reply, but beckoned to some one from without, and Niel Utterson immediately appeared: They made an obeisance to the traveller. 66 My friends," said the Englishman, "this is dealing nobly by me,-I understand it well-" He paused for a moment. "Will 100 dollars be of service to you?" "One hundred dollars," exclaimed Utterson, briskly, "will make me the master of 200 deer, and with care"-added he, turning to his companion, we may be the richest of the mountain Laps." "Take them, my

WERE men and women the spontaneous produce of the earth, as some persons believe mushrooms to be, it would be easy to conceive that their character, mental and corporeal, should depend upon soil and climate. But this spontaneous generation, which has been doubted even of the fungous species, has, except by Dr. Darwin, scarcely been asserted of the human race for the last thousand or two of years; and how the members of one family, the offspring of one pair, should be thus stamped with permanent differences by variety of longitude and latitude, is incomprehensible to weak intellects. The fact can however, hardly be disputed, when, to take a single well-known instance from amongst many, we see Cæsar's description of the Gauls in his Commentaries, so appropriately applicable-allowing for the changes inevitably introduced by the progress of civilisation, and the institution of Christianity for Druidism-to the modern French; and that, notwithstanding the influx of German Franks to modify their Celtic nature. But, fortunately for the reader and writer, it is not the business of the Court Magazine to perplex its pages with metaphysical inquiries into the How and the Why of admitted facts; therefore, leaving it to the profounder portion of the periodical confraternity to explain the influence thus strangely exercised over the human character, we will occupy ourselves more amusingly with seeking in history for illustrations of the existence of such influence.

Let us begin with the south-western extremity of Europe, and consider what are the peculiarities that have always distinguished the Spaniard. He is impassioned, but that

quality he shares with the inhabitants of all southern climates. He is more especially temperate, valiant, boastful, arrogant, punctilious, vindictive, bigoted, self-willed, selfsacrificing. Some of these qualities are found amongst other nations, and separately they may be referred to various influential causes, moral, political, or physical; but, collectively, we derive them all, good and bad, from one master passion, pride. Pride teaches the Spaniard to disdain enjoyments that must be purchased by the smallest forfeiture of dignity or of self-esteem, and to sacrifice every earthly consideration, even the tenderest of the natural affections, to the fulfilment of a promise, as it prompts him never to forgive the slightest injury. It is needless to lengthen this enumeration. The reader addicted to such speculations can pursue them without our aid, and we proceed to illustrate what has been said, by selecting a few anecdotes from the old Spanish historians. The first that presents itself is an incident from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, or to conform to the Spanish nomenclature, Fernando and Isabel, which places the punctiliousness of Spaniards in various lights, trifling, noble, and criminal, but in every one clearly deducible from the single principle of pride.

In the year 1481, Queen Isabel held her court at Valladolid, where she sojourned on her way to rejoin her consort in Aragon. She was attended by many fair and high born ladies, who, in the language of the day and country, were served or courted by numerous noble caballeros,—a courtship which, having no reference to marriage, must, at least under the austerely chaste Isabel, have been a mere

piece of platonic gallantry. Amongst others, the beautiful Donna Teresa Capata was thus served by Don Fadrique Henriquez,† son to the Almirante of Castile, a youth for whom a brilliant marriage was even then in negociation with a Sicilian heiress, the Condesa de Medica-of such wealth and distinction that she had been thought of for king Fernando, prior to his union with the Princess of Castile: and the equally beautiful Donna Clara Manuel received the homage of Don Ramiro Nunez de Guzman, Senor de Toral, a Leonese nobleman, who had recently left a lovely and beloved affianced bride, Donna Maria de Quinnones, daughter to the Conde Luna, in her father's castle.

Don

The presence-chamber was full. Ramiro knelt on one knee before Donna Clara, in earnest discourse. A little beyond them stood Donna Teresa, whom her caballero could only reach by passing betwixt the first-named pair. Don Ramiro courteously rose to make way. Don Fadrique stepped between him and his dama, but there paused, bent his knee, and entered into conversation with Donna Clara. To this act of gross rudeness he was impelled by a wish to retaliate upon the Le senor caballero the mortification he had occasioned to the Conde de Benalcaçar, the husband of Don Fadrique's sister, and a favoured servi'dor of Donna Clara, until the newly-arrived Senor de Toral had obtained the preference. Don Ramiro, deeply as he felt the insult, bore it silently, from respect to the queen. But now, the crowd pressing forwards, drove him upon Don Fadrique, who, presuming upon Guzman's previous endurance, called aloud to Garci Laso de la Vega, her majesty's maestro de sala, to prevent such troublesome ill-breeding; and when that also passed unnoticed, threatened to have the clownish Leonese threshed. Don Ramiro's decorous patience was by this time exhausted; he retorted upon Don Fadrique, and high words were exchanged.

