In the preceding chapters, I have endeavoured to establish four leading propositions, which, according to my view, are to be deemed the basis of the history of civilization. They are: 1st, That the progress of mankind depends on the success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated, and on the extent to which a knowledge of those laws is diffused. 2nd, That before such investigation can begin, a spirit of scepticism must arise, which, at first aiding the investigation, is afterwards aided by it. 3rd, That the discoveries thus made, increase the influence of intellectual truths, and diminish, relatively not absolutely, the influence of moral truths; moral truths being more stationary than intellectual truths, and receiving fewer additions. 4th, That the great enemy of this movement, and therefore the great enemy of civilization, is the protective spirit; by which I mean the notion that society cannot prosper, unless the affairs of life are watched over and protected at nearly every turn by the state and the church; the state teaching men what they are to do, and the church teaching them what they are to believe. Such are the propositions which I hold to be the most essential for a right understanding of history, and which I have defended in the only two ways any proposition can be defended; namely, inductively and deductively. The inductive defence comprises a collection of historical and scientific facts, which suggest and authorize the conclusions drawn from them; while the deductive defence consists of a verification of those conclusions, by showing how they explain the history of different countries and their various fortunes. To the former, or inductive method of defence, I am at present unable to add anything new; but the deductive defence I hope to strengthen considerably, and by the aid of the following chapters, confirm not only the four cardinal propositions just stated, but also several minor propositions, which, though strictly speaking flowing from them, will require separate verification. According to the plan already sketched, the remaining part of the introduction will contain an examination of the history of Spain, of Scotland, of Germany, and of the United States of America, with the object of elucidating principles on which the history of England supplies inadequate information. And as Spain is the country where what I conceive to be the fundamental conditions of national improvement have been most flagrantly violated, so also shall we find that it is the country where the penalty paid for the violation has been most heavy, and where, therefore, it is most instructive to ascertain how the prevalence of certain opinions causes the decay of the people among whom they predominate.

We have seen that the old tropical civilizations were accompanied by remarkable features which I have termed Aspects of Nature, and which, by inflaming the imagination, encouraged superstition, and prevented men from daring to analyze such threatening physical phenomena; in other words, prevented the creation of the physical sciences. Now, it is an interesting fact that, in these respects, no European country is so analogous to the tropics as Spain. No other part of Europe is so clearly designated by nature as the seat and refuge of superstition. Recurring to what has been already proved,[1164] it will be remembered that among the most important physical causes of superstition are famines, epidemics, earthquakes, and that general unhealthiness of climate, which, by shortening the average duration of life, increases the frequency and earnestness with which supernatural aid is invoked. These peculiarities, taken together, are more prominent in Spain than anywhere else in Europe; it will therefore be useful to give such a summary of them as will exhibit the mischievous effects they have produced in shaping the national character.

If we except the northern extremity of Spain, we may say that the two principal characteristics of the climate are heat and dryness, both of which are favoured by the extreme difficulty which nature has interposed in regard to irrigation. For, the rivers which intersect the land, run mostly in beds too deep to be made available for watering the soil, which consequently is, and always has been, remarkably arid.[1165] Owing to this, and to the infrequency of rain, there is no European country as richly endowed in other respects, where droughts and therefore famines have been so frequent and serious.[1166] At the same time the vicissitudes of climate, particularly in the central parts, make Spain habitually unhealthy; and this general tendency being strengthened in the middle ages by the constant occurrence of famine, caused the ravages of pestilence to be unusually fatal.[1167] When we moreover add that in the Peninsula, including Portugal, earthquakes have been extremely disastrous,[1168] and have excited all those superstitious feelings which they naturally provoke, we may form some idea of the insecurity of life, and of the ease with which an artful and ambitious priesthood could turn such insecurity into an engine for the advancement of their own power.[1169]

Another feature of this singular country is the prevalence of a pastoral life, mainly caused by the difficulty of establishing regular habits of agricultural industry. In most parts of Spain, the climate renders it impossible for the labourer to work the whole of the day;[1170] and this forced interruption encourages among the people an irregularity and instability of purpose, which makes them choose the wandering avocations of a shepherd, rather than the more fixed pursuits of agriculture.[1171] And during the long and arduous war which they waged against their Mohammedan invaders, they were subject to such incessant surprises and forays on the part of the enemy, as to make it advisable that their means of subsistence should be easily removed; hence they preferred the produce of their flocks to that of their lands, and were shepherds instead of agriculturists, simply because by that means they would suffer less in case of an unfavourable issue. Even after the capture of Toledo, late in the eleventh century, the inhabitants of the frontier in Estramadura, La Mancha, and New Castile, were almost entirely herdsmen, and their cattle were pastured not in private meadows but in the open fields.[1172] All this increased the uncertainty of life, and strengthened that love of adventure, and that spirit of romance, which, at a later period, gave a tone to the popular literature. Under such circumstances, everything grew precarious, restless, and unsettled; thought and inquiry were impossible; doubt was unknown; and the way was prepared for those superstitious habits, and for that deep-rooted and tenacious belief, which have always formed a principal feature in the history of the Spanish nation.

To what extent these circumstances would, if they stood by themselves, have affected the ultimate destiny of Spain, is a question hardly possible to answer; but there can be no doubt that their effects must always have been important, though, from the paucity of evidence, we are unable to measure them with precision. In regard, however, to the actual result, this point is of little moment, because a long chain of other and still more influential events became interwoven with those just mentioned, and, tending in precisely the same direction, produced a combination which nothing could resist, and from which we may trace with unerring certainty the steps by which the nation subsequently declined. The history of the causes of the degradation of Spain will indeed become too clear to be mistaken, if studied in reference to those general principles which I have enunciated, and which will themselves be confirmed by the light they throw on this instructive though melancholy subject.

After the subversion of the Roman Empire, the first leading fact in the history of Spain is the settlement of the Visigoths, and the establishment of their opinions in the Peninsula. They, as well as the Suevi, who immediately preceded them, were Arians, and Spain during a hundred and fifty years became the rallying point of that famous heresy,[1173] to which indeed most of the Gothic tribes then adhered. But, at the end of the fifth century, the Franks, on their conversion from Paganism, adopted the opposite and orthodox creed, and were encouraged by their clergy to make war upon their heretical neighbours. Clovis, who was then king of the Franks, was regarded by the church as the champion of the faith, in whose behalf he attacked the unbelieving Visigoths.[1174] His successors, moved by the same motives, pursued the same policy;[1175] and, during nearly a century, there was a war of opinions between France and Spain, by which the Visigothic Empire was seriously endangered, and was more than once on the verge of dissolution. Hence, in Spain, a war for national independence became also a war for national religion,[1176] and an intimate alliance was formed between the Arian kings and the Arian clergy. The latter class were, in those ages of ignorance, sure to gain by such a compact,[1177] and they received considerable temporal advantages in return for the prayers which they offered up against the enemy, as also for the miracles which they occasionally performed. Thus early a foundation was laid for the immense influence which the Spanish priesthood have possessed ever since, and which was strengthened by subsequent events. For, late in the sixth century, the Latin clergy converted their Visigothic masters, and the Spanish government, becoming orthodox, naturally conferred upon its teachers an authority equal to that wielded by the Arian hierarchy.[1178] Indeed, the rulers of Spain, grateful to those who had shown them the error of their ways, were willing rather to increase the power of the church than to diminish it. The clergy took advantage of this disposition; and the result was, that before the middle of the seventh century the spiritual classes possessed more influence in Spain than in any other part of Europe.[1179] The ecclesiastical synods became not only councils of the church, but also parliaments of the realm.[1180] At Toledo, which was then the capital of Spain, the power of the clergy was immense, and was so ostentatiously displayed, that in a council they held there in the year 633, we find the king literally prostrating himself on the ground before the bishops;[1181] and half a century later, the ecclesiastical historian mentions that this humiliating practice was repeated by another king, having become, he says, an established custom.[1182] That this was not a mere meaningless ceremony, is moreover evident from other and analogous facts. Exactly the same tendency is seen in their jurisprudence; since, by the Visigothic code, any layman, whether plaintiff or defendant, might insist on his cause being tried not by the temporal magistrate, but by the bishop of the diocese. Nay, even if both parties to the suit were agreed in preferring the civil tribunal, the bishop still retained the power of revoking the decision, if in his opinion it was incorrect; and it was his especial business to watch over the administration of justice, and to instruct the magistrates how to perform their duty.[1183] Another, and more painful proof of the ascendency of the clergy, is that the laws against heretics were harsher in Spain than in any other country; the Jews in particular being persecuted with unrelenting rigour.[1184] Indeed, the desire of upholding the faith was strong enough to produce a formal declaration that no sovereign should be acknowledged, unless he promised to preserve its purity; the judges of the purity being of course the bishops themselves, to whose suffrage the king owed his throne.[1185]

Such were the circumstances which, in and before the seventh century, secured to the Spanish Church an influence unequalled in any other part of Europe.[1186] Early in the eighth century, an event occurred which apparently broke up and dispersed the hierarchy, but which in reality was extremely favourable to them. In 711 the Mohammedans sailed from Africa, landed in the south of Spain, and in the space of three years conquered the whole country, except the almost inaccessible regions of the north-west. The Spaniards, secure in their native mountains,[1187] soon recovered heart, rallied their forces, and began in their turn to assail the invaders. A desperate struggle ensued, which lasted nearly eight centuries, and in which, a second time in the history of Spain, a war for independence was also a war for religion; the contest between Arabian Infidels and Spanish Christians, succeeding that formerly carried on between the Trinitarians of France and the Arians of Spain. Slowly, and with infinite difficulty, the Christians fought their way. By the middle of the ninth century, they reached the line of the Douro.[1188] Before the close of the eleventh century, they conquered as far as the Tagus, and Toledo, their ancient capital, fell into their hands in 1085.[1189] Even then much remained to be done. In the south, the struggle assumed its deadliest form, and there it was prolonged with such obstinacy, that it was not until the capture of Malaga in 1487, and of Granada in 1492, that the Christian empire was re-established, and the old Spanish monarchy finally restored.[1190]

The effect of all this on the Spanish character was most remarkable. During eight successive centuries, the whole country was engaged in a religious crusade; and those holy wars which other nations occasionally waged, were, in Spain, prolonged and continued for more than twenty generations.[1191] The object being not only to regain a territory, but also to re-establish a creed, it naturally happened that the expounders of that creed assumed a prominent and important position. In the camp, and in the council-chamber, the voice of ecclesiastics was heard and obeyed; for as the war aimed at the propagation of Christianity, it seemed right that her ministers should play a conspicuous part in a matter which particularly concerned them.[1192] The danger to which the country was exposed being moreover very imminent, those superstitious feelings were excited which danger is apt to provoke, and to which, as I have elsewhere shown,[1193] the tropical civilizations owed some of their leading peculiarities. Scarcely were the Spanish Christians driven from their homes and forced to take refuge in the north, when this great principle began to operate. In their mountainous retreat, they preserved a chest filled with relics of the saints, the possession of which they valued as their greatest security.[1194] This was to them a national standard, round which they rallied, and by the aid of which they gained miraculous victories over their infidel opponents. Looking upon themselves as soldiers of the cross, their minds became habituated to supernatural considerations to an extent which we can now hardly believe, and which distinguished them in this respect from every other European nation.[1195] Their young men saw visions, and their old men dreamed dreams.[1196] Strange sights were vouchsafed to them from heaven; on the eve of a battle mysterious portents appeared; and it was observed that whenever the Mohammedans violated the tomb of a Christian saint, thunder and lightning were sent to rebuke the misbelievers, and, if need be, to punish their audacious invasion.[1197]

Under circumstances like these, the clergy could not fail to extend their influence; or, we may rather say, the course of events extended it for them. The Spanish Christians, pent up for a considerable time in the mountains of Asturias, and deprived of their former resources, quickly degenerated, and soon lost the scanty civilization to which they had attained. Stripped of all their wealth, and confined to what was comparatively a barren region, they relapsed into barbarism, and remained, for at least a century, without arts, or commerce, or literature.[1198] As their ignorance increased, so also did their superstition; while this last, in its turn, strengthened the authority of their priests. The order of affairs, therefore, was very natural. The Mohammedan invasion made the Christians poor; poverty caused ignorance; ignorance caused credulity; and credulity, depriving men both of the power and of the desire to investigate for themselves, encouraged a reverential spirit, and confirmed those submissive habits, and that blind obedience to the Church, which form the leading and most unfortunate peculiarity of Spanish history.

From this it appears, that there were three ways in which the Mohammedan invasion strengthened the devotional feelings of the Spanish people. The first way was by promoting a long and obstinate religious war; the second was by the presence of constant and imminent dangers; and the third way was by the poverty, and therefore the ignorance, which it produced among the Christians.

These events being preceded by the great Arian war, and being accompanied and perpetually reinforced by those physical phenomena which I have indicated as tending in the same direction, worked with such combined and accumulative energy, that in Spain the theological element became not so much a component of the national character, but rather the character itself. The ablest and most ambitious of the Spanish kings were compelled to follow in the general wake; and, despots though they were, they succumbed to that pressure of opinions which they believed they were controlling. The war with Granada, late in the fifteenth century, was theological far more than temporal; and Isabella, who made the greatest sacrifices in order to conduct it, and who in capacity as well as in honesty was superior to Ferdinand, had for her object not so much the acquisition of territory as the propagation of the Christian faith.[1199] Indeed, any doubts which could be entertained respecting the purpose of the contest must have been dissipated by subsequent events. For, scarcely was the war brought to a close, when Ferdinand and Isabella issued a decree expelling from the country every Jew who refused to deny his faith; so that the soil of Spain might be no longer polluted by the presence of unbelievers.[1200] To make them Christians, or, failing in that, to exterminate them, was the business of the Inquisition, which was established in the same reign, and which before the end of the fifteenth century was in full operation.[1201] During the sixteenth century, the throne was occupied by two princes of eminent ability, who pursued a similar course. Charles V., who succeeded Ferdinand in 1516, governed Spain for forty years, and the general character of his administration was the same as that of his predecessors. In regard to his foreign policy, his three principal wars were against France, against the German princes, and against Turkey. Of these, the first was secular; but the two last were essentially religious. In the German war, he defended the church against innovation; and at the battle of Muhlberg, he so completely humbled the Protestant princes, as to retard for some time the progress of the Reformation.[1202] In his other great war, he, as the champion of Christianity against Mohammedanism, consummated what his grandfather Ferdinand had begun. Charles defeated and dislodged the Mohammedans in the east, just as Ferdinand had done in the west; the repulse of the Turks before Vienna being to the sixteenth century what the conquest of the Arabs of Granada was to the fifteenth.[1203] It was, therefore, with reason that Charles, at the close of his career, could boast that he had always preferred his creed to his country, and that the first object of his ambition had been to maintain the interests of Christianity.[1204] The zeal with which he struggled for the faith, also appears in his exertions against heresy in the Low Countries. According to contemporary and competent authorities, from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand persons were put to death in the Netherlands during his reign on account of their religious opinions.[1205] Later inquirers have doubted the accuracy of this statement,[1206] which is probably exaggerated; but we know that, between 1520 and 1550, he published a series of laws, to the effect that those who were convicted of heresy should be beheaded, or burned alive, or buried alive. The penalties were thus various, to meet the circumstances of each case. Capital punishment, however, was always to be inflicted on whoever bought an heretical book, or sold it, or even copied it for his own use.[1207] His last advice to his son, well accorded with these measures. Only a few days before his death, he signed a codicil to his will, recommending that no favour should ever be shown to heretics; that they should all be put to death; and that care should be taken to uphold the Inquisition, as the best means of accomplishing so desirable an end.[1208]

This barbarous policy is to be ascribed, not to the vices, nor to the temperament of the individual ruler, but to the operation of large general causes, which acted upon the individual, and impelled him to the course he pursued. Charles was by no means a vindictive man; his natural disposition was to mercy rather than to rigour; his sincerity is unquestionable; he performed what he believed to be his duty; and he was so kind a friend, that those who knew him best were precisely those who loved him most.[1209] Little, however, could all that avail in shaping his public conduct. He was obliged to obey the tendencies of the age and country in which he lived. And what those tendencies were, appeared still more clearly after his death, when the throne of Spain was occupied upwards of forty years by a prince who inherited it in the prime of life, and whose reign is particularly interesting as a symptom and a consequence of the disposition of the people over whom he ruled.

