I can, perhaps, most fitly end this attempt at showing the causes of Spain's decay and portraying the present characteristics of this most interesting and romantic nation by a quotation from the pen of one of her sons. Don Antonio Ferrer del Rio, Librarian of the Ministry of Commerce, Instruction, and Public Works, and member of the Reales Academias de Buenas Letras of Seville and Barcelona, thus writes, in his preface to his _Decadencia de España_, published in Madrid in 1850: "It is my intention to point out the true origin of the decadence of Spain. The imagination of the ordinary Spaniard has always been captivated by, and none of them have failed to sing the praises of, those times in which the sun never set on the dominion of its kings." While professing not to presume to dispute this former glory, Señor Ferrer del Rio goes on to say that he only aspires to get at the truth of his country's subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the summit of her greatness--that of the Reyes Católicos, Don Fernando V. and Doña Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system disappeared--it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the kingdom--the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people was heard; and almost at the same moment Christian Spain achieved the conquest of the Moors, against whom the different provinces had been struggling for eight centuries, and the immortal discovery of a new world. Up to this moment the prosperity of Spain was rising; from that hour her decadence began. With her liberty she lost everything, although for some time longer her military laurels covered from sight her real misfortunes." After referring to the defeat of the _Comuneros_, and the execution of Padilla and his companions, champions of the people's rights, he goes on to show that while the aristocracy had received a mortal blow in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in the cause of consolidating the kingdom and of internal order, they had retained sufficient power to trample on the liberties of the people, while they were not strong enough to form a barrier against the encroachments of the absolute monarchs who succeeded, or to prevent the power eventually lapsing into the hands of the Church. "Consequently, theocracy gained the ascendency, formidably aided and strengthened by the odious tribunal whose installation shadowed even the glorious epoch of Isabel and Fernando, absorbing all jurisdiction, and interfering with all government. Religious wars led naturally to European conflicts, to the Spanish people being led to wage war against heresy everywhere, and the nation--exhausted by its foreign troubles, oppressed internally under the tyranny of the Inquisition, which, usurping the name of 'Holy,' had