The transaction had not passed unnoticed. The presence-chamber and the adjoining council chamber rang with the quarrel. The

In order to avoid perplexing such as may like to see this story in Garibay, from whom we take it, we should state that three of the ladies mentioned being Donna Marias, we have new christened the two of

least importance.

The family of the Henriquez were of the royal

blood, descending from Don Fadrique, one of Alfonso II.'s sons by Donna Leonor de Guzman, and was as legitimate as the reigning branch, which descended from Henrique de Transtamar, another of those sons. But the Almirante was more closely connected with Fernando, the then king; Donna Juana Henriquez, the second wife of Juan II. of Aragon and Navarre, and Fernando's mother, being his sister.

haughty almirante complained to the queen of the offence offered to his son; and her majesty inquired of the maestro de sala what had really occurred. She learned that Henriquez was the aggressor, and ordered both disputants into temporary confinement; assigning to Don Fadrique a kinsman's house as his prison, and committing Don Ramiro to the custody of Garci Laso de la Vega.

The next day Isabel, summoning the almirante and the maestro de sala, and two or three elderly nobles to her presence, commanded them to reconcile the youthful gallants. The almirante demurred, and requested that they might be allowed to settle their dispute themselves; but the queen told him that she would not suffer Don Ramiro, who had been insulted, to be overborne by the superior wealth, power, and connexion of the Henriquez. The almirante at length reluctantly submitted, and pledged his word that no offence whatsoever should thenceforward be given to the Senor de Toral by his son, himself, or any one belonging to him. Whereupon Isabel sent a message to Don Ramiro, charging him to rest satisfied, his life and honour being under her royal safeguard; and requesting that he would be the first to salute Don Fadrique when they should meet. Both young men were then released from their durance.

Don Ramiro scrupulously obeyed the queen's commands, and saluted his late antagonist when they met at the palace gate. Don Fadrique, with punctilious courtesy, returned his greeting. All the Henriquez family treated him with studied politeness; and for two or three days the reconciliation appeared to be complete, if not cordial. At the end of that brief period the scene changed. A party of Don Fadrique's servants and followers, well armed and mounted, waylaid Don Ramiro, surprised him during a solitary ramble with his brother, Don Pero Nunez de Guzman, struck him several blows with the shafts of their spears, and galloped off. The Guzmans, being unarmed, could no more defend themselves against their brutal assailants, than they could on foot pursue horse

men..

The rage and despair of the outraged caballero are not to be described, nor could the burst of universal sympathy produced by the event, soothe his pangs. The whole court visited him; the president of Castile professed, by message, his sense of the insult offered to a spotless noble; the queen's indignation was unbounded, and Don Fadrique fled from her wrath. But the ignominy of blows could not

be thus alleviated, and Don Ramiro, the scalding tears of agony rolling down his cheeks, left the court, accompanied by his brother, and retired to Toral, there to meditate the means of expiating, by avenging, his wrongs.

Isabel meanwhile sought to supersede the necessity for sanguinary measures on the part of the Guzmans, by giving Don Ramiro public and ample satisfaction. She immediately sent for the almirante, and thus addressed him: "Since when, Senor Almirante, is it a Castilian usage for caballeros to outrage their sovereign? Behold the queen of Spain insulted and beaten! Behold the royal majesty degraded! Your son, presuming upon your relationship to the king, has broken my commands along with your own word. But I shall teach both father and son to repent such foul dealing."

The almirante endeavoured to palliate his son's guilt, but the queen turned a deaf ear to his excuses, and called for her horses. The attendants prayed her to observe that the rain was falling in torrents; but she, regardless of all save the violation of her safeguard, mounted, and followed only by the almirante and one or two servants, set forward for the Henriquez castle of Simaneas, where she imagined the offender might have secreted himself. Her usual attendants, and the young nobles who formed her court, mounted upon hearing of her departure, and hurried after her; but so rapidly did she pursue her way, that they almost despaired of overtaking the royal equestrian. They did succeed, however, and she appeared before Simaneas at the head of a gallant band.

Upon her arrival, the queen demanded the person of Don Fadrique Henriquez; and when the alcayde denied his being there, ordered Don Alonzo de Fonseca to search the castle. He obeyed, but found no traces of the offender. She then required the almirante either to deliver up his son, or to surrender his two castles of Simaneas and Rio Seco into her hands, as pledges for his future appearance. The almirante protesting his ignorance of his son's place of concealment, gave up the castles; and Isabel, leaving Fonseca in charge of Simaneas, returned with her train to Valladolid.

