had in the sixteenth century possessed 400,000 inhabitants, fell in the seventeenth to 180,000. Madame d'Aulnoy says the approach to the capital resembled entering a

which were exhausting and strangling the | Roman Empire, was so terrible a cry heard life and energies of a once great people. in any country in Europe. Madrid, which As for the causes of the ruin of Spain, they are countless; and it may be said that its history will ever remain one of the most instructive in the world; for the statesman and political economist may here eternally desert. Seville in fifty years was reduced find for almost every principle of policy, and every form of administration and taxation, a precedent of how a country ought not to be governed.

to a third of its population. Three hundred ruined villages were to be counted in Castile, two hundred about Toledo, and one thousand in Cordova.

Those desolate treeless tracts of Spain The first notorious cause of this terrible those dreary wastes, interrupted only by the decline was the expulsion of the Moors, drearier barrancos or ravines, styled the according to Richelieu the most wild and despoblados or unpeopled districts still barbarous stroke of policy' ever achieved by present a terrible testimony to the world any government, which cost Spain three against the exterminating policy of Philip millions of her most industrious inhabitants, and his successors. No such ill-omened and reduced a populous and admirably-cultitle exists in any other country in the tivated Paradise to a desert. The next world; and the remembrance that this state great and incessant drain on the population of desolation was not brought about by the of Spain was the emigration to America. ravages of an Attila or a Tamerlane, but by The Marquis de Villars wrote to Louis monstrous misgovernment and habitual con- XIV. in 1681, that 6,000 Spaniards emitempt for all sound principles of human ac-grated in one fleet of the galleons, because tion, increases the wonder and commisera- they were unable to live in Spain. Every tion of the traveller across desert regions year it was calculated 40,000 people left which recall the steppes of Asia, productive of nothing but rank grass and briars and thorns, where the reign of the wild bull is disturbed alone by the occasional migratory-30 millions, not of surplus population flock of merinos passing slowly from horizon to horizon under the conduct of the shepherd the solitary hidalgo of the Si

erra.

their homes for Mexico and Peru; and the emigration to America is supposed to have deprived Spain of 30 millions of inhabitants

like our own from over-crowded districts, but of hands which were wanted in a country brought down from prosperity to hunger and desolation, in a country of which a large The depopulation of Spain proceeded district in the Sierra Morena was subsewith such uninterrupted rapidity that from quently recolonised in 1763 by German emiten millions in the time of Philip II. it had grants, induced to settle there by Charles dwindled down to less than six in the days III. Next to emigration, and perhaps as of Charles II. Year by year houses, vil- great a cause even as emigration, comes lages, and towns fell into ruin, and no one monasticism and convent life, which desicattempted to rebuild them. People no long-cated to an incalculable extent the sources of er married. The Cortes, in an address to reproduction in this wretched country. the King in 1619, said, 'That it was plain There were 20,000 priests and monks in and evident that if the state of things went on at the same pace as up to that time, inhabitants and neighbours would be wanting altogether to the villages, labourers for the fields, and sailors for the sea; and in the present dread of marriage the country could exist no longer than the end of the century.'* Never, since the days of the Decline of the

Pues era llano y evidente que si este estado si aumentase a el passo mismo que hasta alli, avran de faltar a los lugares habitadores y vezinos y los pilo

Pampeluna and Calahorra alone. There were 9,000 monasteries and 928 convents in the kingdom: at the end of the seventeenth century it was computed that 86,000 priests, 60,000 monks, and 33,000 nuns, or, out of a population of less than six millions, nearly 200,000 persons, were devoted to consecrated idleness and celibacy. People took

tas a la mar, y desdenado el casamiento duraria el mundo un siglo solo. (Cespedes y Menedes, lib. chap, ii, x. p. 56.)

