THE QUEEN OF SPAIN. (From the Times.)

Otago Witness, Issue 159, 10 June 1854, Page 4

THE QUEEN OF SPAIN. (From the Times.)

We are now witnessing the spectacle of the decay and extinction of Spanish loyalty. That which the imbecility of the Fourth Charles and the selfish brutality of Ferdinand the Vllth could not effect, has been accomplished by a young woman and a Queen. The task of extinguishing so remarkable a feeling as that of the loyalty of the Spanish name was no easy one. Misgovernment would not have done it. Your Spaniard is accustomed to raisgovernment as his cigarito. We question, indeed, if good government— that is, government upon the London or Washington model — would not have irritated him into rebetlion more quickly than any given number of acts of rigour. Corrupt the constituencies — dissolve the Cortes — censure the press — gag the Tribune — a Spaniard can do very well without these institutions, and would as soon have thought of rising against the throne of Isabella the Catholic on adcount of their absence, as he would have done had his'royal mistress denied him the enjoyment of souchong and hung beef. Acts of cruelty and dragonades would not have done it. Queen Isabella might have laid, provinces waste, and massacred the inhabitants, and the bulk of her subjects would have esteemed it right royally done. A Queen who was ready to dismiss her loving subjects to the repose of the garotte chair, or the amenities of a shooting party, would have all their sympathies. Queen Isabella might have laughed at law and order, justice and humanity, and her subjects would not have hissed her in her opera box, as they did the other day. It was on the 18th of the present month that a Spanish Queen endured this last indignity at the hands of her people. There had not of late been more than the usual amount"' of corruption in the "various departments of Government. What has

happened in the course of the last few weeks had happened twenty times before, but at the bull fight and the opera, on the Almeda and at the gates of the palace, the Queen had enjoyed immunity from censure — for censure was insult. So great had been her offence — so deeply had she wounded the pvnto donor of the Spanish race— that they had no alternative but to remain silent, or to blow away the loyal traditions of eight centuries with a bieath. The Queen entered the Royal box with her consort — with the consort of Louis Phillippe"s finding. She stood prepared for the usual loyal demonstrations. The splendour of the scene was mechanically suspended that the Royal march, according to custom, might give time and harmony to the glad acclamations of the subjects. But from all sides of the hall — of a hall crowded with the most illustrious personages of Spain — a ciy of aversion resounded. There should be no march pla) cd. There should be no glad cry of welcome. Where the Queen of Spain looked for cheers, her ear was greeted with hisses and expressions of disgust : " Basta, basta de eso !" (We have had enough of this !) " Que continue la Opera!" (Let the Opera proceed!) Was it insensibility — was it scorn ? The Queen did not change countenance. Not so -another person in the house, who at the present moment occupies a post at Madrid for which no name is given in the hierarchy of Spanish dignities, although a Spanish muleteer would be at little loss to supply Uie requisite denomination. There stood the successor of Charles V., glancing down upon the people, who were cursing her in their hearts, and hissing at her with their lips, with no one to rely upon save the person who for the moment had succeeded to her favour. All this passed at Madrid on the evening ] of Tuesday, the 19th of the present month, September. ' No single act of imprudence could have produced such a result. The loyalty of the Spaniard was so deeply seated that it could not be obliterated by a passing folly, or a passing crime. It was necessary to drag the Spanish crown \ery long through very j miry spots indeed before the nation would have risen j against its wearer, as though treason had been com- J mitted against the repose of a private family. This | is not the first time that the nation had witnessed the spectacle of notorious profligacy in the highest station. But, bad as ha\e been the previous instances of such disregard to all obligations, no Spanish Queen has yet loved to exhibit the living proofs of her successive acts of shame befoie the eyes of a nation Now, there is no poetry possible for the Heloise of many Abelards What wonder, then, that the loyalty of the Spaniard, being such a passion as vte have described it to be, should h<ne been converted into its opposite by so shameful an exhibition ? As the feeling was a personal one, so it is much to be feared the retribution may one day be. We, who regard Sovereigns with more tempered feelings of respect, and who most fortunately have never occasion to think of our Sovereign but of a lady as spotless in her life as she is eminent in station, can scarcely comprehend what a revulsion of feeling may lead to in such a case as this. The conduct of the Sovereign is felt as a personal disgrace by every Spaniard in the solitude of his own dwelling. Such is not quite the end of the " Spanish marriages " — of that political scheme for the sake of which a great minister sacrificed his character for probity, and an able monarch one of the first crowns in Christendom. The City of the Dead. — In digging out the ruins of Pompeii, every turn of the spade brings up \ some relic of the ancient life, some witness of imperial luxury. For far the greatest part, those relics have a merely curious interest ; they belong to archaeology, and find appropriate resting-places in historical museums. But there are some exceptions. Here, for instance, the excavator drops, an uninvited guest, upon a banquet ; there he unexpectedly obtrudes himself into a tomb. In one place he finds a miser cowering on his heaps, another shows him bones of dancing girls and broken instruments of music lying on the marble floor. In the midst of painted chambers, baths, halls, columns, fountains, among the splendid evidences of material wealth, he sometimes stumbles on a simple incident, a touching human story, such as strikes the imagination and suggests the mournful interest of the great disaster, as the sudden sight of a wounded soldier conjures up the horrors of a field of battle. Such, in our mind, is the latest discovery of the excavators in this melancholy field. It is a group of skeletons in the act of flight, accompanied by a dog. There are three human beings, one of them a young girl, with gold rings and jewels still on her fingers. The fugitives had bags of gold and silver with them, snatched up, no doubt, in haste and darkness. But the fiery flood was on their track ; and vain their wealth, their flight, the age of one, the youth of the other. The burning lava rolled above them and be-

