o note now the peculiar style of design illustrated by both.
This style is what is technically known in Spain as "Mudejar," _i.e._,
neither Gothic nor Moorish strictly, but a compound of both. The date of
these particular specimens happens to be well fixed by the inscriptions
to which allusion has been recently made, and of one of which a portion
is shown in the sketch (No. 30), as running horizontally between two
string courses on each side of the small quasi-rose windows. This
"Mudejar" work was certainly executed between the years 1452 and 1458,
in the reign of Enrique IV., King of Castille. It was the wise policy of
the most sagacious of the Spanish monarchs in their contests with the
Moors, to half-shut their eyes to what they could not eradicate, viz.,
the secret Islamism of the race. They long continued this laudable
inclination to tolerate and use the skilful Arabian artificers, under
Christian guidance and superintendence, in the various localities in
which they successively planted the Standard of the Cross, tearing down
that of the Crescent. At last the inflation which followed their
ultimate conquests under Ferdinand and Isabella, led to the
establishment of the pernicious Inquisition, the "teterrima causa" of
infinite misery, and the subverter of tolerance and progress throughout
the country. From that period gradually disappeared--lingering, as we
shall have occasion to observe, much longer in the South than in the
North--the skilled artificer, learned in all the technicalities, and the
elaborate geometrical principles of the combination of ornamental form,
which Arabian genius had engrafted upon the traditions of Ancient Rome,
handed down to them through the medium of Byzantium. The very antagonism
of creed induced the Moor to avoid polluting his art with types of form
or processes borrowed from the Christian, as he would have avoided
polluting his faith with Catholic legend or tenets. Hence when he and
his became the spoil of the Christian, which, to a great extent, they
did, the Christian necessarily inherited no unimportant addition to his
repertory of beautiful, fresh, and valuable arts and industries. This
precious inheritance was not altogether appreciated by the Spaniards, as
it might have been by a people of greater producing energies; but in
spite of their comparative ineptitude, they gained greatly by the leaven
of Moorish skill and talent; and as one of the first and best fruits of
the gradual co