Philip II., who succeeded Charles V. in 1555, was indeed eminently a creature of the time, and the ablest of his biographers aptly terms him the most perfect type of the national character.[1210] His favourite maxim, which forms the key to his policy, was, ‘That it is better not to reign at all than to reign over heretics.’[1211] Armed with supreme power, he bent all his energies towards carrying this principle into effect. Directly that he heard that the Protestants were making converts in Spain, he strained every nerve to stifle the heresy;[1212] and so admirably was he seconded by the general temper of the people, that he was able without risk to suppress opinions which convulsed every other part of Europe. In Spain, the Reformation, after a short struggle, died completely away, and in about ten years the last vestige of it disappeared.[1213] The Dutch wished to adopt, and in many instances did adopt, the reformed doctrine; therefore Philip waged against them a cruel war, which lasted thirty years, and which he continued till his death, because he was resolved to extirpate the new creed.[1214] He ordered that every heretic who refused to recant should be burned. If the heretic did recant, some indulgence was granted; but having once been tainted, he must die. Instead of being burned, he was therefore to be executed.[1215] Of the number of those who actually suffered in the Low Countries, we have no precise information;[1216] but Alva triumphantly boasted that, in the five or six years of his administration, he had put to death in cold blood more than eighteen thousand, besides a still greater number whom he had slain on the field of battle.[1217] This, even during his short tenure of power, would make about forty thousand victims; an estimate probably not far from the truth, since we know, from other sources, that in one year more than eight thousand were either executed or burned.[1218] Such measures were the result of instructions issued by Philip, and formed a necessary part of his general scheme.[1219] The desire paramount in his mind, and to which he sacrificed all other considerations, was to put down the new creed, and to reinstate the old one. To this, even his immense ambition and his inordinate love of power were subordinate. He aimed at the empire of Europe, because he longed to restore the authority of the Church.[1220] All his policy, all his negotiations, all his wars, pointed to this one end. Soon after his accession, he concluded an ignominious treaty with the Pope, that it might not be said that he bore arms against the head of the Christian world.[1221] And his last great enterprise, in some respects the most important of all, was to fit out, at an incredible cost, that famous Armada with which he hoped to humble England, and to nip the heresy of Europe in its bud, by depriving the Protestants of their principal support, and of the only asylum where they were sure to find safe and honourable refuge.[1222]

While Philip, following the course of his predecessors, was wasting the blood and treasure of Spain in order to propagate religious opinions,[1223] the people, instead of rebelling against so monstrous a system, acquiesced in it, and cordially sanctioned it. Indeed, they not only sanctioned it, but they almost worshipped the man by whom it was enforced. There probably never lived a prince who, during so long a period, and amid so many vicissitudes of fortune, was adored by his subjects as Philip II. was. In evil report, and in good report, the Spaniards clung to him with unshaken loyalty. Their affection was not lessened, either by his reverses, or by his forbidding deportment, or by his cruelty, or by his grievous exactions. In spite of all, they loved him to the last. Such was his absurd arrogance, that he allowed none, not even the most powerful nobles, to address him, except on their knees, and, in return, he only spoke in half sentences, leaving them to guess the rest, and to fulfil his commands as best they might.[1224] And ready enough they were to obey his slightest wishes. A contemporary of Philip, struck by the universal homage which he received, says that the Spanish did ‘not merely love, not merely reverence, but absolutely adore him, and deem his commands so sacred, that they could not be violated without offence to God.’[1225]

That a man like Philip II., who never possessed a friend, and whose usual demeanour was of the most repulsive kind, a harsh master, a brutal parent, a bloody and remorseless ruler,—that he should be thus reverenced by a nation among whom he lived, and who had their eyes constantly on his actions; that this should have happened, is surely one of the most surprising, and, at first sight, one of the most inexplicable facts in modern history. Here we have a king who, though afflicted by every quality most calculated to excite terror and disgust, is loved far more than he is feared, and is the idol of a very great people during a very long reign. This is so remarkable as to deserve our serious attention; and in order to clear up the difficulty, it will be necessary to inquire into the causes of that spirit of loyalty which, during several centuries, has distinguished the Spaniards above every other European people.

One of the leading causes was undoubtedly the immense influence possessed by the clergy. For the maxims inculcated by that powerful body have a natural tendency to make the people reverence their princes more than they would otherwise do. And that there is a real and practical connexion between loyalty and superstition, appears from the historical fact that the two feelings have nearly always flourished together and decayed together. Indeed, this is what we should expect on mere speculative grounds, seeing that both feelings are the product of those habits of veneration which make men submissive in their conduct and credulous in their belief.[1226] Experience, therefore, as well as reason, points to this as a general law of the mind, which, in its operation, may be occasionally disturbed, but which holds good in a large majority of cases. Probably the only instance in which the principle fails is, when a despotic government so misunderstands its own interests as to offend the clergy, and separate itself from them. Whenever this is done, a struggle will arise between loyalty and superstition; the first being upheld by the political classes, the other by the spiritual classes. Such a warfare was exhibited in Scotland; but history does not afford many examples of it, and certainly it never took place in Spain, where, on the contrary, several circumstances occurred to cement the union between the Crown and the Church, and to accustom the people to look up to both with almost equal reverence.

By far the most important of these circumstances was the great Arab invasion, which drove the Christians into a corner of Spain, and reduced them to such extremities, that nothing but the strictest discipline, and the most unhesitating obedience to their leaders, could have enabled them to make head against their enemies. Loyalty to their princes became not merely expedient, but necessary; for if the Spaniards had been disunited, they would, in the face of the fearful odds against which they fought, have had no chance of preserving their national existence. The long war which ensued, being both political and religious, caused an intimate alliance between the political and religious classes, since the kings and the clergy had an equal interest in driving the Mohammedans from Spain. During nearly eight centuries, this compact between Church and State was a necessity forced upon the Spaniards by the peculiarities of their position; and, after the necessity had subsided, it naturally happened that the association of ideas survived the original danger, and that an impression had been made upon the popular mind which it was hardly possible to efface.

Evidence of this impression, and of the unrivalled loyalty it produced, crowds upon us at every turn. In no other country are the old ballads so numerous and so intimately connected with the national history. It has, however, been observed, that their leading characteristic is the zeal with which they inculcate obedience and devotion to princes, and that from this source, even more than from military achievements, they draw their most favourite examples of virtue.[1227] In literature the first great manifestation of the Spanish mind was the poem of The Cid, written at the end of the twelfth century, in which we find fresh proof of that extraordinary loyalty which circumstances had forced upon the people.[1228] The ecclesiastical councils display a similar tendency; for, notwithstanding a few exceptions, no other church has been equally eager in upholding the rights of kings.[1229] In civil legislation, we see the same principle at work; it being asserted, on high authority, that in no system of laws is loyalty carried to such extreme height as in the Spanish codes.[1230] Even their dramatic writers were unwilling to represent an act of rebellion on the stage, lest they should appear to countenance what, in the eyes of every good Spaniard, was one of the most heinous of all offences.[1231] Whatever the king came in contact with, was in some degree hallowed by his touch. No one might mount a horse which he had ridden;[1232] no one might marry a mistress whom he had deserted.[1233] Horse and mistress alike were sacred, and it would have been impious for any subject to meddle with what had been honoured by the Lord's anointed. Nor were such rules confined to the prince actually reigning. On the contrary, they survived him, and, working with a sort of posthumous force, forbade any woman whom he had taken as a wife, to marry, even after he was dead. She had been chosen by the king; such choice had already raised her above the rest of mortals; and the least she could do was to retire to a convent, and spend her life mourning over her irreparable loss. These regulations were enforced by custom rather than by law.[1234] They were upheld by the popular will, and were the result of the excessive loyalty of the Spanish nation. Of that loyalty their writers often boast, and with good reason, since it was certainly matchless, and nothing seemed able to shake it. To bad kings and to good kings it equally applied. It was in full strength amid the glory of Spain in the sixteenth century; it was conspicuous when the nation was decaying in the seventeenth century; and it survived the shock of civil wars early in the eighteenth.[1235] Indeed, the feeling had so worked itself into the traditions of the country, as to become not only a national passion, but almost an article of national faith. Clarendon, in his History of that great English Rebellion, the like of which, as he well knew, could never have happened in Spain, makes on this subject a just and pertinent remark. He says that a want of respect for kings is regarded by the Spaniards as a ‘monstrous crime;’ ‘submissive reverence to their princes being a vital part of their religion.’[1236]

These, then, were the two great elements of which the Spanish character was compounded. Loyalty and superstition; reverence for their kings and reverence for their clergy were the leading principles which influenced the Spanish mind, and governed the march of Spanish history. The peculiar and unexampled circumstances under which they arose, have been just indicated; and having seen their origin, we will now endeavour to trace their consequences. Such an examination of results will be the more important, not only because nowhere else in Europe have these feelings been so strong, so permanent, and so unmixed, but also because Spain, being seated at the further extremity of the Continent, from which it is cut off by the Pyrenees, has, from physical causes, as well as from moral ones, come little into contact with other nations.[1237] The course of affairs being, therefore, undisturbed by foreign habits, it becomes easier to discover the pure and natural consequences of superstition and loyalty, two of the most powerful and disinterested feelings which have ever occupied the human heart, and to whose united action we may clearly trace the leading events in the history of Spain.

The results of this combination were, during a considerable period, apparently beneficial, and certainly magnificent. For, the church and the crown making common cause with each other, and being inspirited by the cordial support of the people, threw their whole soul into their enterprises, and displayed an ardour which could hardly fail to insure success. Gradually advancing from the north of Spain, the Christians, fighting their way inch by inch, pressed on till they reached the southern extremity, completely subdued the Mohammedans, and brought the whole country under one rule and one creed. This great result was achieved late in the fifteenth century, and it cast an extraordinary lustre on the Spanish name.[1238] Spain, long occupied by her own religious wars, had hitherto been little noticed by foreign powers, and had possessed little leisure to notice them. Now, however, she formed a compact and undivided monarchy, and at once assumed an important position in European affairs.[1239] During the next hundred years, her power advanced with a speed of which the world had seen no example since the days of the Roman Empire. So late as 1478 Spain was still broken up into independent and often hostile states; Granada was possessed by the Mohammedans; the throne of Castile was occupied by one prince, the throne of Aragon by another. Before the year 1590, not only were these fragments firmly consolidated into one kingdom, but acquisitions were made abroad so rapidly as to endanger the independence of Europe. The history of Spain, during this period, is the history of one long and uninterrupted success. That country, recently torn by civil wars, and distracted by hostile creeds, was able in three generations to annex to her territory the whole of Portugal, Navarre, and Roussillon. By diplomacy, or by force of arms, she acquired Artois and Franche ComtÉ, and the Netherlands; also the Milanese, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, the Balearic Islands, and the Canaries. One of her kings was emperor of Germany; while his son influenced the councils of England, whose queen he married. The Turkish power, then one of the most formidable in the world, was broken and beaten back on every side. The French monarchy was humbled. French armies were constantly worsted; Paris was once in imminent jeopardy; and a king of France, after being defeated on the field, was taken captive, and led prisoner to Madrid. Out of Europe, the deeds of Spain were equally wonderful. In America, the Spaniards became possessed of territories which covered sixty degrees of latitude, and included both the tropics. Besides Mexico, Central America, Venezuela, New Granada, Peru, and Chili, they conquered Cuba, San Domingo, Jamaica, and other islands. In Africa, they obtained Ceuta, Melilla, Oran, Bougiah, and Tunis, and overawed the whole coast of Barbary. In Asia, they had settlements on each side of the Deccan; they held part of Malacca; and they established themselves in the Spice Islands. Finally, by the conquest of the noble archipelago of the Philippines, they connected their most distant acquisitions, and secured a communication between every part of that enormous empire which girdled the world.

In connexion with this, a great military spirit arose, such as no other modern nation has ever exhibited. All the intellect of the country which was not employed in the service of the Church was devoted to the profession of arms. Indeed, the two pursuits were often united; and it is said that the custom of ecclesiastics going to war was practised in Spain long after it was abandoned in other parts of Europe.[1240] At all events, the general tendency is obvious. A mere list of successful battles and sieges in the sixteenth and part of the fifteenth century, would prove the vast superiority of the Spaniards, in this respect, over their contemporaries, and would show how much genius they had expended in maturing the arts of destruction. Another illustration, if another were required, might be drawn from the singular fact that since the time of ancient Greece, no country has produced so many eminent literary men who were also soldiers. Calderon, Cervantes, and Lope de Vega risked their lives in fighting for their country. The military profession was also adopted by many other celebrated authors, among whom may be mentioned, Argote de Molina, AcuÑa, Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Boscan, Carrillo, Cetina, Ercilla, Espinel, Francisco de Figueroa, Garcilasso de la Vega, Guillen de Castro, Hita, Hurtado de Mendoza, Marmol Carvajal, Perez de Guzman, Pulgar, Rebolledo, Roxas, and Virues; all of whom bore, in this manner, unconscious testimony to the spirit by which Spain was universally pervaded.

Here, then, we have a combination which many readers will still consider with favour, and which, at the time it occurred, excited the admiration, albeit the terror, of Europe. We have a great people glowing with military, patriotic, and religious ardour, whose fiery zeal was heightened, rather than softened, by a respectful obedience to their clergy, and by a chivalrous devotion to their kings. The energy of Spain, being thus both animated and controlled, became wary as well as eager; and to this rare union of conflicting qualities we must ascribe the great deeds which have just been related. But the unsound part of a progress of this sort is, that it depends too much upon individuals, and therefore cannot be permanent. Such a movement can only last as long as it is headed by able men. When, however, competent leaders are succeeded by incompetent ones, the system immediately falls to the ground, simply because the people have been accustomed to supply to every undertaking the necessary zeal, but have not been accustomed to supply the skill by which the zeal is guided. A country in this state, if governed by hereditary princes, is sure to decay; inasmuch as, in the ordinary course of affairs, incapable rulers must sometimes arise. Directly this happens, the deterioration begins; for the people, habituated to indiscriminate loyalty, will follow wherever they are led, and will yield to foolish counsels the same obedience that they had before paid to wise ones. This leads us to perceive the essential difference between the civilization of Spain and the civilization of England. We, in England, are a critical, dissatisfied, and captious people, constantly complaining of our rulers, suspecting their schemes, discussing their measures in a hostile spirit, allowing very little power either to the Church or to the Crown, managing our own affairs in our own way, and ready, on the slightest provocation, to renounce that conventional, lip-deep loyalty, which, having never really touched our hearts, is a habit lying on the surface, but not a passion rooted in the mind. The loyalty of Englishmen is not of that sort which would induce them to sacrifice their liberties to please their prince, nor does it ever, for a moment, blind them to a keen sense of their own interests. The consequence is, that our progress is uninterrupted, whether our kings are good or whether they are bad. Under either condition, the great movement goes on. Our sovereigns have had their full share of imbecility and of crime. Still, even men like Henry III. and Charles II. were unable to do us harm. In the same way, during the eighteenth and many years of the nineteenth century, when our improvement was very conspicuous, our rulers were very incompetent. Anne and the first two Georges were grossly ignorant; they were wretchedly educated, and nature had made them at once weak and obstinate. Their united reigns lasted nearly sixty years; and after they had passed away, we, for another period of sixty years, were governed by a prince who was long incapacitated by disease, but of whom we must honestly say that, looking at his general policy, he was least mischievous when he was most incapable. This is not the place to expose the monstrous principles advocated by George III., and to which posterity will do that justice from which contemporary writers are apt to shrink; but it is certain that neither his contracted understanding, nor his despotic temper, nor his miserable superstition, nor the incredible baseness of that ignoble voluptuary who succeeded him on the throne, could do aught to stop the march of English civilization, or to stem the tide of English prosperity. We went on our way rejoicing, caring for none of these things. We were not to be turned aside from our path by the folly of our rulers, because we know full well that we hold our own fate in our own hands, and that the English people possess within themselves those resources and that fertility of contrivance by which alone men can be made great, and happy, and wise.

In Spain, however, directly the government slackened its hold, the nation fell to pieces.[1241] During that prosperous career which has just been noticed, the Spanish throne was invariably filled by very able and intelligent princes. Ferdinand and Isabella, Charles V. and Philip II., formed a line of sovereigns not to be matched in any other country for a period of equal length. By them, the great things were effected, and by their care, Spain apparently flourished. But, what followed when they were withdrawn from the scene, showed how artificial all this was, and how rotten, even to the core, is that system of government which must be fostered before it can thrive, and which, being based on the loyalty and reverence of the people, depends for success not on the ability of the nation, but on the skill of those to whom the interests of the nation are entrusted.

