save her; and having caught the horse,
and extricated the royal foot, fled for their lives from the legal
wrath of the king! Whence such a law? From the rule that the queen of
Spain has no legs. Whence such a rule? From the meaning that the queen
of Spain is a being too lofty to touch the earth. Here we come at last
to the sentiment of loyal admiration and veneration which sanctifies the
law and the rule, and interprets the incident. To a heartless stranger
the whole appears a mere solemn absurdity, fit only to be set aside, as
it was apparently by pardon from the king being obtained by the instant
intercession of the queen. But in the eyes of every Spaniard the
transaction was, in all its parts, as far from absurdity as the danger
of the two nobles was real and pressing.--Again, what can a heartless
observer understand by the practice, almost universal in the world, of
celebrating the naming of children? The Christian parent employs a form
by which the infant is admitted as a lamb of Christ's flock: the Chinese
father calls his kindred together to witness the conferring first of the
surname, and then of "the milk-name,"--some endearing diminutive, to
cease with infancy: the Moslem consults an astrologer before giving a
name to his child: and the savage selects a name-sake for his infant
from among the beasts or birds, with whose characteristic quality he
would fain endow his offspring. What a general rule is here, exalted by
a universal sentiment into an act of religion! The ceremonial observed
in each case is widely different in its aspect to one who sees in it
merely a cumbrous way of transacting a matter of convenience, and to
another who perceives in it the initiation of a new member into the
family of mankind, and a looking forward to,--an attempt to make
provision for, the future destiny of an unconscious and helpless being.

Thus it will be through the whole range of the traveller's observation.
If he be full of sympathy, every thing he sees will be instructive, and
the most important matters will be the most clearly revealed. If he be
unsympathizing, the most important things will be hidden from him, and
symbols (in which every society abounds) will be only absurd or trivial
forms. The stranger will be wise to conclude, when he sees anything
seriously done which appears to him insignificant or ludicrous, that
there is more in it than he perceives, from some deficiency of knowledge
or feeling of his own.

The