future of Spain may be, it is not probable that the Church will ever attain again the political influence and the exclusive control of education which it possessed in the past, in spite of the undoubted talents and virtues of many of its upholders.

CHAPTER VIII.

LITERATURE AND THE ARTS.

Though one of the most interesting countries of Europe with regard to architecture, Spain can lay claim to no style peculiar to itself, or that originated wholly within the Peninsula. It contains, however, n.o.ble specimens of art and architecture of very varied epochs and character, from the work of the unknown sculptors who carved the so-called "toros"

of Guisando and erected the huge dolmens and other megalithic monuments so thickly strewed over its soil, to the architects and artists of the present day. Almost all the races which have trodden the land have left monuments upon it--the Carthaginians, perhaps, the fewest. Scarcely anywhere else does the solid, practical character of Roman architecture appear more fully than in the amphitheatres, aqueducts, and especially in the bridges of Spain. The amphitheatres, temples, and walls of Murviedro (Saguntum), Tarragona, Toledo, Coria, Plasencia; the aqueducts of Merida, Seville, and Segovia; the bridges of Tuy over the Minho, of Zamora over the Douro, Salamanca over the Tormes, of Alcantara, Garrovillas de Alconetar, and Puente del Arzobispo over the Tagus, of Merida and Medellin over the Guadiana, of Seville, Cordova, and Ubeda over the Guadalquiver, and of Lerida over the Segre, are n.o.ble relics of Roman work. Of the period when Roman art was gradually modified under Christian influences, and the basilica was transformed into the Christian church, very few remains exist. To the Vandal and Gothic conquerors belong part of the walls of Toledo, and a few chapels and small churches in the north and north-west may belong in part to this date (417-717); but the most peculiar artistic remains of this period are the jewellers' and goldsmiths' work, preserved in the metal crowns and treasure of Guarrazar (624-672), of a style which, though probably derived from the East through Byzantium, continued to influence Spanish goldsmiths' work down to the eleventh century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GIRALDA OF SEVILLE.

_Page 197._]

The architecture and art of the race that succeeded to the Visigoths is of much more notable character. The civil and religious architecture of the Spanish Arabs is well worthy of most careful study, and is a grand example of the artistic talent of a race which, though debarred by its religious faith from the reproduction of human, or even of animal form, and delighting neither in the scenes of the theatre or the circus, has yet left masterpieces of architectural beauty in lands so wide apart as Spain, Egypt, Persia, and Hindostan. The architecture of the Arabs in Spain may be roughly divided into three periods: The first, from the eighth to the tenth century, tells most clearly of its origin as an imitation or modification of the Byzantine style; its masterpiece is the Mosque of Cordova. The second period, from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, shows the architects seeking their real style--it is a period of transition; its finest erection is the Giralda of Seville. The third period is when the Moorish style acquired its fullest development in the glorious Alhambra, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries.

Contemporary with the last period is the Mudejar style, the modification which Arabic art underwent in the hands of the Christian conquerors. To this belong the Alcazar of Seville, 1353; the Mudejar gates of Toledo and Saragossa, and the Chapel of St. James in Alcala de Henares. In their domestic architecture the Arabs alone have almost solved the problem how to unite ventilation and ornament by means of currents of air of different temperatures. The pendulous stucco fretwork by which they conceal the angles of their apartments serves not only for ornament but to equalize the temperature and to admit of concealed openings whereby air can penetrate without draught or chill. The sense of true harmony of colour seems to be an intuitional gift of Oriental races, and is practically understood by them as it never has been by any other. The Mosaics of Greece and Rome, and those of mediaeval Italy, in their storied designs, appeal more to the intellect; but those of Arabic art rest and charm the eye by the purity and harmonious blending of tone as do none other. In spite of some apparent exceptions, and those of the earliest date, as the Mosque of Cordova (788), and the cloisters of Tayloon at Cairo (879), Arabic architecture, like Grecian, depended for its effect more on the exquisite symmetry and exact proportion of all details to a consummate whole, than to impressions of awe derived from vast size or immense solidity. It is thus that the ma.s.sive Roman arch became moulded into the light horse-shoe shape, peculiar to the Spanish Arabs from the eighth to the tenth centuries. The originality of this architecture is not, however, so great as appears at first sight. The influence of Byzantine architecture and of that of the Christian churches with which the Arabs had become acquainted during their conquests, and of constant accessions from Oriental art, can be clearly traced therein. But in Spain there is perhaps a juster proportion, a greater variety and richness of ornamentation and colour than is to be found elsewhere. The grandest of Moorish buildings in Spain is undoubtedly one of the earliest, the great Mosque of Cordova, with its forest of 1200 columns, its fifty-seven naves, nineteen gates, and upwards of 4000 lamps, recalling the impression produced by the Egyptian hall of Karnac at Thebes,--an impression so vivid that even the iconoclast emperor, Charles V., whose own palace mars the beauty of the Alhambra, rebuked the Archbishop of Cordova for destroying what he never could replace, when he cut away some of the columns to make room for a Christian chapel. Not less beautiful in their graceful proportions than the Campanile of Italy are the minarets and towers of Arabian art in Spain, as the Giralda of Seville and others; even the quaintness of the leaning tower of Pisa finds its counterpart in the leaning tower of Saragossa. The Moorish gates of Toledo, of Seville, and the Alcazar of Segovia show how castellated strength may be wedded to artistic elegance; but the most perfect union at once of fortress and of palace is to be found in the n.o.ble group of buildings known as the Alhambra, on the hill of Granada. Though trembling on the verge of debas.e.m.e.nt when the severer forms of Arabian art were beginning to admit the representation of animal shapes, whose rude sculpture forms a contrast to the exquisite correctness of the alphabetic and geometrical designs which ornament the walls, these buildings may yet be regarded as marking the culmination of Moorish art. The fertility of decorative design, the exquisite use made of Arabic lettering, and the simple yet subtle forms of geometrical interlacing--apparently most fantastic, yet really ever subordinated to a just proportion with the whole--these are a theme of wondering admiration to every student. A whole grammar of ornament might be ill.u.s.trated by examples taken from these buildings alone. The architecture of the houses of the Moorish aristocracy which still remain in Seville, Granada, Toledo, and Saragossa is wonderfully adapted both to the necessities of the climate and to domestic ornament. In the more northern examples the open galleries, in the more southern the flat roof, of the apartments surrounding the inner quadrangle make a delightful resort in the cool of the day; while the court or _patio_ itself, with its fountains and shade, its flowers and creepers and odoriferous shrubs, its mingled play of light and colour, through which the delicate grace of ornament is seen uninjured by the dust and contact with the outside traffic, appears to the northern tourist almost like one of the fairy homes of which his ancestors dreamed, and which have been described to him in many a legend, as a thing too lovely to be gazed upon by mortal eyes unless unsealed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MOORISH ORNAMENTATION.]

The influence and the impress of Arabian art was not confined in Spain to mosques or to buildings consecrated to the use of Mohammedans alone.