The gathering under the oak of Guernica, the onset of the French light horse, and the resistance of the peasantry, described in this Canto, are incidents which, although imagined, are characteristic of this heroic struggle at various periods. The part here played by Blanca was not uncommon during the Peninsular War, enthusiast emissaries having made their appearance in various quarters, preaching the crusade against the French. They literally preached, or harangued the people in public places. I met an Englishman in the Peninsula who had figured in that capacity. Women, too, undertook the same service, which amongst an excitable Southern people was found to be most potential. The appearance of the fair sex in this character was chiefly after the siege of Zaragoza, when the renown won by Manuela Sanchez caused heroines to spring up in several places, who wore for the most part a half-military attire. Blanca’s use of the guitar is strictly in character, for the talent of the _improvvisatore_ is pretty general in Spain, the language readily adapting itself to extemporaneous recitation in verse, and the ardent temperament of the nation favouring a rapid exercise of the imagination. The Basque drum or _pandero_, and the _gaita_ or bagpipe, belong to this district. The Oak of Guernica, beneath which I make Blanca rhapsodize, was one of the most venerable natural monuments in Spain. Here the Biscayan legislators, hidalgos and peasants, periodically assembled, and here Ferdinand and Isabella in 1476 swore to maintain the _fueros_, or ancient rights and privileges of the people. Wordsworth has a sonnet on the subject; but unhappily his “tree of holier power” was cut down by the French. An oak sapling was, however, planted under the protection of the English army to replace it.