pictures of the changing progress of the play; and although they belong rather to the gossip of history than to literary biography, they cannot be altogether omitted.  The duties which the minister had to perform were unusual, delicate, and difficult; but I believe he acquitted himself of them with the skill of a born diplomatist.  When he went to Spain before, in 1826, Ferdinand VII. was, by aid of French troops, on the throne, the liberties of the kingdom were crushed, and her most enlightened men were in exile.  While he still resided there, in 1829, Ferdinand married, for his fourth wife, Maria Christina, sister of the King of Naples, and niece of the Queen of Louis Philippe.  By her he had two daughters, his only children.  In order that his own progeny might succeed him, he set aside the Salique law (which had been imposed by France) just before his death, in 1833, and revived the old Spanish law of succession.  His eldest daughter, then three years old, was proclaimed Queen, by the name of Isabella II., and her mother guardian during her minority, which would end at the age of fourteen.  Don Carlos, the king’s eldest brother, immediately set up the standard of rebellion, supported by the absolutist aristocracy, the monks, and a great part of the clergy.  The liberals rallied to the Queen.  The Queen Regent did not, however, act in good faith with the popular party:  she resisted all salutary reform, would not restore the Constitution of 1812 until compelled to by a popular uprising, and disgraced herself by a scandalous connection with one Munos, one of the royal body guards.  She enriched this favorite and amassed a vast fortune for herself, which she sent out of the country.  In 1839, when Don Carlos was driven out of the country by the patriot soldier Espartero, she endeavored to gain him over to her side, but failed.  Espartero became Regent, and Maria Christina repaired to Paris, where she was received with great distinction by Louis Philippe, and Paris became the focus of all sorts of machinations against the constitutional government of Spain, and of plots for its overthrow.  One of these had just been defeated at the time of Irving’s arrival.  It was a desperate attempt of a band of soldiers of the rebel army to carry off the little Queen and her sister, which was frustrated only by the gallant resistance of the halberdiers in the palace.  The little princesses had scarcely recovered from the horror of this night attack when our minister presented his credentials to the Queen through the Regent, thus breaking a diplomatic dead-lock, in which he was followed by all the other embassies except the French.  I take some passages from the author’s description of his first audience at the royal palace:—­