l
Angelos. The Alcazar of Madrid, commanding from its windows thirty miles
of royal domains, including the Escorial and several other royal
residences, is not destined to become the abode of a monarch paid to
receive directions from a loquacious and corrupt house of deputies,--the
utmost result to be obtained from forcing on states a form of government
unsuited to their character. If the Spanish reigning family, after
having settled their quarrel with regard to the succession, (if ever
they do so,) are compelled to accept a (so-called) Constitutional form
of government, with their knowledge of the impossibility of its
successful operation, they will probably endeavour, in imitation of the
highly gifted sovereign of their neighbours, to stifle it, and to
administrate in spite of it; until, either wanting the talent and energy
necessary for the maintenance of this false position, or their subjects,
as may be expected, getting impatient at finding themselves mystified,
a total overthrow will terminate the experiment.

I am aware of the criticism to which this opinion would be exposed in
many quarters; I already hear the contemptuous upbraidings, similar to
those with which the "exquisite," exulting in an unexceptionable
wardrobe, lashes the culprit whose shoulders are guilty of a coat of the
previous year's fashion. We are told that the tendency of minds, the
progress of intellect, the spirit of the age,--all which, translated
into plain language, mean (if they mean anything) the fashion,--require
that nations should provide themselves each with a new Liberal
government; claiming, in consideration of the fashionable vogue and the
expensive nature of the article, its introduction (unlike other British
manufactures) duty-free. But it ought first to be established, whether
these larger interests of humanity are amenable to the sceptre of so
capricious a ruler as the fashion. It appears to me, that nations should
be allowed to adapt their government to their respective characters,
dispositions, habits of life, and traditions. All these are more
dependant than is supposed by those who possess not the habit of
reflection, on the race, the position, the soil and climate each has
received from nature, which, by the influence they have exercised on
their habits and dispositions, have fitted them each for a form of
constitution equally appropriate to no other people; since no two
nations are similarly circumstanced, not only in all