g scenes of Charles's life, drew up his relation for the
information of the Regent Joanna, and at her request. Why the good
father should have presented his hero in such a poverty-stricken aspect,
it is not easy to say. Perhaps he thought it would redound to the credit
of the emperor, that he should have been willing to exchange the
splendors of a throne for a life of monkish mortification.

[283] The reader will find an extract from the inventory of the royal
jewels, plate, furniture, &c, in Stirling's Cloister Life of Charles the
Fifth, (London, 1852,) Appendix, and in Pichot's Chronique de
Charles-Quint, (Paris, 1854,) p. 537 et seq.

[284] Mignet has devoted a couple of pages to an account of this
remarkable picture of which an engraving is still extant, executed under
the eyes of Titian himself. Charles-Quint, pp. 214, 215.

[285] Vera y Figueroa, Vida y Hechos de Carlos V., p. 127.

A writer in Fraser's Magazine for April and May, 1851, has not omitted
to notice this remarkable picture, in two elaborate articles on the
cloister life of Charles the Fifth. They are evidently the fruit of a
careful study of the best authorities, some of them not easy of access
to the English student. The author has collected some curious
particulars in respect to the persons who accompanied the emperor in his
retirement; and on the whole, though he seems not to have been aware of
the active interest which Charles took in public affairs, he has
presented by far the most complete view of this interesting portion of
the imperial biography that has yet been given to the world.

[I suffer this note to remain as originally written, before the
publication of Mr. Stirling's "Cloister Life" had revealed him as the
author of these spirited essays.]

[286] Sandoval, Hist. de Carlos V., tom. II. p. 610.--Siguenca, Historia
de la Orden de San Geronimo, (Madrid, 1595-1605,) parte III. p.
190.--Ford, Handbook of Spain, (London, 1845,) p. 551.

Of the above authorities, Father Siguenca has furnished the best account
of the emperor's little domain as it was in his day, and Ford as it is
in our own.

[287] See the eloquent conclusion of Stirling's Cloister Life of Charles
the Fifth.

Ford, in his admirable Handbook, which may serve as a manual for the
student of Spanish in his closet, quite as well as for the traveller in
Spain, has devoted a few columns to a visit which he paid to this
sequestered spot, where, as he says, the spirit of the