A word or two respecting the King-consort of Spain, Don Francisco de Assis. We have already intimated that, as a Spanish Bourbon, he may pass muster. 'Tis saying very little. A more pitiful race than these same Bourbons of Spain, surely the sun never shone upon. In vain does one seek amongst them a name worthy of respect. What a list to cull from! The feeble and imbecile Charles the Fourth; Ferdinand, the cruel and treacherous, the tyrannical and profligate; Carlos, the bigot and the hypocrite; Francisco, the incapable. Nor is the rising generation an improvement upon the declining one. How should it be, with only the Neapolitan cross to improve the breed? Certainly Don Francisco de Assis is no favourable specimen, either physically or morally, of the young Bourbon blood. For the sake of the country whose queen is his wife, we would gladly think well of him, gladly recognise in him qualities worthy the descendant of a line of kings. It is impossible to do so. The evidence is too strong the other way. If it be true, and we have reason to believe it is, that he came forward with reluctance as a candidate for Isabella's hand, chiefly through unwillingness to stand in the light of his brother Don Enrique, partly perhaps through consciousness of his own unfitness for the elevated station of king-consort, this at least shows some good feeling and good sense. Unfortunately, it is the only indication he has given of the latter quality. His objections to a marriage with his royal cousin were overruled in a manner that says little for his strength of character. When it was found that his dislike to interfere with his brother's pretensions was the chief stumbling-block, those interested in getting over it set the priests at him. To their influence his weak and bigoted mind was peculiarly accessible. Their task was to persuade him that Don Enrique was no better than an atheist, and that his marriage with the Queen would be ruinous to the cause of religion in Spain. This was a mere fabrication. Enrique had never shown any particularly pious dispositions, but there was no ground for accusing him of irreligion, no reason to believe that, as the Queen's husband, he would be found negligent of the church's forms, or setting a bad example to the Spanish nation. The case, however, was made out to the satisfaction of the feeble Francisco, whose credulity and irresolution are only to be equalled in absurdity by the piping treble of the voice with which, as a colonel of cavalry, he endeavoured to convey orders to his squadrons. Sacrificing, as he thought, fraternal affection to the good of his country, he accepted the hand reluctantly placed in his, became a king by title, but remained, what he ever must be, in reality a zero.