they were desirous of acting in a similar manner at Seville, with regard
to Geber's Tower. Perhaps from disgust at the idea that a monument, the
beauty and grandeur of which had inspired them with a sort of affection,
would be, being gazed at, trodden, and possibly disfigured, (as it
turned out) by those whom they looked upon as barbarians, and who would
not appreciate its perfection, they attempted to introduce a clause into
the conditions of the surrender of Seville, stipulating the destruction
of the tower.

By way of testifying to the accuracy of the opinion they had formed of
their adversaries, Saint Ferdinand was on the point of agreeing to the
clause: when his son, afterwards his successor, Alonso el Sabio, perhaps
the only Christian present, who felt sufficient interest in a square
mass of masonry, to care how the question was decided, energetically
interfered, affirming that a single brick displaced, should be paid with
the lives of the whole population.

This most perfect scientific monument left by the Arabs, for the
possession of which, after the architect, Europe is indebted to Alonso
the Tenth, we will presently examine, together with the cathedral, which
was afterwards erected, so as to include it in his plan.

LETTER XIX

CATHEDRAL OF SEVILLE.

Seville.

We have visited the most beautiful edifice in Seville; we are now
approaching the most magnificent. The native writers, participating
somewhat in the character attributed to the inhabitants of their
province, sometimes called the Gascony of Spain, declare this cathedral
to be the grandest in the world. This is going too far; setting aside
St. Peter's, and the Santa Maria del Fiore, the style of which renders
the comparison more difficult, the Duomo of Milan, of which this
building appears to be an imitation, must be allowed to be superior to
it, externally at least, if not internally. Had they ranked it as the
finest church out of Italy, they would not have been much in error, for
such it probably is.

No one in approaching, excepting from the west, would imagine it to be a
Gothic edifice. You perceive an immense quadrangular enclosure, filled
apparently with cupolas, towers, pinnacles of all sorts and styles, but
less of the Gothic than any other. These belong to the numerous
accessory buildings, subsequently annexed to the church; such as
sacristies, chapels, chapter-hall, each subsequent erection having been
designed in a different s