I must say that I see no good foundation for this; for they were a proud nation and barbarous, and were a long time heretics of the sects of Arius and Eutychius and Pelagius, and can be praised as nothing except as warriors, who were so greedy for dominion, that wherever they reached they laid every thing bare like locusts, and therefore the emperor ceded to them this country. The people who dwelt in it before were a better race, always praised and feared and respected by the Romans, loyal and faithful and true and reasonable: and if the Goths afterwards were worthy of any estimation they became so here: for as plants lose their bitterness and improve by being planted and translated into a good soil (as is said of peaches), so does a good land change its inhabitants, and of rustic and barbarous make them polished and virtuous. “The Moors did not say that they came against the Christians, but against the Goths, who had usurped Spain; and it appears that to the people of the land it mattered little whether they were under Goths or Moors; or indeed it might not be too much to say that they preferred the Moors, not only because all new things and changes would be pleasing, but because they were exasperated against the Goths for what they had done against the Christians, (_i. e._ the Catholicks,) and for the bad government of King Witiza.” “You are not to think,” says the Chronicler, “that Count Don Julian and the Bishop Don Orpas came of the lineage of the Goths, but of the lineage of the Cæsars, and therefore they were not grieved that the good lineage should be destroyed.”—_Chr. del K. D. Rodrigo_, p. i. c. 248. * * * * * _Favila._—V. p. 48. Barrios, taking a punster’s licence in orthography, plays upon the name of Pelayo’s father:— ——_del gran Favila (que centella significa) Pelayo, marcial llama, restauro el Leones reyno con aquella luz que alcanzo la victoriosa rama_. Coro de las Musas, p. 102. * * * * * _The Queen too, Egilona,— Was she not married to the enemy, The Moor, the Misbeliever?_—V. p. 50. For this fact there is the unquestionable testimony of Isidorus Pacensis. _Per idem tempus in Æra 735, anno imperii ejus 9. Arabum 97. Abdalaziz omnem Hispaniam per tres annos sub censuario jugo pacificans, cum Hispali divitiis et honorum fascibus cum Regina Hispaniæ in conjugio copulata, filias Regum ac Principum pellicatas, et imprudenter distractas æstuaret, seditione suorum facta, orationi instans, consilio Ajub, occiditur; atque eo Hispaniam retinente, mense impleto, Alahor in regno Hesperiæ per principalia jussa succedit, cui de morte Abdallaziz ita edicitur. ut quasi consilio Egilonis Regiæ conjugis quondam Ruderici regis, quam sibi sociaberat, jugum Arabicum a sua cervice conaretur avertere, et regnum in vasum Hiberiæ sibimet retemptare._—Espana Sagrada, t. viii. 302.