weaken the nations! If we overleap a hundred years, and look at Spain towards the close of the seventeenth century, what a change do we find! The contrast is as great as that which the Rome of Gallienus and Honorius presents to the Rome of Marius and Cæsar. Foreign conquest had begun to eat into every part of that gigantic monarchy on which the sun never set. Holland was gone, and Portugal, and Artois, and Roussillon, and Franche-Comté. In the East, the empire founded by the Dutch far surpassed in wealth and splendor that which their old tyrants still retained. In the West, England had seized, and still held, settlements in the midst of the Mexican sea. The mere loss of territory was, however, of little moment. The reluctant obedience of distant provinces generally costs more than it is worth. Empires which branch out widely are often more flourishing for a little timely pruning. Adrian acted judiciously when he abandoned the conquests of Trajan; and England was never so rich, so great, so formidable to foreign princes, so absolutely mistress of the sea, as since the loss of her American colonies. The Spanish empire was still, in outward appearance, great and magnificent. The European dominions subject to the last feeble Prince of the House of Austria were far more extensive than those of Lewis the Fourteenth. The American dependencies of the Castilian crown still extended far to the North of Cancer and far to the South of Capricorn. But within this immense body there was an incurable decay, an utter want of tone, an utter prostration of strength. An ingenious and diligent population, eminently skilled in arts and manufactures, had been driven into exile by stupid and remorseless bigots. The glory of the Spanish pencil had departed with Velasquez and Murillo. The splendid age of Spanish literature had closed with Solis and Calderon. During the seventeenth century many states had formed great military establishments. But the Spanish army, so formidable under the command of Alva and Farnese, had dwindled away to a few thousand men, ill paid and ill disciplined. England, Holland, and France had great navies. But the Spanish navy was scarcely equal to the tenth part of that mighty force which, in the time of Philip the Second, had been the terror of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. The arsenals were deserted. The magazines were unprovided. The frontier fortresses were ungarrisoned. The police was utterly inefficient for the protection of the people. Murders were committed in the face of day with perfect impunity. Bravoes and discarded serving men, with swords at their sides, swaggered every day through the most public streets and squares of the capital, disturbing the public peace, and setting at defiance the ministers of justice. The finances were in frightful disorder. The people paid much. The government received little. The American viceroys and the farmers of the revenue became rich, while the merchants broke, while the peasantry starved, while the body servants of the sovereign remained unpaid, while the soldiers of the royal guard repaired daily to the doors of convents and battled there with the crowd of beggars for a porringer of broth and a morsel of bread. Every remedy which was tried aggravated the disease. The currency was altered; and this frantic measure produced its never-failing effects. It destroyed all credit, and increased the misery which it was intended to relieve. The American gold, to use the words of Ortiz, was to the necessities of the state but as a drop of water to the lips of a man raging with thirst. Heaps of unopened dispatches accumulated in the offices, while the Ministers were concerting with bedchamber women and Jesuits the means of tripping up each other. Every foreign power could plunder and insult with impunity the heir of Charles the Fifth. Into such a state had the mighty kingdom of Spain fallen, while one of its smallest dependencies, a country not so large as the province of Estremadura or Andalusia, situated under an inclement sky, and preserved only by artificial means from the inroads of the ocean, had become a power of the first class, and treated on terms of equality with the courts of London and Versailles. ESMOND'S FRIENDS AND FOES. By W. M. THACKERAY. [WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY, English novelist and humorist, was born in Calcutta, India, July 19, 1811, and died December 24, 1863. He studied for an artist, but could not learn to draw, and after some years of struggle began to make a name in Fraser's Magazine by "The Great Hoggarty Diamond," "The Yellowplush Papers," etc. There followed "The Paris Sketch Book"; "The Book of Snobs," "Ballads of Policeman X," Prize Novelists," etc., from Punch; and "The Rose and the Ring." "Vanity Fair," "Pendennis," "Henry Esmond,” and “The Newcomes," his four great masterpieces, all came in the six years 1848-1854. His lectures on "English Humorists" and "The Four Georges" followed; then "The Virginians (sequel to "Esmond "), "Lovel the Widower," "Philip," and the unfinished "Denis Duval," contributed to the Cornhill Magazine, which he edited 1859-1862, and which contained also "The Roundabout Papers."] THE 29TH DECEMBER. [Harry Esmond, the real heir to the title and lands of the Viscount Castlewood, but supposed to be illegitimate, has been brought up by Lord and Lady Castlewood. My Lord has been slain by the wicked Lord Mohun in a duel. Lady Castlewood suspects herself of a passion for Harry, and refuses to see him. After taking part in the Vigo Bay Expedition, Harry returns to London and meets Lady Castlewood in the Cathedral at Winchester, Harry himself being the narrator. The style (with obvious differences) is modeled on that of the age of Queen Anne.] THERE was scarce a score of persons in the Cathedral beside the Dean and some of his clergy, and the choristers, young and old, that performed the beautiful evening prayer. But Mr. Tusher was one of the officiants, and read from the eagle in an authoritative voice, and a great black periwig: and in the stalls, still in her black widow's hood, sat Esmond's dear mistress, her son by her side, very much grown, and indeed a noble-looking youth, with his mother's eyes, and his father's curling brown hair, that fell over his point de Venise-a pretty picture such as Vandyke might have painted. Monsieur Rigaud's portrait of my Lord Viscount, done at Paris afterwards, gives but a French version of his manly, frank, English face. When he looked up there were two sapphire beams out of his eyes such as no painter's palette has the color to match, I think. On this day there was not much chance of seeing that particular beauty of my young Lord's countenance; for the truth is, he kept his eyes shut for the most part, and, the anthem being rather long, was asleep. But the music ceasing, my Lord woke up, looking about him, and his eyes lighting on Mr. Esmond, who was sitting opposite him, gazing with no small tenderness and melancholy upon two persons who had so much of his heart for so many years, Lord Castlewood, with a start, pulled at his mother's sleeve (her face had scarce been lifted from her book) and said, "Look, mother!" so loud that Esmond could hear on the other side of the church, and the old Dean on his throned stall. Lady Castlewood looked for an instant as her son bade her, and held up a |