ccupied by Philip IV. attracted special
notice from the fact that the eccentric monarch, during his life-time,
often seated himself here to listen to mass, an idea more singular than
reverential. The coffin of Charles V. was opened so late as 1871, during
the visit of the Emperor of Brazil, when the face of the corpse was
found to be entire,--eyebrows, hair, and all, though black and
shriveled. The last burial here was that of Ferdinand VII. This octagon
vault is called the Pantheon of the Escurial; but it is nothing more
than a theatrical show room: nothing could be more inappropriate. While
we were in Madrid, ex-queen Isabella visited the vault,--her own last
resting-place being already designated herein,--and caused mass to be
performed while she kneeled among the coffins, as Philip IV. was
accustomed to do. She does this once a year, at the hour of midnight,
but why that period is chosen we do not know.

A room adjoining the church, close beside the altar, is shown to the
visitor, where that prince of bigots, Philip II., passed the last days
and hours of his life. It is a scantily furnished apartment, with no
upholstery, hard chairs, and bare wooden tables; with a globe, scales,
compasses, and a few rude domestic articles, writing material, half a
dozen maps, and three or four small cabinet pictures on the walls,
forming the entire inventory. A large chair in which he sat, and the
coarse hard bed on which he slept and died, are also seen in a little
adjoining room scarcely ten feet square. It was here that he received
with such apparent indifference the intelligence of the destruction of
the Spanish Armada, which had cost over a hundred million ducats and
twenty years of useless labor. Everything is left as it was at the time
of his death. A sliding panel was so arranged in the little
sleeping-room that the king could sit or lie there, when too ill to do
otherwise, and yet attend upon the performance of public mass. With this
door put aside, the king lay here on that September Sabbath day, in the
year of our Lord, 1598,--after having just ordered a white satin lining
for his bronze coffin,--grasping the crucifix which his father, Charles
V., held when dying, and with eyes fixed upon the high altar, attended
by his confessor and children, the worn-out monarch breathed his last.
Little as we sympathized with the character of the royal occupant, there
was yet something touching in the stern simplicity with which he
sur