s breaking themselves up, and settling into several bodies, in
more harmonious order; as reunited and embattled under a standard which
was reared to the sun with more authentic assurance of final
victory?--The superstition (I do not dread the word), which prevailed in
these nations, may have checked many of my countrymen who would
otherwise have exultingly accompanied me in the challenge which, under
the shape of a question, I have been confidently uttering; as I know
that this stain (so the same persons termed it) did, from the beginning,
discourage their hopes for the cause. Short-sighted despondency!
Whatever mixture of superstition there might be in the religious faith
or devotional practices of the Spaniards; this must have necessarily
been transmuted by that triumphant power, wherever that power was felt,
which grows out of intense moral suffering--from the moment in which it
coalesces with fervent hope. The chains of bigotry, which enthralled the
mind, must have been turned into armour to defend and weapons to annoy.
Wherever the heaving and effort of freedom was spread, purification must
have followed it. And the types and ancient instruments of error, where
emancipated men shewed their foreheads to the day, must have become a
language and a ceremony of imagination; expressing, consecrating, and
invigorating, the most pure deductions of Reason and the holiest
feelings of universal Nature.

When the Boy of Saragossa (as we have been told), too immature in growth
and unconfirmed in strength to be admitted by his Fellow-citizens into
their ranks, too tender of age for them to bear the sight of him in
arms--when this Boy, forgetful or unmindful of the restrictions which
had been put upon him, rushed into the field where his Countrymen were
engaged in battle, and, fighting with the sinew and courage of an unripe
Hero, won a standard from the enemy, and bore his acquisition to the
Church, and laid it with his own hands upon the Altar of the
Virgin;--surely there was not less to be hoped for his Country from this
act, than if the banner, taken from his grasp, had, without any such
intermediation, been hung up in the place of worship--a direct offering
to the incorporeal and supreme Being. Surely there is here an object
which the most meditative and most elevated minds may contemplate with
absolute delight; a well-adapted outlet for the dearest sentiments; an
organ by which they may act; a function by which they may be