As a geographical and political fact, Spain dates from the earliest times, and the Spanish people gather within themselves the blood and the traditions of the three great continents of the Old World—­Europe, Asia and Africa—­united to produce the mighty Spaniard of the 15th and 16th centuries.  It would be an interesting subject for the anthropologist to trace the construction of that people who are so often spoken of as possessing the pure blood of Castile, and as the facts should be brought to view, another proud fiction would dissipate in thin air, as we should see the Spaniard arising to take his place among the most mixed of mankind.

The Spain that we are considering now is the Spain that gradually emerged from a chaos of conflicting elements into the unity of a Christian nation.  The dismal war between creeds gave way to the greater conflict between religions, when Cross and Crescent contended for supremacy, and this too had passed.  The four stalwart Christian provinces of Leon, Castile, Aragon and Navarre had become the four pillars of support to a national throne and Ferdinand and Isabella were reigning.  Spain has now apparently passed the narrows and is crossing the bar with prow set toward the open sea.  She ends her war with the Moors at the same time that England ends her wars of the Roses, and the battle of Bosworth’s field may be classed with the capitulation of Granada.  Both nations confront a future of about equal promise and may be rated as on equal footing, as this new era of the world opens to view.

What was this new era?  Printing had been invented, commerce had arisen, gunpowder had come into use, the feudal system was passing, royal authority had become paramount, and Spain was giving to the world its first lessons in what was early stigmatized as the “knavish calling of diplomacy.”

Now began the halcyon days of Spain, and what a breed of men she produced!  Read the story of their conquests in Mexico and Peru, as told with so much skill and taste by our own Prescott; or read of the grandeur of her national character, and the wonderful valor of her troops, and the almost marvelous skill of her Alexander of Parma, and her Spinola, as described by our great Motley, and you will see something of the moral and national glory of that Spain which under Charles V and Philip II awed the world into respectful silence.

Who but men of iron, under a commander of steel, could have conducted to a successful issue the awful siege of Antwerp, and by a discipline more dreadful than death, kept for so many years, armed control of the country of the brave Netherlanders?  A Farnese was there, who could support and command an army, carry Philip and his puerile idiosyncrasies upon his back and meet the fury of an outraged people who were fighting on their own soil for all that man holds dear.  Never was wretched cause so ably led, never were such splendid talents so unworthily employed.