Spain. There were many classes of this people | ber, they knew not, guessed not how-for those in the land, scattered alike over Castile, Leon, who once entered those fatal walls were never Arragon, Navarre, and also in the Moorish permitted to depart, so secret were their meaterritories; some there were confined to the sures, that even the existence of this fearful mystic learning and profound studies of the mockery of Justice and Religion was not known, schools, whence they sent many deeply learned or at that time it would have been wholly men to other countries, where their worth and eradicated. Superstition had not then gained wisdom gained them yet greater regard than the ascendancy which in after years so tarthey received in Spain; others there were low nished the glory of Spain, and opened the wide and degraded in outward seeming, yet literally gates to the ruin and debasement under which holding and guiding the financial and commer- she labours now. The fierce wars and revolucial interests of the kingdom;-whose position tions ravaging the land had given too many, was of the lowest-scorned and hated by the and too favourable opportunities for the exercise very people who yet employed them, and ex- of this secret power; but still, regard for their posed to insult from every class; the third, and own safety prevented the more public display of by far the largest body of Spanish Jews, were their office, as ambition prompted. The vigorthose who, Israelites in secret, were so com- ous proceedings of Ferdinand and Isabella renpletely Catholic in seeming, that the court, the dered them yet more wary; and little did the camp, the council, even the monasteries them- Sovereigns suspect that in their very courts this selves, counted them amongst them. And this fatal power held sway. The existence of this had been the case for years-we should say tribunal naturally increased the dangers enfor centuries-and yet so inviolable was the vironing the Israelites who were daring enough faith pledged to each other, so awful the dangers to live amongst the Catholics as one of them; around them, were even suspicion excited, that but of this particular danger they themthe fatal secret never transpired; offices of state, selves were not generally aware, and their as well as distinctions of honour, were fre- extraordinary skill in the concealment of their quently conferred on men who, had their faith faith (to every item of which they yet adhered) or race been suspected, would have been re- baffled, except in a very few instances, even garded as the scum of the earth, and sentenced these ministers of darkness. to torture and death, for daring to pass for what they were not. At the period of which we write, the fatal enemy to the secret Jews of more modern times, known as the Holy Office did not exist; but a secret and terrible tribunal there was, whose power and extent were unknown even to the Sovereigns of the land.

CHAP. IV.

"In war did never lion rage more fierce-
In peace was never gentle lamb more mild,
Than was that young and princely gentleman.".
SHAKSPEARE.

The Inquisition is generally supposed to have been founded by Ferdinand and Isabella, about the year 1480 or 82; but a deeper research informs us that it had been introduced into Spain several centuries earlier, and obtained great The wars ravaging Spain had nursed many a influence in Arragon. Confiding in the pro-gallant warrior, and given ample opportunities tection of the papal see, the Inquisitors set no bounds to their ferocity; secret informations, imprisonments, tortures, midnight assassinations, marked their proceedings; but they overreached themselves. All Spain, setting aside petty rivalships, rose up against them. All who should give them encouragement or assistance were declared traitors to their country; the very lives of the Inquisitors and their families were, in the first burst of fury, endangered; but after a time, imagining they had sunk into harmless insignificance, their oppressors desisted in their efforts against them, and were guilty of the unpardonable error of not exterminating them entirely.

According to the popular belief, the dreaded tribunal slept, and so soundly, they feared not, imagined not its awakening. They little knew that its subterranean halls were established near almost all the principal cities, and that its engines were often at work, even in the palaces of kings. Many a family wept the loss of a beloved mem

*Stockdale's History of the Inquisition.

for the possession and display of those chivalric qualities without which, in that age, no manly character was considered perfect. The armies of Ferdinand and Isabella counted some of the noblest names and most valiant knights of Christendom. The Spanish chivalry had always been famous, and when once organized under a leader of such capacity and firmness as Ferdinand; when the notice and regard of the Queen they idolized could only be obtained by manly virtue as well as the warrior's ardour, a new spirit seemed to wake within them; petty rivalships and jealousies were laid aside, all they sought was to become distinguished; and never had chivalry shone with so pure and glorious a lustre in the court of Spain as then, when, invisibly and unconsciously, it verged on its decline.

