The Group Does Not Include That Poor Bloody Mary Of England, Who Should Have Been The Fourth There, For Surely She Suffered Enough For His Faith And Him To Be Of His Domestic Circle Forever.

IV It is the distinct merit of the Escorial that it does not, and perhaps cannot take long in doing; otherwise the doer could not bear it.

A look round the sumptuous burial chamber of the sovereigns below the high altar of the church; a glance at the lesser sepulchral glories of the infantes and infantas in their chapels and corridors, suffices for the funereal third of the trinity of tomb and temple and palace; and though there are gayer constituents of the last, especially the gallery of the chapter-house, with its surprisingly lively frescoes and its sometimes startling canvases, there is not much that need really keep you from the royal apartments which seem the natural end of your visit. Of these something better can be said than that they are no worse than most other royal apartments; our guide led us to them through many granite courts and corridors where we left groups of unguided Americans still maddening over their Baedekers; and we found them hung with pleasing tapestries, some after such designs of Goya's as one finds in the basement of the Prado. The furniture was in certain rooms cheerily upholstered in crimson and salmon without sense of color, but as if seeking relief from the gray of the church; and there are battle-pieces on the walls, fights between Moors and Christians, which interested me.

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