ERRATA. VOL. I. Page 214, line 16, for "Alexander" read "Hildebrand." 284, heading of section, for "III" read "II." 322, line 5, for "brother " read “cousin." 378, line 36, for "el" read "la." VOL. II. Page 59, line 33, for "Joanna in 1481," read “Isabella in 1470.” ,, 189, line 15, for "Gregory XIII.," read "Paul II.", INTRODUCTION. THE great difficulty that besets even the most modest compiler of anything like a comprehensive History of Spain, is the difficulty of concentration of interest. The regions to be traversed are so immense and so boundless, the byways are so numerous and so inviting, that it is often hard to know which is the great central track that must be taken, if the end is ever to be reached. The development and decline of the Roman Empire, the overrunning of Europe by the Northern Barbarians, the origin of the political power of the Christian Church, the rise and fall of Mohammedanism in Western Europe, the discovery and colonization of America; these are five of the most interesting and most important of the phases of human progress during the last two thousand years; and with each one of these the History of Spain and of the Spaniards is indissolubly connected. The origin and language of the Basques, and their identification with the early Iberians, the wandering civilization of the early Celts, the commerce and industry of Tyre and Sidon, the rise and fall of Carthage, though they are to some extent outside the history of Spain, assuredly each and all claim some share of our attention. The lives of Hannibal and of Scipio, of Pompey and of Cæsar, are all largely Spanish; and each one of them is a study in itself. For hard upon seven hundred years the fortunes of Spain are so intimately connected with the greatness and the decline of the Roman Republic and of the Roman Empire, a subject of the utmost complexity of interest and of detail, that it is impossible to avoid being drawn into that most fascinating of labyrinths; and a hundred years before the Imperial troops had left the Province, we are suddenly confronted by a new and strange civilization, on the arrival of the Goths with their German Institutions, their Arian Faith, their Northern laws, their hopes of regenerating the old world—their disappointment, their demoralization and their decay. When at length, after three hundred years of tolerably straightforward progress-though the country, it must be admitted, is for the most part an unexplored wilderness-something like unity seems at length to be reached, the scene suddenly changes with the rapidity of a theatrical transformation, and we are carried away in a moment to furthest Araby, to wander hopelessly over-whelmed by the vast range of new interests, with a new race, a new civilization, a new religion, and the most tremendous power that has arisen in the world during the last nineteen hundred years. The spread of Mohammedanism, whether considered as a religious or a political phenomenon, is as yet but very imperfectly understood. The East has been contented to accept, and the West has not cared to study it. The history of Islam has yet to be written. To ascertain and set down the true story of the conquest and civilization of the Peninsula by the Arab, many years, and many volumes would be necessary; but in a Short History of the Spanish PeopleI have not ventured to adopt the well-known words on my title page-the amount of space that may be devoted to the rise and progress, and to the decline and fall, of the Empire of the Moslem in Spain, must necessarily be small. The intrigues and the rebellions of the Alfonsos and the Sanchos are in themselves, perhaps, of no greater interest than the intrigues and the rebellions of the Yusufs and the Mohammeds against whom they contended. But out of the freebooters of Aragon and Navarre, out of the cut-throats of Leon and Castile was evolved that great nation, before |