thedral; and after paying their devotions at its venerable shrine,
they repaired to the _alcazar_,--the palace-fortress of Toledo.

For some weeks, during which the sovereigns remained in the capital,
there was a general jubilee.[474] All the national games of Spain were
exhibited to the young queen; the bull-fight, the Moorish sport of the
_canas_, or tilt of reeds, and tournaments on horseback and on foot, in
both of which Philip often showed himself armed _cap-a-pie_ in the
lists, and did his _devoir_ in the presence of his fair bride, as became
a loyal knight. Another show, which might have been better reserved for
a less joyous occasion, was exhibited to Isabella. As the court and the
cortes were drawn together in Toledo, the Holy Office took the occasion
to celebrate an _auto da fe_, which, from the number of the victims and
quality of the spectators, was the most imposing spectacle of the kind
ever witnessed in that capital.

No country in Europe has so distinct an individuality as Spain; shown
not merely in the character of the inhabitants, but in the smallest
details of life,--in their national games, their dress, their social
usages. The tenacity with which the people have clung to these amidst
all the changes of dynasties and laws is truly admirable. Separated by
their mountain barrier from the central and eastern parts of Europe, and
during the greater part of their existence brought into contact with
Oriental forms of civilization, the Spaniards have been but little
exposed to those influences which have given a homogeneous complexion to
the other nations of Christendom. The system under which they have been
trained is too peculiar to be much affected by these influences, and the
ideas transmitted from their ancestors are too deeply settled in their
minds to be easily disturbed. The present in Spain is but the mirror of
the past, in other countries fashions become antiquated, old errors
exploded, early tastes reformed. Not so in the Peninsula. The traveller
has only to cross the Pyrenees to find himself a contemporary of the
sixteenth century.

The festivities of the court were suddenly terminated by the illness of
Isabella, who was attacked by the small-pox. Her life was in no danger;
but great fears were entertained lest the envious disease should prove
fatal to her beauty. Her mother, Catherine de Medicis, had great
apprehensions on this point; and couriers crossed the Pyrenees
frequently, during the q