Philip II., the last of the great kings of Spain, died in 1598, and after his death the decline was portentously rapid.[1242] From 1598 to 1700, the throne was occupied by Philip III., Philip IV., and Charles II. The contrast between them and their predecessors was most striking.[1243] Philip III. and Philip IV. were idle, ignorant, infirm of purpose, and passed their lives in the lowest and most sordid pleasures. Charles II., the last of that Austrian dynasty which had formerly been so distinguished, possessed nearly every defect which can make a man ridiculous and contemptible. His mind and his person were such as, in any nation less loyal than Spain, would have exposed him to universal derision. Although his death took place while he was still in the prime of life, he looked like an old and worn-out debauchee. At the age of thirty-five, he was completely bald; he had lost his eyebrows; he was paralyzed; he was epileptic; and he was notoriously impotent.[1244] His general appearance was absolutely revolting, and was that of a drivelling idiot. To an enormous mouth, he added a nether jaw protruding so hideously that his teeth could never meet, and he was unable to masticate his food.[1245] His ignorance would be incredible, if it were not substantiated by unimpeachable evidence. He did not know the names of the large towns, or even of the provinces, in his dominions; and during the war with France he was heard to pity England for losing cities which in fact formed part of his own territory.[1246] Finally, he was immersed in the most grovelling superstition; he believed himself to be constantly tempted by the devil; he allowed himself to be exorcised as one possessed by evil spirits; and he would not retire to rest, except with his confessor and two friars, who had to lie by his side during the night.[1247]

Now it was that men might clearly see on how sandy a foundation the grandeur of Spain was built. When there were able sovereigns, the country prospered; when there were weak ones, it declined. Nearly everything that had been done by the great princes of the sixteenth century, was undone by the little princes of the seventeenth. So rapid was the fall of Spain, that in only three reigns after the death of Philip II., the most powerful monarchy existing in the world was depressed to the lowest point of debasement, was insulted with impunity by foreign nations, was reduced more than once to bankruptcy, was stripped of her fairest possessions, was held up to public opprobrium, was made a theme on which school-boys and moralists loved to declaim respecting the uncertainty of human affairs, and, at length, was exposed to the bitter humiliation of seeing her territories mapped out and divided by a treaty in which she took no share, but the provisions of which she was unable to resent.[1248] Then, truly, did she drink to the dregs the cup of her own shame. Her glory had departed from her, she was smitten down and humbled. Well might a Spaniard of that time who compared the present with the past, mourn over his country, the chosen abode of chivalry and romance, of valour and of loyalty. The mistress of the world, the queen of the ocean, the terror of nations, was gone; her power was gone, no more to return. To her might be applied that bitter lamentation, which, on a much slighter occasion, the greatest of the sons of men has put into the mouth of a dying statesman. Good reason, indeed, had the sorrowing patriot to weep, as one who refused to be comforted, for the fate of his earth, his realm, his land of dear souls, his dear, dear land, long dear for her reputation through the world, but now leased out like to a tenement or pelting farm.[1249]

It would be a weary and unprofitable task to relate the losses and disasters of Spain during the seventeenth century. The immediate cause of them was undoubtedly bad government and unskilful rulers; but the real and overriding cause, which determined the whole march and tone of affairs, was the existence of that loyal and reverential spirit which made the people submit to what any other country would have spurned, and, by accustoming them to place extreme confidence in individual men reduced the nation to that precarious position in which a succession of incompetent princes was sure to overthrow the edifice which competent ones had built up.[1250]

The increasing influence of the Spanish Church was the first and most conspicuous consequence of the declining energy of the Spanish government. For, loyalty and superstition being the main ingredients of the national character, and both of them being the result of habits of reverence, it was to be expected that, unless the reverence could be weakened, what was taken from one ingredient would be given to the other. As, therefore, the Spanish government, during the seventeenth century, did, owing to its extreme imbecility, undoubtedly lose some part of the hold it possessed over the affections of the people, it naturally happened that the Church stepped in, and occupying the vacant place, received what the crown had forfeited. Besides this, the weakness of the executive government encouraged the pretensions of the priesthood, and emboldened the clergy to acts of usurpation, which the Spanish sovereigns of the sixteenth century, superstitious though they were, would not have allowed for a single moment.[1251] Hence the very striking fact, that, while in every other great country, Scotland alone excepted, the power of the Church diminished during the seventeenth century, it, in Spain, actually increased. The results of this are well worth the attention, not only of philosophic students of history, but also of every one who cares for the welfare of his own country, or feels an interest in the practical management of public affairs.

For twenty-three years after the death of Philip II., the throne was occupied by Philip III., a prince as distinguished by his weakness as his predecessors had been by their ability. During more than a century the Spaniards had been accustomed to be entirely ruled by their kings, who, with indefatigable industry, personally superintended the most important transactions, and in other matters exercised the strictest supervision over their ministers. But Philip III., whose listlessness almost amounted to fatuity, was unequal to such labour, and delegated the powers of government to Lerma, who wielded supreme authority for twenty years.[1252] Among a people so loyal as the Spaniards, this unusual proceeding could not fail to weaken the executive; since, in their eyes, the immediate and irresistible interference of the sovereign was essential to the management of affairs, and to the well-being of the nation. Lerma, well aware of this feeling, and conscious that his own position was very precarious, naturally desired to strengthen himself by additional support, so that he might not entirely depend on the favour of the king. He therefore formed a strict alliance with the clergy, and, from the beginning to the end of his long administration did everything in his power to increase their authority.[1253] Thus the influence lost by the crown was gained by the Church, to whose advice a deference was paid even greater than had been accorded by the superstitious princes of the sixteenth century. In this arrangement, the interests of the people were of course unheeded. Their welfare formed no part of the general scheme. On the contrary, the clergy, grateful to a government so sensible of their merits, and so religiously disposed, used all their influence in its favour; and the yoke of a double despotism was riveted more firmly than ever upon the neck of that miserable nation, which was now about to reap the bitter fruit of a long and ignominious submission.[1254]

The increasing power of the Spanish Church during the seventeenth century, may be proved by nearly every description of evidence. The convents and churches multiplied with such alarming speed, and their wealth became so prodigious, that even the Cortes, broken and humbled though they were, ventured on a public remonstrance. In 1626, only five years after the death of Philip III., they requested that some means might be taken to prevent what they described as a constant invasion on the part of the Church. In this remarkable document, the Cortes, assembled at Madrid, declared that never a day passed in which laymen were not deprived of their property to enrich ecclesiastics; and the evil, they said, had grown to such a height, that there were then in Spain upwards of nine thousand monasteries, besides nunneries.[1255] This extraordinary statement has, I believe, never been contradicted, and its probability is enhanced by several other circumstances. Davila, who lived in the reign of Philip III., affirms that in 1623, the two orders of Dominicans and Franciscans alone amounted to thirty-two thousand.[1256] The other clergy increased in proportion. Before the death of Philip III., the number of ministers performing in the Cathedral of Seville had swelled to one hundred; and in the diocese of Seville, there were fourteen thousand chaplains; in the diocese of Calahorra, eighteen thousand.[1257] Nor did there seem any prospect of remedying this frightful condition. The richer the Church became, the greater was the inducement for laymen to enter it; so that there appeared to be no limit to the extent to which the sacrifice of temporal interests might be carried.[1258] Indeed, the movement, notwithstanding its suddenness, was perfectly regular, and was facilitated by a long train of preceding circumstances. Since the fifth century, the course of events, as we have already seen, invariably tended in this direction, and insured to the clergy a dominion which no other nation would have tolerated. The minds of the people being thus prepared, the people themselves looked on in silence at what it would have been impious to oppose; for, as a Spanish historian observes, every proposition was deemed heretical which tended to lessen the amount, or even to check the growth of that enormous wealth which was now possessed by the Spanish Church.[1259]

How natural all this was, appears also from another fact of considerable interest. In Europe generally, the seventeenth century was distinguished by the rise of a secular literature in which ecclesiastical theories were disregarded; the most influential writers, such as Bacon and Descartes, being laymen, rather hostile to the Church than friendly to it, and composing their works with views purely temporal. But in Spain, no change of this sort occurred.[1260] In that country, the Church retained her hold over the highest as well as over the lowest intellects. Such was the pressure of public opinion, that authors of every grade were proud to count themselves members of the ecclesiastical profession, the interests of which they advocated with a zeal worthy of the Dark Ages. Cervantes, three years before his death, became a Franciscan monk.[1261] Lope de Vega was a priest; he was an officer of the Inquisition; and in 1623 he assisted at an auto da fÉ, in which, amid an immense concourse of people, a heretic was burned outside the gate of AlcalÁ at Madrid.[1262] Moreto, one of the three greatest dramatists Spain has produced, assumed the monastic habit during the last twelve years of his life.[1263] Montalvan, whose plays are still remembered, was a priest, and held office in the Inquisition.[1264] Tarrega, Mira de Mescua, and Tirso de Molina, were all successful writers for the stage, and were all clergymen.[1265] Solis, the celebrated historian of Mexico, was also a clergyman.[1266] Sandoval, whom Philip III. appointed historiographer, and who is the principal authority for the reign of Charles V., was at first a Benedictine monk, afterwards became bishop of Tuy, and later still, was raised to the see of Pampeluna.[1267] Davila, the biographer of Philip III., was a priest.[1268] Mariana was a Jesuit;[1269] and MiÑana, who continued his History, was superior of a convent in Valencia.[1270] Martin Carrillo was a jurisconsult as well as an historian, but, not satisfied with his double employment, he too entered the Church, and became canon of Saragossa.[1271] Antonio, the most learned bibliographer Spain ever possessed, was a canon of Seville.[1272] Gracian, whose prose works have been much read, and who was formerly deemed a great writer, was a Jesuit.[1273] Among the poets, the same tendency was exhibited. Paravicino was for sixteen years a popular preacher at the courts of Philip III. and Philip IV.[1274] Zamora was a monk.[1275] Argensola was a canon of Saragossa.[1276] Gongora was a priest;[1277] and Rioja received a high post[1278] in the Inquisition. Calderon was chaplain to Philip IV.;[1279] and so fanatical are the sentiments which tarnish his brilliant genius, that he has been termed the poet of the Inquisition.[1280] His love for the Church was a passion, and he scrupled at nothing which could advance its interests. In Spain, such feelings were natural; though to other nations they seem so strange, that an eminent critic has declared that it is hardly possible to read his works without indignation.[1281] If this be so, the indignation should be extended to nearly all his contemporary countrymen, great or small. There was hardly a Spaniard of that period who did not entertain similar sentiments. Even Villaviciosa, author of one of the very best mock-heroic poems Spain has produced, was not only an officer in the Inquisition, but, in his last will, he strongly urged upon his family and all his descendants, that they too should, if possible, enter the service of that noble institution, taking whatever place in it they could obtain, since all its offices were, he said, worthy of veneration.[1282] In such a state of society, anything approaching to a secular or scientific spirit was, of course, impossible. Every one believed; no one inquired. Among the better classes, all were engaged in war or theology, and most were occupied with both. Those who made literature a profession, ministered, as professional men too often do, to the prevailing prejudice. Whatever concerned the Church was treated not only with respect, but with timid veneration. Skill and industry worthy of a far better cause, were expended in eulogizing every folly which superstition had invented. The more cruel and preposterous a custom was, the greater the number of persons who wrote in its favour, albeit no one had ventured to assail it. The quantity of Spanish works to prove the necessity of religious persecution is incalculable; and this took place in a country where not one man in a thousand doubted the propriety of burning heretics. As to miracles, which form the other capital resource of theologians, they, in the seventeenth century, were constantly happening, and as constantly being recorded. All literary men were anxious to say something on that important subject. Saints, too, being in great repute, their biographies were written in profusion, and with an indifference to truth which usually characterizes that species of composition. With these and kindred topics, the mind of Spain was chiefly busied. Monasteries, nunneries, religious orders, and cathedrals received equal attention, and huge books were written about them, in order that every particular might be preserved. Indeed, it often happened that a single convent, or a single cathedral, would have more than one historian; each seeking to distance his immediate competitor, and all striving which could do most to honour the Church and to uphold the interests of which the Church was the guardian.[1283]

Such, was the preponderance of the ecclesiastical profession, and such was the homage paid to ecclesiastical interests by the Spaniards during the seventeenth century.[1284] They did everything to strengthen the Church in that very age when other nations first set themselves in earnest to weaken it. This unhappy peculiarity was undoubtedly the effect of preceding events; but it was the immediate cause of the decline of Spain, since, whatever may have been the case in former periods, it is certain that, in modern times, the prosperity of nations depends on principles to which the clergy, as a body, are invariably opposed. Under Philip III. they gained an immense accession of strength; and in that very reign they signalized this new epoch of their power by obtaining, with circumstances of horrible barbarity, the expulsion of the whole Moorish nation. This was an act so atrocious in itself,[1285] and so terrible in its consequences, that some writers have ascribed to it alone, the subsequent ruin of Spain; forgetting that other causes, far more potent, were also at work, and that this stupendous crime could never have been perpetrated, except in a country which, being long accustomed to regard heresy as the most heinous of all offences, was ready, at any cost, to purge the land and to free itself from men whose mere presence was regarded as an insult to the Christian faith.

After the reduction, late in the fifteenth century, of the last Mohammedan kingdom in Spain, the great object of the Spaniards became to convert those whom they had conquered.[1286] They believed that the future welfare of a whole people was at stake; and finding that the exhortations of their clergy had no effect, they had recourse to other means, and persecuted the men they were unable to persuade. By torturing some, by burning others, and by threatening all, they at length succeeded; and we are assured that, after the year 1526, there was no Mohammedan in Spain, who had not been converted to Christianity.[1287] Immense numbers of them were baptized by force; but being baptized, it was held that they belonged to the Church, and were amenable to her discipline.[1288] That discipline was administered by the Inquisition, which, during the rest of the sixteenth century, subjected these new Christians, or Moriscoes, as they were now called,[1289] to the most barbarous treatment. The genuineness of their forced conversion was doubted; it therefore became the business of the Church to inquire into their sincerity.[1290] The civil government lent its aid; and among other enactments, an edict was issued by Philip II. in 1566, ordering the Moriscoes to abandon everything which by the slightest possibility could remind them of their former religion. They were commanded, under severe penalties, to learn Spanish, and to give up all their Arabic books. They were forbidden to read their native language, or to write it, or even to speak it in their own houses. Their ceremonies and their very games were strictly prohibited. They were to indulge in no amusements which had been practised by their fathers; neither were they to wear such clothes as they had been accustomed to. Their women were to go unveiled; and as bathing was a heathenish custom, all public baths were to be destroyed, and even all baths in private houses.[1291]

By these and similar measures,[1292] these unhappy people were at length goaded into rebellion; and in 1568 they took the desperate step of measuring their force against that of the whole Spanish monarchy. The result could hardly be doubted; but the Moriscoes maddened by their sufferings, and fighting for their all, protracted the contest till 1571, when the insurrection was finally put down.[1293] By this unsuccessful effort, they were greatly reduced in numbers and in strength; and, during the remaining twenty-seven years of the reign of Philip II. we hear comparatively little of them. Notwithstanding an occasional outbreak, the old animosities were subsiding, and in the course of time would probably have disappeared. At all events, there was no pretence for violence on the part of the Spaniards, since it was absurd to suppose that the Moriscoes, weakened in every way, humbled, broken, and scattered through the kingdom, could, even if they desired it, effect any thing against the resources of the executive government.

But, after the death of Philip II., that movement began which I have just described, and which, contrary to the course of affairs in other nations, secured to the Spanish clergy in the seventeenth century, more power than they had possessed in the sixteenth. The consequences of this were immediately apparent. The clergy did not think that the steps taken by Philip II. against the Moriscoes were sufficiently decisive; and even during his lifetime they looked forward to a new reign, in which these Christians of doubtful sincerity should be either destroyed or driven from Spain.[1294] While he was on the throne, the prudence of the government restrained in some degree the eagerness of the Church; and the king, following the advice of his ablest ministers, refused to adopt the measures to which he was urged, and to which his own disposition prompted him.[1295] But, under his successor, the clergy, as we have already seen, gained fresh strength, and they soon felt themselves sufficiently powerful to begin another and final crusade against the miserable remains of the Moorish nation.[1296]

The Archbishop of Valencia was the first to take the field. In 1602, this eminent prelate presented a memorial to Philip III. against the Moriscoes; and finding that his views were cordially supported by the clergy, and not discouraged by the crown, he followed up the blow by another memorial having the same object.[1297] The Archbishop, who spoke as one having authority, and who from his rank and position was a natural representative of the Spanish Church, assured the king that all the disasters which had befallen the monarchy, had been caused by the presence of these unbelievers, whom it was now necessary to root out, even as David had done to the Philistines, and Saul to the Amalekites.[1298] He declared that the Armada, which Philip II. sent against England in 1588, had been destroyed, because God would not allow even that pious enterprise to succeed, while those who undertook it, left heretics undisturbed at home. For the same reason, the late expedition to Algiers had failed; it being evidently the will of Heaven that nothing should prosper while Spain was inhabited by apostates.[1299] He, therefore, exhorted the king to exile all the Moriscoes, except some whom he might condemn to work in the galleys, and others who could become slaves, and labour in the mines of America.[1300] This, he added, would make the reign of Philip glorious to all posterity, and would raise his fame far above that of his predecessors, who in this matter had neglected their obvious duty.[1301]

These remonstrances, besides being in accordance with the known views of the Spanish Church, were warmly supported by the personal influence of the Archbishop of Toledo, the primate of Spain. In only one respect did he differ from the views advocated by the Archbishop of Valencia. The Archbishop of Valencia thought that children under seven years of age need not share in the general banishment, but might, without danger to the faith, be separated from their parents, and kept in Spain. To this, the Archbishop of Toledo strongly objected. He was unwilling, he said, to run the risk of pure Christian blood being polluted by infidels; and he declared that sooner than leave one of these unbelievers to corrupt the land, he would have the whole of them, men, women, and children, at once put to the sword.[1302]

That they should all be slain, instead of being banished, was the desire of a powerful party in the Church, who thought that such signal punishment would work good by striking terror into the heretics of every nation. Bleda, the celebrated Dominican, one of the most influential men of his time, wished this to be done, and to be done thoroughly. He said, that, for the sake of example, every Morisco in Spain should have his throat cut, because it was impossible to tell which of them were Christians at heart, and it was enough to leave the matter to God, who knew his own, and who would reward in the next world those who were really Catholics.[1303]

It was evident that the fate of the wretched remnant of a once splendid nation was now sealed. The religious scruples of Philip III. forbade him to struggle with the Church; and his minister Lerma would not risk his own authority by even the show of opposition. In 1609, he announced to the king, that the expulsion of the Moriscoes had become necessary. ‘The resolution,’ replied Philip, ‘is a great one; let it be executed.’[1304] And executed it was, with unflinching barbarity. About one million of the most industrious inhabitants of Spain were hunted out like wild beasts, because the sincerity of their religious opinions was doubtful.[1305] Many were slain, as they approached the coast; others were beaten and plundered; and the majority, in the most wretched plight, sailed for Africa. During the passage, the crew, in many of the ships, rose upon them, butchered the men, ravished the women, and threw the children into the sea. Those who escaped this fate, landed on the coast of Barbary, where they were attacked by the Bedouins, and many of them put to the sword. Others made their way into the desert, and perished from famine. Of the number of lives actually sacrificed, we have no authentic account; but it is said, on very good authority, that in one expedition, in which 140,000 were carried to Africa, upwards of 100,000 suffered death in its most frightful forms within a few months after their expulsion from Spain.[1306]

