Obviously, the plan and the labor of condensing all of the material for a history of Spain constitute in themselves a commendable achievement. In fact, there does not exist in any language of the world today a compendium of the history of Spain reduced to one volume which is able to satisfy all of the exigencies of the public at large and the needs of teaching, without an excess of reading and of labor. None of the histories of my country written in English, German, French, or Italian in the nineteenth century can be unqualifiedly recommended. Some, such as that by Hume, entitled _The Spanish people_, display excellent attributes, but these are accompanied by omissions to which modern historiography can no longer consent. As a general rule these histories are altogether too political in character. At other times they offend from an excess of bookish erudition and from a lack of a personal impression of what our people are, as well as from a failure to narrate their story in an interesting way, or indeed, they perpetuate errors and legends, long since discredited, with respect to our past and present life. We have some one-volume histories of Spain in Castilian which are to be recommended for the needs of our own secondary schools, but not for those of a foreign country, whose students require another manner of presentation of our history, for they have to apply an interrogatory ideal which is different from ours in their investigation of the deeds of another people,--all the more so if that people, like the Spanish, has mingled in the life of nearly the whole world and been the victim of the calumnies and fanciful whims of historians, politicians, and travellers.