At length, under the happy reign of Saint Ferdinand, Don Rodrigo being archbishop of Toledo, the church assumed that admirable and magnificent form which it has at the present day, and which, it is said, is that of the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. O simple chronicler! allow me to doubt this! The Temple of Ephesus was never equal to the Cathedral of Toledo! The archbishop Rodrigo, in presence of the king and all the court, having first said a pontifical mass, laid the first stone, one Saturday in the year 1227; the works were then carried on with great activity until the building was completed, and carried to the highest pinnacle of perfection which human art can attain. We hope the reader will excuse this slight historical digression, for it is a thing we do not often indulge in, and we will quickly resume our humble mission of descriptive tourist and literary daguerreotype. The exterior of the Cathedral of Toledo is far less rich than that of the Cathedral of Burgos; there is no florid profusion of ornaments, no arabesques, no rows of statues running round the portals, but simply solid buttresses, sharp bold angles, a thick facing of large stones, and a sturdy-looking spire that displays none of the delicate decorations of Gothic art, every portion of the whole building being covered with a reddish tint like a piece of toast, a kind of sunburnt skin like that of a pilgrim from the Holy Land; but to make up for this simplicity on the outside, the interior is sculptured and carved like a stalactite cavern.