o be of the best
quality; while the coal mines of Asturias are described as
inexhaustible. In short, nature has been so prodigal of her bounty
that it has been observed with hardly an hyperbole that the Spanish
nation possesses within itself nearly every natural production which
can satisfy either the necessity or the curiosity of mankind.

[Footnote 54: From Volume II, Chapter VIII, of the "History of
Civilization in England."]

These are splendid gifts; it is for the historian to tell how they
have been used. Certainly, the people who possess them have never been
deficient in natural endowments. They have had their full share of
great statesmen, great kings, great magistrates, and great
legislators. They have had many able and vigorous rulers; and their
history is ennobled by the frequent appearance of courageous and
disinterested patriots, who have sacrificed their all that they might
help their country. The bravery of the people has never been disputed;
while, as to the upper classes, the punctilious honor of a Spanish
gentleman has passed into a byword, and circulated through the world.
Of the nation generally, the best observers pronounce them to be
high-minded, generous, truthful, full of integrity, warm and zealous
friends, affectionate in all private relations of life, frank,
charitable, and humane. Their sincerity in religious matters is
unquestionable; they are, moreover, eminently temperate and frugal.
Yet, all these great qualities have availed them nothing, and will
avail them nothing so long as they remain ignorant....

In Spain there never has been a revolution,[55] properly so called;
there never has even been one grand national rebellion. The people,
tho often lawless, are never free. Among them we find still preserved
that peculiar taint of barbarism which makes men prefer occasional
disobedience to systematic liberty. Certain feelings there are of our
common nature, which even their slavish loyalty can not eradicate, and
which, from time to time, urge them to resist injustice. Such
instincts are happily the inalienable lot of humanity, which we can
not forfeit, if we would, and which are too often the last resource
against the extravagances of tyranny. And this is all that Spain now
possesses. The Spaniards, however, resist, not because they are
Spaniards, but because they are men. Still, even while they resist,
they revere. While they will rise up against a vexatious impost, they
crouch before a