“It is clear that in such a state of things the plunder and destruction of pictures must have been enormous. In the summary of the proceedings of the Commission with reference to pictures, which I shall proceed to give, the reader will see that all sorts of obstacles to any claim of the central government were raised by the local authorities; such a course was sometimes no doubt the result of genuine Spanish obstinacy, strong in local attachments, and hating all interference; but it too often probably originated in the desire to conceal peculation and robbery on the part of the alcalde, or the parish priest, or the sacristan, or the porter of a suppressed convent. Let us remember that in all probability no one of these functionaries ever received the salary which was due to him, and that the unfortunate monks turned out of their convents had neither interest nor duty in protecting what had ceased to be theirs. If they did not (as it may be hoped) themselves carry off what they could, they would abandon it to the first plunderer. Added to which, the habitual feeling of every Spaniard is, that what belongs to the government is fair game, and may be stolen with a safe conscience. “When all this is considered, it will not appear surprising that bribery and robbery should have stripped the deserted convents, and scattered the memorials of Spanish art and literature. It is greatly to be feared too that the ignorance of the local commissioners will cause many an interesting picture of early date to be thrown on one side as barbarous and rude, and that few such valuable records as the altar of the time of Don Jayme el Conquistador, mentioned as rescued at Valencia, will be preserved at all; indifferent second-rate copies, or imitations of the Italian and Flemish masters, will probably pass current as the staple article in most of the provincial museums, even where such institutions are finally formed. At any rate, as a picture of the state of Spain with reference to the Fine Arts, and as a sort of guide to tourists, it may be useful to give, in alphabetical order, as they are enumerated in the report, an abstract of the general result as to the number of paintings got together in each province.” Here follows the result of the labors of the Commission in forty-eight provinces, alphabetically arranged, presenting a sorry picture indeed. Only a few of them can be given here, which may be taken as specimens of the whole: “_Almeria._--Here the existence of any local collection was denied, but accidentally a catalogue was discovered containing a list of one hundred and ninety-six pictures, which had been got together in 1837, and had apparently disappeared.