in a compartment of that in the great saloon, Spain was pictured, ruling the terrestrial globe, ... a dream of ambition which her kings of the Austrian line had entertained, which the craftiest as well as the wildest heads among the Romish clergy encouraged, and which many circumstances seemed to concur in favouring, when, under the blessing of Providence, the Dutch, by their patriotic and religious virtue, averted that evil from the world. Two other noted works of art were still to be seen in the Buen Retiro; one, remarkable for its design, was a bronze statue of Charles V. trampling upon the Spirit of Reformation which lay, personified as Heresy in chains, at his feet; the other, which for the surpassing skill of the sculptor was even more remarkable, was an equestrian statue of Philip IV. cast by Pietro Tacca of Florence, weighing, it is said, not less than nine tons, and yet supported only by the hind legs, the horse being in the act of galloping. Within the precincts of the palace were many pavilions which used to be assigned to the courtiers when the court resided there. The gardens were of that formal style in which art allows as little as possible of nature to be seen, ... where water is brought at great expense to spout from fountains and fill circular fish-ponds, the gardener exercises his topiary genius upon trees and shrubs, and humble evergreens are compelled to grow in fantastic patterns, like a vegetable carpet. The park was a thick wood, with broad avenues, a central pond having a pavilion in its centre, and a large piece of water at its termination, on which gilded gondolas awaited the king’s pleasure when he was disposed to take the diversion of fishing, his retinue beholding the sport from the little pavilions which decorated its sides. Like all the other palaces of the kings of Spain, the Buen Retiro was a place in which a meditative beholder was forcibly reminded of the vanity of human greatness. Those kings, above all other European sovereigns, had been loved and reverenced by their people; their palaces were among the wonders of the modern world, and no expenditure, no efforts of ingenuity and art had been spared in embellishing their summer retreats: but these things had been grievously compensated, not alone by the never-ending anxieties of state, and the gloom of disappointed ambition, but by a more than ordinary share of the afflictions incident to human nature, coming upon themselves or their families, ... maladies of body and of mind alike incurable and painful; ... madness, fatuity, weak intellects, ... conscious of their weakness, and of the awful responsibility in which their birth had placed them, ... morbid consciences, and broken hearts.