From St. Mark to St. Lawrence--from the Rialto to the Escurial--from one Peninsula to another!--it is but a hop, step, and jump--your toe at Genoa, your heel at Marseilles, and a good hearty spring pops you down at once in the very heart of Old Castille. That Sir Peregrine Ingoldsby, then a young man, was at Madrid soon after the peace of Ryswick, there is extant a long correspondence of his to prove. Various passages in it countenance the supposition that his tour was partly undertaken for political purposes; and this opinion is much strengthened by certain allusions in several of his letters, addressed, in after life, to his friend Sir Horace Mann, then acting in the capacity of Envoy to the Court of Tuscany. Although the Knight spent several months in Spain, and visited many of her principal cities, there is no proof of his having actually "seen Seville," beyond the internal evidence incidentally supplied by the following legend. The events to which it alludes were, of course, of a much earlier date, though the genealogical records of the "Kings of both the Indies" have been in vain consulted for the purpose of fixing their precise date, and even Mr. Simpkinson's research has failed to determine which of the royal stock rejoicing in the name of Ferdinand is the hero of the legend. The conglomeration of Christian names usual in the families of the _haute noblesse_ of Spain adds to the difficulty; not that this inconvenient accumulation of prefixes is peculiar to the country in question, witness my excellent friend Field-Marshal Count Herman Karl Heinrich Socrates von der Nodgerrie zü Pfefferkorn, whose appellations puzzled the recording clerk of one of our Courts lately,--and that not a little. That a splendid specimen of the _genus Homo, species Monk_, flourished in the earlier moiety of the 15th century, under the appellation of Torquemada, is notorious,--and this fact might seem to establish the era of the story; but then _his_ name was John--not Dominic--though he was a _Dominican_, and hence the mistake, if any, may perhaps have originated--but then again the Spanish Queen to whom he was Confessor was called Isabella, and not Blanche--it is a puzzling affair altogether. From his own silence on the subject, it may well be doubted whether the worthy transcriber knew, himself, the date of the transactions he has recorded; the authenticity of the details, however, cannot be well called in question.--Be this as it may, I shall make no further question, but at once introduce my "pensive public" to FOOTNOTES: [24] Nec imbellem feroces Progenerant aquilæ columbam.--HOR. THE AUTO-DA-FÉ. A LEGEND OF SPAIN.