Among the men of letters whom I earliest knew in Madrid was Don José Antonio Conde, a retired, gentle, modest scholar, rarely occupied with events of a later date than the times of the Spanish Arabs, whose history he afterwards illustrated. But, far as his character and studies removed him from political turbulence, he had already tasted the bitterness of a political exile; and now, in the honorable poverty to which he had been reduced, he not unwillingly consented to pass several hours of each day with me, and direct my studies in the literature of his country. In this I was very fortunate. We read together the early Castilian poetry, of which he knew more than he did of the most recent, and to which his thoughts and tastes were much nearer akin. He assisted me, too, in collecting the books I needed;--never an easy task where bookselling, in the sense elsewhere given to the word, was unknown, and where the Inquisition and the confessional had often made what was most desirable most rare. But Don José knew the lurking-places where such books and their owners were to be sought; and to him I am indebted for the foundation of a collection in Spanish literature, which, without help like his, I should have failed to make. I owe him, therefore, much; and, though the grave has long since closed over my friend and his persecutors, it is still a pleasure to me to acknowledge obligations which I have never ceased to feel. Many circumstances, since the period of my visit to Spain, have favored my successive attempts to increase the Spanish library I then began. The residence in Madrid of my friend, the late Mr. Alexander Hill Everett, who ably represented his country for several years at the court of Spain; and the subsequent residence there, in the same high position, of my friend, Mr. Washington Irving, equally honored on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially cherished by Spaniards for the enduring monument he has erected to the history of their early adventures, and for the charming fictions, whose scene he has laid in their romantic country;--these fortunate circumstances naturally opened to me whatever facilities for collecting books could be afforded by the kindness of persons in places so distinguished, or by their desire to spread among their countrymen at home a literature they knew so well and loved so much.