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his one-sided argument, that in discussing the causes of the peculiar condition of Spain, he has passed over in total silence the discovery and conquest of America. If there be one event more than another in the history of mankind which has changed the destiny of nations, it is this; and Spain was the first country to feel the full effect of it. That spirit of adventure which had hitherto been consumed in the Moorish wars, was thenceforth, and for another century, poured forth on the New World. The whole economical condition of Spain was powerfully affected by the enormous quantities of the precious metals imported from America, and by the wealth obtained in daring or fortunate enterprises rather than by domestic industry. The powerful attraction of these Eldorados of the West weakened and demoralised the centre of Empire; and whatever may be the influence of Spanish superstition on the destiny of that people, we cannot entertain a doubt that the conquest of America, and the pernicious colonial policy which prevailed for nearly three centuries, had an equally powerful effect in corrupting the true sources of national prosperity. To this subject, however, Mr. Buckle does not allude in his Essay on Spain, because it is a special cause, not apparently falling within the law of general

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It is one of Mr. Buckle's favourite doctrines that governments, politicians, and even political institutions, have little or no permanent influence on human affairs-a maxim which, when applied to the course of history in any given country, leads him to very singular results. His entire sketch of the reign of Charles V. is comprised in the following lines:

Charles V., who succeeded Ferdinand in 1516, governed Spain for forty years, and the general character of his administration was the same as that of his predecessors. In regard to his foreign policy, his three principal wars were against France, against the German princes, and against Turkey. Of these, the first was secular; but the two last were essentially religious. In the German war, he defended the Church against innovation; and at the battle of Mühlberg, he so completely humbled the Protestant princes, as to retard for some time the progress of the Reformation. In his other great war, he, as the champion of Christianity against Mohammedanism, consummated what his grandfather Ferdinand had begun. Charles defeated and dislodged the Mohammedans in the East, just as Ferdinand had done in the West; the repulse of the Turks before Vienna being to the sixteenth century, what the conquest of the Arabs of Granada was to the fifteenth. It was, therefore, with reason that Charles, at the close of his career, could boast that he had always preferred his creed to his country, and that the first object of his ambition had been to maintain the interests of Christianity.' (Pp. 19, 20.)

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The passage is scarcely worth quoting, except for the extraordinary statement with which it concludes. Ferdinand and Isabella overthrew the Moorish kingdom of Granada, and the Moors ceased to rule in Spain. Did Charles V. defeat and dislodge the Mohammedans in the East, 'just as Ferdinand had 'done in the West'? The whole statement is a blunder or a fabrication, and may be taken as a signal example of Mr. Buckle's irrefragable accuracy.' So far was Charles V. from defeating and dislodging the Mohammedans in the East at any period of his reign, that Solyman the Magnificent was then at the height of his power, and Germany was continually threatened by his arms. Instead of Charles V. dislodging the Turks, the Turks more than once dislodged him. In 1526 the whole of Hungary was overrun, the battle of Mohacs fought, King Louis killed at it, and the Archduke Ferdinand assumed the Hungarian crown; but it was a crown without a kingdom. In 1529 Solyman invaded Austria and besieged Vienna itself; Charles was in Spain at the time, and took no part in the campaign; the defence of Vienna was entirely due to Ferdinand; but to compare the repulse of the Turks on that occasion to the conquest of Granada from the Moors, is a mere romance. So little did the Turks suffer from that repulse, that Solyman merely retired to Buda, and three years later Charles found himself obliged to take the field against the Sultan. Never, at any time, had the terror of the Turkish arms been more extreme. Germany was paralysed by the disunion which the Reformation had caused between the princes and states of the Empire. Charles condescended to send an ambassador to Constantinople, to propose, almost to sue for, peace. Solyman kept him waiting for a fortnight, contemptuously rejected his overture, and boasted that his object was not to attack the King of Hungary but the King of Spain. The Turkish army was again stopped in 1532, not by Charles, or at Vienna, but by the little fortress of Güns, vigorously defended by Nicolas Jurischitsch and in the following year peace was signed with the Turk, which Charles was anxious to conclude on any terms. The Emperor,' says Zinkeisen, in his excellent history of the Ottoman Empire*, ' was never in earnest in this Turkish war. 'He had neither liking nor energy for it.' This is what Mr. Buckle calls the other great war' of Charles V., which he conceives to have been carried on with religious enthusiasm, and to have done for Solyman the Magnificent what Ferdinand had done for the feeble and unfortunate Boabdil.

Zinkeisen, Geschichte der Osmanischen Reichs, vol. ii. p. 734.

Another event of more direct application to the condition of Spain is the destruction of the communeros of Castile, and of the political liberties of the country, in the rebellion of 1521. Mr. Buckle disposes very briefly of this occurrence, by asserting that it is quite certain that if the royalists had lost the battle of Villalar, instead of gaining it, the ultimate result would 'have been the same;' and further that as the spirit of free'dom never really existed in Spain, therefore the marks and 'forms of freedom were sure sooner or later to be effaced.' With regard to the first of these propositions, we remark that if it be true that 'general causes eventually triumph over every 'obstacle, and are irresistible in the average of affairs,' it is of no consequence whatever whether a battle is lost or won, or indeed whether any given event does or does not occur. But we may retort Mr. Buckle's argument on himself, by observing that those persons who think that the loss or gain of a battle does influence the course of human affairs, will reject his theory. In the second of the propositions quoted, he simply begs the whole question. Very different is the judgment of Principal Robertson on those memorable and mournful transactions: The grievances complained of and the remedies proposed by 'the English Commons in their contests with the Princes of the 'House of Stuart, particularly resemble those upon which the 'Juntas now insisted. But the Spaniards had already acquired 'ideas of their own liberty and independence, had formed bold ' and generous sentiments concerning government, and discovered an extent of political knowledge to which the English did not ' attain till more than a century afterwards.'*