Vexation, fatigue, and exposure to the inclement weather, had disordered the queen; and the next day she kept her bed. But when respectfully questioned touching her malady, she said nothing of such mere physical ailments, answering, "I am suffering the pain of the blows struck yesterday by

Don Fadrique, in violation of my plighted word." The almirante seeing the vehemence of her resentment, durst no longer rely upon his high rank, and delivered up his son in exchange for his two castles; humbly beseeching her majesty to accept this submission in atonement of an act of juvenile indiscretion, and to forgive Don Fadrique. But Isabel's anger was not to be so lightly appeased; and she sent the youthful kinsman of her consort to the castle of Arevalo, where she commanded the alcayde to keep him a close prisoner.

All this appeared insufficient redress to Don Ramiro, who held the stain upon his honour only to be effaced by the blood of his insulter. He would not present himself as a disgraced man before the eyes of his affianced bride, and, shut up at Toral, he brooded over the means of obtaining satisfaction. His first idea was to tear Don Fadrique out of the hands of the alcayde of Arevalo, and he despatched a confidential friend, Don Gonzale de Prado, to explore the strength of the castle, and ascertain the feasibility of the project. But Arevalo was strong, the alcayde, aware that Guzman could not as yet be satisfied, upon his guard, and Don Gonzalo reported the scheme to be hopeless.

The principal offender being thus beyond his reach, Don Ramiro turned his thoughts

to

taking vengeance upon the father, who, if he had not actually sanctioned the ruffianly conduct of his son, had at least been, in legal phrase, an accessory after the fact. Guzman now despatched another trusty friend, Don Alvaro de Valderas, to court, to inquire into the daily habits of the almirante, and discover how he might be best surprised; violence and treachery being accounted, it should seem, the proper modes of avenging an outrage so ungentlemanlike as that Don Fadrique had perpetrated. A village not far from Valladolid had been named, where, upon an appointed day, Valderas should meet his friends to concert ultimate measures. Through innumerable difficulties, surmounted by his invincible determination, Don Ramiro, journeying by obscure paths, conducted his party; but reached the place of meeting only to learn the frustration of his hopes. Valderas had imparted the object of his mission to Garci Franco, whom, his eldest son having lately married Donna Isabel, Don Ramiro's sister, he deemed a certain assistant. But Garci Franco was a courtier, and sought the almirante's patronage by revealing the design.

He gained his reward, and the Guzmans returned gloomily to Toral.

Here they were visited by a royal messenger. The almirante informed the queen of the meditated outrage, and she, in consequence, sent to demand Don Ramiro's promise, that he would attempt nothing further against the uncle of Fernando. Isabel was then on the point of proceeding to Aragon; and Guzman pledged his word, as required, for the period of her absence, and for twentyfive days after her return to her own dominions, reserving to himself full liberty to act subsequently as his honour might require. The queen was so well pleased with this limited obedience, that, ere she quitted Valladolid, she rewarded it by banishing Don Fadrique to Sicily. But as a fair and wealthy bride there awaited the offender, such an exile was little satisfactory to Don Ramiro, and he implored Isabel's permission to engage Don Fadrique in single combat ere he should leave Spain. She replied, that was no question for a woman's decision, and he must forbear until the king's return from Aragon; when Fernando would assure his honour, and, should all other means appear insufficient, compel Henriquez to meet him in duel.

Don Ramiro scrupulously observed his promise; but he spent the time during which he had bound himself to inaction, in preparing for the hour when he should again be free. His horses and servants were carefully trained and exercised. He himself performed a pilgrimage to the shrine of San Salvador at Oviedo, where a jubilee was in celebration, for the purpose of either putting his enemies off their guard by appearing engrossed with his devotions, or imploring the benediction of heaven upon his projectspossibly for both purposes combined. Upon his return home, Don Ramiro found at Toral his uncle Don Pedro de Guzman, whom he had invited thither to assist in his deliberations. A duel with a man who had trampled every law of honour under foot in his conduct towards Don Ramiro, was held a mere pis aller, and the preferable object was to make the father pay for the son. The brothers had intended putting the almirante to death; but the uncle dissuaded them from so sanguinary a course, recommending simple and overt retaliation in kind. It was then resolved to thresh the almirante, or perish in the attempt.

Still Don Ramiro was determined that his conduct should in every respect contrast advantageously with Don Fadrique's; and he remained quiet, not only during the time for which he had promised, but for some days beyond the specified twenty-five, after the king and queen's return from Aragon. Then

he sent forward his friends and servants by several roads, to avoid observation, appointing a rendezvous at the village of Rueda, in the immediate neighbourhood of Medina del Campo, where the court then was. He himself rode alone with Valderas. At Rueda they all met, and remained concealed till nightfall; then entering Medina del Campo under shelter of the darkness, reached the great plaza in front of the palace unnoticed. Here Don Ramiro placed his company in ambuscade under the portico of an adjacent church, and quietly awaited the appearance of his intended victim, who was, as he knew, with other noblemen, in attendance upon the sovereign.