Now, for the first time, the Church was really triumphant.[1307] For the first time, there was not a heretic to be seen between the Pyrenees and the Straits of Gibraltar. All were orthodox, and all were loyal. Every inhabitant of that great country obeyed the Church, and feared the king. And from this happy combination, it was believed that the prosperity and grandeur of Spain were sure to follow. The name of Philip III. was to be immortal, and posterity would never weary of admiring that heroic act by which the last remains of an infidel race were cast out from the land. Those who had even remotely participated in the glorious consummation, were to be rewarded by the choicest blessings. Themselves, and their families, were under the immediate protection of Heaven. The earth should bear more fruit, and the trees should clap their hands. Instead of the thorn should come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier, the myrtle. A new era was now inaugurated, in which Spain, purged of her heresy, was to be at ease, and men, living in safety, were to sleep under the shade of their own vineyards, sow their gardens in peace, and eat of the fruit of the trees they had planted.[1308]

These were the promises held out by the Church, and believed by the people. It is our business to inquire how far the expectations were fulfilled, and what the consequences were of an act which was instigated by the clergy, welcomed by the nation, and eagerly applauded by some of the greatest men of genius Spain has produced.[1309]

The effects upon the material prosperity of Spain may be stated in a few words. From nearly every part of the country, large bodies of industrious agriculturists and expert artificers were suddenly withdrawn. The best systems of husbandry then known, were practised by the Moriscoes, who tilled and irrigated with indefatigable labour.[1310] The cultivation of rice, cotton, and sugar, and the manufacture of silk and paper, were almost confined to them.[1311] By their expulsion, all this was destroyed at a blow, and most of it was destroyed for ever. For, the Spanish Christians considered such pursuits beneath their dignity. In their judgment, war and religion were the only two avocations worthy of being followed. To fight for the king, or to enter the Church was honourable; but everything else was mean and sordid.[1312] When, therefore, the Moriscoes were thrust out of Spain, there was no one to fill their place; arts and manufactures either degenerated, or were entirely lost, and immense regions of arable land were left uncultivated. Some of the richest parts of Valencia and Granada were so neglected, that means were wanting to feed even the scanty population which remained there.[1313] Whole districts were suddenly deserted, and down to the present day have never been repeopled. These solitudes gave refuge to smugglers and brigands, who succeeded the industrious inhabitants formerly occupying them; and it is said, that from the expulsion of the Moriscoes is to be dated the existence of those organized bands of robbers, which, after this period, became the scourge of Spain, and which no subsequent government has been able entirely to extirpate.[1314]

To these disastrous consequences, others were added, of a different, and, if possible, of a still more serious kind. The victory gained by the Church increased both her power and her reputation. During the rest of the seventeenth century, not only were the interests of the clergy deemed superior to the interests of laymen, but the interests of laymen were scarcely thought of. The greatest men, with hardly an exception, became ecclesiastics, and all temporal considerations, all views of earthly policy, were despised and set at nought. No one inquired; no one doubted; no one presumed to ask if all this was right. The minds of men succumbed and were prostrate. While every other country was advancing, Spain alone was receding. Every other country was making some addition to knowledge, creating some art, or enlarging some science. Spain, numbed into a death-like torpor, spellbound and entranced by the accursed superstition which preyed on her strength, presented to Europe a solitary instance of constant decay. For her, no hope remained; and, before the close of the seventeenth century, the only question was, by whose hands the blow should be struck, which would dismember that once mighty empire, whose shadow had covered the world, and whose vast remains were imposing even in their ruin.

To indicate the different steps which mark the decline of Spain would be hardly possible, since even the Spaniards, who, when it was too late, were stung with shame, have abstained from writing what would only be the history of their own humiliation; so that there is no detailed account of the wretched reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., which together comprise a period of nearly eighty years.[1315] Some facts, however, I have been able to collect, and they are very significant. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the population of Madrid was estimated to be 400,000; at the beginning of the eighteenth century, less than 200,000.[1316] Seville, one of the richest cities in Spain, possessed in the sixteenth century upwards of sixteen thousand looms, which gave employment to a hundred and thirty thousand persons.[1317] By the reign of Philip V., these sixteen thousand looms had dwindled away to less than three hundred;[1318] and, in a report which the Cortes made to Philip IV., in 1662, it is stated that the city contained only a quarter of its former number of inhabitants, and that even the vines and olives cultivated in its neighbourhood, and which comprised a considerable part of its wealth, were almost entirely neglected.[1319] Toledo, in the middle of the sixteenth century, had upwards of fifty woollen manufactories; in 1665, it had only thirteen, almost the whole of the trade having been carried away by the Moriscoes, and established at Tunis.[1320] Owing to the same cause, the art of manufacturing silk, for which Toledo was celebrated, was entirely lost, and nearly forty thousand persons, who depended on it, were deprived of their means of support.[1321] Other branches of industry shared the same fate. In the sixteenth century, and early in the seventeenth, Spain enjoyed great repute for the manufacture of gloves, which were made in enormous quantities, and shipped to many parts, being particularly valued in England and France, and being also exported to the Indies. But Martinez de Mata, who wrote in the year 1655, assures us that at that time this source of wealth had disappeared; the manufacture of gloves having quite ceased, though formerly, he says, it had existed in every city in Spain.[1322] In the once-flourishing province of Castile, every thing was going to ruin. Even Segovia lost its manufactures, and retained nothing but the memory of its former wealth.[1323] The decay of Burgos was equally rapid; the trade of that famous city perished; and the deserted streets and empty houses formed such a picture of desolation, that a contemporary, struck by the havoc, emphatically declared that Burgos had lost every thing except its name.[1324] In other districts, the results were equally fatal. The beautiful provinces of the south, richly endowed by nature, had formerly been so wealthy, that their contributions alone sufficed, in time of need, to replenish the imperial treasury; but they now deteriorated with such rapidity, that, by the year 1640, it was found hardly possible to impose a tax on them which would be productive.[1325] During the latter half of the seventeenth century, matters became still worse, and the poverty and wretchedness of the people surpass all description. In the villages near Madrid, the inhabitants were literally famishing; and those farmers who had a stock of food refused to sell it, because, much as they needed money, they were apprehensive of seeing their families perish around them. The consequence was, that the capital was in danger of being starved; and ordinary threats producing no effect, it was found necessary, in 1664, that the President of Castile, with an armed force, and accompanied by the public executioner, should visit the adjacent villages, and compel the inhabitants to bring their supplies to the markets of Madrid.[1326] All over Spain, the same destitution prevailed. That once rich and prosperous country was covered with a rabble of monks and clergy, whose insatiate rapacity absorbed the little wealth yet to be found. Hence it happened, that the government, though almost penniless, could obtain no supplies. The tax-gatherers, urged to make up the deficiency, adopted the most desperate expedients. They not only seized the beds and all the furniture, but they unroofed the houses, and sold the materials of the roof, for whatever they would fetch. The inhabitants were forced to fly; the fields were left uncultivated; vast multitudes died from want and exposure; entire villages were deserted; and in many of the towns, upwards of two-thirds of the houses were, by the end of the seventeenth century, utterly destroyed.[1327]

In the midst of these calamities, the spirit and energy of Spain were extinguished. In every department, all power and life disappeared. The Spanish troops were defeated at Rocroy in 1643; and several writers ascribe to that battle the destruction of the military reputation of Spain.[1328] This, however, was only one of many symptoms.[1329] In 1656, it was proposed to fit out a small fleet; but the fisheries on the coast had so declined, that it was found impossible to procure sailors enough to man even the few ships which were required.[1330] The charts which had been made, were either lost or neglected; and the ignorance of the Spanish pilots became so notorious, that no one was willing to trust them.[1331] As to the military service, it is stated, in an account of Spain, late in the seventeenth century, that most of the troops had deserted their colours, and that the few who were faithful were clothed in rags, received no pay, and were dying of hunger.[1332] Another account describes this once mighty kingdom as utterly unprotected; the frontier towns ungarrisoned; the fortifications dilapidated and crumbling away; the magazines without ammunition; the arsenals empty; the workshops unemployed; and even the art of building ships entirely lost.[1333]

While the country at large was thus languishing, as if it had been stricken by some mortal distemper, the most horrible scenes were occurring in the capital, under the eyes of the sovereign. The inhabitants of Madrid were starving; and the arbitrary measures which had been adopted to supply them with food, could only produce temporary relief. Many persons fell down in the streets exhausted, and died where they fell; others were seen in the public highway evidently dying, but no one had wherewithal to feed them. At length the people became desperate, and threw off all control. In 1680, not only the workmen of Madrid, but large numbers of the tradesmen, organized themselves into bands, broke open private houses, and robbed and murdered the inhabitants in the face of day.[1334] During the remaining twenty years of the seventeenth century, the capital was in a state, not of insurrection, but of anarchy. Society was loosened, and seemed to be resolving itself into its elements. To use the emphatic language of a contemporary, liberty and restraint were equally unknown.[1335] The ordinary functions of the executive government were suspended. The police of Madrid, unable to obtain the arrears of their pay, disbanded, and gave themselves up to rapine. Nor did there seem any means of remedying these evils. The exchequer was empty, and it was impossible to replenish it. Such was the poverty of the court, that money was wanting to pay the wages of the king's private servants, and to meet the daily expenses of his household.[1336] In 1693, payment was suspended of every life-pension; and all officers and ministers of the crown were mulcted of one-third of their salaries.[1337] Nothing, however, could arrest the mischief. Famine and poverty continued to increase;[1338] and, in 1699, Stanhope, the British minister then residing in Madrid, writes, that never a day passed in which people were not killed in the streets scuffling for bread; that his own secretary had seen five women stifled to death by the crowd before a bakehouse; and that, to swell the catalogue of misery, upwards of twenty thousand additional beggars from the country had recently flocked into the capital.[1339]

If this state of things had continued for another generation, the wildest anarchy must have ensued, and the whole frame of society been broken up.[1340] The only chance of saving Spain from a relapse into barbarism, was that it should fall, and fall quickly, under foreign dominion. Such a change was indispensable; and there was reason to fear that it might come in a form which would have been inexpressibly odious to the nation. For, late in the seventeenth century, Ceuta was besieged by the Mohammedans; and as the Spanish Government had neither troops nor ships, the greatest apprehensions were entertained respecting the fate of this important fortress; there being little doubt, that if it fell, Spain would be again overrun by the infidels, who, this time, at least, would have found little difficulty in dealing with a people weakened by suffering, half famished, and almost worn out.[1341]

Fortunately, in the year 1700, when affairs were at their worst, Charles II., the idiot king, died; and Spain fell into the hands of Philip V., the grandson of Louis XIV. This change from the Austrian dynasty to the Bourbon,[1342] brought with it many other changes. Philip, who reigned from 1700 to 1746,[1343] was a Frenchman, not only by birth and education, but also in feelings and habits.[1344] Just before he entered Spain, Louis charged him never to forget that he was a native of France, the throne of which he might some day ascend.[1345] After he became king, he neglected the Spaniards, despised their advice, and threw all the power he could command into the hands of his own countrymen.[1346] The affairs of Spain were now administered by subjects of Louis XIV., whose ambassador at Madrid frequently performed the functions of prime minister.[1347] What had once been the most powerful monarchy in the world, became little else than a province of France; all important matters being decided in Paris, from whence Philip himself received his instructions.[1348]

The truth is, that Spain, broken and prostrate, was unable to supply ability of any kind; and if the government of the country was to be carried on, it was absolutely necessary that foreigners should be called in.[1349] Even in 1682, that is, eighteen years before the accession of Philip V., there was not to be found a single native well acquainted with the art of war; so that Charles II. was obliged to intrust the military defence of the Spanish Netherlands to De Grana, the Austrian ambassador at Madrid.[1350] When, therefore, the War of the Succession broke out, in 1702, even the Spaniards themselves desired that their troops should be commanded by a foreigner.[1351] In 1704, the extraordinary spectacle was exhibited of the Duke of Berwick, an Englishman, leading Spanish soldiers against the enemy, and being in fact generalissimo of the Spanish army.[1352] The King of Spain, dissatisfied with his proceedings, determined to remove him; but, instead of filling his place with a native, he applied to Louis XIV. for another general; and this important post was confided to Marshal TessÉ, a Frenchman.[1353] A little later, Berwick was again summoned to Madrid, and ordered to put himself at the head of the Spanish troops, and defend Estremadura and Castile.[1354] This he effected with complete success; and, in the battle of Almansa, which he fought in 1707, he overthrew the invaders, ruined the party of the pretender Charles,[1355] and secured the seat of Philip on the throne.[1356] As the war, however, still continued, Philip, in 1710, wrote to Paris for another general, and requested that the Duke de VendÔme might be sent to him.[1357] This able commander, on his arrival, infused new vigour into the Spanish counsels, and utterly defeated the allies;[1358] so that the war by which the independence of Spain was established, owed its success to the ability of foreigners, and to the fact that the campaigns were planned and conducted, not by natives, but by French and English generals.

In the same way, the finances were, by the end of the seventeenth century, in such deplorable confusion, that Portocarrero, who at the accession of Philip V. was the nominal minister of Spain, expressed a desire that they should be administered by some one sent from Paris, who could restore them.[1359] He felt that no one in Spain was equal to the task, and he was by no means singular in this opinion. In 1701, Louville wrote to Torcy, that if a financier did not soon arrive from France, there would shortly be no finances to administer.[1360] The choice fell upon Orry, who reached Madrid in the summer of 1701.[1361] He found everything in the most miserable condition; and the incompetence of the Spaniards was so obvious, that he was soon forced to undertake the management, not only of the finances, but also of the war-department. To save appearances, Canalez became the ostensible minister at war; but he, being completely ignorant of affairs, merely performed the drudgery of that office, the real duties of which were fulfilled by Orry himself.[1362]

This dominion of the French continued, without interruption, until the second marriage of Philip V., in 1714, and the death of Louis XIV., in 1715, both of which events weakened their influence, and for a time almost destroyed it. The authority, however, which they lost, was transferred, not to Spaniards, but to other foreigners. Between 1714 and 1726, the two most powerful and conspicuous men in Spain were Alberoni, an Italian, and Ripperda, a Dutchman. Ripperda was dismissed in 1726;[1363] and after his fall, the affairs of Spain were controlled by Konigseg, who was a German, and who, indeed, was the Austrian ambassador residing at Madrid.[1364] Even Grimaldo, who held office before and after the dismissal of Ripperda, was a disciple of the French school, and had been brought up under Orry.[1365] All this was not the result of accident, nor is it to be ascribed to the caprice of the court. In Spain, the national spirit had so died away, that none but foreigners, or men imbued with foreign ideas, were equal to the duties of government. To the evidence already quoted on this point, I will add two other testimonies. Noailles, a very fair judge, and by no means prejudiced against the Spaniards, emphatically stated, in 1710, that, notwithstanding their loyalty, they were incapable of ruling, inasmuch as they were ignorant both of war and of politics.[1366] In 1711, Bonnac mentions that a resolution had been formed to place no Spaniard at the head of affairs, because those hitherto employed had proved to be either unfortunate or unfaithful.[1367]

The government of Spain being taken from the Spaniards, now began to show some signs of vigour. The change was slight, but it was in the right direction, though, as we shall presently see, it could not regenerate Spain, owing to the unfavourable operation of general causes. Still, the intention was good. For the first time, attempts were made to vindicate the rights of laymen, and to diminish the authority of ecclesiastics. Scarcely had the French established their dominion, when they suggested that it might be advisable to relieve the necessities of the state, by compelling the clergy to give up some of the wealth which they had accumulated in their churches.[1368] Even Louis XIV. insisted that the important office of President of Castile should not be conferred on an ecclesiastic, because, he said, in Spain the priests and monks had already too much power.[1369] Orry, who for several years possessed immense influence, exerted it in the same direction. He endeavoured to lessen the immunities possessed by the clergy, in regard to taxation, and also in regard to their exemption from lay jurisdiction. He opposed the privilege of sanctuary; he sought to deprive churches of their right of asylum. He even attacked the Inquisition, and worked so powerfully on the mind of the king, that Philip, at one time, determined to suspend that dreadful tribunal, and abolish the office of grand inquisitor.[1370] This intention was very properly abandoned; for there can be no doubt that if it had been enforced, it would have caused a revolution, in which Philip would probably have lost his crown.[1371] In such case, a reaction would have set in, which would have left the Church stronger than ever. Many things, however, were done for Spain in spite of the Spaniards.[1372] In 1707, the clergy were forced to contribute to the state a small part of their enormous wealth; the tax being disguised under the name of a loan.[1373] Ten years later, during the administration of Alberoni, this disguise was thrown off; and not only did government exact what was now called ‘the ecclesiastical tax,’ but it imprisoned or exiled those priests who, refusing to pay, stood up for the privileges of their order.[1374] This was a bold step to be taken in Spain, and it was one on which, at that time, no Spaniard would have ventured. Alberoni, however, as a foreigner, was unversed in the traditions of the country, which, indeed, on another memorable occasion, he set at defiance. The government of Madrid, acting in complete unison with public opinion, had always been unwilling to negotiate with infidels; meaning by infidels every people whose religious notions differed from their own. Sometimes, such negotiations were unavoidable, but they were entered into with fear and trembling, lest the pure Spanish faith should be tainted by too close a contact with unbelievers. Even in 1698, when it was evident that the monarchy was at its last gasp, and that nothing could save it from the hands of the spoiler, the prejudice was so strong, that the Spaniards refused to receive aid from the Dutch, because the Dutch were heretics. At that time, Holland was in the most intimate relation with England, whose interest it was to secure the independence of Spain against the machinations of France. Obvious, however, as this was, the Spanish theologians, being consulted respecting the proposal, declared that it was inadmissible, since it would enable the Dutch to propagate their religious opinions; so that, according to this view, it was better to be subjugated by a Catholic enemy, than to be assisted by a Protestant friend.[1375]

Still, much as the Spaniards hated Protestants, they hated Mohammedans yet more.[1376] They could never forget how the followers of that creed had once conquered nearly the whole of Spain, and had, during several centuries, possessed the fairest portion of it. The remembrance of this strengthened their religious animosity, and caused them to be the chief supporters of nearly every war which was waged against the Mohammedans, both of Turkey and of Africa.[1377] But Alberoni, being a foreigner, was unmoved by these considerations, and, to the astonishment of all Spain, he, on the mere ground of political expediency, set at naught the principles of the Church, and not only concluded an alliance with the Mohammedans, but supplied them with arms and with money.[1378] It is, indeed, true, that, in these and similar measures, Alberoni opposed himself to the national will, and that he lived to repent of his boldness. It is, however, also true, that his policy was part of a great secular and anti-theological movement, which, during the eighteenth century, was felt all over Europe. The effects of that movement were seen in the government of Spain, but not in the people. This was because the government for many years was wielded by foreigners, or by natives imbued with a foreign spirit. Hence we find that, during the greater part of the eighteenth century, the politicians of Spain formed a class more isolated, and, if I may so say, more living on their own intellectual resources, than the politicians of any other country during the same period. That this indicated a state of disease, and that no political improvement can produce real good, unless it is desired by the people before being conferred on them, will be admitted by whoever has mastered the lessons which history contains. The results actually produced in Spain, we shall presently see. But it will first be advisable that I should give some further evidence of the extent to which the influence of the Church had prostrated the national intellect, and by discouraging all inquiry, and fettering all freedom of thought, had at length reduced the country to such a plight, that the faculties of men, rusted by disuse, were no longer equal to fulfil the functions required from them; so that in every department, whether of political life, or of speculative philosophy, or even of mechanical industry, it was necessary that foreigners should be called in, to do that work, which the natives had become unable to perform.

