Passing on by the rail from Burgos, we might stop at Valladolid, once the most renowned of all the cities of Spain, now so utterly decayed as to be of interest only to antiquarians. Here Ferdinand and Isabella were married in 1469. Here Columbus, the worn and weary, died in his own house in 1506. Here he slept in death six years, and then his bones were removed to Seville, and again to Cuba, that they might rest in the New World he found. Philip II., whose ESCORIAL we are going to see, was born here in Valladolid, and after he grew to manhood had the pleasure of seeing at one time fourteen Protestants, and thirteen at another, burnt alive, in the Grand Square of the city: a most edifying spectacle, which strengthened his faith so much that he afterwards dedicated his mighty structure to the good St. Lawrence, who was broiled to death on a gridiron, enduring his torments with so much fortitude that he said to his executioners, “I am done on this side, perhaps you had better turn me over,”—whence comes the expression, “done to a turn.” Philip II. made Madrid the capital of his kingdom, holding his court there or at the Escorial, at his pleasure, for they were only a few hours apart. It is a long but pleasant walk from the station to the palace, and it is better to stroll along the shaded avenues, resting at times on the solid stone seats, looking upward at the solitary pile ahead, and musing on the wonderful dead past; the pomp and pageantry, the vast processions of priests and kings and countless armies of Spain, of France, of England, that have marched up this same street, in triumph, in penitential grief, or in funeral array. Away from the world, the world has often come hither, under the many garbs the world wears, according as it is in glory or in shame. Entering the grand quadrangle by the chief gate, the colossal edifice presents its central front and the two lateral projections in one view; the main façade is adorned with statues of the principal personages in Old Testament history. Crossing the court, paved with great granite blocks, we enter, and the massive walls, the cold damp halls, gloomy in their naked, solid grandeur, make us feel that we are entering a fortress, and not a palace. It would be impossible to find your way without a guide. There are sixteen courts within, and out of each of them long passages lead to eighty staircases, and up these we may go, if we have time, to twelve thousand doors, and look out of two thousand six hundred windows, and worship at forty altars!! You wish to be excused from such climbing and kneeling. Come, then, with me at once into the church. It is more than 300 feet long, and 230 feet wide, and 320 feet high: of granite all; its columns are majestic in their proportions, severe in Doric simplicity, supporting twenty-four arches, so beautifully sprung that, wherever you stand, the eye takes in the whole at a glance. The pulpits surpass, in the splendor of their finish, any thing in Italy.