rounded his own domestic life. Self-abnegation must have been with
him a ruling principle. The cell of a Franciscan monk could not have
been more severely simple and plain than that small living and sleeping
apartment.

A few statistics, as rattled off by our guide, will give the reader some
idea of the vastness of the Escurial. There are sixteen open courts
within its outer walls, eighty staircases, twelve thousand doors (?),
and some three thousand windows. There are over forty altars. The main
church is as large as most European cathedrals, being three hundred feet
long, over two hundred wide, and three hundred and twenty feet high. We
know of no cathedral in Italy so elaborately and beautifully finished,
and yet this was only a part of the princely household of Philip II. The
Escurial is now only a show place, so to speak, of no present use except
as a historical link and a tomb. There are a few, very few, fine
paintings left within its walls, most of those which originally hung
here having been very properly removed to the Museo at Madrid. In the
refectory will be noticed a choice painting by Titian, of which we are a
little surprised that no more has been said, for it is a remarkable
painting. On the same wall are two or three canvases by Velasquez, but
none by other artists of repute. On the walls of a large hall, called by
the guide the Hall of Battles, is painted a most crude and inartistic
series of pictures, only worthy of a Chinese artist, representing a
series of battles supposed to depict Spanish conquests.

We were also shown, preserved here, a large and useless library, kept in
a noble hall over two hundred feet long and fifty or sixty wide, the
books being all arranged with their backs to the wall, so that even the
titles cannot be read,--a plan which one would say must be the device of
some madman. The bookcases are made of ebony, cedar, orange, and other
choice woods, and contain some sixty thousand volumes. What possible
historic wealth may here lie concealed,--what noble thoughts and minds
embalmed! In the domestic or dwelling portion of the Escurial the
apartments are very finely inlaid with various woods on the doors, dado,
and on the floors; besides which they contain some delicate antique
furniture of great beauty, finished mostly in various patterns of inlaid
woods. A few cabinet pictures are seen upon the walls, and one or two
large hall-like apartments are hung with tapestry, which, although