The ignorance in which the force of adverse circumstances had sunk the Spaniards, and their inactivity, both bodily and mental, would be utterly incredible, if it were not attested by every variety of evidence. Gramont, writing from personal knowledge of the state of Spain, during the latter half of the seventeenth century, describes the upper classes as not only unacquainted with science or literature, but as knowing scarcely any thing even of the commonest events which occurred out of their own country. The lower ranks, he adds, are equally idle, and rely upon foreigners to reap their wheat, to cut their hay, and to build their houses.[1379] Another observer of society, as it existed in Madrid in 1679, assures us that men, even of the highest position, never thought it necessary that their sons should study; and that those who were destined for the army could not learn mathematics, if they desired to do so, inasmuch as there were neither schools nor masters to teach them.[1380] Books, unless they were books of devotion, were deemed utterly useless; no one consulted them; no one collected them; and, until the eighteenth century, Madrid did not possess a single public library.[1381] In other cities professedly devoted to purposes of education, similar ignorance prevailed. Salamanca was the seat of the most ancient and most famous university in Spain, and there, if anywhere, we might look for the encouragement of science.[1382] But De Torres, who was himself a Spaniard, and was educated at Salamanca, early in the eighteenth century, declares that he had studied at that university for five years before he had heard that such things as the mathematical sciences existed.[1383] So late as the year 1771, the same university publicly refused to allow the discoveries of Newton to be taught; and assigned as a reason, that the system of Newton was not so consonant with revealed religion as the system of Aristotle.[1384] All over Spain, a similar plan was adopted. Everywhere, knowledge was spurned, and inquiry discouraged. Feijoo, who, notwithstanding his superstition, and a certain slavishness of mind, from which no Spaniard of that age could escape, did, on matters of science, seek to enlighten his countrymen, has left upon record his deliberate opinion, that whoever had acquired all that was taught in his time under the name of philosophy, would, as the reward of his labour, be more ignorant than he was before he began.[1385] And there can be no doubt that he was right. There can be no doubt that, in Spain, the more a man was taught, the less he would know. For, he was taught that inquiry was sinful, that intellect must be repressed, and that credulity and submission were the first of human attributes. The Duke de Saint Simon, who, in 1721 and 1722, was the French ambassador at Madrid, sums up his observations by the remark, that, in Spain, science is a crime, and ignorance a virtue.[1386] Fifty years later, another shrewd observer, struck with amazement at the condition of the national mind, expresses his opinion in a sentence equally pithy and almost equally severe. Searching for an illustration to convey his sense of the general darkness, he emphatically says, that the common education of an English gentleman would, in Spain, constitute a man of learning.[1387]

Those who know what the common education of an English gentleman was eighty years ago, will appreciate the force of this comparison, and will understand how benighted a country must have been, to which such a taunt was applicable. To expect that, under such a state of things, the Spaniards should make any of the discoveries which accelerate the march of nations, would be idle indeed; for they would not even receive the discoveries, which other nations had made for them, and had cast into the common lap. So loyal and orthodox a people had nothing to do with novelties, which, being innovations on ancient opinions, were fraught with danger. The Spaniards desired to walk in the ways of their ancestors, and not have their faith in the past rudely disturbed. In the inorganic world, the magnificent discoveries of Newton were contumeliously rejected; and, in the organic world, the circulation of the blood was denied, more than a hundred and fifty years after Harvey had proved it.[1388] These things were new, and it was better to pause a little, and not receive them too hastily. On the same principle, when, in the year 1760, some bold men in the government proposed that the streets of Madrid should be cleansed, so daring a suggestion excited general anger. Not only the vulgar, but even those who were called educated, were loud in their censure. The medical profession, as the guardians of the public health, were desired, by the government, to give their opinion. This, they had no difficulty in doing. They had no doubt that the dirt ought to remain. To remove it, was a new experiment; and of new experiments, it was impossible to foresee the issue. Their fathers having lived in the midst of it, why should not they do the same? Their fathers were wise men, and must have had good reasons for their conduct. Even the smell, of which some persons complained, was most likely wholesome. For, the air being sharp and piercing, it was extremely probable that bad smells made the atmosphere heavy, and in that way deprived it of some of its injurious properties. The physicians of Madrid were, therefore, of opinion that matters had better remain as their ancestors had left them, and that no attempts should be made to purify the capital by removing the filth which lay scattered on every side.[1389]

While such notions prevailed respecting the preservation of health,[1390] it is hardly to be supposed that the treatment of disease should be very successful. To bleed and to purge, were the only remedies prescribed by the Spanish physicians.[1391] Their ignorance of the commonest functions of the human body was altogether surprising, and can only be explained on the supposition, that in medicine, as in other departments, the Spaniards of the eighteenth century knew no more than their progenitors of the sixteenth. Indeed, in some respects, they appeared to know less. For, their treatment was so violent, that it was almost certain death to submit to it for any length of time.[1392] Their own king, Philip V., did not dare to trust himself in their hands, but preferred having an Irishman for his physician.[1393] Though the Irish had no great medical reputation, anything was better than a Spanish doctor.[1394] The arts incidental to medicine and surgery, were equally backward. The instruments were rudely made, and the drugs badly prepared. Pharmacy being unknown, the apothecaries' shops, in the largest towns, were entirely supplied from abroad; while, in the smaller towns, and in districts remote from the capital, the medicines were of such a quality, that the best which could be hoped of them was, that they might be innocuous. For, in the middle of the eighteenth century, Spain did not possess one practical chemist. Indeed, we are assured by Campomanes himself, that, so late as the year 1776, there was not to be found in the whole country a single man who knew how to make the commonest drugs, such as magnesia, Glauber's salts, and the ordinary preparations of mercury and antimony. This eminent statesman adds, however, that a chemical laboratory was about to be established in Madrid; and although the enterprise, being without a precedent, would surely be regarded as a portentous novelty, he expresses a confident expectation, that, by its aid, the universal ignorance of his countrymen would in time be remedied.[1395]

Whatever was useful in practice, or whatever subserved the purposes of knowledge, had to come from abroad. Ensenada, the well-known minister of Ferdinand VI., was appalled by the darkness and apathy of the nation, which he tried, but tried in vain, to remove. When he was at the head of affairs, in the middle of the eighteenth century, he publicly declared that in Spain there was no professorship of public law, or of physics, or of anatomy, or of botany. He further added, that there were no good maps of Spain, and that there was no person who knew how to construct them. All the maps which they had, came from France and Holland. They were, he said, very inaccurate; but the Spaniards, being unable to make any, had nothing else to rely on. Such a state of things he pronounced to be shameful. For, as he bitterly complained, if it were not for the exertions of Frenchmen and Dutchmen, it would be impossible for any Spaniard to know either the position of his own town, or the distance from one place to another.[1396]

The only remedy for all this, seemed to be foreign aid; and Spain being now ruled by a foreign dynasty, that aid was called in. Cervi established the Medical Societies of Madrid and of Seville; Virgili founded the College of Surgery at Cadiz; and Bowles endeavoured to promote among the Spaniards the study of mineralogy.[1397] Professors were sought for, far and wide; and application was made to LinnÆus to send a person from Sweden who could impart some idea of botany to physiological students.[1398] Many other and similar steps were taken by the government, whose indefatigable exertions would deserve our warmest praise, if we did not know how impossible it is for any government to enlighten a nation, and how absolutely essential it is that the desire for improvement should, in the first place, proceed from the people themselves. No progress is real, unless it is spontaneous. The movement, to be effective, must emanate from within, and not from without; it must be due to general causes acting on the whole country, and not to the mere will of a few powerful individuals. During the eighteenth century, all the means of improvement were lavishly supplied to the Spaniards; but the Spaniards did not want to improve. They were satisfied with themselves; they were sure of the accuracy of their own opinions; they were proud of the notions which they inherited, and which they did not wish either to increase or to diminish. Being unable to doubt, they were, therefore, unwilling to inquire. New and beautiful truths, conveyed in the clearest and most attractive language, could produce no effect upon men whose minds were thus hardened and enslaved.[1399] An unhappy combination of events, working without interruption since the fifth century, had predetermined the national character in a particular direction, and neither statesmen, nor kings, nor legislators, could effect aught against it. The seventeenth century was, however, the climax of all. In that age, the Spanish nation fell into a sleep, from which, as a nation, it has never since awakened. It was a sleep, not of repose, but of death. It was a sleep, in which the faculties, instead of being rested, were paralyzed, and in which a cold and universal torpor succeeded that glorious, though partial, activity, which, while it made the name of Spain terrible in the world, had insured the respect even of her bitterest enemies.

Even the fine arts, in which the Spaniards had formerly excelled, partook of the general degeneracy, and, according to the confession of their own writers, had, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, fallen into complete decay.[1400] The arts which secure national safety, were in the same predicament as those which minister to national pleasure. There was no one in Spain who could build a ship; there was no one who knew how to rig it, after it was built. The consequence was, that, by the close of the seventeenth century, the few ships which Spain possessed, were so rotten, that, says an historian, they could hardly support the fire of their own guns.[1401] In 1752, the government, being determined to restore the navy, found it necessary to send to England for shipwrights; and they were also obliged to apply to the same quarter for persons who could make ropes and canvass; the skill of the natives being unequal to such arduous achievements.[1402] In this way, the ministers of the Crown, whose ability and vigour, considering the difficult circumstances in which the incapacity of the people placed them, were extremely remarkable, contrived to raise a fleet superior to any which had been seen in Spain for more than a century.[1403] They also took many other steps towards putting the national defences into a satisfactory condition; though in every instance, they were forced to rely on the aid of foreigners. Both the military and the naval service were in utter confusion, and had to be organized afresh. The discipline of the infantry was remodelled by O'Reilly, an Irishman, to whose superintendence the military schools of Spain were intrusted.[1404] At Cadiz, a great naval academy was formed, but the head of it was Colonel Godin, a French officer.[1405] The artillery, which like everything else, had become almost useless, was improved by Maritz, the Frenchman; while the same service was rendered to the arsenals by Gazola, the Italian.[1406]

The mines, which form one of the greatest natural sources of the wealth of Spain, had likewise suffered from that ignorance and apathy into which the force of circumstances had plunged the country. They were either completely neglected, or if worked, they were worked by other nations. The celebrated cobalt-mine, situated in the valley of Gistan, in Aragon, was entirely in the hands of the Germans, who, during the first half of the eighteenth century, derived immense profit from it.[1407] In the same way, the silver-mines of Guadalcanal, the richest in Spain, were undertaken, not by natives, but by foreigners. Though they had been discovered in the sixteenth century, they, as well as other matters of importance, had been forgotten in the seventeenth, and were reopened, in 1728, by English adventurers; the enterprise, the tools, the capital, and even the miners, all coming from England.[1408] Another, and still more famous, mine is that of Almaden in La Mancha, which produces mercury of the finest quality, and in great profusion. This metal, besides being indispensable for many of the commonest arts, was of peculiar value to Spain, because without it the gold and silver of the New World could not be extracted from their ores. From Almaden, where every natural facility exists for collecting it, and where the cinnibar in which it is found is unusually rich, vast supplies had formerly been drawn; but they had for some time been diminishing, although the demand, especially from foreign countries, was on the increase. Under these circumstances, the Spanish government, fearing that so important a source of wealth might altogether perish, determined to institute an inquiry into the manner in which the mine was worked. As, however, no Spaniard possessed the knowledge requisite for such an investigation, the advisers of the Crown were obliged to call on foreigners to help them. In 1752, an Irish naturalist, named Bowles, was commissioned to visit Almaden, and ascertain the cause of the failure. He found that the miners had acquired a habit of sinking their shafts perpendicularly, instead of following the direction of the vein.[1409] So absurd a process was quite sufficient to account for their want of success; and Bowles reported to the government, that if a shaft were to be sunk obliquely, the mine would, no doubt, again be productive. The government approved of the suggestion, and ordered it to be carried into effect. But the Spanish miners were too tenacious of their old customs to give way. They sank their shafts in the same manner as their fathers had done; and what their fathers had done must be right. The result was, that the mine had to be taken out of their hands; but as Spain could supply no other labourers, it was necessary to send to Germany for fresh ones.[1410] After their arrival, matters rapidly improved. The mine, being superintended by an Irishman, and worked by Germans, assumed quite a different appearance; and, notwithstanding the disadvantages with which new comers always have to contend, the immediate consequence of the change was, that the yield of mercury was doubled, and its cost to the consumer correspondingly lowered.[1411]

Such ignorance, pervading the whole nation, and extending to every department of life, is hardly conceivable, considering the immense advantages which the Spaniards had formerly enjoyed. It is particularly striking, when contrasted with the ability of the government, which, for more than eighty years, constantly laboured to improve the condition of the country. Early in the eighteenth century, Ripperda, in the hopes of stimulating Spanish industry, established a large woollen manufactory at Segovia, which had once been a busy and prosperous city. But the commonest processes had now been forgotten; and he was obliged to import manufacturers from Holland, to teach the Spaniards how to make up the wool, though that was an art for which in better days they had been especially famous.[1412] In 1757, Wall, who was then minister, constructed, upon a still larger scale, a similar manufactory at Guadalajara in New Castile. Soon, however, something went wrong with the machinery; and as the Spaniards neither knew nor cared anything about these matters, it was necessary to send to England for a workman to put it right.[1413] At length the advisers of Charles III., despairing of rousing the people by ordinary means, devised a more comprehensive scheme, and invited thousands of foreign artisans to settle in Spain; trusting that their example, and the suddenness of their influx might invigorate this jaded nation.[1414] All was in vain. The spirit of the country was broken, and nothing could retrieve it. Among other attempts which were made, the formation of a National Bank was a favourite idea of politicians, who expected great things from an institution which was to extend credit, and make advances to persons engaged in business. But, though the design was executed, it entirely failed in effecting its purpose. When the people are not enterprising, no effort of government can make them so. In a country like Spain, a great bank was an exotic, which might live with art, but could never thrive by nature. Indeed, both in its origin and in its completion, it was altogether foreign, having been first proposed by the Dutchman Ripperda,[1415] and owing its final organization to the Frenchman Cabarrus.[1416]

In everything, the same law prevailed. In diplomacy, the ablest men were not Spaniards, but foreigners; and during the eighteenth century the strange spectacle was frequently exhibited, of Spain being represented by French, Italian, and even Irish ambassadors.[1417] Nothing was indigenous; nothing was done by Spain herself. Philip V., who reigned from 1700 to 1746, and possessed immense power, always clung to the ideas of his own country, and was a Frenchman to the last. For thirty years after his death, the three most prominent names in Spanish politics were, Wall, who was born in France, of Irish parents;[1418] Grimaldi, who was a native of Genoa; [1419] and Esquilache, who was a native of Sicily.[1420] Esquilache administered the finances for several years; and, after enjoying the confidence of Charles III. to an extent rarely possessed by any minister, was only dismissed, in 1766, in consequence of the discontents of the people at the innovations introduced by this bold foreigner.[1421] Wall, a much more remarkable man, was, in the absence of any good Spanish diplomatist, sent envoy to London in 1747; and after exercising great influence in matters of state, he was placed at the head of affairs in 1754, and remained supreme till 1763.[1422] When this eminent Irishman relinquished office, he was succeeded by the Genoese, Grimaldi, who ruled Spain from 1763 to 1777, and was entirely devoted to the French views of policy.[1423] His principal patron was Choiseul, who had imbued him with his own notions, and by whose advice he was chiefly guided.[1424] Indeed, Choiseul, who was then the first minister in France, used to boast, with exaggeration, but not without a considerable amount of truth, that his influence in Madrid was even greater than it was in Versailles.[1425]

