have had results unfavourable to his character and temper, is in the natural course of moral causes and effects. A slave in his boyhood and youth, a daily sufferer from intrigue and dissoluteness, the moment he dreamt himself an absolute king, like his ancestors, he found himself, by an unheard of treachery, in the hands of a man who treated him with the greatest indignity and confined him to a retired mansion, where he intended to keep him for life, increasing by every means his moral and political degradation. A most extraordinary combination of events broke his chains: but, when most elated with the returning joys of liberty and a throne, he found his way barred up and obstructed by those very subjects from whom he had been taught to expect unbounded obedience as his birth-right. Had those subjects been unanimous, or even equally divided, for the constitution, as it then existed, or for adding strength to the crown under a constitutional charter, it is probable that he would have willingly submitted to the surrender of part of his inheritance of power. But instead of unanimity, he found himself immediately surrounded by the nobility, the clergy, and the best part of the army, who urged him to resume his former authority and annihilate the constitution, now become odious to a great majority of the nation. The violence, the injustice, the cruelty of his partizans against the adherents of the constitutional government made him odious. As is often the case, perceiving that he was hated, he added fresh motives to that feeling. Sandoval discloses the extensive plots which were formed to depose Ferdinand and disinherit his brothers. Lodges of Freemasons were established for that purpose, not only in the Peninsula, but in London! Conspiracies were set on foot, victims fell, and blood sealed the eternal hatred of both parties. And now, when both sides were most goaded and incensed with mutual wrongs, the accidental discontent of an army placed Ferdinand in the hands of the constitutional party: not however in its original purity of intention, but mixed up with men of a very different stamp-people accustomed to work in secret and to spare no means that could conduce to their object. At this period the state of the king's mind became, to an attentive observer, most strongly marked by a settled suspicion of all mankind. We know that there were those near him at one time that were his real friends; but he could not bring himself to trust them. Unable to show his real feelings, he let himself fall as a dead weight upon the hands of the constitutional ministers, delighting in their difficulties, and rejoicing at the obstacles which the new men-the men of eighteen hundred and twenty, i. e. the promoters of the mutiny of the troops of the Isla in that year-year-opposed to the men of eighteen hundred and twelve, or the founders of the constitution. He was aware that the constitutional government, as it was at that time, would work its own ruin: and hated equally the two parties who by their dissension were paving the way for his emancipation. Such we conceive to be the outline of Ferdinand's mental history. Nor is it to be wondered, that in such a state of mind, and familiarized with the prevalent sensuality of his court, he should often be guilty of gallantries which are too lightly thought of among the generality of Spaniards. The authors before us, however, not content with representing him in Don Esteban as a faithless husband, introduce him boldly and broadly in the action of their second fable as a ruffian accustomed to use physical force for the gratification of his passions. Our limits prevent the insertion of a scene of barbaric pomp in which the company of authors have lavished their united powers of wild invention, unchecked by either a regard to probability or taste. It is a déjeúné given by the Duchess of Ossuna to Ferdinand, under strong suspicions, if we attend to inuendoes, that it was expressly intended by the duchess to offer an opportunity to the king of committing a rape upon the heroine of the novel. As a description of all the ancient amusements of the Spanish nobility, of which there is still any remnant, was to be inserted in this part of the book, and the scene of Ferdinand's brutal violence could not well be laid in broad daylight, it was necessary to prolong the déjeûné. Four-and-twenty hours, beginning at four o'clock in the morning, are therefore apportioned to the uninterrupted amusements of the Duchess of Ossuna's breakfast company. During this ample time, the Freemason hero, by means of a wig, succeeds so effectually in disguising himself, that, though outlawed and in danger of his life, he makes one of the party at the same table with the king of Spain; challenges a gentleman, who being a royalist is, of course, an arrant coward; has a long tête-à-tête with his beloved Gabriela, without being known to her ; gives his arm for a long time to her mother, and even ventures to contradict the old lady, all without exciting the least suspicion. Night comes on: Artimana leads Gabriela to a retired tent; the king follows, and Sandoval dogs them all in his magic wig. Screams are heard coming from the tent; the Freemason implores the assistance of some ladies, who happen to be the king's sisterin-law and her attendants: Gabriela's honour is saved, while Sandoval flies at Artimana's throat, who in self-defence pulls off the hero's wig-and, alas! the charm being broken, he is instantly * Hombres del año veinte. Hombres del año doce. recognized. recognized. Yet the hue and cry which is raised proves ineffectual, and Sandoval is most fortunately preserved for his historians' literary wants, though he walks in a court dress a considerable distance on the road to Madrid-we forget the exact number of miles. Now the question, with every sensible reader, must be, whether the king's conduct, represented in this scene, is copied from reality, or whether the representation is merely the effect of the author's venomous spite against him. That such horrible scandal was industriously propagated by the most violent of the Constitutional party, we doubt not. We have lived at Madrid, in times when people hardly ventured a whisper against the court; and yet even then, such is the greediness with which the most improbable reports are received where there is no real liberty of mental intercourse, when Ferdinand's first wife (a daughter of his uncle the late king of Naples) died, it was rumoured that her death was the effect of poison. The suspicion was grounded upon the fact that the body had been opened, and a description of the immediate cause of her death given in the gazette! The credit which the story of the rape in Sandoval deserves, will be illustrated by the style in which an if possible more atrocious accusation is brought forward in Don Esteban. We should premise that the passage is preceded by an account of a quarrel between Ferdinand and his wife, on account of an alleged amour with the daughter of a Spanish apothecary. On the 27th December, having just returned from the promenade, she (the queen) was seized with one of her fits; and the physicians who attended, being of opinion that she was dead, determined to perform an operation to save the infant. This was actually done with the king's consent, only five hours after she had been seized with the fit!