curious. Many are of general interest, as throwing new light upon points long involved in obscurity, or made darker by controversy, or as affording instructive and entertaining illustrations of the known characters of historical personages; whilst others will, it must be owned, appear indifferent to all but the especial historical student. The only way in which we can give our readers a correct and fair notion of these volumes, is to select some one of the most interesting points that Raumer has investigated, and, alternately translating and abstracting, lay before them what he has thereupon brought to light. The first that presents itself, is the fate of Don Carlos, son of Philip II. of Spain.

As we are not writing to Ludwig Tieck, we doubt it may be expected of us to add some little of the explanation he did not require, and we shall, therefore, begin by briefly stating what is known, and what has been conjectured, concerning the unfortunate Spanish prince. The certain facts respecting him are merely these that when he had barely attained the age of thirteen, a marriage was arranged between him, and Elizabeth de Valois, daughter of Henry II. of France; that a few months afterwards, Mary of England dying, Philip II., who had then scarcely seen two and thirty summers, took the French princess to himself as his third wife; that during the Netherlands insurrection Carlos fell under his father's displeasure or suspicion, was imprisoned, deprived of arms, and watched with great apparent apprehension of his committing suicide; and, that in this captivity he died.

Philip II. was, perhaps, the very beau idéal of intolerant bigotry. In the eyes of contemporary Protestants, he was a sort of avatar of the embodied spirit of cruelty and persecution; whilst even to moderate Catholics his intolerance was repugnant, and to all Europe, setting religious considerations aside, his vast possessions, his seemingly boundless power, and his grasping ambition, rendered him an object of dread. Any action of such a monarch that could be regarded under two aspects, was not likely to be contemplated under the most favourable by foreign historians; and Don Carlos's fate has been conceived and related accordingly. Protestant writers have generally represented the prince as an enthusiast for liberal opinions in religion and politics, who opposed the baneful influence of the Duke of Alva, wished to be appointed Viceroy of the Low Countries, in order to befriend the oppressed Netherlanders, and was, therefore, either put to death by his father's express command, or by him delivered over to the Inquisition, to be dealt with, according to the tender mercies of that tribunal, as a heretic. French writers, detesting Philip as an enemy to France, but not as yet impassioned

for such notions as the Protestants imputed to Carlos, sought a more romantic cause for his misfortunes. They represent him as ardently enamoured (at thirteen!) of his stolen bride, and persevering in his hopeless passion after she had become his stepmother-as tenderly, though innocently, beloved in return by the French Princess, both before and after her marriage-and as abhorred and murdered by his father, through the outrageous jealousy of a suspicious old man (of forty!) with a young wife; which jealousy further prompted Philip a few weeks later to poison his unhappy queen.* This last version of the story, as the most pathetic, has been generally adopted by poets and novelists, and the two combined have afforded to Alfieri, and to Schiller, the subject of their splendid tragedies of Filippo II., and Don Karlos. Spanish historians, on the other hand, depict Don Carlos as deformed in person, vicious in disposition, and weak, if not disordered, in intellect. They ascribe his imprisonment to the double, but thoroughly paternal motive of restraining and of correcting his follies and excesses; and state that he died of a malady, brought on, intentionally or unintentionally, by alternations of immoderate abstinence and as immoderate intemperance.

Can it be necessary that we should here pause to comment upon these contradictory statements? Need we direct the reader's attention to the plain, straight-forward probability of the Spanish accounts? Accounts too, given by men who, if they had no access to Philip's cabinet, to his conferences with his most trusted counsellors, or to that more secret cabinet, the recesses of his own mind, where alone his most important resolutions were taken, were yet thoroughly, often personally, acquainted with the character and conduct of Don Carlos; and public report, be it remembered, is generally indulgent to heirs. Need we compare these accounts with the private or the public romance of Philip's enemies? A few words upon the subject may, however, be allowed us. That a prince, esteemed at his father's court half-witted, or half-mad, should have thought himself capable of ruling and tranquillising an insurgent province, is certainly very possible; but who would be at the trouble of seeking any other motive for the royal father's refusal to intrust such a son with such a charge, except the natural one, of his real unfitness for it, and the certain evils that unfitness must produce to that province? For, be it observed, Philip, however tyrannical, seems to have been honest in his bigotry. He appears to have really believed that he was doing his best to save his subjects' souls, by inflicting tortures on their bodies; and he re

