the successive
sovereigns; and thus to press into a limited compass a sort of abstract
of the annals of this extraordinary nation: but I am deterred by the
certainty that such an attempt, by me, would fail of its intended
object. The events, thus slurred over, would have the effect of whetting
the appetite for knowledge, which they would not satisfy; and the
interminable lists of monarchs, of successions, usurpations, alliances
and intermarriages, rendered doubly intricate by the continual
recurrence of the same names, without sufficient details to
particularise each--a chaos of outlines without the necessary shading to
bring out the figures from the canvass--would not only set at defiance
the clearest memory, but would be a trial which I would not for worlds
impose upon your patience. No history is more attractive than that of
Spain; and those works which exist upon the subject, although all, more
or less, sullied with inaccuracies, and most of them infected with
prejudice, and immersed in superstitious delusion, are still well worth
your perusal; but it would lead me out of my depth, were I to undertake
in my correspondence more than an occasional historical quotation, when
required by the interest attached to any monument which it may fall to
my lot to describe.

Were I not to transmit to you a conscientious and faithful account of
all that I shall see, I should be guilty of cruelty; and that the more
base, from the certain impunity that must attend it. I say this, from
the impossibility of your ever undertaking the same journey, and
consequently of your ever being able to compare my portraits with their
originals. In fact, the incompatibility of your nature, and that of the
Spanish climate, must ever be present to me, who, during the vivifying
heats of the late very bearable _canicule_, in your French chateau--so
constructed as to perform the functions of an atmospheric sieve, by
separating the wind, which rushed through its doors and windows,
judiciously placed in parallels for the purpose, from the warmer
sunshine without--was witness, nevertheless, to your unaffected
distress, when you protested against any lofty, oak-panelled room being
sat or reclined in by more than one human being at a time, lest it
should be over-heated; placing thus an obstacle in the way of
conversation, in which to shine is your especial province, by rendering
it necessary to converse through various open doors; while, were an
additiona