to the monastic life not only from supersti- | through a small wicket. You paid him his tion and to obtain a subsistence in a hunger- money beforehand; if you asked for a loin stricken country, but for the same reason as of veal, he would in all probability hand you they took to emigration and avoided mar- a leg of mutton; if you declined the mutton, riage without profession of vows —in abso- he offered you a piece of beef; if you still lute despair of the future of Spain. The called for the veal, he flung back your monPeninsula was converted into a veritable ey to you, and told you to go your way Thebais, in which the permanent state of (Vaya Usted con Dios). The hunger of the famine, the result of human policy, was people and the scarcity went on increasing raised at times to horrible crises of starva- to the end of the reign of Charles II. Mr. tion from natural causes, and where visita- Alexander Stanhope, English ambassador at tions of pestilence and frequent earthquakes, Madrid in those days, writes of the frequent one of which shook 1,200 houses to the bread riots in the streets, in which every day ground in Malaga alone, added to the daily persons were killed. For some time the terror of existence arising from poverty. scarcity of bread was so great that he was The readers of Don Quixote' are fully obliged to procure an order from the Corable to enter into the delight of Sancho regidor of Madrid to have twenty-four Panza when he had a good meal in the loaves delivered to his servants. He had to course of their wanderings, for such occa- send to Vallegas, two leagues off, to get sions were rare, and the trick upon his ap- this supply, with an escort of men armed petite in the palace of the Duke was a bar- with long guns to convey his servants home. barous practical joke. In the ventas of The sight of food was so maddening that those times, Madame d'Aulnoy informs us, in everybody snatched what he could get. her very graphic Voyage en Espagne,' that The bakers barricaded themselves in like the you had to pass through the stable, up a butchers, and the press in front of their wretched ladder, to your chamber. There houses was so great that five women were was generally but one cup in the whole es- stifled to death before a shop in a single tablishment, from which the guests drank in crowd. The people here, writes Madame de turn and if the muleteers arrived before Villars, seem to live upon what they call airyou, as was often the case, you must either ing themselves in the sun, tomar el sol, put up with the pitcher, or wait till they had tant il est maigre, abattu et misérable.' finished their meal. Sheets were of the size Mr. Stanhope says, nevertheless, even in of towels, and towels were as big as your that time of scarcity, the misery in the counhand. If you wanted to sup, the landlord try was still greater than in Madrid; for required the money beforehand, and went twenty thousand people flocked to the capiout to purchase such villainous provisions as tal, destitute of all means of subsistence, the place afforded. Ladies were shown into and hoping by begging or by robbery to esrooms with thirty beds side by side; and if cape starvation. Indeed, for the most part, they wanted to avoid the ragged crowd, provincial people died simply of hunger, and which the hostess was sure to marshal into their destitution leaves no mark in history the room as soon as they were in bed, or beside that simple brief statement. But in have a room to themselves, they must pay the cities, in the houses of the great nobles, for the whole thirty beds. Dinner was in the palace itself, foreign observers have always taken in the open air with purchased chronicled facts which characterise the period provisions to avoid entering these wretched less horribly, but more circumstantially. paradors and posadas, in which the kitchen Caballeros and hidalos lived entirely on without a chimney, she said, gave one a chocolate, onions, garlic, and garbanzos ; horrible notion of hell, and where the meat they took their meals at public kitchens, in was burnt and smoked on a tile or roasted open air in the street, having no means of by a string. The batchers in Madrid, she cooking at home. An egg and a few onions tells us, sold their meat ensconced in a kind was a dinner for a duke. The Duke de of fortress, for fear that the ravenous appe- Albuquerque, the inventory of whose plate tites of the crowds without would carry off took six weeks to write out, dined ordinatheir joints. You dealt with the butcher rily on an egg and a pigeon. The great

