A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume 2 (1777)Thicknesse, Philip
History
A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, Volume 2 (1777)
Thicknesse, Philip
France -- Description and travel; Spain -- Description and travel
and such a variety of interesting and afflicting scenes so forcibly
struck out by the painter, that you seem to hear the groans, weepings,
and bewailings, from the dying, the sick and the sound; and the eye and
mind have no other repose on these pictures but by fixing it on a dead
body. The painter, who was upon the spot, has introduced his own figure,
but armed like a serjeant with a halberd. The pictures are indeed
dreadfully fine; one is much larger than the other; and it is said the
town Magistrates cut it to fit the place it is in; but it is impossible
to believe any body of men could be guilty of such an act of
_barbarism_! There is still standing in this town, the house of a Roman
senator, now inhabited by a shoe-maker. In the cathedral they have a
marble-stone, on which there is engraved, in Arabic characters, a
monumental inscription to the following effect:
"GOD is alone permanent.
This is the Sepulchre of his servant and Martyr,
who having placed his confidence in the Most
High, he trusts that his sins will be forgiven."
JOSEPH, son of ABDALLAH, of the town of _Metelin_,
died in the moon _Zilhage_.
I bought here an Egyptian household _God_, or _Lar_ of solid metal,
which was lately dug up near the city walls; it is about nine inches
high, and weighs about five pounds. Several of the hieroglyphic
characters are visible on the breast and back, and its form is that of
an embalmed mummy. By a wholesome law of this city, the richest citizen
must be buried like the poorest, in a coffin of nine livres value, and
that coffin must be bought at the general Hospital. The sale of these
coffins for the dead, goes a great way towards the support of the poor
and the sick.
At this town I experienced the very reverse in every respect of what I
met with at _Barcelona_, though I had no better recommendation to Mr.
BIRBECK, his Britannick Majesty's Agent here, than I had to the Consul
of _Barcelona_; he took my word, at first sight, nay, he took my notes
and gave me money for them, and shewed me and my family many marks of
friendly attention: Such a man, at such a distance from ones own
country, is a cordial to a troubled breast, and an acquisition to every
Englishman who goes there either for health or curiosity. Mr. _Birbeck_
took me with him to a noble Concert, to which he is an annual
subscriber, and which was performed in a room in every respect suitable
to so large a band, and so brilliant an assembly: He and his good wife
were the only two British faces I had seen for many months, who looked
like Britons. I shall, indeed I must, soon leave this town, and shall
take _Avignon_ on my way to _Lyons_, from whence you shall soon hear
from me again.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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