_ If they had been in wood Spanish art would have
known how to make them better, but in stone they had been gathering an
acceptable weather stain during the human generations they had been
there, and their plump stomachs were weather-beaten white.
I do not know if they had been there long enough to have witnessed the
murder of Cromwell's ambassador done in our street by two Jacobite
gentlemen who could not abide his coming to honor in the land where they
were in exile from England. That must have been sometime about the
middle of the century after Philip II., bigot as he was, could not bear
the more masterful bigotry of the archbishop of Toledo, and brought his
court from that ancient capital, and declared Madrid henceforward the
capital forever; which did not prevent Philip III. from taking his court
to Valladolid and making that the capital _en titre_ when he liked.
However, some other Philip or Charles, or whoever, returned with his
court to Madrid and it has ever since remained the capital, and has
come, with many natural disadvantages, to look its supremacy. For my
pleasure I would rather live in Seville, but that would be a luxurious
indulgence of the love of beauty, and like a preference of Venice in
Italy when there was Rome to live in.
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