houses of the nobles swarmed with retainers belief. The Turkish and Egyptian soldiers and famished dependents, many of them of of the present day are clothed luxuriously noble blood. These multitudes of gentry when contrasted with the accounts we read received for bed and board, and for doing of the Spanish troops. The cavalry were nothing, two reals a day (five pence); and without horses, and both cavalry and intheir mode of life is most graphically satir- fantry without pay. Officers yet in serised by Quevedo: they make themselves vice were seen begging in the streets of cloaks and coats out of furniture covers, Cadiz and in the towns of Spanish Flanquilts, baize, and sacking; and they got ders, though with such an air of proud digtheir food how they could; it was with great nity as redeemed them from servility, while difficulty even the Duke of Albuquerque's in taking alms they seemed rather to confer egg and pigeon could be got safely to table than receive favours. The common solthrough this crowd of famished gentlemen. diers wore all their clothes and linen on As for a family dinner, it was next to im their back; the stuff of their dress seemed to possible to get it all to table, through the be made of packthread, their shoes were of hungry crowds who lined the corridors and cord, they had no stockings; yet they had staircases. If the cook left for an instant each a rag about his neck as an apology the soup-kettle while it was boiling, in all for a ruff, and a peacock's feather stuck in probability when he returned he would find the hat behind. The once dreaded legions both broth and meat had disappeared. of Spain, the armies of Alva and Farnese, The Archbishop of Toledo, who had 120,- had since their terrible overthrow at Roc0007. a year, complained to Madame d'Aul- roy dwindled down to about 12,000 or noy that his broth was always stolen by his 15,000 men. Fifteen thousand men were own retainers; and she proposed to him to all Philip IV. was able, after the treaty of have a silver soup-kettle made with a grat- the Pyrenees, to set on foot to invade Poring at the top and a lock and key, so that tugal and avenge its revolt from the crown the soup could be watched by the cook, and of Spain, and the shameful defeat of Villa be left without fear of being purloined; and Viciosa showed that Spain was now no the Archbishop adopted the suggestion. match even for Portugal. Even this Famine invaded the palace. The royal ta- wretched remnant was not wholly comble itself was only supplied with difficulty. posed of Spaniards, but was a motley crew Nobody in Madrid, Madame de Villars of Burgundians and Walloons, Flemings writes, would give credit to any royal per- and Swiss. So small a force as this even it sonage for a real. The King only engaged was found impossible to pay; the soldiers, to find food for the gentlemen of his bed- often driven by sheer necessity and hunchamber, and this was often wanting. The ger, deserted their posts and joined the Queen-mother had a right to daily rations bandits with which the country swarmed. from the palace for her household. She The Viceroy of Naples was taken prisoner complained once that her rations were not by a troop of dragoons in the Toledo to get sent, whereupon she was told with Quixotic their arrears of pay from him, and the fronhumour, that her servants might come and tier garrisons were manned chiefly by old take their dues daily; for the King's cup- men and boys, who were unable to take to boards were all open-and all empty. brigandage or find other occupation. As From time to time the palace was almost to the fleet, the country which once sent wholly deserted of its attendants; and the forth the Spanish Armada now owned but grooms of the royal stables, left entirely a dozen or fifteen vessels, mostly rotting in without pay, ran off with their liveries, and the harbours, and the art of shipbuilding the royal horses were left with empty racks was lost. To such a state was reduced the and corn-bins, and not a groom to take care country whose proud boast once was, of them. Couriers with important de-When Spain moves the whole world tremspatches were kept waiting for weeks at Mad-bles'- Cuando se mueve en Espana, rid, because it was impossible to find toda la tierra tiembla,' and in which even money to start them. Philip III. adopted the haughty device, All against us, and we against allTodos contra nos y nos contra todos.' Spain at the end of the reign of Philip IV. began to fear the return of the Moors.

The Queen herself was rarely or ever paid the nominal 500 pistoles a month which was her due, and as the royal journey in the spring to Aranjuez cost 150,000 pistoles, which were sometimes not forthcoming, the Court was detained at Madrid the whole summer from lack of funds. As for the army and the fleet, both were in so deplorable a state as to be almost beyond

All wonder at this state of penury ceases when we review the causes by which it was occasioned. Not the least of them was the barbarous expedient of debasing the coin. The Duke of Lerma, under Philip III., had

omit to enclose his land, plant trees, and execute works which the next year's incursion night wholly destroy; but here was a worse foe to the agriculturist than mediæval warfare-the Honrado consejo de la Mesta' (the Honourable Council for the Preservation of Grazing Ground), elected by the rich proprietors, whose flocks of merinos migrated every spring from the grassy. plains of Andalusia and Estremadura to the mountains of the Asturias and the kingdom of Leon, and whose object naturally was to preserve the whole intermediate country as grazing ground, without which such migrations would be impossible.

