Note 48 — FURNITURE

My readers are no doubt aware that every Spanish hamlet has its wooden image of the Virgin, badly executed as a rule, and rendered doubly hideous by a gaudy gown. Most of these local images are believed to hold the power of working miracles, or at least to have been fashioned and conducted to their present shrine by supernatural agency—on which account the populace and their pastors call these latter imagenes aparecidas, as distinct from manufactured images. Such are the Virgins of Montserrat, Granada, and numerous other cities, towns, or villages of this illiterate and ill-starred Peninsula. The curious may refer for every kind of detail to Villafañe's Compendious History of the Wonder-working Images of Spain, which numbered in this author's day (his book was published in 1740) one hundred and eighty-nine. But the most extraordinary miracle of all was that which is recalled, with pious gravity, by Bertaut de Rouen. Speaking of the gilt-wood image of Nuestra Señora del Pilar at Zaragoza, he says:—“On y void quantité de lampes d'argent et on m'en raconta un miracle qu'il me fut impossible de ne pas croire. C'est d'un pauvre homme qui ayant eu la jambe coupée pour une blessure, et s'estant bien recommandé à Nostra Señora del Pilar, il se trouva un jour avec sa mesme jambe qu'il avoit déja fait enterrer. Y'ay sceu l'histoire du chirurgien mesme qui coupa cette jambe et de quantité de témoins de veuë. Il n'y a que quinze ans que cela est arrivé, mais l'homme est mort depuis peu.”—Journal du Voyage en Espagne, p. 203.