However this may be, it is certain that four years after Grimaldi took office, the ascendency of France was exhibited in a remarkable way. Choiseul, who hated the Jesuits, and had just expelled them from France, endeavoured also to expel them from Spain.[1426] The execution of the plan was confided to Aranda, who, though a Spaniard by birth, derived his intellectual culture from France, and had contracted, in the society of Paris, an intense hatred of every form of ecclesiastical power.[1427] The scheme, secretly prepared, was skilfully accomplished.[1428] In 1767, the Spanish government, without hearing what the Jesuits had to say in their defence, and indeed, without giving them the least notice, suddenly ordered their expulsion; and with such animosity were they driven from the country, in which they sprung up, and had long been cherished, that not only was their wealth confiscated, and they themselves reduced to a wretched pittance, but even that was directed to be taken from them, if they published anything in their own vindication; while it was also declared that whoever ventured to write respecting them, should, if we were a subject of Spain, be put to death, as one guilty of high treason.[1429]

Such boldness on the part of the government[1430] caused even the Inquisition to tremble. That once omnipotent tribunal, threatened and suspected by the civil authorities, became more wary in its proceedings, and more tender in its treatment of heretics. Instead of extirpating unbelievers by hundreds or by thousands, it was reduced to such pitiful straits, that between 1746 and 1759, it was only able to burn ten persons; and between 1759 and 1788, only four persons.[1431] The extraordinary diminution during the latter period, was partly owing to the great authority wielded by Aranda, the friend of the encyclopÆdists and of other French sceptics. This remarkable man was President of Castile till 1773,[1432] and he issued an order forbidding the Inquisition to interfere with the civil courts.[1433] He also formed a scheme for entirely abolishing it; but his plan was frustrated, owing to its premature announcement by his friends in Paris, to whom it had been confided.[1434] His views, however, were so far successful, that after 1781, there is no instance in Spain of a heretic being burned; the Inquisition being too terrified by the proceedings of government to do anything which might compromise the safety of the Holy Institution.[1435]

In 1777, Grimaldi, one of the chief supporters of that anti-theological policy which France introduced into Spain, ceased to be Minister; but he was succeeded by Florida Blanca, who was his creature, and to whom he transmitted his policy as well as his power.[1436] The progress, therefore, of political affairs continued in the same direction. Under the new minister, as under his immediate predecessors, a determination was shown to abridge the authority of the Church, and to vindicate the rights of laymen. In everything, the ecclesiastical interests were treated as subordinate to the secular. Of this, many instances might be given; but one is too important to be omitted. We have seen, that early in the eighteenth century, Alberoni, when at the head of affairs, was guilty of what in Spain was deemed the enormous offence of contracting an alliance with Mohammedans; and there can be no doubt that this was one of the chief causes of his fall, since it was held, that no prospect of mere temporal advantages could justify an union, or even a peace, between a Christian nation and a nation of unbelievers.[1437] But the Spanish government, which, owing to the causes I have related, was far in advance of Spain itself, was gradually becoming bolder, and growing more and more disposed to force upon the country, views, which, abstractedly considered, where extremely enlightened, but which the popular mind was unable to receive. The result was, that, in 1782, Florida Blanca concluded a treaty with Turkey, which put an end to the war of religious opinions; to the astonishment, as we are told, of the other European powers, who could hardly believe that the Spaniards would thus abandon their long-continued efforts to destroy the infidels.[1438] Before, however, Europe had time to recover from its amazement, other and similar events occurred equally startling. In 1784, Spain signed a peace with Tripoli; and in 1785, one with Algiers.[1439] And scarcely had these been ratified, when, in 1786, a treaty was also concluded with Tunis.[1440] So that the Spanish people to their no small surprise, found themselves on terms of amity with nations, whom for more than ten centuries they had been taught to abhor, and whom, in the opinion of the Spanish Church, it was the first duty of a Christian government to make war upon, and, if possible, to extirpate.

Putting aside, for a moment, the remote and intellectual consequences of these transactions, there can be no doubt that the immediate and material consequences were very salutary; though, as we shall presently see, they produced no lasting benefit, because they were opposed by the unfavourable operation of more powerful and more general causes. Still, it must be confessed that the direct results were extremely advantageous; and to those who take only a short view of human affairs, it might well appear that the advantages would be permanent. The immense line of coast from the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco to the furthest extremity of the Turkish empire was no longer allowed to pour forth those innumerable pirates who, heretofore, swept the seas, captured Spanish ships, and made slaves of Spanish subjects. Formerly, vast sums of money were annually consumed in ransoming these unhappy prisoners;[1441] but now all such evils were ended. At the same time, great impetus was given to the commerce of Spain; a new trade was thrown open, and her ships could safely appear in the rich countries of the Levant. This increased her wealth; which was moreover aided by another circumstance growing out of these events. For, the most fertile parts of Spain are those which are washed by the Mediterranean, and which had for centuries been the prey of Mohammedan corsairs, who frequently landing by surprise, had at length caused such constant fear, that the inhabitants gradually retired towards the interior, and abstained from cultivating the richest soil in their country. But, by the treaties just concluded, such dangers were at once removed; the people returned to their former abodes; the earth again gave forth its fruits; regular industry reappeared; villages sprung up; even manufactures were established; and the foundation seemed to be laid for a prosperity, the like of which had not been known since the Mohammedans were driven out of Granada.[1442]

I have now laid before the reader a view of the most important steps which were taken by those able and vigorous politicians, who ruled Spain during the greater part of the eighteenth century. In considering how these reforms were effected, we must not forget the personal character of Charles III., who occupied the throne from 1759 to 1788.[1443] He was a man of great energy, and though born in Spain, had little in common with it. When he became king, he had been long absent from his native country, and had contracted a taste for customs, and, above all, for opinions, totally dissimilar to those natural to the Spaniards.[1444] Comparing him with his subjects, he was enlightened indeed. They cherished in their hearts, the most complete, and therefore the worst, form of spiritual power which has ever been exhibited in Europe. That very power, he made it his business to restrain. In this, as in other respects, he far surpassed Ferdinand VI. and Philip V., though they, under the influence of French ideas, had proceeded to what was deemed a dangerous length.[1445] The clergy, indignant at such proceedings, murmured, and even threatened.[1446] They declared that Charles was despoiling the Church, taking away her rights, insulting her ministers, and thus ruining Spain beyond human remedy.[1447] The king, however, whose disposition was firm, and somewhat obstinate, persevered in his policy; and as he and his ministers were men of undoubted ability, they, notwithstanding the opposition they encountered, succeeded in accomplishing most of their plans. Mistaken and short-sighted though they were, it is impossible to refrain from admiring the honesty, the courage, and the disinterestedness, which they displayed in endeavouring to alter the destiny of that superstitions and half barbarous country over which they ruled. We must not, however, conceal from ourselves, that in this, as in all similar cases, they, by attacking evils which the people were resolved to love, increased the affection which the evils inspired. To seek to change opinions by laws is worse than futile. It not only fails, but it causes a reaction, which leaves the opinions stronger than ever. First alter the opinion, and then you may alter the law. As soon as you have convinced men that superstition is mischievous, you may with advantage take active steps against those classes who promote superstition and live by it. But, however pernicious any interest or any great body may be, beware of using force against it, unless the progress of knowledge has previously sapped it at its base, and loosened its hold over the national mind. This has always been the error of the most ardent reformers, who, in their eagerness to effect their purpose, let the political movement outstrip the intellectual one, and, thus inverting the natural order, secure misery either to themselves or to their descendants. They touch the altar, and fire springs forth to consume them. Then comes another period of superstition and of despotism; another dark epoch in the annals of the human race. And this happens merely because men will not bide their time, but will insist on precipitating the march of affairs. Thus, for instance, in France and Germany, it is the friends of freedom who have strengthened tyranny; it is the enemies of superstition who have made superstition more permanent. In those countries, it is still believed that government can regenerate society; and therefore, directly they who hold liberal opinions get possession of the government, they use their power too lavishly, thinking that by doing so, they will best secure the end at which they aim. In England, the same delusion, though less general, is far too prevalent; but as, with us, public opinion controls politicians, we escape from evils which have happened abroad, because we will not allow any government to enact laws which the nation disapproves. In Spain, however, the habits of the people were so slavish, and their necks had so long been bowed under the yoke, that though the government, in the eighteenth century, opposed their dearest prejudices, they rarely ventured to resist, and they had no legal means of making their voice heard. But not the less did they feel. The materials for reaction were silently accumulating; and before that century had passed away the reaction itself was manifest. As long as Charles III. lived, it was kept under; and this was owing partly to the fear which his active and vigorous government inspired, and partly to the fact that many of the reforms which he introduced were so obviously beneficial as to shed a lustre on his reign, which all classes could perceive. Besides the exemption which his policy insured from the incessant ravages of pirates, he also succeeded in obtaining for Spain the most honourable peace which any Spanish government had signed for two centuries; thus recalling to the popular mind the brightest and most glorious days of Philip II.[1448] When Charles came to the throne, Spain was hardly a third-rate power; when he died, she might fairly claim to be a first-rate one, since she had for some years negotiated on equal terms with France, England, and Austria, and had taken a leading part in the councils of Europe. To this, the personal character of Charles greatly contributed; he being respected for his honesty, as well as feared for his vigour.[1449] Merely as a man, he bore high repute; while, as a sovereign, none of his contemporaries were in any way equal to him, except Frederick of Prussia, whose vast abilities, were, however, tarnished by a base rapacity, and by an incessant desire to overreach his neighbours. Charles III. had nothing of this; but he carefully increased the defences of Spain, and, raising her establishments to a war-footing, he made her more formidable than she had been since the sixteenth century. Instead of being liable to insult from every petty potentate who chose to triumph over her weakness, the country had now the means of resisting, and if need be, of attacking. While the army was greatly improved in the quality of the troops, in their discipline, and in the attention paid to their comforts, the navy was nearly doubled in number, and more than doubled in efficiency.[1450] And this was done without imposing fresh burdens on the people. Indeed, the national resources were becoming so developed, that, in the reign of Charles III., a large amount of taxation could have been easier paid than a small one under his predecessors. A regularity, hitherto unknown, was introduced into the method both of assessing imposts, and of collecting them.[1451] The laws of mortmain were relaxed, and steps were taken towards diminishing the rigidity of entails.[1452] The industry of the country was liberated from many of the trammels which had long been imposed upon it, and the principles of free trade were so far recognized, that, in 1765, the old laws respecting corn were repealed; its exportation was allowed, and also its transit from one part of Spain to another, uninterrupted by those absurd precautions, which preceding governments had thought it advisable to invent.[1453]

It was also in the reign of Charles III. that the American Colonies were, for the first time, treated according to the maxims of a wise and liberal policy. The behaviour of the Spanish government in this respect, contrasts most favourably with the conduct pursued at the same time towards our great Colonies by that narrow and incompetent man who then filled the English throne. While the violence of George III. was fomenting rebellion in the British Colonies, Charles III. was busily engaged in conciliating the Spanish ones. Towards this end, and with the object of giving fair play to the growth of their wealth, he did everything which the knowledge and resources of that age allowed him to do. In 1764, he accomplished, what was then considered the great feat of establishing every month a regular communication with America, in order that the reforms which he projected might be more easily introduced, and the grievances of the Colonies attended to.[1454] In the very next year, free trade was conceded to the West Indian Islands, whose abundant commodities were now, for the first time, allowed to circulate, to their own benefit, as well as to the benefit of their neighbours.[1455] Into the Colonies generally, vast improvements were introduced, many oppressions were removed, the tyranny of officials was checked, and the burdens of the people were lightened.[1456] Finally, in 1778, the principles of free trade having been successfully tried in the American Islands, were now extended to the American Continent; the ports of Peru and of New Spain were thrown open; and by this means an immense impetus was given to the prosperity of those magnificent colonies, which nature intended to be rich, but which the meddling folly of man had forced to be poor.[1457]

All this reacted upon the mother country with such rapidity, that scarcely was the old system of monopoly broken up, when the trade of Spain began to advance, and continued to improve, until the exports and imports had reached a height that even the authors of the reform could hardly have expected; it being said that the export of foreign commodities was tripled, that the export of home-produce was multiplied fivefold, and the returns from America ninefold.[1458]

Many of the taxes, which bore heavily on the lower ranks, were repealed, and the industrious classes, being relieved of their principal burdens, it was hoped that their condition would speedily improve.[1459] And to benefit them still more, such alterations were effected in the administration of the law, as might enable them to receive justice from the public tribunals, when they had occasion to complain of their superiors. Hitherto, a poor man had not the least chance of succeeding against a rich one; but in the reign of Charles III., government introduced various regulations, by which labourers and mechanics could obtain redress, if their masters defrauded them of their wages, or broke the contracts made with them.[1460]

Not only the labouring classes, but also the literary and scientific classes, were encouraged and protected. One source of danger, to which they had long been exposed, was considerably lessened by the steps which Charles took to curtail the power of the Inquisition. The king, was, moreover, always ready to reward them; he was a man of cultivated tastes, and he delighted in being thought the patron of learning.[1461] Soon after his accession, he issued an order, exempting from military service all printers, and all persons immediately connected with printing, such as casters of type, and the like.[1462] He, also, as far as he was able, infused new life into the old universities, and did all that was possible towards restoring their discipline and reputation.[1463] He founded schools, endowed colleges, rewarded professors, and granted pensions. In these matters his munificence seemed inexhaustible, and is of itself sufficient to account for the veneration with which literary Spaniards regard his memory. They have reason to regret that, instead of living now, they had not lived when he was king. In his reign, it was supposed that their interests must be identical with the interests of knowledge; and these last were rated so highly, that, in 1771, it was laid down as a settled principle of government, that of all the branches of public policy, the care of education is the most important.[1464]

But this is not all. It is no exaggeration to say, that in the reign of Charles III., the face of Spain underwent greater changes than it had done during the hundred and fifty years which had elapsed since the final expulsion of the Mohammedans. At his accession, in 1759, the wise and pacific policy of his predecessor, Ferdinand VI., had enabled that prince not only to pay many of the debts owed by the crown, but also to accumulate and leave behind him a considerable treasure.[1465] Of this Charles availed himself, to begin those works of public splendour, which, more than any other part of his administration, was sure to strike the senses, and to give popularity to his reign. And when, by the increase of wealth, rather than by the imposition of fresh burdens, still larger resources were placed at his command, he devoted a considerable part of them to completing his designs. He so beautified Madrid, that forty years after his death, it was stated, that, as it then stood, all its magnificence was owing to him. The public buildings and the public gardens, the beautiful walks round the capital, its noble gates, its institutions, and the very roads leading from it to the adjacent country, are all the work of Charles III., and are among the most conspicuous trophies which attest his genius and the sumptuousness of his taste.[1466]

In other parts of the country, roads were laid down, and canals were dug, with the view of increasing trade by opening up communications through tracts previously impassable. At the accession of Charles III., the whole of the Sierra Morena was unoccupied, except by wild beasts and banditti, who took refuge there.[1467] No peaceful traveller would venture into such a place; and commerce was thus excluded from what nature had marked as one of the greatest highways in Spain, standing as it does between the basins of the Guadiana and Guadalquivir, and in the direct course between the ports on the Mediterranean and those on the Atlantic. The active government of Charles III. determined to remedy this evil; but the Spanish people not having the energy to do what was required, six thousand Dutch and Flemish were, in 1767, invited to settle in the Sierra Morena. On their arrival, lands were allotted to them, roads were cut through the whole of the district, villages were built; and that which had just been an impervious desert, was suddenly turned into a smiling and fruitful territory.[1468]

Nearly all over Spain, the roads were repaired; a fund having been, so early as 1760, specially set apart for that purpose.[1469] Many new works were begun; and such improvements were introduced, while at the same time, such vigilance was employed to prevent peculation on the part of officials, that in a very few years the cost of making public highways was reduced to less than half of what it used to be.[1470] Of the undertakings which were brought to a successful issue, the most important were, a road now first constructed from Malaga to Antequera,[1471] and another from Aquilas to Lorca.[1472] In this way, means of intercourse were supplied between the Mediterranean and the interior of Andalusia and of Mercia. While these communications were established in the south and south-east of Spain, others were opened up in the north and north-west. In 1769, a road was begun between Bilbao and Osma;[1473] and soon after, one was completed between Galicia and Astorga.[1474] These and similar works were so skilfully executed, that the Spanish highways, formerly among the worst in Europe, were now classed among the best. Indeed, a competent, and by no means over-friendly, judge gives it as his opinion, that at the death of Charles III. better roads were to be found in Spain than in any other country.[1475]

In the interior, rivers were made navigable, and canals were formed to connect them with each other. The Ebro runs through the heart of Aragon and part of Old Castile, and is available for purposes of traffic as high up as LogroÑo, and from thence down to Tudela. But between Tudela and Saragossa, the navigation is interrupted by its great speed, and by the rocks in its bed. Consequently, Navarre is deprived of its natural communication with the Mediterranean. In the enterprising reign of Charles V., an attempt was made to remedy this evil; but the plan failed, was laid aside, and was forgotten, until it was revived, more than two hundred years later, by Charles III. Under his auspices, the great canal of Aragon was projected, with the magnificent idea of uniting the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. This, however, was one of many instances in which the government of Spain was too far in advance of Spain itself; and it was necessary to abandon a scheme, to which the resources of the country were unequal. But what was really effected, was of immense value. A canal was actually carried to Saragossa, and the waters of the Ebro were made available not only for transport, but also for irrigating the soil. The means of a safe and profitable trade were now supplied even to the western extremity of Aragon. The old land, becoming more productive, rose in value, and new land was brought under the plough. From this, other parts of Spain also benefited. Castile, for example, had in seasons of scarcity always depended for supplies on Aragon, though that province could, under the former system, only produce enough for its own consumption. But by this great canal, to which, about the same time, that of Tauste was also added,[1476] the soil of Aragon became far more productive than it had ever yet been; and the rich plains of the Ebro yielded so abundantly, that they were able to supply wheat and other food to the Castilians, as well as to the Aragonese.[1477]

The government of Charles III., moreover, constructed a canal between Amposta and Alfaques,[1478] which irrigated the southern extremity of Catalonia, and brought into cultivation a large district, which, from the constant lack of rain, had hitherto been untilled. Another and still greater enterprise belonging to the same reign, was an attempt, only partly successful, to establish a water-communication between the capital and the Atlantic, by running a canal from Madrid to Toledo, whence the Tagus would have conveyed goods to Lisbon, and all the trade of the west would have been opened up.[1479] But this and many other noble projects were nipped in the bud by the death of Charles III., with whom every thing vanished. When he passed away, the country relapsed into its former inactivity, and it was clearly seen that these great works were not national, but political; in other words that they were due merely to individuals, whose most strenuous exertions always come to naught, if they are opposed by the operation of those general causes, which are often undiscerned, but to which even the strongest of us, do, in our own despite, pay implicit obedience.

