declared to be endowed with equal virtue, but even by the sovereign and the nobles, who openly ridiculed his pretensions and defied his authority. The evil example of royal profligacy had infected every grade of the priesthood. The episcopal palace became the scene of daily turmoil and midnight orgies, which scandalized the populace, itself far from immaculate; while the excellence of the wines and the beauty of the female companions of priest and primate were matters of public jest and infamous notoriety. The relative positions of the great officials of Church and State had, by reason of the peculiar functions exercised by the former, who had entirely usurped the legislative power, been reversed. The prelate, while still retaining the outward insignia of his sacred profession, had, from the practice of the generous and self-sacrificing duties of a minister of grace and mercy, descended to the ignoble arts of an active, scheming, unscrupulous politician. The nobility, after having virtually surrendered to their spiritual advisers the complete control of the administration, preserved, to a pharisaical degree, the outward semblance of devotion. In private life, the morals of both classes were stained with degrading vices and crimes which were thinly veiled by a more or less rigid observance of the prescribed forms of religious worship. No country in Europe had, from the earliest times of which history makes mention, constantly offered such inducements to the enterprise and prowess of an invader as Spain. The Orient and the Occident met upon her shores. Every material advantage which could attract the attention of man, which could stimulate his ambition, increase his wealth, insure his comfort, supply his necessities, and minister to his happiness, was hers. The balmy air of her southern provinces--whose skies for months were unobscured by a single cloud--was tempered by the breezes of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The varied landscape of hill and plain, seamed with a net-work of artificial rivulets, was covered with a mantle of perpetual verdure. Her orchards furnished an inexhaustible supply of the most delicious fruits. The products of her mines had made the fortune of every possessor--Phœnician, Carthaginian, Roman, Vandal, and Goth. Her gold and silver had embellished the thrones of Babylon, the shrines of Tyre, the palaces of Memphis, the temple of Jerusalem. Her coasts, easy of access from every point, offered a succession of safe and commodious harbors. The Visigoths, despite their barbarian prejudice against manual labor, recognized the importance of agriculture. The provinces of the realm were apportioned among the nobility. A stated tribute was required of their vassals by the great landed proprietors, who rarely had the justice to grant indulgence for a failure of the harvests or a deficiency resulting from public or private misfortune. The cultivators were attached to