virtue of this law we read on the plains of Egypt the pride and the fall of the Pharaohs. Before the fagade of Versailles we see at a glance the grandeur of the Capetian kings and the necessity of the Revolution. And the most vivid picture of that fierce and gloomy religion of the sixteenth century, compounded of a base alloy of worship for an absolute king and a vengeful God, is to be found in this colossal hermitage in the flinty heart of the mountains of Castile. A MIRACLE PLAY In the windy month of March a sudden gloom falls upon Madrid,--the reaction after the _folie gaiete_ of the Carnival. The theatres are at their gayest in February until Prince Carnival and his jolly train assault the town, and convert the temples of the drama into ball-rooms. They have not yet arrived at the wonderful expedition and despatch observed in Paris, where a half hour is enough to convert the grand opera into the masked ball. The invention of this process of flooring the orchestra flush with the stage and making a vast dancing-hall out of both is due to an ingenious courtier of the regency, bearing the great name of De Bouillon, who got much credit and a pension by it. In Madrid they take the afternoon leisurely to the transformation, and the evening's performance is of course sacrificed. So the sock and buskin, not being adapted to the cancan, yielded with February, and the theatres were closed finally on Ash Wednesday. Going by the pleasant little theatre of Lope de Rueda, in the Calle Barquillo, I saw the office-doors open, the posters up, and an unmistakable air of animation among the loungers who mark with a seal so peculiar the entrance of places of amusement. Struck by this apparent levity in the midst of the general mortification, I went over to look at the bills and found the subject announced serious enough for the most Lenten entertainment,--Los Siete Dolores de Maria,--The Seven Sorrows of Mary,--the old mediaeval Miracle of the Life of the Saviour.