only la Nacion, that is to say, the cause so typified, would absorb within itself los partidos. Especially if it would but bring together and harmoniously combine in feeling and in ambition all that was best and wisest among the Moderados and the Progressistas. An illustrious champion of the noblest interests alike of the Spanish monarchy and of the Spanish multitude, had apparently, in truth, given the signal for this new movement among all parties by a single phrase uttered by him in the Cortes at Madrid upon the 24th of the preceding November. Escosura had, there and then, so to speak, unfurled the banner for the New Party-the party of the Coalition. He had in a manner inscribed upon it in one happy and effective sentence its symbolical rallying-cry, when urging equally upon the Progressistas and the Moderados the necessity, which he frankly declared to be incumbent upon them, that they should group themselves about one common centre: que debieran agruparse en un centro! It was argued, and not without reason, that besides being eminently feasible, the merging of all parties in one, thus suggested by the authoritative voice of Escosura, afforded about the only reasonable hope for the permanent establishment upon the soil of the peninsula of a really constitutional administration. To this end it was ingeniously insisted—and that, let it be particularly remembered, not merely by Carlist partisans, but by independent liberals, who were still numbered at that time among the ranks of the Progressistas-that it was the ancient law of Spain, rather than the new law (la nueva ley), then beginning to be regarded with excessive jealousy, which was directly compatible with true liberty, the liberty of a strictly balanced and constitutional government. And, in maintaining this somewhat remarkable thesis, it must not be supposed that those who were thus yearning to participate in the wonderfully difficult and responsible enterprise of calling this new political combination into existence under the auspices of the National Party, were mere superficial adventurers. They were no mere idle visionaries-they searched deeply into the past they looked keenly into the future; and the principal conclusion arrived at by them, as the result of their meditations, was summed up by one of the ablest amongst them in the avowal that it was imperatively requisite to reconstitute the whole fabric upon a foundation, not only more solid, but more analogous in every way to the character of the age and to its necessities, que es necessario reconstituirte en un base mas selida y mas análoga al carácter y necesida de los tiempos. Aspirations and arguments like those were of course all the more welcome to the judgment and the heart of H.R.H. the Conde de Montemolin, the Prince Charles Louis de Bourbon, claiming by hereditary right the title

of H.M. King Charles VI. of Spain-remembering that the advocates of the National Party insisted throughout that nothing permanently advantageous to the country could be anticipated even in this new direction, unless the hand that was to raise anew the Spanish gonfalon, were, it was said significantly, the hand of a prince of courage, of intellect, and of patriotism, one uncompromised by previous political adventures-one, it was further added, who could secure to himself the loyalty and admiration of his fellow-countrymen by the consistency of his career and by the guarantee of a glorious and liberal constitution.

That constitution, the Count de Montemolin-while explaining, at considerable length, his views at once in regard to the ancient laws of the Spanish monarchy, and in reference to the inalienable political rights appertaining to the Spanish multitude-that thoroughly liberal constitution the Count de Montemolin gave me ample and, to my own mind, it seemed conclusive, reason for believing then, and believing still, he himself most earnestly ambitioned to establish. Of his sincerity in all this, of the genuine loyalty of his intentions, I have the most perfect conviction.

I am to the last persuaded that the resolutions avowed to me by his royal highness were-and that, simply, for one good reason now immediately to be specified-really worthy of being, I will venture to say, implicitly relied upon. Wherefore, is it asked ? Wherefore, this extravagant reliance? Simply and solely, then, let me say it at once: because the exiled prince had come at length to recognise, not merely with a Machiavelian cunning in the recognition, but with the calm deliberation of a genuine enlightenment that it was to the interests no less of the King than of the People, that the basis of the government should be broad, that its very genius should in the fullest sense of the word be liberal, that the whole character of it should throughout its entire framework, from summit to foundation, from centre to circumference, be strictly and essentially constitutional. Not in vain had he lived here amongst us, not in vain had he breathed our English atmosphere. In arguing the whole weighty problem with the Count de Montemolin, I gave credence to his candid statement of his convictions-for the self-same reason that lent importance to the words of the Moor Alfaqui, in the Romance Muy Doloroso.

"Because he answered and because

He spake exceeding well of laws

Y como el otro de leyes

De leyes tambien hablava."

