Hunting -- Spain; Natural history -- Spain; Spain -- Description and travel
Intermediate episodes of minor importance we must briefly note. Thus
Godoy in 1805 stopped bull-fights, but Joseph Bonaparte in 1808
re-established the spectacle, in vain hope--a sop to Cerberus--of
attaching sympathy to his dynasty.
On the return of Fernando VII. in 1814, he also prohibited the shows,
only to re-authorise them the following year, while in 1830 he founded a
school of Toromaquia in Seville. One famous _toréro_, matriculating
thereat, inaugurated a new epoch. Francisco Montes carried popular
enthusiasm to its highest apex. Joy bordering on madness possessed the
Madrilenean ring when Montes handled the _muleta_. Yet as a matador he
had serious defects.
In 1840 Cuchares appeared on the scene, and two years later the great
disciple of Montes, José Redondo. The rivalry of these notable
contemporaries lifted the _toréo_ once more to a level of absorbing
national interest. It will have been seen that whenever two brilliant
constellations flash forth simultaneously, their very rivalry commands
the sympathy and supreme interest of the Spanish people.
From 1852 El Tato stood out as a type of elegance and valour, the idol
of the masses, till on June 7, 1859, a treacherous bull left him
mutilated in the arena. Antonio Carmóna (El Gordito), commenced his
career in 1857, alternating in the ring with El Tato and later with
Lagartijo, the latter a brilliant _toréro_ (or player of bulls) as
distinguished from a matador. Consummate in every feint and artifice,
Lagartijo could befool the animals to the top of his bent, yet as a
matador, the final and supreme executor, he failed.
For twenty years (1867-87) the Spanish public were divided in their keen
appreciation of contemporaneous masters, Lagartijo and Frascuelo. The
latter, whose iron will and courage made amends for certain personal
defects in the lighter role, had marvellous security in the final
stroke.
Lagartijo and Frascuelo accentuate an era well remembered by enthusiasts
in the Classic School of the _Toréo_. In their day all Spaniards were
devoted, aye, passionate adherents of one or the other: all Spain was
divided into two camps, that of Lagartijo and that of Frascuelo. The
actual supporters of the ring were probably no more numerous then than
to-day; but toreadors breathed that old-fashioned atmosphere in which a
love of the profession was supreme--an heroic unselfishness, personal
skill, and valour were the ruling motives. Pecuniary interest was a
thing apart.
The career of the bull-fighter to-day is absolutely wanting in such
virtue. Lagartijo and Frascuelo staked their lives each afternoon,
through a love of their art, by the impress of honest nature, perhaps by
inspiration of a woman's eyes. Into their calculations, ideas of lucre
did not enter, money had no value.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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