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This again is a view of the Spanish character which does not suit Mr. Buckle's theory, and therefore the overthrow of the commons of Castile is omitted in his survey of the decline of Spain. In our judgment it is of all the causes of that decline the most potent and the most deplorable. The destruction of the constitutional rights of the nobles and the burgesses invested the Crown with absolute power: and the Crown of Spain invested with absolute power meant Philip II. in the plenitude of his malignant greatness, until it dwindled to Charles II. in the lowest degradation of human imbecility, or to Charles IV. in the last stages of swinish indulgence. We shall not follow Mr. Buckle through this portion of his Essay. Nothing that even he can say of that race of sanguinary and selfish bigots can exceed our abhorrence of them. But we deny that the Court of Madrid is to be regarded as the sole test of

*Robertson's Charles V., book iii. p. 168.

the spirit of the Spanish people. Mr. Buckle has fixed his attention on the records of a profligate and bigoted Court, but he knows absolutely nothing of the people of Spain. He never alludes to that sense of personal dignity and that spirit of local independence which under the worst of governments have still kept alive the spirit of a great people. We infer from the tenor of his observations that the information he has laboriously accumulated is entirely derived from books. There is not an indication of personal knowledge or original observation in his pages; and if he has ever visited Spain or even Scotland, we must conclude that he is absolutely devoid of the faculty of observing the living realities of the world. The consequence is that his sketch of these countries altogether wants the most essential qualities of truth and expression. It is a portrait drawn after a photograph with a certain amount of caricature in some of the more prominent features, and an entire failure in the general effect.

We have made but little progress in pointing out Mr. Buckle's blunders and omissions, for our remarks have been confined to the first twenty pages of his volume, and the whole work affords an equally fertile field for criticism. But we have said enough to show the value of this portion of his labours, though we had marked several other passages for comment. A passing allusion to one or two of them must suffice. Thus Mr. Buckle, not content with pointing out the temporary regeneration of Spain by the able and patriotic ministers of Charles III., calls that prince a man of great energy, en'lightened, indeed, in comparison with his subjects.' If Mr. Buckle will take the trouble to examine the first Lord Auckland's journal of his residence at the court of that prince, he will perceive to what this energy and enlightenment amounted. The reign of Charles III. was, by comparison, a brilliant period in the history of Spain, for she was neither robbed by foreigners nor torn by revolutions; and the consequence was a great and immediate improvement in her condition; but the personal merits of Charles III. himself have been considerably exaggerated by M. Rio and Archdeacon Coxe, who are Mr. Buckle's principal authorities.*

For example, he speaks after Rio of the agricultural settlements called La Carolina,' in the Sierra Morena, and of 6000 Dutch and Flemish invited to settle there. The settlers were not Dutch and Flemish, but German, and more especially Swiss. All the promises made to the settlers were broken; most of them perished miserably; and Don Pablo Olavide, a Peruvian, who was the author of

Mr. Buckle winds up this singular survey of the past history of Spain by some observations on the present condition of that country, which must be imputed to gross misrepresentation if they do not originate in still grosser ignorance. He asserts that no ameliorations can possibly be effected in Spain, which 'will penetrate below the surface, until the superstition of the 'people be weakened by the march of physical science' (p. 146.); he believes that in Spain there never has been a revolution properly so called'; and that Spain sleeps on untroubled, 'unheeding, impassive, receiving no impressions from the rest of the world, and making no impressions upon it' (p. 154.). It happens, unluckily for Mr. Buckle's theories and for his accuracy, that these statements are totally at variance with facts. We confidently assert that the progress made by Spain in the last ten years is great and astonishing. Mr. Buckle appears not to be aware that the Church and the ecclesiastical corporations have been divested of their enormous endowments; that the clergy are now paid a moderate stipend by the State; and that religious orders of men no longer exist in the kingdom, whilst those of women are greatly reduced. The operation of the law of Desamortizacion has thrown immense quantities of land into the market, and agriculture is making considerable progress. The finances of the kingdom have recovered their equilibrium; they have been judiciously applied in part to the organisation of a well-quipped and efficient army, and to the creation of a steam navy; a general system of railroads has already opened communication between Madrid and the Mediterranean-it will shortly be extended to the Pyrenees and the Atlantic ports; the press of Spain is liberally conducted and at least as free as that of any continental country; some progress has already been made in the reduction of custom-house duties; and the whole kingdom shows signs of prosperity and activity which have been unknown for centuries. It is true that deplorable traces of religious bigotry still linger in the country; the Queen is under the influence of a crazy nun, and the Government is

the scheme, narrowly escaped from the fury of the Inquisition. Mr. Buckle quotes from Muriel a passage, speaking of the town of 'Almuradiel, in the middle of the campo nuevo of Andalusia, for the 'rugged pass of Despeña Perros;' but he evidently misunderstands the passage, for Almuradiel lies north of the Sierra, and is not in Andalusia, but in the plain of La Mancha. In the reign of Charles III. he takes the pompous language of the Spanish historiographers for sober reality; but then Charles III. expelled the Jesuits and distrusted the priests, redeeming qualities in a Spanish king.

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