Enough, however: the day-dreams and aspirations, the lofty

designs and heart-earnest resolutions have alike faded out, together with the vanished life of Montemolin. As we part, the Progressista who has introduced me, bends his knee in loyal recognition of one whom he (Spaniard as he is) deems, in spite of his misfortunes, to be his sovereign. As we are proceeding down the Quadrant immediately afterwards, I am startled by apparently meeting the very man from whom we have, but a few moments before, just parted. A second glance, however, shows me I am mistaken. The countenance is younger, the features less saturnine, the step more elastic. It is the second of the three sons of Don Carlos, of those three ill-starred nephews of King Ferdinand VII. It is Don Juan-newly risen hope afterwards, in his turn, of the not all extinct party of the old Spanish Legitimists! Leader of those who were the Carlists of yesterday -Carlists now no longer, but Juanists-looking still with a half despairing trust to one whose hand has already had determination ⚫ enough to raise anew the ancient, tattered, blood-stained, bulletriddled banner of the cause and of the dynasty-to raise it anew from the degradation into which it had fallen by the side of an almost dishonoured tomb, dropped there in the dust from the saddened grasp of the Montemolinists.

EUSTACE BUDGELL-THE ESSAYIST.

AMONG the stores of our native literature there are, as it appears to us, numerous productions very unjustly overlooked, and many writers who are only occasionally perused by the inquisitive, although their intrinsic excellence entitles them to no inconsiderable share of popularity. This carelessness, possibly this lack of discernment in the reading public, forms, in truth, one of the most remarkable phenomena in the world of letters. Authors not only far removed from mediocrity, but whose writings are replete with the blandishments of an elegant style and an exhilarating vivacity, are frequently relegated to some obscure corner of our libraries, while others, immeasurably inferior both in scholarship and authorcraft, are blazoned in gilded morocco on the most conspicuous shelves in the apartment. Sometimes, no doubt, there are peculiarities in connection with either the manner or the matter of such writings sufficient of themselves, perhaps, to account for the neglect of the multitude. For example, their beauties may be obscured by professional technicalities, as in the instance, let us say, of the admirable poem of the Shipwreck, by Falconer, the power of which is in a great measure concealed from the comprehension of the general reader by language which to the nautical man constitutes its principal charm. Take, as a single but sufficient specimen of which, that expressive though, to a landsman, most enigmatical couplet

"And while the lee clue garnet's lower'd away,

Taut aft the sheet they tally and belay."

In several, however, of the exceptional cases to which we have referred, literary compositions in every way adapted to the understanding of the masses, compositions fraught, one would think, with every quality calculated to ensure them a lasting popularity, are by some inscrutable mischance reserved for the instruction and amusement of a select few-namely, of that honourable

fraternity of bookworms individualised or typified by Mr. Carlyle under the generic title of Dryasdust.

Perhaps one of the most remarkable instances of this ill-fortune anywhere recorded, is discoverable in the person of Eustace Budgell, than whom there is hardly a more elegant or a more admirable prose writer in the English language. His style at once devoid of pedantry and quaintness, his diction both natural and refined, his sentiments chaste and elevated; he has, nevertheless, been hitherto treated as though his writings were unworthy of any attention whatever; and it is only by something approaching to a painful research, that a morsel of his writings can be occasionally discovered amongst a mass of extraneous and frivolous miscellanies. Surely some especial consideration might have been thought due to one who, when scarcely entered on the age of manhood, participated in the production of a classic periodical like the Spectator, whose writings were esteemed by some of the more infatuated admirers among his contemporaries as preferable even to those of Addison, and who, according to a general opinion, exclusively with the assistance of that Prince of Essayists, completed the last volume of his renowned publication.

Among all the literary adventurers of that age, hardly excepting even Savage himself, Budgell chiefly presents to our view not only a career fraught with vicissitudes, but one signalized by aspirations that were eventually dragged down into the very dust by a contumely as unmerited as it was certainly mysterious and malignant. Even at the melancholy and premature termination of his existence, a prejudice against him, almost amounting to a personal antipathy, imbued the minds of the general multitude. The elaborate vindications he himself had published of acts that were even then very generally regarded as most questionable, were perused with a repugnance that militated against them rather seriously, or, worse still, were altogether overlooked, while the statements of his opponents were devoured with the utmost sympathy, with the liveliest alacrity, and with the most implicit credence. Since that period, whatever biographical notices of him have appeared, have been mere repetitions of this malignity, somewhat softened down, it is true, by the indifference of the transcribers, who were either ignorant of, or wholly uninterested in, the actual merits of a long-past squabble. That this controversy has never been dispassionately considered is beyond dispute. And as a testimony that the original misstatements have been idly copied into every subsequent Encyclopædia, without the biographers once canvassing the matter themselves, we may simply refer the reader to the mass of those publications, wherein he will only too readily