ted living
poet has characterised them with great propriety and truth in the
following epitaph:--

"Aqui yace Sor Belen,
Que hizo almibares mui bien,
Y paso la vida entera
Vistiendo ninos de cera." {71b}

Except the convents of nuns of the mendicant orders, the greater part of
them, in Spain, possessed, prior to the constitutional regime,
considerable inheritances. These, however, having been, by a decree of
the Cortes, converted and sold as national property, all their means are
reduced to a bare subsistence on a small pension which _ought_ now to be
paid from the public treasury; but as that obligation has frequently been
neglected in consequence of the repeated disturbances which have
interrupted the peace of the monarchy, those unhappy women have often
been overwhelmed with the greatest privations and misery. In such cases
Christian charity has lent its succour, and all classes of the state have
contributed to their relief. The government, on different occasions, has
prohibited the admission of novices to these convents of nuns, in order
that death itself might, without violence, extinguish those institutions,
which are contrary to the ideas of the age. But this salutary provision
has been imprudently eluded by the bishops, and recently modified by an
article of the _concordat_ effected with the court of Rome a few years
ago, and which is everywhere unpopular.

One of the great evils resulting from the continuance of these nuns in
Spain is, that they occupy numerous edifices worthy of a better purpose,
and generally in the best situations in populous cities. Only one
convent of this class deserves particular mention, on account of the
great historical recollections connected with its existence, for the
singularity of its organization, and for the pious object of its
institution. It is called the Convent _de las Huelgas_, and is situated
at a short distance from Burgos.

This magnificent establishment, founded and enriched by ancient monarchs,
maintained an hospital in which a great number of invalids were attended
to with the greatest care. The abbess wore the mitre and _baculo_ like
the bishops, and exercised both civil and criminal jurisdiction in the
vast dominions belonging to the convent; she was called Senora de _horca
y cuchillo_, {72} and was the chief of several ecclesiastical and secular
officers. The sumptuous church of this convent contained within its
walls the ashes of man