It should be stated, that the Prince of Orange, in his Apology, distinctly charges Philip with the murder of his wife as well as of his son.

peatedly prayed for grace and fortitude to prefer the loss of his realms to power obtained by reigning over heretics or misbelievers. As to the love tale, the supposititious ardent and lasting passion of a school-boy for a princess whom he had never even seen, is too absurd even to laugh at; and, with regard to the fair bride herself, we suspect that there are few princesses, who, placed in her situation and permitted to choose for themselves, would not prefer a reigning king, in the prime of manhood, to a boy-heir, who could not in the course of nature expect to ascend the throne in less than thirty or forty years. But without further discussion, let us now turn to Raumer, and see what additional light is thrown upon this mysterious transaction, or rather how far the plain Spanish statement is confirmed by his extracts from the letters addressed by the French ambassadors at Philip's court to the brother and the mother of the young queen.

The first extract he gives, is, however, from another source. It is taken from a relation by the Venetian Badoero, written in 1557, when Carlos was only twelve years' old, and gives an account of him from which either a lofty or a savage character, perhaps a mixture of the two, might have been prognosticated. He says, amongst other things, that he had an animo fiero, which Raumer, to our surprise, renders stolzer Sinn, or proud spirit; proud is undoubtedly one meaning of fiero, but fierce is another, and considering that the instances adduced are the young prince's liking to see hares roasted alive, and his biting off the head of a lizard that had bitten his finger, there is, to our mind, little doubt as to the sense in which Badoero used the word. Charles V. is herein represented as much pleased with his grandson; and so he might well be, though it is certain that he was perfectly aware of his faults, and charged Philip not to let the Netherlanders see him

until he should be better behaved.

In 1561, Guibert, the French ambassador, announces to Catherine of Medicis the hopeless state of the prince's health. In November of the same year we find him, still far from well, sent to study at Alcalà, with Don Juan of Austria, and the Prince of Parma; and learn, still from Guibert, that the Queen of Bohemia had written to Queen Isabel, as, in compliance with Spanish custom, we must henceforward call Elizabeth de Valois, to propose a marriage between her daughter, the Archduchess Anne, and the Prince of Spain; a proposal which Isabel did not encourage, because she wished to unite her step-son to her own sister. At Alcalà, Carlos, who had now, in May, 1562, completed his seventeenth year, and whose passions of all sorts were alike unbridled, in stealing out by some unfrequented way to visit the pretty daughter of a gardener, fell down stairs and dangerously injured his head. His life was long despaired of; St.

Sulpice, a new French ambassador, writes on the 10th of May that he is to be trepanned; and some Spanish historians relate that Philip effected his cure miraculously, through the personal intervention of a peculiarly holy image of the Blessed Virgin. It should seem that the cure scarcely extended to the mind; for Raumer finds in a letter, dated January, 1565, consequently when the prince was twenty, and addressed by Hopper to Cardinal Granvelle, (almost the whole of whose correspondence is extant,) the following curious expression.

"There is nothing to be made of Don Carlos. He believes all that is said to him; and were he even told that he was dead, he would believe it."

Having thus shown the opinion early entertained of Carlos, Raumer turns to Isabel, one main point of the inquiry being the probability or improbability of any thing like an illicit attachment between the queen and her step-son.

