We Were Wandering
Barbarians With An Eye To The Picturesque, And Would Fain See The
University, If It Were Not Unlawful.
He replied, in a hushed and
scholastic tone of voice, and with a succession of confidential winks
that would have inspired confidence in the heart of a Talleyrand, that
if our lordships would give him our cards he had no doubt he could
obtain the required permission from the rector.
He showed us into a dim,
claustral-looking anteroom, in which, as I was told by my friend, who
trifles in lost moments with the integral calculus, there were
seventy-two chairs and one microscopic table. The wall was decked with
portraits of the youth of the college, all from the same artist, who
probably went mad from the attempt to make fifty beardless faces look
unlike each other. We sat for some time mourning over his failure, until
the door opened, and not the porter, but the rector himself, a most
courteous and polished gentleman in the black robe and three-cornered
hat of his order, came in and graciously placed himself and the
university at our disposition. We had reason to congratulate ourselves
upon this good fortune. He showed us every nook and corner of the vast
edifice, where the present and the past elbowed each other at every
turn: here the boys' gymnasium, there the tomb of Valles; here the new
patent cocks of the water-pipes, and there the tri-lingual patio where
Alonso Sanchez lectured in Arabic, Greek, and Chaldean, doubtless making
a choice hash of the three; the airy and graceful paraninfo, or hall of
degrees, a masterpiece of Moresque architecture, with a gorgeous
panelled roof, a rich profusion of plaster arabesques, and, horresco
referens, the walls covered with a bright French paper. Our good rector
groaned at this abomination, but said the Gauls had torn away the
glorious carved panelling for firewood in the war of 1808, and the
college was too poor to restore it. His righteous indignation waxed hot
again when we came to the beautiful sculptured pulpit of the chapel,
where all the delicate details are degraded by a thick coating of
whitewash, which in some places has fallen away and shows the gilding of
the time of the Catholic kings.
There is in this chapel a picture of the Virgin appearing to the great
cardinal whom we call Ximenez and the Spaniards Cisneros, which is
precious for two reasons. The portrait of Ximenez was painted from life
by the nameless artist, who, it is said, came from France for the
purpose, and the face of the Virgin is a portrait of Isabella the
Catholic. It is a good wholesome face, such as you would expect. But the
thin, powerful profile of Ximenez is very striking, with his red hair
and florid tint, his curved beak, and long, nervous lips. He looks not
unlike that superb portrait Raphael has left of Cardinal Medici.
This university is fragrant with the good fame of Ximenez.
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