us exclusively owned by the crown, the church, and a
very small number of patrician families, while the supply of labour owing
to the special causes which had converted the masses of the people into
paupers ashamed to work but not unwilling to beg or to rob--was
incredibly small, it is obvious that, so long as the same causes
continued in operation, the downfall of the country was a logical result
from which there was no escape. Nothing but a general revolution of mind
and hand against the prevalent system, nothing but some great destructive
but regenerating catastrophe, could redeem the people.

And it is the condition of the people which ought always to be the
prominent subject of interest to those who study the records of the Past.
It is only by such study that we can derive instruction from history, and
enable ourselves, however dimly and feebly, to cast the horoscope of
younger nations. Human history, so far as it has been written, is at best
a mere fragment; for the few centuries or year-thousands of which there
is definite record are as nothing compared to the millions of unnumbered
years during which man has perhaps walked the earth. It may be as
practicable therefore to derive instruction from a minute examination in
detail of a very limited period of time and space, and thus to deduce
general rules for the infinite future, during which our species may be
destined to inhabit this planet, as by a more extensive survey, which
must however be at best a limited one. Men die, but Man is immortal, and
it would be a sufficiently forlorn prospect for humanity if we were not
able to discover causes in operation which would ultimately render the
system of Philip II. impossible in any part of the globe. Certainly, were
it otherwise, the study of human history would be the most wearisome and
unprofitable of all conceivable occupations. The festivities of courts,
the magnificence of an aristocracy, the sayings and doings of monarchs
and their servants, the dynastic wars, the solemn treaties; the Ossa upon
Pelion of diplomatic and legislative rubbish by which, in the course of
centuries, a few individuals or combinations of individuals have been
able to obstruct the march of humanity, and have essayed to suspend the
operation of elemental laws--all this contains but little solid food for
grown human beings. The condition of the brave and quickwitted Spanish
people in the latter half of the sixteenth century gives more matter f