When Buckingham Came Down To Spain With Charles Of England, The Conde-Duque Of Olivares Was Shocked And Scandalized At The Relation Of Confidential Friendship That Existed Between The Prince And The Duke. The World Never Saw A Prouder Man Than Olivares.

His picture by Velazquez hangs side by side with that of his royal master in Madrid. You see at a glance that the count-duke is the better man physically, mentally, morally.

But he never dreamed it. He thought in his inmost heart that the best thing about him was the favor of the worthless fribble whom he governed.

Through all the vicissitudes of Spanish history the force of these married superstitions - reverence for the Church as distinguished from the fear of God, and reverence for the king as distinguished from respect for law - have been the ruling characteristics of the Spanish mind. Among the fatal effects of this has been the extinction of rational piety and rational patriotism. If a man was not a good Catholic he was pretty sure to be an atheist. If he did not honor the king he was an outlaw. The wretched story of Spanish dissensions beyond seas, and the loss of the vast American empire, is distinctly traceable to the exaggerated sentiment of personal honor, unrestrained by the absolute authority of the crown. It seems impossible for the Spaniard of history and tradition to obey anything out of his sight. The American provinces have been lost one by one through petty quarrels and colonial rivalries. At the first word of dispute their notion of honor obliges them to fly to arms, and when blood has been shed reconciliation is impossible. So weak is the principle of territorial loyalty, that whenever the Peninsula government finds it necessary to overrule some violence of its own soldiers, these find no difficulty in marching over to the insurrection, or raising a fresh rebellion of their own. So little progress has there been in Spain from the middle ages to to-day in true political science, that we see such butchers as Caballero and Valmaseda repeating to-day the crimes and follies of Cortes and Pamfilo Narvaez, of Pizarro and Almagro, and the revolt of the bloodthirsty volunteers of the Havana is only a question of time.

It is true that in later years there has been the beginning of a better system of thought and discussion in Spain. But the old tradition still holds its own gallantly in Church and state. Nowhere in the world are the forms of religion so rigidly observed, and the precepts of Christian morality less regarded. The most facile beauties in Madrid are severe as Minervas on Holy Thursday. I have seen a dozen fast men at the door of a gambling-house fall on their knees in the dust as the Host passed by in the street. Yet the fair were no less frail and the senoritos were no less profligate for this unfeigned reverence for the outside of the cup and platter.

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