Castillian genius has nowhere imprinted a haughtier effigy of its invincible pride and fanaticism, insusceptible to the humiliations of decay and defeat, impervious to the encroachments of progress and enlightenment. It is the vast monumental note of Spanish character and Spanish history. It tells the eternal tale of ecclesiastical domination and triumph, and is the fitting home of portraits of warlike cardinals and armoured bishops, of princes of the Church who wore the purple and ruled with the sword. It is a superb and majestic harmony of marvellous stone-work and painted glass. The foundation of this most gorgeous temple is attributed to Saint Eugenius, the first bishop of Toledo, and on the conversion of Recaredo from Arianism, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, April 12th, 587. When the Moors took Toledo, the Cathedral was converted into a mosque, which it remained for nearly three centuries. Then when Alfonso VI. won back the town from the Moors, one of the conditions we know in the treaty for surrender was that the Cathedral should continue as a mosque, and remain in the hands of the conquered, upon which stipulation, solemnly ratified, the Moors gave up the Alcázar, the city gates and bridges. Alfonso intended that this condition should be fulfilled, but the queen and the French archbishop, sorely troubled by the monstrous continuance of heretical service in the consecrated temple of St Eugenius, decided to cast out the Saracen, which injustice furnishes us with a pretty evidence of Moorish magnanimity. Alfonso's was an exceedingly grim interpretation of the chivalrous sentiment, "I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honour more." However, the Moors gallantly tore up the treaty and resigned all right to the Cathedral. The least they might have expected from their enemies is a full and fine recognition of their generosity, first in pleading for those who had insulted them, and then in foregoing their own advantage in order to procure the pardon of their insulters. But no. The Moors, in this matter, are regarded as having simply done their duty. One would hesitate to credit their conquerors with a like behaviour in similar circumstances. The Alfaqui's statue in the Capilla Major is regarded as adequate thanks, and perhaps it is.