of so many black and bloody crimes. How much richer is the glorious Vega below than the gardens of Seville, how much blander this atmosphere than that around the heated rock of Toledo, how much more exquisite this monument of Arabian art than the alcazar of Segovia, how much more bewitchingly attractive is every thing here than in the bleak naked regions of Burgos or Valladolid! Why should not the lord of the united crowns of Castile and Aragon make the seat of his court in this Andalusian paradise?

"The heir of the united lines of Castile and Aragon can do much,' replied the other, which his ancestors, ruling a divided realm, and struggling with the Moor for existence, and continually at war with each other or with their subjects, could not do. But the King of all the Spains must choose his residence, not for amenity of situation, but for the welfare and honor of his crown.'

'True, but whether for defence against the foe, or for access to the various parts of Spain, what city has greater advantages than Granada ?'

It is not by these inducements only,' rejoined the ecclesiastic, that the selection of your capital should be controlled. The kings of Castile, Leon, and Aragon, the counts of Barcelona, the lords of Biscay, were each but the first among the grandees of their respective states; and the fate of many a descendant of Don Pelayo has shown that he was not always even the first. But the King of Spain

must be a king in deed as well as in name. And to make sure of this, he should build his capital in the midst of a desert waste like the village of Madrid, that his great vassals may be separated from their estates, and the bond of union between them and their retainers relaxed. Thus only can he become their master.'

'I admit,' replied the cavalier, 'thy profound knowledge and forecast; but is not the present power of the crown adequate to bridle these refractory nobles? What Haro, Guzman, or Pacheco would venture to raise the standard of his name against me? Even the house of La Cerda accepts of rank and favor at my hands. And think how invitingly Granada stands to be the capital of a new mistress of the Mediterranean ! Is not Spain already mine? Are not the two Sicilies mine? Is not the passage to Africa as easy for me as for the Gothic conquerors from whom I descend, as easy to me as was the transit hither of those fierce Arabs, whom we have at last driven back to their deserts? When my grandsire Maximilian bids adieu to earth and empire, who may pretend to the purple of the Cæsars if not I? And who should better humble the encroaching Mahometan along the Adriatic and the Peloponnesus, and thus restore the limits of the Empire, than the heir alike of the Cæsars and of Don Pelayo? Think, too, of the New World opened to my sceptre by the genius of the Admiral, and empire, wider than all the sway of Augustus,

acquired for me by the bravery of a handful of Spanish gentlemen. Now tell me, with Carthagena and Cadiz at hand for the stations of my navy, what had Rome to recommend it as a capital, which is not exceeded in Granada ? '

'Alas,' replied the Cardinal, 'it is in these magnificent projects of conquest and power, alluring as I admit they are, that I foresee the future downfall of my country. What the public prosperity gains in diffusion it loses in intensity. When Charles of Spain has mounted the throne of the Cæsars, thinkest thou the well-being of Spain will be the exclusive, nay, that it will be the first object of his regard? No. Her treasures will be swallowed up in that fathomless gulf, the intrigues of the Germanic Empire, and the blood of her sons will fatten the plains of Artois or Lombardy; and I fear me her fueros and franchises will be forgotten in admiration of the talents and greatness of her Emperor-King. And that New World, of which thou speakest,-I foresce that the precious metals it yields so exuberantly will flow through Spain without enriching her, and that all the gainful industry she now possesses will vanish before the golden harvest of these Indies. I foresee that the enterprise of Spain will pass off in expeditions of colonization beyond the Ocean-Sea, so that the day shall come when the New World will indeed become a world of itself, independent of us, wherein the glories of Spain, nay of Europe, will be absorbed and extinguished '—

'Basta!' said his impatient auditor. Is not "plus oultro" the motto of my head and heart? The Pillars of Hercules shall place no barrier to the dominion of Charles of Spain. And thou, my good Ximenez, whose baseless predictions I have heard all too calmly, suffer not these thick coming fancies to cloud thy better judgment, but rather join me in devising measures for strengthening and extending the power of the Spanish monarchy.'

As the last words fell on my ear, the vesper-bell sounded in the distance, and I awoke to the consciousness that evening was fast descending around me. The courts and halls of the Alhambra were deserted, lonely, and silent. Princes no longer feasted in its saloons, nor dispensed justice in its gates: and if a few straggling occupants were seen here and there in its precincts, they were only the half dozen officers of its nominal garrison, or the poor silk weavers permitted to dwell within the walls of the Fortress. I descended the street of the Gomeles, and paced the Bivarrambla in pensive meditation. The Romans of the older world, the VisiGoths and Moors of the middle age, all were extinct alike, the stable magnificence of the one and the brilliant anarchy of the others, each was gone. And what remained to supply their place? Not the martial following of Charles and Philip, which broke the military force of the French at Pavia, and the naval force of the Turks in the gulf of Lepanto;—

not the formidable states of Philip the Second and Third, whose ministers wielded the wealth of the world for good or for evil; not even the intellectual and imaginative courts, for which Cervantes, and Lope de Vega, and Calderon wrote: but a country, a nation, a people, which affords a standing monument of the public degradation and private misery, to which vicious political institutions can reduce a country the richest in its natural resources among the states of Europe, a nation once the most powerful in all the elements of political greatness, and a people surpassed by none, even at the present day, in genius, courage, and every moral capability.

The muleteer, who crossed the Bivarrambla at the moment these reflections were passing through my mind, in his buskined legs, in his port and features, and in the large cloak thrown like a toga over his shoulders, seemed half a Roman at least; but he was only a poor contrabandista from the mountains of Ronda after all, earning a scanty subsistence by the constant violation of oppressive laws. The horseman, who rode by me, was a Castilian noble of the first class, whose fathers led to battle armies of their own household; but the privileges of his grandee-ship were now narrowed down to the right of wearing a hat in the King's presence, of addressing him in the second person, of shining in the maestranza of his province, and perchance of receiving the signal honor of the chamberlain's

*