Within the century composed of the reigns of the three Philips, from 1556 to 1665, that is to say, the golden age of Spanish literature, the national spirit, which the vicious system of the government was calculated to repress, became at last like the national resources, completely exhausted. Under Charles II. the wounds of the body politic which had long profusely bled, began to exhibit frightful gangrenes. In every quarter of the world Spanish valour had done its uttermost for the support of the perverse measures of a despotic government, and the state at length seemed on the verge of dissolution. The enormous treasures which poured into Spain from the mines of America, were immediately consigned to foreign nations. Thus the richest country in the world was overwhelmed with debt. Agriculture and industry languished particularly in the interior of the monarchy, where a near view of the splendour of an ostentatious court still served to gratify Castilian vanity, but where every blow levelled against the whole state was most directly felt. The occupation of one half of America carried off men from the mother country by thousands at a time; and in addition to this drain, the population had been suddenly diminished to the extent of nearly half a million, by the tyrannical expulsion of the Moriscos, or baptized Arabs. Spain was also engaged in uninterrupted warfare during the whole of the century in which the three Philips reigned. Continual levies of troops, combined with oppressive taxation, at length so reduced the nation, that the government lost the instrument it had abused; and every sacrifice made to meet cases of imperious urgency, served only to produce a new humiliation. The little kingdom of Portugal, by a fortunate effort threw off the Spanish yoke, and became once more an independent state. Torrents of Spanish blood were shed in the Netherlands, with the view of suppressing, at any price, the freedom of the United Provinces; yet those provinces flourished in full vigour, while Spain was reduced to the last stage of political inanition. Still, however, Spanish genius appeared to soar superior to all the evils that assailed the state, as long, at least, as the semblance of the ancient national greatness remained. But with the death of Philip IV. even that semblance vanished. The widowed queen, who was appointed guardian of the young king, then only five years of age, acting under the influence of father Neidhart, a German Jesuit, offered the last insult to the feelings of the nobility and the people. No sooner was father Neidhart driven away by the party of Don John of Austria, the natural son of Philip IV. than France obtained possession of a considerable portion of the provinces which Spain still held in the Netherlands. In the West Indies a republic of pirates was established. This new enemy grew out of the remarkable association of the Flibustiers, or Buccaneers, men who regarded Spanish America as a