In February, 1562, Guibert writes to Queen Catherine; King Philip continues to love his consort more and more. If others say to the contrary, that is all bugbears (épouvantaux à chenevières) and lies; rather the consideration and influence of your daughter have tripled in the last three months, and her husband appears serene and contented.' *** In June, 1564, St. Sulpice writes, the Queen of Spain is good and handsome, and not less joyous and satisfied at her lord's return, than she was troubled at his journey and long absence,' * * * In August, 1565, he writes to Catherine: The king and queen received each other (after her journey to Bayonne) as affectionately as can be imagined, and each tried which could show the other most honour. At Sepulveda they inhabited one house, ay one very small room, and remained together there till five o'clock in the afternoon of the next day. Then they travelled five leagues together, and reached Segovia the day following. Prince Carlos rode three leagues to meet them, approached the queen on foot, and laboured (travailla) to take her hand and kiss it; nor did she neglect to return his salutation.

'I can assure you, madam, that the queen your daughter lives in the greatest contentment in the world, through the perfect kindness which the king her husband more and more shows her. He daily makes confidential communications to her, and is so friendly in his behaviour, that nothing more can be desired. Moreover, the king has received such favourable reports of her virtuous conduct during the whole journey, and is so satisfied therewith, that he always loves, esteems, and honours her.'

Then come accounts of the queen's wish to marry Don Carlos to a French princess, of a relapse of the prince's malady, and of the king's anxiety concerning his health, both corporal and mental. After all this, St. Sulpice, in September 1565, relates a conversation between Isabel and Carlos, than which, assuredly, nothing can be less like love on either side. He says:

"The king and queen repaired to a country house, whither the prince came after his recovery. As he was one day driving out with the queen and her ladies in the park, in a carriage drawn by oxen, he remained a long time silent, when the queen asked him, where he was with his thoughts? He answered, More than 200 miles hence. And where is that, so far off? asked the queen further. The prince rejoined, I was thinking of my cousin." [Meaning, probably, the archduchess, his marriage with whom was in negotiation.]

Having thus shown that Isabel was reasonably happy with Philip, as happy, probably, as most queens, and that her stepson neither made love to her, nor was jealously excluded from her society, Raumer proceeds to the more eventful period of Carlos's history. On the 19th of January, 1568, another French ambassador, Fourquevaulx, writes thus :

"The 14th instant, the king sent orders to all the churches and cloisters in this town, commanding that at all masses, and all canonical hours, prayers should be offered up, imploring God to grant him counsel and inspiration relative to a plan which he broods in his heart. This has given all the curious at court something to talk about, and I am not quite certain whether it refers to the prince. True it is, however, that long before his journey to the Escurial, the king had not spoken to him, great discontents prevailed between them, and the prince could not conceal the rancour he nourished in his heart against his father. Far from it, he indiscreetly said, Amongst five persons to whom I bear most ill will, the king is, after Ruy Gomez, the first.' To the charge of this last he lays whatever thwarts his wishes.

"It is well known that at Christmas he did not receive the communion, or obtain any share in the jubilee, because he would not renounce his hatred and forgive, wherefore his confessor would not give him absolution. Hereupon he applied to other theologians, but received the same answer. There are even people who say, that he meant to do his father an ill turn. But however that be, the king went last night into the prince's room, found a loaded pistol in the bed, and committed him to the charge of Ruy Gomez, the Duke of Feria, the Prior Antonio, and Don Lope Quichada, with express orders that he should speak to no living soul, save in their sight and hearing.

"I understand further, that Don Juan of Austria has absented himself since Saturday, and know not whether he shuns the king or the prince. But he was with the former at the Escurial till the preceding Saturday, and after the return went as usual to him, in company with the prince. The king took no notice of the latter, but spoke very kindly to the former. Now, perhaps, it was jealousy, or mistrust lest Don Juan might have betrayed his secrets, so seized the prince, that he insulted him as they left the king: perhaps he was influenced by other motives; suffice it, since that evening Don Juan is not seen, and the whole court talks of nothing but the prince's arrest."

The next despatch, dated the 5th of February, contains Philip's account of the transaction to Fourquevauls. This must of course be considered as a partial statement, but is nevertheless import