It was amongst all this blaze of chivalry that Arthur Stanley had had ample opportunity to raise, in his own person, the martial glory of his own still much loved and deeply regretted land. Ferdinand had honoured him with so large a portion of his coveted regard that no petty feelings on the part of the Spaniards, because

he was a stranger, could interfere with his ad- | vancement; his friends, however, were mostly amongst the Arragonese; to Isabella, and the Castilians, he was only known as a valiant young warrior, and a marked favourite of the king. There was one person, however, whom the civil contentions of Spain had so brought forward, that his name was never spoken, either in council, court, or camp, palace or hut-by monarch or captive, soldier or citizen-without a burst of such warm and passionate attachment that it was almost strange how any single individual, and comparatively speaking, in a private station, could so have won the hearts of thousands. Yet it had been gradually that this pre-eminence had been attained-gradually, and entirely by the worth of its object. At the early age of sixteen, and as page to Gonzalos de Lara, Ferdinand Morales had witnessed with all the enthusiasm of a peculiarly ardent, though outwardly quiet nature, the exciting proceedings at Avila. His youth, his dignified mien, his earnestness, perhaps even his striking beauty, attracted the immediate attention of the young Alfonso, and a bond of union of reciprocal affection from that hour linked the youths together. It is useless arguing on the folly and frivolity of such rapid attachments; there are those with whom one day will be sufficient, not only to awaken, but to rivet, those mysterious sympathies which are the undying links of friendship; and others again, with whom we may associate intimately for months-nay, years-and yet feel we have not one thought in common, nor formed one link to sever which is pain.

During Alfonso's brief career, Ferdinand Morales displayed personal qualities, and a wisdom and faithfulness in his cause, well deserving not only the prince's love, but the confidence of all those who were really Alfonso's friends. His deep grief and ill-concealed indignation at the prince's mysteriously sudden death might, for the time, have obtained him enemies, and endangered his own life; but the favour of Isabella, whom it was then the policy of the confederates to conciliate in all things possible, protected and advanced him. The love borne by the Infanta for her young brother surpassed even the tenderest affection of such relatives; all who had loved and served him were dear to her; and at a time when so much of treachery and insidious policy lurked around her, even in the garb of seeming devotion to her cause, the unwavering fidelity and straightforward conduct of Morales, combined as it was with his deep affection for Alfonso, permitted her whole mind to rest on him, secure not only of his faithfulness, but of vigilance which would discover and counteract every evil scheming of seeming friends. Her constantly chosen messenger to Ferdinand, he became known and trusted by both that prince and his native subjects. His wealth, which seemed exhaustless, independent of his preferments, was ever at the service of either Isabella or her betrothed; he it was from whom the necessary means for her private nuptials were borrowed. At that scene he was, of course,

present, and, at his own desire, escorted Ferdinand back to his own domains-an honourable but most dangerous office, performed with his usual unwavering fidelity and skill. That one so faithful in adversity should advance from post to post, as soon as dawning prosperity permitted Isabella and Ferdinand to reward merit as well as to evince gratitude, was not surprising; but no royal favour, no coveted honours, no extended power, could alter one tittle of his single-hearted truth-his unrestrained intercourse with and interest in his equals, were they of the church, court, or camp his gentle and unassuming manner to his inferiors. It was these things that made him so universally beloved. The coldest natures, if thrown in contact with him, unconsciously to themselves kindled into warmth: vice itself could not meet the glance of that piercing eye without shrinking, for the moment, in loathing from itself.

Until Isabella and Ferdinand were firmly established on the throne, and Arragon and Castile united, there had been little leisure amongst their warriors to think of domestic ties, otherwise it might perhaps have been noticed as somewhat remarkable that Ferdinand Morales appeared to stand alone; kindred, indeed, he claimed with four or five of the noblest amongst the Castilians, but he seemed to have no near relative; and though he mingled courteously, and to some young hearts far too pleasingly, amongst Isabella's court, it seemed as if he would never stoop to love. The Queen often jested him on his apparent insensibility, and entreating him to wed. At first he had smiled away such words; but two or three months after the commencement of our tale, he acknowledged that his affections had been for some years engaged to one living so completely in retirement as to be unknown to all; he had but waited till peace had dawned for Spain, and he might offer her not only his love, but a secure and quiet home. He spoke in confidence, and Isabella, woman-like, had listened with no little interest, giving her royal approval of his choice, without knowing more than his own words revealed; but feeling convinced, she said, that Ferdinand Morales would never wed one whose birth or lineage would tarnish his pure Castilian blood, or endanger the holy faith of which he was so true a member. A red flush might have stained the cheek of the warrior at these words, but the deep obeisance with which he had departed from the royal presence concealed the unwonted emotion. Ere a year from that time elapsed, not only the ancient city of Segovia, where his large estates lay, but all Castile were thrown into a most unusual state of excitement by the marriage of the popular idol, Don Ferdinand Morales, with a young and marvellously lovely girl, whom few, if any, had ever seen before, and whose very name, Donna Marie Henriquez, though acknowledged as essentially Castilian, was yet unfamiliar. The mystery, however, as to who she was, and where he could have found her, was speedily lost in the universal admiration of her exceeding and remarkable loveliness,

and of the new yet equally attractive character which, as a devoted husband, Morales thenceforward displayed. Many had imagined that he was too grave, too wrapt in his many engrossing duties, alike as statesman and general, ever to play the lover; and he had seemed resolved that this impression should remain, and shrunk from the exposure of such sacred feelings; for none, save Isabella, knew he loved until they saw his bride.