minted an alloy of silver and copper, and declared by edict that the debased coin should be exchanged everywhere as if it were silver. The consequence naturally was that foreign nations poured copper into the country, in coin still more debased, and exchanged it for its nominal price in silver; while for their imported manufactures and corn they took care to be paid in silver. All silver and gold coin vanished from the country; prices rose, and the largest sums were paid in numerous bags of bad copper coin, which were weighed; and while such great princes as the Dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque possessed tons of silver in the form of plate in their The flocks of some of these proprietors houses, and millions in diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and pearls, not even they possessed a single gold or silver coin, but received their revenues in kind or in masses of bad coin. The savage system of barter sprang up again in a civilised age in Europe. Moreover, not one-third of the revenues of the King came into his coffers, through the bad system by which they were farmed, and through the dishonesty of the officials. But no follies in coinage or in receiving the revenues would account for such poverty as gnawed the vitals of the country: the chief origin of which was the state oppression of the only true sources of national wealth-agriculture and industry and commerce. The kings of Spain had so well succeeded in this, aided as they were by the indolent proud prejudices of their subjects, that all industry was quite extinguished, and commerce and agriculture nearly so throughout Spain. Of agriculture, Sully has well said that, 'le labourage et le pâturâge sont les deux mammelles de l'Etat, les vrais mines et trésors de Pérou; and no country offers a more promising field to agriculture than Spain, and no country has ever made so little of her resources. The traveller at the present day, when he traverses the interminable plateaux of Arragon or Castile, and looks around him and finds not a tree in sight, and asks the reason, is told that the Spaniards have a prejudice against trees; but this is not the whole reason of the entire denudation of the Spanish plain.

It may be doubted if this prejudice is of natural growth at all, and whether it is not the foster-child entirely of legislation. The chief reason of this absence of vegetation is the series of laws directed in Spain against the enclosure of fields. During the time when the wars of Spaniard and Moor and of countless petty chieftains and kings devastated yearly the country, one can well understand that the agriculturist should

were enormous: that of the Marques de Gebraleon consisted of 800,000 sheep, and there were 4,000,000 sheep in Estremadura. They found no difficulty in getting enactments passed for the preservation of what they persuaded the State was the true source of wealth of the country. Philip II., who seems to have hated handicraft of every shape and form, lent himself readily to their views, and had the incredible folly to pass a law to punish with fourteen years' exile the agriculturist who made bread of his own corn or sold it in the public market. Agriculture was thus utterly sacrificed; for in the presence of enactments against enclosures and enactments against the sale of grain, it was virtually impossible. The practice of entails, mayorazgos, and the laws of mortmain, added further desolation to the country. As for the laws of entail, never were they so strictly observed in any other country in Europe. When once a property was settled in mayorazgo in a family it was impossible to render it available for any purposes of commerce, and it could not be made subject to debt. The consequence was, that by intermarriages the accumulation of landed properties in single hands was enormous. Some noble landowners had as many as 80,000 people on their estates people who might almost be called subjects, and could never acquire any property in the land they cultivated. Latifundia,' Pliny said, ' perdidere Romam.' By such a system Campania Felix was reduced to a desert in the days of Honorius, and Italy early in the Empire was obliged to seek for corn in the granaries of Spain and Sicily. The same aphorism applies with greater force to Spain, where the destructive influence of the accumulation of immense properties in single hands was outdone by the stupendous amount of land in the possession of priests and monks. With the superstitious tendencies of the time, im

