The celebrated Bridge of Alcantara, of which mention has so often been made in these pages, belongs indifferently to all the epochs of Toledo’s history, so no apology is needed for mentioning it here. “It constitutes to-day as in the past,” writes Amador de los Rios, “the principal entrance to the city, and, constructed very wisely on one of the narrowest parts of the river, it is formed of a great central arch of more than twenty-eight metres in breadth, resting on the right on a solid pile, often demolished, behind which is a smaller semicircular arch, which is, in turn, sustained by the bridge head, founded on the rock and pierced by a still smaller arch or passage, where several Visigothic remains have been discovered.” At the outer or country end of the historic bridge formerly stood a fortified tower, which was in 1787 replaced by the existing structure. This is in a pretentious style, and is decorated with various inscriptions, among them one commemorating the building by order of Philip V. The majestic hexagonal tower on the town side, with its picturesque turrets, dates probably from 1259. Above it is a statue of St. Ildefonso, by Berruguete. Over the archway are sculptured the badges of Ferdinand and Isabel (the yoke and bundle of arrows), commemorating the restoration of the tower, in 1489, by Gomez Manrique. A noble bridge is this of Alcantara; old--old as the city--the work of all Toledo’s rulers, and like Toledo, grim, stern, rude, destined, it would seem, to endure for ever. Romans, Visigoths, Moors and Castilians have lingered on it, triumphed on it, fled across it, fought upon it, and across it to-day must walk every traveller entering with reverence this great temple of the mediæval and bygone. EL GRECO BY ALBERT F. CALVERT AND C. GASQUOINE HARTLEY Domeniko Theotokopuli,[A] known to us to-day as El Greco, was the first great painter of Spain, and in his strange and fascinating art, the Spanish School compels for the first time the attention of the world. And El Greco was not Spanish. He was born in Crete, it would seem about the year 1548, and died at Toledo in 1614. Learning his art in Venice, in his early manner he is a pure Venetian, owing much to the work of the Bassani, and more to the inspiration of Tintoretto, but in Toledo he became Spanish and himself, developing there a manner in which the special temper of the race finds an expression passionate enough, not equalled again, indeed, until the advent of Goya. There will always be some men imaginative, entirely personal, who, like El Greco, seek to express themselves, and in so doing, quite unwittingly probably, express the life of their age. Having the interpretative--creative would perhaps be the truer word--genius, their work becomes, as it were, a mirror, which reflects not the man alone, but the circumstances that have formed his life. For, after all, what the artist does is to use up what he has seen.