And let those illustrious exiles, the martyrs of truth and freedom, who have been driven by an ungrateful and cruel tyrant from their homes and their country, and doomed “to wander through this miserable world,” take heart; for a brighter and better day is about to dawn upon Spain. I have expressed a hope, it should rather be a conviction, that this period cannot linger long. If the extreme of evil brings with it its own remedy; if human endurance will only support a certain weight of despotism; if “there is a spirit in man;” if there is a strength in virtue or in liberty—the intolerable fetters _must_ be broken. ¿Que es esto, Autor eterno Del triste mundo? tu sublime nombre Que en el se ultraja á moderar no alcanzas? —¿ á infelices venganzas Y sangre y muerte has destinado el hombre? ¿A tantas desventuras Ningnu termino pones? ¿ó el odioso Monstruo por siempre triunfará orgulloso? _Melendez_. * * * * * The object, for which the foregoing observations were written, made it necessary to exclude some particulars, which perhaps deserve record. A correct idea of the state of learning in Spain might be formed from the general decline of the public _colegios_ and universities, and the almost universal ignorance of those to whom the important business of education is intrusted. At Alcalá de Henares, where there were formerly four or five thousand students, there are now less than three hundred, and the number is yearly declining. A similar decay may be observed elsewhere. I found every thing in a melancholy state of derangement and dilapidation at Bergara, though this, I believe, is now the only public school which has been able to maintain itself. The philosophical and mathematical instruments had been destroyed by rust, or rendered useless by violence, and every thing connected with instruction appeared conducted as if the dreadful apprehension that _too much_ wisdom might be communicated, were constantly present to the _enlightened_ directors. There are few objects more touching, more humiliating, than those scenes sacred once to liberty and to literature, and associated with the names of the noblest and “the wisest of our race;” but now become the fortresses of ignorance, profligacy and despotism. Who would not sigh over Cordoba?