mense properties were yearly bequeathed has alone escaped destruction from a prej-to churches and monasteries for masses for udice in favour of the superior nobility of the souls of the testators - a form of be- this kind of workmanship; but Segovian quest known as dejar heredera su alma' cloths, and Cordovan and Gallician leather, - and such property could never be alien- ceased entirely to be made. There were ated. The Statutes of Mortmain in Spain at one time 34,000 weavers in Segovia; in were all of course in favour of the Church; the reign of Philip IV. there were but three so that it was reckoned that a fifth part of or four. Of the contempt into which the the soil of Spain was in the hands of business of a tanner fell, an idea may be priests and monks; and if in 1817 the formed by the fact that a member of a noproperty of the clergy of Spain still ble family hunted his brother to death beamounted to 6,000,000l. a year, it may be fore all the law courts of Spain to deprive imagined what it must have been in the him of his property, for having married a days of its undisturbed ascendancy. At tanner's daughter. In fact, everybody in the end of the sixteenth century it appears the nation wanted, under legislative enthat the resources of the clergy of Castile couragement, to be noble or to be thought alone amounted to 3,320,000l. The evils so. The pecheros or working classes were of this accumulation of property in mort-regarded as pariahs. The Government main were beginning to be felt in the days succeeded so well in their aims that at the of Philip II., but the answer he made to remonstrances from the Cortes remained the rule of his successors: Que no convenia que sobre eso se hiciese novedad (No novelty could be allowed in such a matter').

The suppression of agriculture, the mayorazgos, the immense quantity of land in mortmain, led to the same result in Spain as the latifundia of imperial Italy the country was mostly supplied with wheat from abroad. 11,315,851 fanegas of corn, and 1,601,750 fanegas of barley, it is computed, were imported yearly; and, as Spain had no manufactures to give in exchange, the result was a yearly drain of more than four millions and a half of English pounds sterling out of the country.

end of the seventeenth century there were 625,000 nobles in Spain, and the only service considered worthy of a Spaniard was to become one of the starved ragged nobles soldados del rey, or to enter into the domestic service of a noble house. With what dignity they performed their functions as servants, may be surmised from the speech of a Spanish cook: 'No puedo padecer la riña, siendo cristiano viejo, hidalgo como el rey y poco mas' (I cannot endure a scolding, being a real old Christian, noble as the King, and a little more'). The great feudal dukes, made a practice of selling noble titles; and indeed there was every inducement to get a title to nobility in some way or other, for the noble, like the priest, could not be taxed. The conBut the legislative discouragement of ag- tempt of the great nobles for all business riculture was exceeded by that of industry, transactions of any kind was without limit. which was utterly annihilated. The spirit Every Spaniard disdained to bargain. It of romantic but false honour which animated was beneath him to take back the change all classes only too readily yielded to the of a gold piece on purchase of the merest royal enactments on this point. Every-trifle. To take interest of money savoured body desired to be noble, and much of this of Judaism,* and all were considered confeeling may be accounted for by the previ- temptible who did so. When a Duke de ous history of the country. But Philip II. Frias died leaving three millions sterling who, it may be presumed, was disgusted of money and three daughters, the eldest with the rebellious spirit of the mechanics, of whom was seven years old, he directed manufacturers, and merchants of the Ne- by will that the money should be divided therlands, and considered such people as and locked up in three huge coffers, and a bad subjects, did his utmost to discourage coffer given to each daughter as she became both industry and commerce. The Al- of age or married. They despised so incavala was a heavy tax raised on every article sold; and the taxes laid on some classes of artisans were so great that it was cheaper for them to be idle than to work. The natural consequence was that industry of all kinds perished in the country. Spanish cloths and Spanish leather had, in the fifteenth century, as high a reputation throughout Europe as Toledo steel. The manufacture of the steel blades of Toledo

* The caution exercised by the Spaniard in the days of the Inquisition to avoid all imputation of bacon in the national puchero is a standing protest Judaism or Mahomedanism was unsleeping. The against Judaism. How unsleeping also was the wit or ingenuity of this people to fix the imputation of Judaism on another, is evidenced by an anecdote told by Castiglione in the Cortegiana. A guest at a table called for vino, which in Spanish means 'wine' or he came.' Y no lo conocistes,' retorted another, taking it in the latter sense ( And you did not receive him '), meaning of course our Saviour.