English, though not obtrusively, and do not disgrace your
country by imitating the airs and graces of creatures whom the other
Spaniards, namely, Castilians, Manchegans, Aragonese, &c., pronounce to
be fools.

THE NORMANS IN SPAIN.

'In the ninth century, the Normans or Northmen made piratical
excursions on the W. coast of Spain. They passed, in 843, from
Lisbon up to the straits and everywhere, as in France, overcame the
unprepared natives, plundering, burning, and destroying. They
captured even Seville itself, September 30, 844, but were met by the
Cordovese Kalif, beaten, and expelled. They were called by the Moors
_Majus_, _Madjous_, _Magioges_ (Conde, i. 282), and by the early
Spanish annalists _Almajuzes_. The root has been erroneously derived
from [Greek text], Magus, magicians or supernatural beings, as they
were almost held to be. The term _Madjous_ was, strictly speaking,
applied by the Moors to those Berbers and Africans who were Pagans or
Muwallads, _i.e._ not believers in the Khoran. The true etymology is
that of the Gog and Magog so frequently mentioned by Ezekiel
(xxxviii. and xxxix.) and in the Revelations (xx. 8) as ravagers of
the earth and nations, May-Gogg, "he that dissolveth,"--the fierce
Normans appeared, coming no one knew from whence, just when the minds
of men were trembling at the approach of the millennium, and thus
were held to be the forerunners of the destroyers of the world. This
name of indefinite gigantic power survived in the _Mogigangas_, or
terrific images, which the Spaniards used to parade in their
religious festivals, like the Gogs and Magogs of our civic wise men
of the East. Thus Andalucia being the half-way point between the N.
and S.E., became the meeting-place of the two great ravaging swarms
which have desolated Europe: here the stalwart children of frozen
Norway, the worshippers of Odin, clashed against the Saracens from
torrid Arabia, the followers of Mahomet. Nor can a greater proof be
adduced of the power and relative superiority of the Cordovese Moors
over the other nations of Europe, than this, their successful
resistance to those fierce invaders, who overran without difficulty
the coasts of England, France, Apulia, and Sicily: conquerors
everywhere else, here they were driven back in disgrace. Hence the
bitter hatred of the N