CHAP. V.

"And we have won a bower of refuge now In this fresh waste."

MRS. HEMANS.

took place, and feelings and sympathies were excited, and struggles secretly endured, making that small spot of earth in very truth a world. The cousins intermarried. Ferdinand and Josephine left the vale for a more stirring life; Manuel, Henriquez's own son, and Miriam, his niece, preferred the quiet of the vale. Julien, his nephew, too, had loved; but his cousin's love was given to his brother, and he departed, unmurmuringly indeed, but he dared not yet trust himself to associate calmly with the object of his love: he had ever been a peculiarly sad and silent boy; the fate of his father never for an instant seemed to leave his mind, and he had secretly vowed to avenge him. Love, for a while, had banished these thoughts; but when that returned in all the misery of isolation to his own breast, former thoughts regained dominion, and he tried to conquer the one feeling by the encouragement of the other. His brother and his The Vale of Cedars, as described in our first wife constantly visited the vale; if at no other chapter, had been originally the work of a single time, almost always at those solemn festivals individual, who had found there a refuge and which generally fell about the period of the Caconcealment from the secret power of the In-tholic Easter and Michaelmas; often accompaquisition, from whose walls he had almost miraculously escaped: this individual was Julien Henriquez, the grandfather of Marie. For five years he remained concealed, working unaided, but successfully, in forming a comfortable home and concealed retreat, not only for himself but for his family. Nature herself appeared to have marked the spot as an impenetrable retreat, and Julien's skill and energy increased and strengthened the natural barriers. During these five years the secret search for his person, at The career of his brother was glorious but first carried on so vigilantly that his enemies brief; he fell fighting for his country, and his supposed nothing but death could have con- widow and young son returned to the parental cealed him, gradually relaxed, and then subsided retreat. Though the cousins had married the altogether. Foes and friends alike believed him same day, the son of Ferdinand was ten years dead, and when he did re-appear in the coarse older than his cousin Marie; Manuel and Mirobe, shrouding cowl, and hempen belt, of a riam having lived twelve years together ere the wandering friar, he traversed the most populous longed-for treasure was bestowed. At first, towns in safety, unrecognized and unsuspected. therefore, she had been to the youthful FerIt was with some difficulty he found his family,dinand but as a plaything, to pet and laugh and a matter of no little skill to convey them without exciting suspicion by their disappearance, to his retreat; but all was accomplished at length, and years of domestic felicity crowned every former effort, and inspired and encouraged

more.

Besides his own immediate family, consisting of his wife, a son, and daughter, Henriquez had the charge of two nephews and a niece, children of his sister, whose husband had perished by the arm of the same secret power from which Henriquez had escaped; their mother had died of a broken heart, from the fearful mystery of her husband's fate, and the orphans were to Julien as his own.

As years passed, the Vale of Cedars became not only a safe, but a luxurious home. Every visit to the world Julien turned to profit, by the purchase first of necessaries, then of luxuries. The little temple was erected by the active aid of the young men, and the solemn rites of their peculiar faith adhered to in security. Small as the family was, deaths, marriages, and births

nied by faithful friends, holding the same mysterious bond of brotherhood, and to whom the secret of that vale was as precious and secure as to its natural inmates. Its aged founder had frequently the happiness of gathering around him from twenty to thirty of his secret race, and of feeling that his work would benefit friends as well as offspring. Julien alone never returned to the vale, and his family at length mourned him as one amongst the dead.

with: he left the vale as page to his father's companion in arms, Gonzalo de Lara, when Marie was little more than five years old; but still his love for her and his home was such that whenever it was possible, he would snatch if it were but half a day to visit them. Gradually, and to him it seemed almost strangely, the plaything child changed into the graceful girl, and then again into the lovely woman; and dearer than ever became his boyhood's home, though years had snatched away so many of its beloved inmates, that, at the period of our story, its sole occupants were Marie and her father.

