Letters from Spain

Mistakes of Travellers.--Townsend’s Accuracy.--View of Cadiz from the Sea.--Religion blended with Public and Domestic Life in Spain.--Customs relating to the Host or Eucharist.-...

Difficulty of describing National Characters.--_Nobles_ and _Plebeians_, in Spain.--Purity of Blood.--_Tizon de España._--Grandees.--_Hidalgos_ in Low Life.--Execution of an _Hi...

Eagerness of Free-thinking Spaniards to become acquainted, and their quickness in knowing one another. Inclosure of a detached Paper, intituled _A few Facts connected with the F...

A Journey to Osuna and Olvera.--A Spanish Country Inn.--The Play El Diablo Predicador.--Souls in Purgatory begged for: Lottery of Purgatory.--Character of Two Nuns at Osuna.--A...

The Yellow Fever at Seville, in 1800.--Spiritual Methods of stopping its progress.--Alcalá de Guadaíra escapes the infection.--Two Spanish Missionaries.--The _Virgin of the Eagl...

Nuns.--Motives for taking the Veil.--Circumstances attending that Ceremony.--Account of a young Lady compelled by her Mother to take the Monastic Vows.--_Escrúpulos_, or Religio...

Memorandums of some Andalusian Customs and Festivals.--Saint Sebastian’s Day: Carnival, p. 230.--Ash-Wednesday, p. 239.--Mid-lent, p. 243.--Passion, or Holy Week, p. 245.--Passi...

Events connected with the beginning of the French Invasion.--The _Escurial_ at the Time of the Arrest of the Prince of Asturias.--Revolution at Aranjuez and Madrid.--Massacre of...

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 o...

MY DEAR SIR--Your letter, acquainting me with Lady ----’s desire that you should take an active part in our correspondence on Spain, has increased my hopes of carrying on a work...

Fortune has favoured me with an acquaintance--a young clergyman of this town--for whom, since our first introduction, I have felt a growing esteem, such as must soon ripen into...

An unexpected event has, since my last, thrown the inhabitants of this town into raptures of joy. The bull-fights which, by a royal order, had been discontinued for several year...

The calamity which has afflicted this town and swept away eighteen thousand of its inhabitants,[24] will more than sufficiently account for my long silence. But, during the inte...

My residence in this town, after visiting Olbera, was short and unpleasant. The yellow-fever, which had some months before appeared at Cadiz, began to show itself in our large s...

I have connected few subjects with more feelings of disgust and pain than that of the Religious Orders in this country. The evil of this institution, as it relates to the male s...

When the last census was made, in 1787, the number of Spanish females confined to the cloister, for life, amounted to thirty-two thousand. That in a country where wealth is smal...

As, in order to help my memory, I have been for some time collecting notes under different heads, relative to the customs, both public and private, which are most remarkable in...

My removal to this capital has been sudden and unexpected. My friend Leandro, from whom I am become inseparable, was advised by his physicians to seek relief from a growing mela...

In giving you a sketch of private life at Madrid, I shall begin by a character quite peculiar to the country, and well known all over Spain by the name of _Pretendientes_, or pl...

Acquainted as you must be with the events which, for these last two months, have fixed the eyes of Europe on this country, it can give you little surprise to find me dating agai...

Whether Murat began to suspect that his cruel method of intimidating the capital would rouse the provinces into open resistance, or whether (with the unsteadiness of purpose whi...