Still for a time much was done; and Charles, reasoning according to the ordinary maxims of politicians, might well indulge the hope, that what he had effected would permanently change the destiny of Spain. For these and other works which he not only planned but executed,[1480] were not paid for, as is too often the case, by taxes which oppressed the people, and trammelled their industry. At his side, and constantly advising him, there were men who really aimed at the public good, and who never would have committed so fatal an error. Under his rule the wealth of the country greatly increased, and the comforts of the lower classes, instead of being abridged, were multiplied. The imposts were more fairly assessed than they had ever been before. Taxes, which, in the seventeenth century, all the power of the executive could not wring from the people, were now regularly paid, and, owing to the development of the national resources, they became at once more productive and less onerous. In the management of the public finances, an economy was practised, the first example of which had been set in the preceding reign, when the cautious and pacific policy of Ferdinand VI. laid a foundation for many of the improvements just narrated. Ferdinand bequeathed to Charles III. a treasure which he had not extorted, but saved. Among the reforms which he introduced, and which an unwillingness to accumulate details has compelled me to omit, there is one very important, and also very characteristic of his policy. Before his reign, Spain had annually been drained of an immense amount of money, on account of the right which the Pope claimed of presenting to certain rich benefices, and of receiving part of their produce; probably as a recompense for the trouble he had taken. Of this duty the Pope was relieved by Ferdinand VI., who secured to the Spanish crown the right of conferring such preferment, and thus saved to the country those enormous sums on which the Roman Court had been wont to revel.[1481] This was just the sort of measure which would be hailed with delight by Charles III., as harmonizing with his own views; and we accordingly find, that, in his reign, it was not only acted upon, but extended still further. For, perceiving that, in spite of his efforts, the feeling of the Spaniards on these matters was so strong as to impel them to make offerings to him whom they venerated as the Head of the Church, the king determined to exercise control over even these voluntary gifts. To accomplish this end, various devices were suggested; and at length one was hit upon, which was thought sure to be effectual. A royal order was issued, directing that no person should send money to Rome, but that if he had occasion to make remittances there, they should pass not through the ordinary channels, but through the ambassadors, ministers, or other agents of the Spanish crown.[1482]

If we now review the transactions which I have narrated, and consider them as a whole, extending from the accession of Philip V. to the death of Charles III., over a period of nearly ninety years, we shall be struck with wonder at their unity, at the regularity of their march, and at their apparent success. Looking at them merely in a political point of view, it may be doubted if such vast and uninterrupted progress has ever been seen in any country either before or since. For three generations, there was no pause on the part of the government; not one reaction, not one sign of halting. Improvement upon improvement, and reform upon reform, followed each other in swift succession. The power of the Church, which has always been the crying evil of Spain, and which hitherto none of the boldest politicians had dared to touch, was restricted in every possible way, by a series of statesmen, from Orry to Florida Blanca, whose efforts were latterly, and for nearly thirty years, zealously aided by Charles III., the ablest monarch who has sat on the throne since the death of Philip II. Even the Inquisition was taught to tremble, and made to loosen its hold over its victims. The burning of heretics was stopped. Torture was disused. Prosecutions for heresy were discouraged. Instead of punishing men for imaginary offences, a disposition was shown to attend to their real interests, to alleviate their burdens, to increase their comforts, and to check the tyranny of those who were set over them. Attempts were made to restrain the cupidity of the clergy, and prevent them from preying at will upon the national wealth. With this view, the laws of mortmain were revised, and various measures taken to interpose obstacles in the way of persons who desired to waste their property by bequeathing it for ecclesiastical purposes. In this, as in other matters, the true interests of society were preferred to the fictitious ones. To raise the secular classes above the spiritual; to discountenance the exclusive attention hitherto paid to questions respecting which nothing is known, and which it is impossible to solve; to do this, and, in the place of such barren speculations, to substitute a taste for science, or for literature, became the object of the Spanish government for the first time since Spain had possessed a government at all. As part of the same scheme, the Jesuits were expelled, the right of sanctuary was infringed, and the whole hierarchy, from the highest bishop down to the lowest monk, were taught to fear the law, to curb their passions, and to restrain the insolence with which they had formerly treated every rank except their own. These would have been great deeds in any country; in such a country as Spain, they were marvellous. Of them I have given an abridged, and therefore an imperfect, account, but still sufficient to show how the government laboured to diminish superstition, to check bigotry, to stimulate intellect, to promote industry, and to rouse the people from their death-like slumber. I have omitted many measures of considerable interest, and which tended in the same direction; because, here, as elsewhere, I seek to confine myself to those salient points which most distinctly mark the general movement. Whoever will minutely study the history of Spain during this period, will find additional proof of the skill and vigour of those who were at the head of affairs, and who devoted their best energies to regenerating the country which they ruled. But, for these special studies, special men are required; and I shall be satisfied, if I have firmly grasped the great march and outline of the whole. It is enough for my purpose, if I have substantiated the general proposition, and have convinced the reader of the clearness with which the statesmen of Spain discerned the evils under which their country was groaning, and of the zeal with which they set themselves to remedy the mischief, and to resuscitate the fortunes of what had once not only been the chief of European monarchies, but had borne sway over the most splendid and extensive territory that had been united under a single rule since the fall of the Roman Empire.

They who believe that a government can civilize a nation, and that legislators are the cause of social progress, will naturally expect that Spain reaped permanent benefit from those liberal maxims, which now, for the first time, were put into execution. The fact, however, is, that such a policy, wise as it appeared, was of no avail, simply because it ran counter to the whole train of preceding circumstances. It was opposed to the habits of the national mind, and was introduced into a state of society not yet ripe for it. No reform can produce real good, unless it is the work of public opinion, and unless the people themselves take the initiative. In Spain, during the eighteenth century, foreign influence, and the complications of foreign politics, bestowed enlightened rulers upon an unenlightened country.[1483] The consequence was, that, for a time, great things were done. Evils were removed, grievances were redressed, many important improvements were introduced; and a spirit of toleration was exhibited, such as had never before been seen in that priest-ridden and superstitious land. But the mind of Spain was untouched. While the surface, and as it were the symptoms, of affairs were ameliorated, affairs themselves remained unchanged. Below that surface, and far out of reach of any political remedy, large general causes were at work, which had been operating for many centuries, and which were sure, sooner or later, to force politicians to retrace their steps, and compel them to inaugurate a policy which would suit the traditions of the country, and harmonize with the circumstances under which those traditions had been formed.

At length the reaction came. In 1788, Charles III. died; and was succeeded by Charles IV., a king of the true Spanish breed, devout, orthodox, and ignorant.[1484] It was now seen how insecure everything was, and how little reliance can be placed on reforms, which, instead of being suggested by the people, are bestowed on them by the political classes. Charles IV., though a weak and contemptible prince,[1485] was so supported in his general views by the feelings of the Spanish nation, that, in less than five years, he was able completely to reverse that liberal policy which it had taken three generations of statesmen to build up. In less than five years everything was changed. The power of the Church was restored; the slightest approach towards free discussion was forbidden; old and arbitrary principles, which had not been heard of since the seventeenth century, were revived; the priests re-assumed their former importance; literary men were intimidated, and literature was discouraged; while the Inquisition, suddenly starting up afresh, displayed an energy, which caused its enemies to tremble, and proved that all the attempts which had been made to weaken it, had been unable to impair its vigour, or to daunt its ancient spirit.

The ministers of Charles III., and the authors of those great reforms which signalized his reign, were dismissed, to make way for other advisers, better suited to this new state of things. Charles IV. loved the Church too well to tolerate the presence of enlightened statesmen. Aranda and Florida Blanca were both removed from office, and both were placed in confinement.[1486] Jovellanos was banished from court, and Cabarrus was thrown into prison.[1487] For, now, work had to be done, to which these eminent men would not put their hands. A policy which had been followed with undeviating consistency for nearly ninety years, was about to be rescinded, in order that the old empire of the seventeenth century, which was the empire of ignorance, of tyranny, and of superstition, might be resuscitated, and, if possible, restored to its pristine vigour.

Once more was Spain covered with darkness; once more did the shadows of night overtake that wretched land. The worst forms of oppression, says a distinguished writer, seemed to be settling on the country with a new and portentous weight.[1488] At the same time, and indeed as a natural part of the scheme, every investigation likely to stimulate the mind, was prohibited, and an order was actually sent to all the universities, forbidding the study of moral philosophy; the minister, who issued the order, justly observing, that the king did not want to have philosophers.[1489] There was, however, little fear of Spain producing anything so dangerous. The nation not daring, and, what was still worse, not wishing, to resist, gave way, and let the king do as he liked. Within a very few years, he neutralized the most valuable reforms which his predecessors had introduced. Having discarded the able advisers of his father, he conferred the highest posts upon men as narrow and incompetent as himself; he reduced the country to the verge of bankruptcy; and, according to the remark of a Spanish historian, he exhausted all the resources of the state.[1490]

Such was the condition of Spain, late in the eighteenth century. The French invasion quickly followed; and that unhappy country underwent every form of calamity and of degradation. Herein, however, lies a difference. Calamities may be inflicted by others; but no people can be degraded except by their own acts. The foreign spoiler works mischief; he cannot cause shame. With nations, as with individuals, none are dishonoured if they are true to themselves. Spain, during the present century, has been plundered and oppressed, and the opprobrium lights on the robbers, not on the robbed. She has been overrun by a brutal and licentious soldiery; her fields laid waste, her towns sacked, her villages burned. It is to the criminal, rather than to the victim, that the ignominy of these acts must belong. And, even in a material point of view, such losses are sure to be retrieved, if the people who incur them are inured to those habits of self-government, and to that feeling of self-reliance, which are the spring and the source of all real greatness. With the aid of these, every damage may be repaired, and every evil remedied. Without them, the slightest blow may be fatal. In Spain, they are unknown; and it seems impossible to establish them. In that country, men have so long been accustomed to pay implicit deference to the Crown and the Church, that loyalty and superstition have usurped the place of those nobler emotions, to which all freedom is owing, and in the absence of which, the true idea of independence can never be attained.

More than once, indeed, during the nineteenth century, a spirit has appeared, from which better things might have been augured. In 1812, in 1820, and in 1836, a few ardent and enthusiastic reformers attempted to secure liberty to the Spanish people, by endowing Spain with a free constitution. They succeeded for a moment, and that was all. The forms of constitutional government they could bestow; but they could not find the traditions and the habits, by which the forms are worked. They mimicked the voice of liberty; they copied her institutions; they aped her very gestures. And what then? At the first stroke of adverse fortune, their idol fell to pieces. Their constitutions were broken up, their assemblies dissolved, their enactments rescinded. The inevitable reaction quickly followed. After each disturbance, the hands of the government were strengthened, the principles of despotism were confirmed, and the Spanish liberals were taught to rue the day, in which they vainly endeavoured to impart freedom to their unhappy and ill-starred country.[1491]

What makes these failures the more worthy of observation is, that the Spaniards did possess, at a very early period, municipal privileges and franchises, similar to those which we had in England, and to which our greatness is often ascribed. But such institutions, though they preserve freedom, can never create it. Spain had the form of liberty without its spirit; hence the form, promising as it was, soon died away. In England, the spirit preceded the form, and therefore the form was durable. Thus it is, that though the Spaniards could boast of free institutions a century before ourselves, they were unable to retain them, simply because they had the institutions and nothing more. We had no popular representation till 1264;[1492] but in Castile they had it in 1169,[1493] and in Aragon in 1133.[1494] So, too, while the earliest charter was granted to an English town in the twelfth century,[1495] we find, in Spain, a charter conferred on Leon as early as 1020; and in the course of the eleventh century the enfranchisement of towns was as secure as laws could make it.[1496]

The fact, however, is, that in Spain these institutions, instead of growing out of the wants of the people originated in a stroke of policy on the part of their rulers. They were conceded to the citizens, rather than desired by them. For, during the war with the Mohammedans, the Christian kings of Spain, as they advanced southwards, were naturally anxious to induce their subjects to settle in the frontier towns, where they might face and repel the enemy. With this object they granted charters to the towns, and privileges to the inhabitants.[1497] And as the Mohammedans were gradually beaten back from the Asturias to Granada, the frontiers changed, and the franchises were extended to the new conquests, in order that what was the post of danger, might also be the place of reward. But, meanwhile, those general causes, which I have indicated, were predetermining the nation to habits of loyalty and of superstition, which grew to a height fatal to the spirit of liberty. That being the case the institutions were of no avail. They took no root; and as they were originated by one political combination, they were destroyed by another. Before the close of the fourteenth century, the Spaniards were so firmly seated in the territories they had lately acquired that there was little danger of their being again expelled[1498] while, on the other hand, there was no immediate prospect of their being able to push their conquests further, and drive the Mohammedans from the strongholds of Granada. The circumstances, therefore, which gave rise to the municipal privileges had changed; and as soon as this was apparent, the privileges began to perish. Being unsuited to the habits of the people, they were sure to fall, on the first opportunity.[1499] Late in the fourteenth century, their decline was perceptible; by the close of the fifteenth century, they were almost extinct; and, early in the sixteenth century, they were finally overthrown.[1500]

It is thus that general causes eventually triumph over every obstacle. In the average of affairs, and on a comparison of long periods, they are irresistible. Their operation is often attacked, and occasionally, for a little time, stopped by politicians, who are always ready with their empirical and short-sighted remedies. But when the spirit of the age is against those remedies, they can at best only succeed for a moment; and after that moment has passed, a reaction sets in, and the penalty for violence has to be paid. Evidence of this will be found in the annals of every civilized country, by whoever will confront the history of legislation with the history of opinion. The fate of the Spanish towns has afforded us one good proof; the fate of the Spanish Church will supply us with another. For more than eighty years after the death of Charles II. the rulers of Spain attempted to weaken the ecclesiastical power; and the end of all their efforts was, that even such an insignificant and incompetent king as Charles IV. was able, with the greatest ease, rapidly to undo what they had done. This is because, during the eighteenth century, while the clergy were assailed by law, they were favoured by opinion. The opinions of a people invariably depend on large general causes, which influence the whole country; but their laws are too often the work of a few powerful individuals, in opposition to the national will. When the legislators die, or lose office, there is always a chance of their successors holding opposite views, and subverting their plans. In the midst, however, of this play and fluctuation of political life, the general causes remain steady, though they are often kept out of sight, and do not become visible, until politicians, inclining to their side, bring them to the surface, and invest them with open and public authority.

