The most prominent figure among living Spanish novelists is undoubtedly Don Benito Pérez Galdós. In his “Episodios Nacionales,” the troubled history of Spain in the nineteenth century, from the wars against Napoleon to the death of Prim, passes before us in a Spanish human comedy. We see the noble death of Churruca in the battle of Trafalgar, we witness the brief, feverish defence of Madrid before Napoleon, the heroic sieges of Zaragoza and Gerona, the stubborn resistance of Bilbao to the troops of Zumalacárregui in the first Carlist war; later we see Isabel II. silently crossing the French frontier at Irun, the effect of Castelar’s eloquence in the Cortes, Prim landing at Cadiz--these and a hundred more principal actors and events are marshalled in a succession of novels now numbering over forty. Pérez Galdós continues to write with undiminished vigour. The forty-second episode, “España Trágica” (1909), pictures Madrid opinion in street and _café_ during the year 1870, when Spain was “in high fever,” choosing a king. The book ends with a vivid account of the assassination of Prim. His long and difficult task was crowned with success, but his presence was needed now more than ever to check the hostility of the federalists on the one hand, of the aristocracy on the other. It was the 27th December, 1870, and on the following day he was to travel to Cartagena in order to receive the Duke of Aosta. He had just left the Congreso. The night was bitterly cold and the carriage rolled silently through the snow in almost deserted streets. It was noticed that first one man and then a second stopped in the street to light a cigar. This was apparently a signal. A little further on, in the _Calle del Turco_, a carriage blocked the way, and almost immediately the windows of Prim’s carriage crashed in on both sides and he fell back, wounded by more than one bullet. The forty-third Episode, “Amadeo I.” (1910), describes the reign of the Italian prince which began thus tragically with the murder of Prim, continued for two years in a tragi-comedy, and ended with the dignified withdrawal of the loyal and disinterested “rey caballero,” who had been wilfully and persistently misunderstood and slighted by the subjects who had invited him to reign over them. With the Queen and their three children, including the infant Duke of the Abruzzi, he descended the steps of the _Palacio del Oriente_ for the last time “entre alabarderos rígidos, sin música ni voces que turbaran el fúnebre silencio. Sólo el rumor de las pisadas marcaba el lento caminar de una época” (February, 1873). With this and a volume on the first Spanish Republic,[103] the fifth and final series of the Episodes marches rapidly towards completion. For forty years novels and plays from Pérez Galdós’ pen have appeared at the rate of two or more a year, and some of the novels are of considerable length--“Fortunata y Jacinta” has something like two thousand pages.