wish to remain in power and the difficulty of retaining it, they left, in great measure, to chance, the election in which they dared not openly meddle. This will sound strange to the many who, as we have already observed, imagine the Moderado party to be the Conservative one of England or France; but not to those aware of the fact, that it is a collection of unities, brought together rather by accidental circumstances than by homogeneity of principles, united for the exclusion of others, and for their own interests, not by conformity of doctrines and a sincere wish for their country's good. Such was the party, unstable and unpatriotic, during whose ascendancy Christina and her royal confederate resolved to carry out their dishonest projects. The Queen-mother well knew that the mass of the nation would be opposed to their realisation; but she reckoned on means sufficiently powerful to render indignation impotent, and frustrate revolt. She trusted to the adherence of an army, purposely caressed, pampered, and corrupted; she felt strong in the support of a monarch, whose interest in the affair was at least equal to her own; she observed with satisfaction the indifferent attitude assumed by the British government with respect to Spanish affairs. A Progresista demonstration in Galicia, although shared in by seven battalions of the army--an ugly symptom--was promptly suppressed, owing to want of organisation, and to the treachery or incapacity of its leader. The scaffold and the galleys, prison and exile, disposed of a large proportion of the discontented and dangerous. Arbitrary dismissals, of which, for the most part, little was heard out of Spain, purified the army from the more honest and independent of its officers, suspected of disaffection to the existing government, or deemed capable of exerting themselves to oppose an injurious or discreditable alliance. Time wore on; the decisive moment approached. Each day it became more evident that the Queen's marriage could not with propriety be much longer deferred. Setting aside other considerations, she had already fully attained the precocious womanhood of her country; and it was neither safe nor fitting that she should continue to inhale the corrupt atmosphere of the Madrid court without the protection of a husband. At last the hour came; the plot was ripe, and nothing remained but to secure the concurrence of the victim. One short night, a night of tears and repugnance on the one hand, of flatteries, of menaces and intimidation, on the other decided the fate of Isabella. With her sister less trouble was requisite. It needed no great persuasive art to induce a child of fourteen to accept a husband, as willingly as she would have done a doll. It might have been thought necessary to consult the will of the Spanish nation, fairly represented in freely elected Cortes. Such, at least, was the course pointed out by the constitution of the country. It would also have been but decorous to