ful soldier and a worthy
King!

Spain is a country of surprises and of contradictions; even her own
people seem unable to predict what may happen on the morrow. Those who
knew her best had come to despair of her emancipation at the very moment
when Prim and Topete actually carried the Revolution to a successful
issue. Again, after the miserable fiasco of the attempt at a republic,
the world, even in Spain itself, was taken by surprise by the peaceful
restoration of Alfonso XII.

I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of
Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most
interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of
her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of
Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales
Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his
preface to his _Decadencia de Espana_, published in Madrid in 1850: "It
is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain.
The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by,
and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in
which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing
not to presume to dispute this former glory, Senor Ferrer del Rio goes
on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's
subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the
summit of her greatness--that of the Reyes Catolicos, Don Fernando V.
and Dona Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of
Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system
disappeared--it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the
kingdom--the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the
administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice
began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people
was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the
conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been
struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new
world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that
hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although
for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real
misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the _Comuneros_, and the
execution of Padilla and his