yond; and the faithful dog turned back to share the fortunes of its mistress — dying at her side. Seen by the light of such an incident, how vividly" that night of horrors looms upon the sense! Does not imagination picture that little group in their own house, by the side of their evening fountain, languidly chatting over the day's events, and of the unusual heat ? Does it not hear, with them, the troubled swell of the waters in the bay ; see, as they do, how the night comes down in sudden strangeness, how the sky opens over head, and flames break out, while scorice, sand, and molten rocks come pouring down ? What movement, what emotion, what surprise !' The scene grows darker every j instant — the hollow monotone of the bay is lifted into yells and shrieks— the air grows thick with dust and hot with flames, and at the mountain's foot is , heard the deadly roll of the liquid lava. Jewels, ' household gods, gold and silver coins, are snatched up on the instant. No time to say farewell ; darkness, in front and fire behind, they rush into the streets— streets choked with falling houses and fiyiii£ citizens. How find the way through passages which have no longer outlets — confusion, danger, darkness, uproar everywhere ; the shouts of parted

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Dr. Cartwright, of New Orleans, asserts from personal experience, that a few hours spent in a sugar manufactory, inhaling the saccharine fumes, is a cure for consumption*

friends, the agony of men struck down by falling columns — fear, madness, and despair unchained — here, penury clutching gold it cannot keep — there, gluttony feeding on its final meal, and frenzy striking in the dark to forestall cknth. Through all, fancy hears (he young girls- screams — the fire is on her jewelled hand. No time for thought — no pause, the flood rolls on — and wisdom, beauty, age, and youth, with all the stories of their lo\e, their hopes, their rank, wealth, greatness— all the o/x-e affluent life — are gone for ever. "When unearihed after many ages, the nameless group has no other importance to mankind than as it may serve to point a moral or adorn a tale. — Atheneunn.

Edinburgh audiences are getting quite continental in their habits. We aie told that at the lectures at the Philosophical Institution, many of the ladies bring camp-stools with them, and placing them in the passage between the benches, get an excellent position long after all the seats are filled. Others bring their work with them, and fill up the waiting half or whole hour with crotchet and knitting, guard and purse making. The gentlemen, it is said, bring magazines and books, and coolly sit reading till the lecturer makes his appearance.

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