If there had been, we may feel sure that Pérez Galdós would have hit upon it, for his acumen and perseverance are undoubted. Not one of the _Episodios Nacionales_ is a great book, but also not one is wanting in great literary qualities—the faculty of historical reconstruction, the evaluation of the personal factor in great events, and the gift of picturesque detail. If the power of concentration were added to his profuse equipment, Pérez Galdós would be an admirable master. Even as it is, to any one who wishes to obtain—and in the most agreeable way—a just idea of the political and social evolution of Spain from the time of Charles IV. to the time of the Republic, the _Episodios Nacionales_ may be heartily commended. And, in these crowded pages, some figures stand out with remarkable saliency—as, for instance, the guerrilla priest in _Carlos VI. en la Rápita_, a volume which shows the author to be unwearied as he draws near the end of his long task, and as vivid as ever in historical narrative. He is, moreover, an astute observer of the present, far-seeing in _Fortunata y Jacinta_ and humoristic in _El Doctor Centeno_. You perhaps remember the description of the cigar which Felipe smoked, the account of the banquet presided over by the solemn and amiable Don Florencio—Don Florencio with alarming eyebrows, so thick and dark that they looked like strips of black velvet. These peculiarities are hit off in Dickens’s best manner, and yet with a certain neutral touch. Not that Pérez Galdós is habitually neutral: he is an old-fashioned Liberal with a thesis to prove—the admirable thesis that liberty is the best thing in the world. But this is not an obviously Spanish idea. The modernity of Pérez Galdós is exotic in Spain. He gives us an interesting view of Spanish society in all its aspects. Still,—let us never forget it,—the picture is painted not by a native, but by a colonial, hand. Born in the Canary Islands, Pérez Galdós lives in Spain, but is not of it; he dwells a little apart from the high road of its secular life. And this lends a peculiar value to his presentation; for what it loses in force, it gains in objectivity.