Spain presents some strange incidents. There has been a Ministerial
crisis, over in a day. The Spanish Procureur du Roi, complying with a form, asked leave of absence from official duties to look after his election as a Deputy ; he was a political opponent, and Ministers, grossly violating usage, refused leave ; he resigned ; the Queen withheld her acceptance of his resigna- tion; Ministers tendered theirs, which teas accepted; the Marquis de Viluma was summoned, but failed to form a Cabinet ; the Queen yielded, accepted the lawyer's resignation, and Isturitz resumed office. What are the real motives actuating this farce, distant speculators cannot guess ; but it is clear that Queen and eountry are for the time enthralled by a very indifferent clique of statesmen.
The Ministerial papers publish a letter from Don Enrique to the Queen, recanting his Brussels protest against the Montpensier marriage. Rumour imputes the Prince's countermarch to a desire of being no longer excluded from home or from a share of place and pelf. But it does not seem at all impossible that his act may be the prompting of mere affection. With all their defects of character, and their bickerings, the Spanish Bourbons evince some amount of a homely domestic family kindness. Don Enrique may like to share the good things at Madrid : it does not follow that the prospect of sharing them with his relations may not have its own attractions. To speak of the recanted protest as a serious loss to the nation or to the Liberal party, is much to misconceive its importance.
Another trait of this family cohesion, if it is genuine, is Don Francisco's letter to the Conde de Montemolin, urging him to marry Queen Isabella. Like a good young man, Don Francisco, regarding the Spanish throne as a family estate, wishes to give the first place next the heir to his elder in the pedigree, 'Don Carlos Luis. There is something exquisitely naive in the manner of his exhorting the Count to make the "sacrifice," and de- claring that otherwise he will make it himself. Evidently he viewed the marriage with Queen Isabella as an act rivalling that of Quintus Curtius : what does his bride say to such an aspect of his gallantry ?
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