existence,--the least patriotic, in the comprehensive sense of the word. Nowhere are distinctions of provinces so strongly marked, in no country are so many antipathies to be found between inhabitants of different districts. "Like the German, they may sing and spout about Fatherland: in both cases the theory is splendid, but in practice each Spaniard thinks his own province or town the best in the Peninsula, and himself the finest fellow in it." The _patriotisme du clocher_, with which French provincials have been reproached, but which, in France, the system of centralisation has done so much to eradicate, the prejudice which narrows a man's sympathies to his own country or department, is extra-ordinarily conspicuous in Spaniards. It is traceable to various causes; to the former divisions of the country, when it consisted of several kingdoms, independent and jealous of each other; to want of convenient communications and to the stay-at-home habits of the people; and also to the unimportance of the capital, which title has been so frequently transferred from city to city. When one Spaniard talks of another as his countryman, he does not refer to their being both Spaniards, but means that both are from the same province. "The much used phrase, 'Espanolismo,'" says Mr. Ford, who is very hard upon the poor Dons on this head, "expresses rather a dislike of foreign dictation, and the self-estimation of Spaniards, 'Espanoles sobre todos,' than any real patriotic love of country, however highly they rate its excellencies and superiority to every other one under heaven."