LETTER LXXVIII. Rica to Usbek, at ***.

I SEND thee a copy of a letter, which a Frenchman, who is in Spain, wrote to his friend here: I believe you will be pleased to see it.—I have, in six months time, run through Spain and Portugal; and I have lived among a people, who despising all others, do the French alone the honour of hating them. Gravity is the shining character of these two nations, it shows itself chiefly there two ways, by spectacles and mustachios. The spectacles demonstratively show, that he who wears them is a man consummate in the sciences, and buried in profound reading, to such a degree as to have impaired his sight: and every nose that is thus ornamented, or loaded, may pass, without contradiction, for the nose of a learned man. As to the mustachio, it is respectable in itself, and independently of any consequences; though great benefits have been sometimes drawn from it, for the service of the king, and the honour of the nation, as hath been made appear by a famous Portuguese general Juan de Castro. ^†335 in the East-Indies; for, being in want of money, he cut off one of his mustachios, and sent to demand of the inhabitants of Goa twenty thousand pistoles upon this pledge: they very readily accepted it, and he afterwards honourably redeemed his mustachio. It is easily conceived that such grave and phlegmatic people as these may be proud; and so they are. They commonly found it upon these two considerable points. Those who live upon the continent of Spain and Portugal, find their hearts greatly elated, if they are those who are called the Old Christians; that is to say, not originally descended from those, who, in the latter centuries were forced by the inquisition to embrace

Christianity. They who live in the Indies are no less elated, when they consider that they have the sublime merit to be, as they say, men with white skins. There never was in the seraglio of the Grand Signior, a Sultana so proud of her beauty, as the oldest, great ugly cur born, is of his olive-white complexion, when in the town of Mexico, sitting at his door, with his legs crossed. A man of such consequence, so compleat a creature, would not work for all the treasures in the world, nor ever persuade himself, by a vile mechanic industry, to venture the honour and dignity of his skin. For you must know, that when a man hath a certain merit in Spain, as for example, when he can add to the qualities I have been speaking of, that of being the proprietor of a long sword, or hath learned of his father the art of making a wretched noise on an ill tuned guitar, he works no more; his honour is interested in the repose of his limbs. He who sits still ten hours a day, acquires exactly one moiety more of respect than one who rests but five; because honour is here to be acquired upon a chair. But though these invincible enemies to labour make a show of philosophical tranquility, they have yet none in their heart; for they are always in love. They are the first men in the world to die languishing under the window of their mistresses: and every Spaniard who hath not a cold, cannot pass for a gallant. They are in the first place bigots, in the next jealous. They take great care not to venture their wives to the attacks of a soldier disabled with wounds, or to a decrepit magistrate: but they will shut them up with a fervent novice, who meekly casts his eyes down to the earth, or a robust Franciscan, who as devoutly turns them upwards. They allow their wives to appear with their bosoms naked: but they will not let their heel be seen, lest they should be catched by the foot. The rigours of love are universally admitted to be great; they are much more so to the Spaniards. The women relieve their pains, but they only do so to change them; and frequently a long and troublesome remembrance of an extinguished passion continues with them. They observe little pieces of politeness, which in France would appear oddly applied: for example, a captain never corrects his soldier without first asking his leave; and the inquisition never burns a Jew without making an apology to him. The Spaniards who are not burned appear so fond of the inquisition, that it would be ill-natured to deprive them of it. I would only have another erected, not for heretics, but for heresarchs, who attribute to some little monkish tricks the same efficacy as to the seven sacraments, who worship every thing which they should only reverence: and who are so extremely devout, that they are hardly Christians. You may meet with wit and good sense among the Spaniards, but look for neither in their books. View but one of their libraries, romances on this side, and school divines on the other; you would say that they had been made, and collected together, by some secret enemy to human reason. The only good one of all their books, is that which was wrote to show the ridiculousness of all the others. In the new world they have made immense discoveries and as yet know not their own continent: they have not yet discovered there what they have upon their rivers and in their mountains, nations Las Batuecas. ^†336 unknown to them. They say that the sun rises and sets in their country: but it may also be said, that, in passing his course, he reckons only ruined countries, and deserted lands.—I should not be sorry. Usbek, to see a letter written at Madrid by a Spaniard who had travelled in France; I believe he might thoroughly revenge himself on this nation. What a vast field for a phlegmatic pensive man! I imagine he would commence the description of Paris in this manner: here is a house in which mad folks are put; it might at first thought be expected larger than the whole city; no: the remedy is insufficient for the malady. Doubtless the French, extremely despised by their neighbours, shut up some madmen in this house, that it may be thought that those who are at liberty are not such.—There I leave my Spaniard. Farewel, my dear Usbek.

Paris, the 17th of the moon Saphar,
1715.