This is what Charles IV. did in Spain; and when he took measures to favour the Church, and to discourage free inquiry, he merely sanctioned those national habits which his predecessors had disregarded. The hold which the hierarchy of that country possess over public opinion has always been proverbial; but it is even greater than is commonly supposed. What it was in the seventeenth century, we have already seen; and in the eighteenth century, there were no signs of its diminution, except among a few bold men, who could effect nothing, while the popular voice was so strong against them. Early in the reign of Philip V., Labat, who travelled in Spain, informs us, that when a priest performed mass, nobles of the highest rank deemed it an honour to help him to dress, and that they would go down on their knees to him, and kiss his hands.[1501] When this was done by the proudest aristocracy in Europe, we may suppose what the general feeling must have been. Indeed, Labat assures us, that a Spaniard would hardly be considered of sound faith, if he did not leave some portion of his property to the Church; so completely had respect for the hierarchy become an essential part of the national character.[1502]

A still more curious instance was exhibited on the occasion of the expulsion of the Jesuits. That once useful, but now troublesome, body was, during the eighteenth century, what it is in the nineteenth—the obstinate enemy of progress and of toleration. The rulers of Spain, observing that it opposed all their schemes of reform, resolved to get rid of an obstacle, which met them at every turn. In France, the Jesuits had just been treated as a public nuisance, and suppressed at a blow, and without difficulty. The advisers of Charles III. saw no reason why so salutary a measure should not be imitated in their country; and, in 1767, they, following the example which had been set by the French in 1764, abolished this great mainstay of the Church.[1503] Having done this, the government supposed that it had taken a decisive step towards weakening ecclesiastical power, particularly as the sovereign cordially approved of the proceeding. The year after this occurred, Charles III., according to his custom, appeared in the balcony of the palace, on the festival of St. Charles, ready to grant any request which the people might make to him, and which usually consisted of a prayer for the dismissal of a minister, or for the repeal of a tax. On this occasion, however, the citizens of Madrid, instead of occupying themselves with such worldly matters, felt that still dearer interests were in peril; and, to the surprise and terror of the court, they demanded, with one voice, that the Jesuits should be allowed to return, and wear their usual dress, in order that Spain might be gladdened by the sight of these holy men.[1504]

What can you do with a nation like this? What is the use of laws when the current of public opinion thus sets in against them? In the face of such obstacles, the government of Charles III., notwithstanding its good intentions, was powerless. Indeed, it was worse than powerless: it did harm; for, by rousing popular sympathy in favour of the Church, it strengthened what it sought to weaken. On that cruel and persecuting Church, stained as it was with every sort of crime, the Spanish nation continued to bestow marks of affection, which, instead of being diminished, were increased. Gifts and legacies flowed in freely and from every side; men being willing to beggar themselves and their families, in order to swell the general contribution. And to such a height was this carried, that, in 1788, Florida Blanca, minister of the crown, stated that, within the last fifty years, the ecclesiastical revenues had increased so rapidly, that many of them had doubled in value.[1505]

Even the Inquisition, the most barbarous institution which the wit of man has ever devised, was upheld by public opinion against the attacks of the crown. The Spanish government wished to overthrow it, and did everything to weaken it; but the Spanish people loved it as of old, and cherished it as their best protection against the inroads of heresy.[1506] An illustration of this was exhibited in 1778, when, on occasion of a heretic being sentenced by the Inquisition, several of the leading nobles attended as servants, being glad to have an opportunity of publicly displaying their obedience and docility to the Church.[1507]

All these things were natural, and in order. They were the result of a long train of causes, the operation of which I have endeavoured to trace, during thirteen centuries, since the outbreak of the Arian war. Those causes forced the Spaniards to be superstitious, and it was idle mockery to seek to change their nature by legislation. The only remedy for superstition is knowledge. Nothing else can wipe out that plague-spot of the human mind. Without it, the leper remains unwashed, and the slave unfreed. It is to a knowledge of the laws and relations of things, that European civilization is owing; but it is precisely this in which Spain has always been deficient. And until that deficiency is remedied, until science, with her bold and inquisitive spirit, has established her right to investigate all subjects, after her own fashion, and according to her own method, we may be assured that, in Spain, neither literature, nor universities, nor legislators, nor reformers of any kind, will ever be able to rescue the people from that helpless and benighted condition into which the course of affairs has plunged them.

That no great political improvement, however plausible or attractive it may appear, can be productive of lasting benefit, unless it is preceded by a change in public opinion, and that every change of public opinion is preceded by changes in knowledge, are propositions which all history verifies, but which are particularly obvious in the history of Spain. The Spaniards have had everything except knowledge. They have had immense wealth, and fertile and well-peopled territories, in all parts of the globe. Their own country, washed by the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, and possessed of excellent harbours, is admirably situated for the purposes of trade between Europe and America, being so placed as to command the commerce of both hemispheres.[1508] They had, at a very early period, ample municipal privileges; they had independent parliaments; they had the right of choosing their own magistrates, and managing their own cities. They have had rich and flourishing towns, abundant manufactures, and skilful artizans, whose choice productions could secure a ready sale in every market in the world. They have cultivated the fine arts with eminent success; their noble and exquisite paintings, and their magnificent churches, being justly ranked among the most wonderful efforts of the human hand. They speak a beautiful, sonorous, and flexible language, and their literature is not unworthy of their language. Their soil yields treasures of every kind. It overflows with wine and oil, and produces the choicest fruits in an almost tropical exuberance.[1509] It contains the most valuable minerals, in a profuse variety unexampled in any other part of Europe. No where else do we find such rare and costly marbles, so easily accessible, and in such close communication with the sea, where they might safely be shipped, and sent to countries which require them.[1510] As to the metals, there is hardly one which Spain does not possess in large quantities. Her mines of silver and of quicksilver are well known. She abounds in copper,[1511] and her supply of lead is enormous.[1512] Iron and coal, the two most useful of all the productions of the inorganic world,[1513] are also abundant in that highly favoured country. Iron is said to exist in every part of Spain, and to be of the best quality;[1514] while the coal-mines of Asturias are described as inexhaustible.[1515] In short, nature has been so prodigal of her bounty, that it has been observed, with hardly an hyperbole, that the Spanish nation possesses within itself nearly every natural production which can satisfy either the necessity or the curiosity of mankind.[1516]

These are splendid gifts; it is for the historian to tell how they have been used. Certainly, the people who possess them have never been deficient in natural endowments. They have had their full share of great statesmen, great kings, great magistrates, and great legislators. They have had many able and vigorous rulers; and their history is ennobled by the frequent appearance of courageous and disinterested patriots, who have sacrificed their all, that they might help their country. The bravery of the people has never been disputed; while, as to the upper classes, the punctilious honour of a Spanish gentleman has passed into a bye-word, and circulated through the world. Of the nation generally, the best observers pronounce them to be high-minded, generous, truthful, full of integrity, warm and zealous friends, affectionate in all the private relations of life, frank, charitable, and humane.[1517] Their sincerity in religious matters is unquestionable;[1518] they are, moreover, eminently temperate and frugal.[1519] Yet, all these great qualities have availed them nothing, and will avail them nothing, so long as they remain ignorant. What the end of all this will be, and whether in their unhappy country the right path will ever be taken, is impossible for any one to say.[1520] But if it is not taken, no amelioration which can possibly be effected will penetrate below the surface. The sole course is, to weaken the superstition of the people; and this can only be done by that march of physical science, which, familiarizing men with conceptions of order and of regularity, gradually encroaches on the old notions of perturbation, of prodigy, and of miracle, and by this means accustoms the mind to explain the vicissitudes of affairs by natural considerations, instead of, as heretofore, by those which are purely supernatural.

To this, in the most advanced countries of Europe, every thing has been tending for nearly three centuries. But in Spain, unfortunately, education has always remained, and still remains, in the hands of the clergy, who steadily oppose that progress of knowledge, which they are well aware would be fatal to their own power.[1521] The people, therefore, resting ignorant, and the causes which kept them in ignorance continuing, it avails the country nothing, that, from time to time, enlightened rulers have come forward, and liberal measures been adopted. The Spanish reformers have, with rare exceptions, eagerly attacked the Church, whose authority they clearly saw ought to be diminished. But what they did not see is, that such diminution can be of no real use unless it is the result of public opinion urging on politicians to the work. In Spain, politicians took the initiative, and the people lagged behind. Hence, in Spain, what was done at one time was sure to be undone at another. When the liberals were in power, they suppressed the Inquisition; but Ferdinand VII. easily restored it, because, though it had been destroyed by Spanish legislators, its existence was suited to the habits and traditions of the Spanish nation.[1522] Fresh changes occurring, this odious tribunal was, in 1820, again abolished. Still, though its form is gone, its spirit lives.[1523] The name, the body, and the visible appearance of the Inquisition, are no more; but the spirit which generated the Inquisition is enshrined in the hearts of the people, and, on slight provocation, would burst forth, and reinstate an institution which is the effect, far more than the cause, of the intolerant bigotry of the Spanish nation.

In the same way, other and more systematic attacks which were made on the Church, during the present century, succeeded at first, but were sure to be eventually baffled.[1524] Under Joseph, in 1809, the monastic orders were suppressed, and their property was confiscated.[1525] Little, however, did Spain gain by this. The nation was on their side;[1526] and as soon as the storm passed away, they were restored. In 1836, there was another political movement, and the liberals being at the head of affairs, Mendizabal secularized all the Church property, and deprived the clergy of nearly the whole of their enormous and ill-gotten wealth.[1527] He did not know how foolish it is to attack an institution, unless you can first lessen its influence. Overrating the power of legislation, he underrated the power of opinion. This, the result clearly showed. Within a very few years, the reaction began. In 1845, was enacted what was called the law of devolution, by which the first step was taken towards the re-endowment of the clergy.[1528] In 1851, their position was still further improved by the celebrated Concordat, in which the right of acquiring, as well as of possessing, was solemnly confirmed to them.[1529] With all this, the nation heartily concurred.[1530] Such, however, was the madness of the liberal party, that, only four years afterwards, when they for a moment obtained power, they forcibly annulled these arrangements, and revoked concessions which had been made to the Church, and which, unhappily for Spain, public opinion had ratified.[1531] The results might have been easily foreseen. In Aragon and in other parts of Spain, the people flew to arms; a Carlist insurrection broke out, and a cry ran through the country, that religion was in danger.[1532] It is impossible to benefit such a nation as this. The reformers were, of course, overthrown, and by the autumn of 1856 their party was broken up. The political reaction now began, and advanced so rapidly, that, by the spring of 1857, the policy of the two preceding years was completely reversed. Those who idly thought that they could regenerate their country by laws, saw all their hopes confounded. A ministry was formed, whose measures were more in accordance with the national mind. In May 1857, Cortes assembled. The representatives of the people sanctioned the proceedings of the executive government, and, by their united authority, the worst provisions of the Concordat of 1851 were amply confirmed, the sale of Church property was forbidden, and all the limitations which had been set to the power of the bishops were at once removed.[1533]

The reader will now be able to understand the real nature of Spanish civilization. He will see how, under the high-sounding names of loyalty and religion, lurk the deadly evils which those names have always concealed, but which it is the business of the historian to drag to light and expose. A blind spirit of reverence, taking the form of an unworthy and ignominious submission to the Crown and the Church, is the capital and essential vice of the Spanish people. It is their sole national vice, and it has sufficed to ruin them. From it all nations have grievously suffered, and many still suffer. But nowhere in Europe, has this principle been so long supreme as in Spain. Therefore, nowhere else in Europe are the consequences so manifest and so fatal. The idea of liberty is extinct, if, indeed, in the true sense of the word, it ever can be said to have existed. Outbreaks, no doubt, there have been, and will be; but they are bursts of lawlessness, rather than of liberty. In the most civilized countries, the tendency always is, to obey even unjust laws, but while obeying them, to insist on their repeal. This is because we perceive that it is better to remove grievances than to resist them. While we submit to the particular hardship, we assail the system from which the hardship flows. For a nation to take this view, requires a certain reach of mind, which, in the darker periods of European history, was unattainable. Hence we find, that, in the middle ages, though tumults were incessant, rebellions were rare. But, since the sixteenth century, local insurrections, provoked by immediate injustice, are diminishing, and are being superseded by revolutions, which strike at once at the source from whence the injustice proceeds. There can be no doubt that this change is beneficial; partly because it is always good to rise from effects to causes, and partly because revolutions being less frequent than insurrections, the peace of society would be more rarely disturbed, if men confined themselves entirely to the larger remedy. At the same time, insurrections are generally wrong; revolutions are always right. An insurrection is too often the mad and passionate effort of ignorant persons, who are impatient under some immediate injury, and never stop to investigate its remote and general causes. But a revolution, when it is the work of the nation itself, is a splendid and imposing spectacle, because to the moral quality of indignation produced by the presence of evil, it adds the intellectual qualities of foresight and combination; and, uniting in the same act some of the highest properties of our nature, it achieves a double purpose, not only punishing the oppressor, but also relieving the oppressed.

In Spain, however, there never has been a revolution, properly so called; there never has even been one grand national rebellion. The people, though often lawless, are never free. Among them, we find still preserved that peculiar taint of barbarism, which makes men prefer occasional disobedience to systematic liberty. Certain feelings there are of our common nature, which even their slavish loyalty cannot eradicate, and which, from time to time, urge them to resist injustice. Such instincts are happily the inalienable lot of humanity, which we cannot forfeit, if we would, and which are too often the last resource against the extravagances of tyranny. And this is all that Spain now possesses. The Spaniards, therefore, resist, not because they are Spaniards, but because they are men. Still, even while they resist, they revere. While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they crouch before a system, of which the impost is the smallest evil. They smite the tax-gatherer, but fall prostrate at the feet of the contemptible prince for whom the tax-gatherer plies his craft. They will even revile the troublesome and importunate monk, or sometimes they will scoff at the sleek and arrogant priest; while such is their infatuation, that they would risk their lives in defence of that cruel Church, which has inflicted on them hideous calamities, but to which they still cling, as if it were the dearest object of their affections.

Connected with these habits of mind, and in sooth forming part of them, we find a reverence for antiquity, and an inordinate tenacity of old opinions, old beliefs, and old habits, which remind us of those tropical civilizations which formerly flourished. Such prejudices were once universal even in Europe; but they began to die out in the sixteenth century, and are now, comparatively speaking, extinct, except in Spain, where they have always been welcomed. In that country, they retain their original force, and produce their natural results. By encouraging the notion, that all the truths most important to know are already known, they repress those aspirations, and dull that generous confidence in the future, without which nothing really great can be achieved. A people who regard the past with too wistful an eye, will never bestir themselves to help the onward progress; they will hardly believe that progress is possible. To them, antiquity is synonymous with wisdom, and every improvement is a dangerous innovation. In this state, Europe lingered for many centuries; in this state, Spain still lingers. Hence the Spaniards are remarkable for an inertness, a want of buoyancy, and an absence of hope, which, in our busy and enterprizing age, isolate them from the rest of the civilized world. Believing that little can be done, they are in no hurry to do it. Believing that the knowledge they have inherited, is far greater than any they can obtain, they wish to preserve their intellectual possessions whole and unimpaired; inasmuch as the least alteration in them might lessen their value. Content with what has been already bequeathed, they are excluded from that great European movement, which, first clearly perceptible in the sixteenth century, has ever since been steadily advancing, unsettling old opinions, destroying old follies, reforming and improving on every side, influencing even such barbarous countries as Russia and Turkey; but leaving Spain unscathed. While the human intellect has been making the most prodigious and unheard-of strides, while discoveries in every quarter are simultaneously pressing upon us, and coming in such rapid and bewildering succession, that the strongest sight, dazzled by the glare of their splendour, is unable to contemplate them as a whole; while other discoveries still more important, and still more remote from ordinary experience, are manifestly approaching, and may be seen looming in the distance, whence they are now obscurely working on the advanced thinkers who are nearest to them, filling their minds with those ill-defined, restless, and almost uneasy, feelings, which are the invariable harbingers of future triumph; while the veil is being rudely torn, and nature, violated at all points, is forced to disclose her secrets, and reveal her structure, her economy, and her laws, to the indomitable energy of man; while Europe is ringing with the noise of intellectual achievements, with which even despotic governments affect to sympathize, in order that they may divert them from their natural course, and use them as new instruments whereby to oppress yet more the liberties of the people; while, amidst this general din and excitement, the public mind, swayed to and fro, is tossed and agitated,—Spain sleeps on, untroubled, unheeding, impassive, receiving no impressions from the rest of the world, and making no impressions upon it. There she lies, at the further extremity of the Continent, a huge and torpid mass, the sole representative now remaining of the feelings and knowledge of the Middle Ages. And, what is the worst symptom of all, she is satisfied with her own condition. Though she is the most backward country in Europe, she believes herself to be the foremost. She is proud of every thing of which she should be ashamed. She is proud of the antiquity of her opinions; proud of her orthodoxy; proud of the strength of her faith; proud of her immeasurable and childish credulity; proud of her unwillingness to amend either her creed or her customs; proud of her hatred of heretics, and proud of the undying vigilance with which she has baffled their efforts to obtain a full and legal establishment on her soil.

All these things conspiring together, produce, in their aggregate, that melancholy exhibition to which we give the collective name of Spain. The history of that single word is the history of nearly every vicissitude of which the human species is capable. It comprises the extremes of strength and of weakness, of unbounded wealth and of abject poverty. It is the history of the mixture of different races, languages, and bloods. It includes almost every political combination which the wit of man can devise; laws infinite in variety, as well as in number; constitutions of all kinds, from the most stringent to the most liberal. Democracy, monarchy, government by priests, government by municipalities, government by nobles, government by representative bodies, government by natives, government by foreigners, have been tried, and tried in vain. Material appliances have been lavishly used; arts, inventions, and machines introduced from abroad, manufactures set up, communications opened, roads made, canals dug, mines worked, harbours formed. In a word, there has been every sort of alteration, except alterations of opinion; there has been every possible change, except changes in knowledge. And the result is, that in spite of the efforts of successive governments, in spite of the influence of foreign customs, and in spite of those physical ameliorations, which just touch the surface of society, but are unable to penetrate beneath, there are no signs of national progress; the priests are rather gaining ground than losing it; the slightest attack on the Church rouses the people; while, even the dissoluteness of the clergy, and the odious vices which, in the present century, have stained the throne, can do naught to lessen either the superstition or the loyalty which the accumulated force of many centuries has graven on the minds, and eaten into the hearts of the Spanish nation.

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