Had her mother lived, perchance Marie had never been exposed to the dangers of an introduction to the world. Betrothed, in the secret hearts of not only her own parents, but of Ferdinand's mother, to her cousin, if she lived to attain sufficient age, Miriam would not have thought it so impossible as Manuel did, that the affections of his child might be sought for by, and given to another, if she mingled with the world; she would at least have waited till she

feelings; she thought she was conquering them altogether, when his unexpected appearance excited every feeling anew. Yet in that harrowing interview still she had been firm. She had even told him a secret, which it was almost death to reveal, that he might forget her; for how could he wed with her? And yet even that barrier he would have passed, and his generous, his determined love, would linger on her memory spite of every effort to think of him no more.

was Ferdinand's wedded wife, and then sent her | measure softened the first acute agony of her forth secure. But such subtle fears and feelings are peculiarly woman's; not the tenderest, most devoted father, could of himself have either thought of, or understood them. He might perhaps have owned their justice had they been presented to him by the affectionate warnings of an almost idolized wife; but that voice was hushed, her sweet counsels buried in the grave; and the fond, proud father, only thought of his child's brilliant beauty, and how she would be admired and beloved, could she be but generally known. And so, for her sake, he actually did violence to his own love for the quiet retirement of the vale, and bore her to the care of Donna Emilie de Castro; seeing nothing, feeling nothing, but the admiration she excited, and that she was indeed the loveliest there. One wish he had, and that was, that his nephew could have been there likewise; but engaged at that time on some important private business for the Queen, Ferdinand did not even know that his cousin had ever left the vale.

That his child's affections could be excited towards any but those of her own race was a circumstance so impossible, and moreover a sin so fearful, that it never entered Manuel's mind: he knew not woman's nature, dreamed not of its quick impulses, its passionate yearnings, its susceptibility towards all gentle emotions, or he could not have so trustingly believed in the power of her peculiar faith and creed to guard her from the danger. Even his dearest desire

that she should become the wife of her cousin she knew not; for the father shrunk from revealing it to either his child or nephew, unless Ferdinand loved and sought her himself. What therefore had she to warn her from the precipice on which she stood, when new, strange, yet most exquisitely sweet emotions gradually obtained possession of her heart in her daily intercourse with Arthur Stanley? What they were indeed she knew not; the word love was never uttered by either; she only knew that his presence, his voice, the pressure of his hand, brought with it a thrilling sensation of intense happiness, such as she had never known, never imagined before. It was indeed but a brief dream, for when he spoke, when he besought her to be his, then indeed she woke to consciousness, not only that she loved, but of the dark and fatal barrier between them which no human effort could o'erleap. The sacrifice of race, of faith, of family, indeed might be made; but to do this never entered the mind and heart of Marie, so utterly was it impossible. To her peculiar feelings it was sin enough thus to have loved.

Manuel Henriquez bore his child back to the vale, little dreaming the anguish to which his unguarded love had exposed her. She had ever been rather a pensive, and gentle girl, and therefore that she should be still serious was no matter of surprise. For fifteen months she had sought to banish every dream of Arthur, every thought but that in loving him she had sinned against her God. Time and prayer had in some

It was a fearful struggle, and often and often she yearned to confess all to her father, whom she loved with no common love; but she knew too well, not only the grief such tidings would be to him, but what his judgment must be, and she shrunk in agony from the condemnation of her feelings by another, constantly as she was condemning them herself.

Henriquez had been absent from the vale during Stanley's unexpected visit, and he tarried long enough to excite the alarm, not only of his child, but of their domestics; nor was its cause when explained likely to ease Marie's anxiety. He had been attacked on the day of his intended return by a strange sensation of giddiness, followed by insensibility, which appeared to have weakened him more than he had thought compatible with so brief an illness. He made light of it, but still he was uneasy, not that he feared death himself, but that it might take him from his Marie ere his wishes were accomplished, and her earthly happiness, as he thought, secured. The first attack was but the forerunner of others, sometimes very slight and brief, at others longer and more alarming, rendering Marie more and more determined to keep her fatal secret from him; for it appeared to her that any stronger emotion than customary would be followed by those attacks; and as her love for him seemed to increase in intensity with the anxiety his precarious health occasioned, so did her dread of occasioning him aught of grief. But how fruitless are our best and wisest resolutions! One little hour, and every thought was changed. (To be continued.)

STANZAS.

BY THE HON. JULIA MAYNArd.

Pale was thy cheek, but pale as fair,
Its paleness haunts me everywhere,
With the red rose in thy hair, love,

The red rose in thy hair!

Dark are thine eyes, so richly bright,
Dark with a sad and pensive light,
With the red rose in thy hair, love,

The red rose in thy hair!

Gentle the sunshine of thy smile,
Beaming upon us free from guile,
With the red rose in thy hair, love,

The red rose in thy hair!