At length the palace-gates opened, and the almirante, accompanied by the Marquez de Astorga, and attended by a train of servants bearing torches, came forth. The Guzmans and their troop rushed upon them, and by the suddenness of the surprise, notwithstanding the vigorous resistance of the almirante's numerous party, effected their purpose. They inflicted upon the king's uncle such dishonouring blows, as Don Ramiro had endured from Don Fadrique's myrmidons.

Don Ramiro was now satisfied. The lights had been extinguished in the contest, and darkness favoured the retreat, as it had the entrance of the assailants. Don Ramiro had secured the key of the bridge gate; and his company had no sooner passed out, than, locking the barrier, he flung the key into the river. He thus gained a great advantage upon his pursuers, and riding hard, they reached Toral in safety.

Here Don Ramiro left the care of preparing for defence to his uncle and brother, and hastening to Leon, visited the monastery of San Domingo, where his ancestors were buried. There, before a large concourse of persons, he declared that he had never ventured to look at the graves of those great men since the affront put upon him; but that now, his honour being vindicated, he came to avouch himself once more their worthy descendant. Thence he repaired to the Conde de Luna's castle, to visit that betrothed bride from whose presence he had similarly banished himself, whilst he held himself a dishonored man. He was joyfully welcomed by Donna Maria.

From this happy visit he was recalled by the advance of the royal forces to besiege Toral. But Isabel's displeasure at the late outrage committed under her very windows, seems to have been tempered as well by her

sense of the wrongs Don Ramiro had originally suffered, as by his strict fidelity to his engagements; and when Don Pedro, who had not been personally concerned in the assault, interfered, she readily agreed to a compromise. Don Ramiro's crime was referred to a court of justice; and his person and estates were provisionally committed to the care of his kinsman, the Conde de Feria, who was to be duly forewarned of the impending sentence. Accordingly, when the proceedings drew to a close, notice was given to the Conde, and Don Ramiro escaped into Portugal. His estates were sequestrated.

In Portugal Guzman remained some years highly honoured by the king. At length the almirante died, and was succeeded by Don Fadrique. This impetuous caballero had now

grown older, and it is to be hoped wiser, He was probably conscious of the gross impropriety of his own conduct, whence so much mischief had arisen, and he opened a negociation with Donna Maria de Osorio, Don Ramiro's mother, who in consequence visited the court, and solicited the Queen's compassion for her exiled son. Isabel was not inexorable, and gradually remitted Don Ramiro's punishment. He was first allowed to return to the Conde de Feria's domains; then to return to Leon and complete his long deferred nuptials. Finally, his estates, which on his return had been made over to his mother, were restored to him, and the only permanent mark of royal displeasure at his violent mode of redressing his insulted honour, was a prohibition never to appear at court.

THE wind howled fearfully. The spirit of the storm moved upon the face of the deep, while a pall seemed to be hung between it and the sky. Not a star was seen in the heavens. The rack rolled dark and ominously below, while the blasts roared loud and menacing above. A single boat was on the wide waters, bravely contending with the rising surges, which threatened every moment to engulf her. Not a word was uttered by the sturdy rowers. In silence and in darkness she ploughed her perilous way, while they strained at their oars as if it were a matter of life and death. The only light visible through the intense obscurity, was that produced by the continual clashing of the billows or the regular dash of the oars. Onward they urged their sturdy bark, vigorously, yet warily, without exchanging a word, while at every momentary cessation of the blast, the fierce hush of the waters as they rolled hissing onward to the shore, seemed vocally as it were to command that silence which was so strictly obeyed by the boat's crew. The waves continued to rise as the boat advanced, for the storm was increasing rapidly, and every now and then rolled in a heavy volume over

her side, nearly swamping her, and absolutely drenching the hardy adventurers who were anxiously urging her towards the land. A man was constantly employed in baling her; still the deepest silence prevailed-not a syllable was exchanged-until a faint light suddenly appeared from the shore, now evidently at no very great distance, when one of the men turned his head towards the helmsınan and said, "to larboard." “Ay, ay," was the immediate and only answer, and their exertions were instantly redoubled. The light was but faintly seen through the murky atmosphere in which they were absolutely shrouded. The boat laboured heavily through the billows which reared teir foaming crests above her, with an aspect alarmingly menacing. She was deeply laden, and rose sullenly on the broad surges as they lifted her heavy hull upon their liquid bosoms.

She gradually neared the shore, when the light became every minute more distinct, still not a word was uttered. The wind continued to increase, and the waves to rise, until the danger was fearfully imminent; nevertheless, the daring crew, as steady in the hour of peril as resolute of purpose under any