The Partidas, however, read very little like a collection of statutes, or even like a code such as that of Justinian or Napoleon. They seem rather to be a series of treatises on legislation, morals, and religion, divided with great formality, according to their subjects, into Parts, Titles, and Laws; the last of which, instead of being merely imperative ordinances, enter into arguments and investigations of various sorts, often discussing the moral principles they lay down, and often containing intimations of the manners and opinions of the age, that make them a curious mine of Spanish antiquities. They are, in short, a kind of digested result of the opinions and reading of a learned monarch, and his coadjutors, in the thirteenth century, on the relative duties of a king and his subjects, and on the entire legislation and police, ecclesiastical, civil, and moral, to which, in their judgment, Spain should be subjected; the whole interspersed with discussions, sometimes more quaint than grave, concerning the customs and principles on which the work itself, or some particular part of it, is founded. As a specimen of the style of the Partidas, an extract may be made from a law entitled “What meaneth a Tyrant, and how he useth his power in a kingdom when he hath obtained it.” “A tyrant,” says this law, “doth signify a cruel lord, who by force, or by craft, or by treachery, hath obtained power over any realm or country; and such men be of such nature, that, when once they have grown strong in the land, they love rather to work their own profit, though it be in harm of the land, than the common profit of all, for they always live in an ill fear of losing it. And that they may be able to fulfil this their purpose unencumbered, the wise of old have said that they use their power against the people in three manners. The first is, that they strive that those under their mastery be ever ignorant and timorous, because, when they be such, they may not be bold to rise against them nor to resist their wills; and the second is, that they be not kindly and united among themselves, in such wise that they trust not one another, for, while they live in disagreement, they shall not dare to make any discourse against their lord, for fear faith and secrecy should not be kept among themselves; and the third way is, that they strive to make them poor, and to put them upon great undertakings, which they can never finish, whereby they may have so much harm, that it may never come into their hearts to devise any thing against their ruler. And above all this, have tyrants ever striven to make spoil of the strong and to destroy the wise; and have forbidden fellowship and assemblies of men in their land, and striven always to know what men said or did; and do trust their counsel and the guard of their person rather to foreigners, who will serve at their will, than to them of the land, who serve from oppression. And, moreover, we say,