monument to the might of Time, their common destroyer.

The glorious recollections of chivalry too, haunted, and hovered over the spot. The wild dreams of poetry-of knights and ladies-rich banquets and gorgeous festivals-the joust and the tournament; schools of romantic honour which lent a polish to the stern and warlike character of the age;-the submission of power to beauty, and strength to weakness ;— these, and similar reflections, thronged upon my mind, until fancy almost upreared the perished halls and shattered towers, and peopled the scene with plumed dames and crested warriors, with enthusiastic minstrels and liveried retainers,-all the enchanting pomp and circumstance with which we love to array times and localities, whose distance softens their harsher lineaments, as the veil that hides the features of loveliness, whilst it weakens our perception of their imperfections, enhances in imagination the in.. fluence of their charms.

"Alas!" the dreamer would say, in his moments of creative musing," that these things should be no more! That the noble thoughts and lofty aspirations of the children of chivalry should be lost in the cold policy of statesmen and the mechanic organization of modern warfare. Their love and deep loyalty, courage, and fond devotion; a watchfulness of honour, that knew no stain and brooked no insult,

that, hung a living halo, an impelling spirit around the hearts and feelings of men. Then love was purchased with long service, and service was no burthen when love lightened its chains :-devoted to two ends only, the candidate for love and fame pursued his way, regardless of consequences, either to win by success, the reward of his endeavours, or to perish in the pursuit, attended to the grave by the tears of beauty and the approval of valour."

I determined not to leave this part of the country without paying some further visits to a spot which had laid so forcible a hold upon my feelings. Accordingly I went once, and again. I traced ruins, examined inscriptions, studied arches, and busied myself as much and to as little purpose as a zealous antiquarian who had just added to his name the importance of F.A.S. would have done.

In my researches, I met with an old man who was a more curious, I had almost said, a more antique relic than any I had encountered at Saguntum. Besides his extraordinary physiognomy, the keenness and tenuity of which seemed to me fraught with much meditation, he appeared the most positive and captious old gentleman I had ever met with. In the course of his investigations he had formed divers theories, some of them, it must be admitted, almost as plausible as many which the kindness and generosity of my own countrymen have, at various times,

benevolently patronized. Jerome Casos, for so my ancient friend was entitled, lamented exceedingly his not having lived at the time of the Saracensfrom his appearance one would have sworn he hadin order that he might have done the state some service by putting in practice a recipe of his own for conversion of the unbelievers to christianity.

What, however, constituted the principal attraction which induced me to seek an acquaintance with this eccentric person, was the fund of traditionary stories he had accumulated relative to the Fortress and its former possessors. To all other relations, historical or topographical, he turned a deaf ear; they were to him foolishness: but when I indulged in any conjecture or observation at all connected with this, his local hobby-horse, his instantaneous attention, the gleaming of his little eyes, and the pricking up of his chin and nose, expressed the interest he took in the subject. One of these stories, in some measure pruned of the redundancies with which he had encumbered it, I have translated from my journal for the amusement of the reader:

DURING the early contentions between the native Spaniards and their Moorish invaders, (the exact period my informant's chronology was inadequate to supply) the fortress of Saguntum was in the possession of a Spanish Grandee, the representative of

an ancient and distinguished family. The patrimony which had descended to him, unwasted by the excesses of the succeeding owners, had rather increased than otherwise, and Sebastian de Alzavar found himself consequently, on the death of his father, a man of considerable opulence and importance; that is to say, he was owner of the castle of Saguntum, with its domains, and of divers quantities of armour, offensive and defensive, the use of which to define, would infallibly turn the brains of a society of antiquaries of the present day. His sway extended over a tolerable range of territory, the cultivation of a small part of which supplied the Hidalgo and his retainers with the means of pasture for their cattle, and some few vegetable productions; and the much larger portion which constituted the remainder of his petty kingdom, (for, in those days, every noble in his own domain was a monarch) lay waste and barren, except where a few wild olives and straggling shrubs benevolently sprang up of their own accord to enliven the scene. A host of raggamuffins, who protected themselves from the weather by steel caps and quilted doublets, strong enough to withstand a smart stroke from a sword, occupied one spacious department of the buildings, and, on condition of killing and being killed whenever their lord thought proper to demand their services, and of amusing themselves in the interim with duck stones and