THE ROMANCE OF SPAIN.
The Romance of Spain. By C. W. Wood, F.R.G.S. (Macmillan and Co. 10s.)—There is a traditional fatality which besets travels and travellers in Spain. Theophile Gautier employed his wit and eloquence to prove that. Spain was dirty and uncomfort- able, and few tourists have escaped Gautier's domination. So we have seen travellers--English and French alike—looking upon one of the fairest lands in Europe with a patronising and unsym- pathetic eye. Mr. C. W. Wood, for instance, a practised wanderer, had better have stayed at home than taken the journey into Spain. For though he calls his book The Romance of Spain, though he closes every chapter with the tiresome refrain, "the true romance of Spain," he sees nothing of the true meaning which the beauty of the country whispers to the devout. For him what he is pleased to term "accommodation" appears important. He says of Burgos : " With the present infinitely bad accom- modation travellers do well to avoid the town." They do indeed, and we recommend Margate to such travel- lers with every confidence. Again, the Cathedral of Burgos, the finest Gothic church a the Peninsula, inspires the following luminous comment : " A beautiful structure without a soul " ! Is he sure that it is the Cathedral that lacks the soul, or that the Hotel de Paris did not aid the task of depreciation ? However, whatever be the cause, Mr. Wood is constantly disappointed. Indeed, no other city than Segovia seems to satisfy him. Madrid, he declares, " has no humanising effect upon the people," and he is ready with all the platitudes to which a beautiful and hos- pitable capital is commonly exposed. His comments upon Velasquez are a fair gauge of his ignorance. He finds some of the master's works revolting; he reproaches him because (so he declares) " the devotional and spiritual are wanting to him." More than this, he is bold enough to say that " if he failed anywhere, it was in the want of a certain refinement. His was a nature that could not polish. This was due partly to a want of imagination." Of course it is idle to argue with the commentary of ignorance. But if Velasquez lacks refinement and polish, to whom are we to accord these gifts ? And if a painter's imagination be anything better than a superficial knowledge of literature, who was better endowed than the author of " The Lances," and of the "repulsive dwarfs," which, with proper deference to Mr. Wood. are not " repulsive " at all, nor were they painted " by command of the King, not of his own free will." Nothing, in fact, proves Mr. Wood's incapacity to see or to describe Spain more clearly than the confused pages which he dedicates to Velasquez. For Velasquez is as intimate a part of Spain as is Cervantes, and if he persuades you to charges of " repulsion " you had better stay at home, or find relaxation on the banks of the Rhine. Nor does Mr. Wood make his book the better reading by a tireless and inapposite jocularity. He introduces a friend, who is always sup- posed to be in love with a Spanish beauty, and for this comic relief we can find no other word than that which Mr. Wood amiably selects for the dwarfs of Velasquez.
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