ven two or
three voices in his favour, what chance is he likely to have with a
settled constitutional Government and the really legitimate Monarch on
the throne? The strongest chance he ever had of success was when the
Basque Provinces were at one time disposed, it is said almost to a man,
to take his side; but, in fact, the men of the mountain were fighting
much more for the retention of their own _fueros_--for their immunity
from conscription, among others--than for any love of Don Carlos
himself. They would have liked a king and a little kingdom all of their
own, and, above all, to have held their beloved rights against all the
rest of Spain.

All that, however, is over now. In all Spain no province has profited as
have those of the North by the settled advance of the country. Bilbao,
once a small trading town, twice devastated during the terrible civil
wars, has forged ahead in a manner perhaps only equalled by Liverpool in
the days of its first growth, and is now more important and more
populous than Barcelona itself; with its charming outlet of Portugalete,
it is the most flourishing of Spanish ports, and is able to compare with
any in Europe for its commerce and its rapid growth. Viscaya and
Asturias want no more civil war, and the Apostolic party may look in
vain for any more Carlist risings. More to be feared now are labour
troubles, or the contamination of foreign anarchist doctrines; but in
this case, the Church and the nation would be on the same side--that of
order and progress.

In attempting to understand the extremely complex character of the
Spaniard as we know him,--that is to say, the Castilian, or rather the
Madrileno,--one has to take into account not only the divers races which
go to make up the nationality as it is to-day, but something of the past
history of this strangely interesting people. To go back to the days
when Spain was a Roman province in a high state of civilisation: some of
the greatest Romans known to fame were Spaniards--Quintilian, Martial,
Lucan, and the two Senecas. Trajan was the first Spaniard named Emperor,
and the only one whose ashes were allowed to rest within the city walls;
but the Spanish freedman of Augustus, Gaius Julius Hyginus, had been
made the chief keeper of the Palatine Library, and Ballus, another
Spaniard, had reached the consulship, and had been accorded the honour
of a public triumph. Hadrian, again, was a Spaniard, and Marcus Aurelius
a son of Cordoba. No