Such changes are effected almost equally by progress and by
decay. By the former, all minor monuments become obliterated or
transformed,--they represent in fact old age, pushed aside to make way
for youth--while by the latter they descend in the social scale until
beggars break up what nobles once built up. How constantly the traveller
meets with some splendid old cathedral still "hale and hearty," with the
weight of half-a-dozen or more centuries upon its head, around which he
knows were once grouped teeming populations full of strength, life, and
wealth, of which not a habitation may be left extending backwards for
more than a hundred years from the present date? Any exceptions to such
illustrations of the way in which fortune turns her wheel become the
especially cherished haunts of the antiquary, who knows that from day to
day they become rarer, and consequently more precious. Hence the
enthusiasm with which the neglected quarters of every old town are
visited in the hope of meeting with some relics of what may therein at
least appear, "remains of an extinct civilization." Some such reward I
met with in encountering, amidst much dirt and apparent poverty in the
quarter of San Benito, in Salamanca, the pretty facades of old
Renaissance houses which form the subjects of this sketch and of the one
which succeeds it.

[Illustration: PLATE 22

SALAMANCA

MDW 1869

CALLE DEL AGUILA]

PLATE XXII.

_SALAMANCA_.

RENAISSANCE HOUSE IN THE CALLE DEL AGUILA.

THE Renaissance house now presented to the reader, although richer in
its ornaments, is not as complete as the one given in the preceding
sketch, having apparently lost its original roof. Instead of the
overhanging eaves casting a constantly cool shade over the open
balustrading, through which light and air still pass to "a chamber
that's next to the sky;" in this case nothing is probably left over the
principal apartment, the window of which richly decorated with heraldry
and arabesque is shown over the strong doorway with its deep flat arch,
excepting a dark and scarcely habitable attic. I think it very likely
that the wreath, coat of arms, and boys, which still occupy their
original position over the principal window, once supported the sill of
a superior window, and that the house which now appears to have two
stories only, had once at least as many as three.

Such houses as these of the ancient nobility, of which I could find only
two or three, m