Prince Alfonso of the Asturias is seventeen, and therefore legally
of age, and his partisans have taken advantage of the opportunity to send him addresses. We have commented on them elsewhere, but may mention here that all ask him to be a, Parliamentary Bing, and that in reply the Prince promises Par- liamentary institutions, which, he says, were never withdrawn during the thirty-five years of his mother's reign ; hints at an amnesty—he does not pledge himself to one—and asserts that his misfortunes have brought him in contact with men and things in modem Europe. "Be my fate what it may, I shall not cease to be a true Spaniard nor, like all my ancestors, a true Catholic, nor, as a man of my time, truly Liberal." The advisers of the different Pretenders in Europe make a great mistake in writing these solemn manifestoes for them. A little spontaneity, a little more chance of a glimpse into the men themselves, would do their cause a world of good, and amply compensate for an occasional imprudence. One Prince is not as good as another in any country but England.