-The Camarera Mayor, who was present, affirmed, that, while it was performing, she saw her shudder!' Observe the wording, the pointing, and the conclusion of the paragraph, and what can be inferred? The queen was not dead when the operation was performed: this the author gives as an unquestionable fact: he implies blame to the king for giving his consent for the opening only five hours after the beginning of the apparent death. He therefore supposes that the king knew she was alive. What can we then think of the opinion given by the king's physicians? - It is true that the ignorance which appears in the passage is worthy of a clown; but can that ignorance excuse the intention with which it is written? Were we to collect all the traits of villainy, cowardice, venality, profligacy, hypocrisy, and impiety which are attributed to the royalists royalists in Don Esteban and Sandoval, Spain, to use a phrase well known to Spaniards, would appear the ante-room of hell. Proud, and constantly boasting of national courage as the author appears, his spite alone could have betrayed him into charging the greatest part of the Spanish army with cowardice. We say the greatest part; but indeed, by his own admission, almost the whole of that army joined the king's party. The reader of Sandoval, when he is told that one of Riego's soldiers alone arrested the progress of an advanced party of ten horsemen of the Royal Carabineers, who were reputed the most formidable corps of the army,'* may be pardoned for asking, was not this individual originally a Castilian herdsman? But to be serious were the Liberals really so much better soldiers than the Royalists? Even under the truly brave Mina, the Spanish general who in our times has shown himself most worthy of the renown which his countrymen enjoyed in former days for military talents-even under the man whose honesty and consistency were tried much above the point where those qualities have generally been found to fail among those of his rank and profession;-even under Mina, the Liberal soldiery offered a decided resistance when he wished to seize Pamplona, and from that point oblige the king to restore the Cortes. An account of that transaction is given at the conclusion of the first volume of Sandoval. It has probably been compiled from Mina's own notes; and what a melancholy state of things it betrays! Even if the desperate step intended had been fully justifiablewhich we can never admit-what ultimate or permanent good could have been accomplished with troops capable of answering a speech of their own favourite general, when he was leading them to Pamplona, in the following manner? "Halt!" was the cry, "not a soul stirs from hence-give us our licenses-the war is now over--we go to our homes only-expect no more obedience from us." Amidst these and other deafening cries, (proceeds our Historical Author) those of the officers, who, mad with rage, endeavoured by oaths and threats to bring the soldiers back to their duty, were not even heard. One deep shout was immediately followed by another deeper still, and oaths and imprecations were fulminated from the mouths of all. Amidst this horrid confusion, the intrepid Mina rushed towards the soldiers, eager to quell the mutiny, and, fired with rage and despair, thundered out his words above those drowning cries, and for a moment silenced the uproar; but it was for a moment only; for no sooner his mighty voice was heard alone, than the soldiery, as if ashamed to have been borne down by a single tongue, again burst out-" Away, General, away, or you are a dead man."-" Fire," cried a voice among them, and an irregular dis * Sandoval, vol. iii. p. 369. 112 charge charge suddenly commenced. The confusion and disorder that ensued are indescribable.' &c. &c. 6 We are well aware that we shall be met with the usual Spanish answer, These soldiers were demoralized, they had been tampered with. It may be true; but this is no solitary incident: could the soldiers care for a constitution from the defence of which they were so easily, so frequently drawn away? It is the mad determination of working the mass of the Spanish peoplesoldiers and peasantry alike-into a political fever, that has demoralized that country, and blasted the scanty seeds of genuine liberty which existed at the time when the Cortes assembled. We know (and if we were ignorant of the late transactions in Spain, Sandoval alone would furnish us with abundant proofs) that the most desperate measures have been employed to engage the lower classes in favour of the Constitutional system. We will only allude to the public dinner given to the troops of Riego at Vejer, where, to use the words of our Freemason, 'the inhabitants gave a magnificent banquet to the soldiers of the column, in which they waited on them at table-AS DID ALSO THEIR OFFICERS.'But all that such disorganizing methods could effect was, what every sincere Spaniard whom we have lately met laments most bitterly. The quiet and orderly habits of the Spanish peasantry have been sadly disturbed, where they are not quite destroyed; bribery has made the lower classes of Spain to overcome that feeling of shame at being paid, even for their labour, in money, which was a characteristic of the nation but twenty years ago. In the large towns, where the negative good qualities of the lower orders were, as usual, greatly impaired by poverty combined with low debauchery, the consequences of the means systematically employed by the Secret Societies, which Sandoval has the assurance to introduce to the admiration of the British public, have been most lamentable. In the Article on Don Esteban, we alluded to the lodges of the Comuneros. The author of the pamphlet to which we have already alluded, believing us hardly acquainted by name with the Spanish Secret Societies, exclaims, ' A lodge of Comuneros! Ha, ha, ha!' How shall we meet this pot-house answer? Does the writer of the letter flatter himself that we are as ignorant of the transactions which have-we were going to say for ever-ruined the hopes of the true Spanish Patriots, as he supposed us to be of Spanish orthography and grammar? Those who have not had access to better sources of information may learn from the historical parts of Sandoval that the mutiny of the army of the Isla which restored * Quarterly Review, No. LXV. the |