seventy-two chairs and one microscopic table. The wall was decked with portraits of the youth of the college, all from the same artist, who probably went mad from the attempt to make fifty beardless faces look unlike each other. We sat for some time mourning over his failure, until the door opened, and not the porter, but the rector himself, a most courteous and polished gentleman in the black robe and three-cornered hat of his order, came in and graciously placed himself and the university at our disposition. We had reason to congratulate ourselves upon this good fortune. He showed us every nook and corner of the vast edifice, where the present and the past elbowed each other at every turn: here the boys' gymnasium, there the tomb of Valles; here the new patent cocks of the water-pipes, and there the tri-lingual patio where Alonso Sanchez lectured in Arabic, Greek, and Chaldean, doubtless making a choice hash of the three; the airy and graceful paraninfo, or hall of degrees, a masterpiece of Moresque architecture, with a gorgeous panelled roof, a rich profusion of plaster arabesques, and, _horresco referens,_ the walls covered with a bright French paper. Our good rector groaned at this abomination, but said the Gauls had torn away the glorious carved panelling for firewood in the war of 1808, and the college was too poor to restore it. His righteous indignation waxed hot again when we came to the beautiful sculptured pulpit of the chapel, where all the delicate details are degraded by a thick coating of whitewash, which in some places has fallen away and shows the gilding of the time of the Catholic kings. There is in this chapel a picture of the Virgin appearing to the great cardinal whom we call Ximenez and the Spaniards Cisneros, which is precious for two reasons. The portrait of Ximenez was painted from life by the nameless artist, who, it is said, came from France for the purpose, and the face of the Virgin is a portrait of Isabella the Catholic. It is a good wholesome face, such as you would expect. But the thin, powerful profile of Ximenez is very striking, with his red hair and florid tint, his curved beak, and long, nervous lips. He looks not unlike that superb portrait Raphael has left of Cardinal Medici. This university is fragrant with the good fame of Ximenez. In the principal court there is a fine medallion of the illustrious founder and protector, as he delighted to be drawn, with a sword in one hand and a crucifix in the other,--twin brother in genius and fortune of the soldier-priest of France, the Cardinal-Duke Richelieu. On his gorgeous sarcophagus you read the arrogant epitaph with which he revenged himself for the littleness of kings and courtiers:-- "Praetextam junxi sacco, galeamque galero, Frater, dux, praesul, cardineusque pater. Quin, virtute mea junctum est diadema cucullo, Dum mihi regnanti patuit Gesperia."