A MOSLEM RHAPSODY.

395

I did not interrupt the holy man, while his thoughts reverted to the former greatness of his nation, but awaited his inclination to resume the conversation.

"The infidels," he resumed, after awhile, "were not satisfied with driving us from our homes: they wished to deprive us of our faith. For this, they strove with the torture and the stake. And what did they offer us in exchange? The worship of idols-soulless images of wood and stone-ceremonies without meaning, and incomprehensible dogmas! Why, our own idea of the founder of their faith is more reverential than theirs. We acknowledge him as a mighty prophet sent to redeem the world, while they make him but a helpless infant-niño Dios-or a piece of baked dough. And how far more sublime is our idea of the eternal, all-powerful, uncreated God! According to them he descended from the heavens, divested himself of his sovereign attributes, and assumed the form and impurities of man! How impious a conception, how revolting a contradiction!"

Not holding myself equal to him of the long beard in a polemic controversy, I adopted an eloquent silence, which seemed to give him a favorable opinion of me.

"See," said he, as he stooped down, and read an inscription "we decorated our walls with wreaths and garlands, composed of the verses of the Koran. Roses and lilies surrounded our religion with associations of beauty and of perfume. The eye was gladdened, while the heart was instructed. How is it with the infidels who have desecrated our temples? How do they typify their religion? Visit their churches: a crucifixion, ghastly with nails, and thorns, and blood! a female, daubed on canvas, with daggers piercing the heart! blood-boltered martyrdoms! unexampled tortures! But these, horrible as they are to the eye and

396

A BRIEF ACQUAINTANCE.

mind, have been outdone by the cruelties of the accursed Inquisition!"

Here my friend made an end of speaking, and soon, after a courteous salutation, went his way and I saw him no more.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

THE ARCHBISHOP'S PALACE-THE CATHEDRAL-THE ROYAL CHAPEL-FERDINAND AND ISABELLA-FRENCH OCCUPATION AND INFLUENCE-SOCIETY OF GRENADA-THE ALAMEDA.

Of course I would not be much time in Grenada without making a visit to the archbishop's palace, which Gil Blas has rendered historical. He describes it as rivaling a royal palace, and I was naturally eager to see it. "I might enlarge," he says, "upon the structure of the building, extol the richness of the furniture, describe the statues and pictures, and not spare my readers the least tittle of the stories they represented; but I shall content myself with observing that it equalled the royal palace in magnificence."

I could not believe the mean-looking building, with naught save a plateresque front, to redeem it from total condemnation, which Pépé said was the palace, could be the house which Gil Blas had described. The truth is, that, like the Spaniards of the uneducated class, I had begun to believe in the real existence of Le Sage's hero, and necessarily gave faith to his descriptions. But this! why it is truly what they call in Spain a casa de ratones, a rat-hole—compared, at least, with many I had seen. But Le Sage never was in Spain; and as he stole most of the incidents of his inimitable book from Spanish authors, perhaps, as a matter of compensation, he determined to imagine beau

398

DISORDER OF ARCHITECTURE.

ties, and thus gratify Españolism. However that may be, the building has no pretensions to the designation of a palace, inside or out. It has neither architectural beauty, nor domestic accommodation. I felt the disappointment like a personal grievance. To have had my expectations so raised, and to have them so humbled-"it was tolerable, and not to be endured."

When I had recovered a portion of lost equanimity, I visited the cathedral near by. It was built some three hundred years since, when the Christian-Gothic architecture was going out of fashion. What order it properly belongs to, I am unable to say; but whatever one may have been designed, I should say, as Lord Brougham once said of the House of Lords: "It is not true to its order." It does not indeed seem to belong to any, but rather to have an antipathy for all.

The glaring whitewash of its interior offends the eye; and no less, some heroes and heroines in the corners of the coro, bewigged à la Louis Quatorze. Why their statues should be placed in a church after death, when perhaps their persons never were there during life, puzzles the mind; nor are we prepared to believe they are the most fit persons for "the glorious company of the Apostles," some of whose portraits, by Alonzo Cano, also decorate the coro. The only true object of admiration in the cathedral, always excepting a few paintings by Alonzo Cano, Juan de Ribera, and his pupil Bocanegra, is la Capilla de los Reyes-the Royal Chapel. On either side of the high altar kneel sculptured effigies of Ferdinand and Isabella, which are pronounced fac-similes of their forms, faces, and costumes. Painted carvings, illustrating some of the most memorable incidents of their reign, are suspended behind them. The surrender of the Alhambra is one.

THE BURIAL-PLACE OF ISABELLA.

399

Isabella rides on a white palfrey, as she was wont to do in life when she visited the royal camp, or on ceremonious occasions; on either side of her, ride Ferdinand, and he who, like Wolsey, was "ever ranking himself with princes"-Cardinal Mendoza; he rides a mule in proud humility. Boabdil, on foot, gives him the key of the city, holding it by the wards: captives, in pairs, issue from the gates, while the knights and ladies of Isabella's court, look on with all the satisfied expression of basso-relievos.

There are two alabaster sepulchers in the middle of the chapel, delicate to the sight. They are said to have been wrought in Genoa by a most skillful artist. Ferdinand and Isabella-the first as cold, and the second as chaste as life-slumber here in marble; and next to them their daughter, Juana la Loca-the crazy Juana, with her husband, Philip—both magnificently attired. He wears the order of the Golden Fleece, as of the House of Burgundy. Isabella died elsewhere, but was buried here at her own request. Grenada, which she had contributed so much to annex to the Castilian crown, was ever after her favorite residence. She prized it in life, and appointed it a sepulcher in death -dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos.

A low door leads down into a vault where all that was mortal of these "Catholic kings" lies moldering. The coffins are plain, and hooped with iron; and neither their outside nor inside indicates that royal rather than plebeian dust is contained within; nor, probably, do the worms-your only true Democratsknow that in feasting upon this decayed mortality they are guilty of lèse majesté.

If the spirits of the departed are conscious of events in the world they have left behind them, what anguish should Ferdinand feel when he contemplates the condi