while devotion itself is not too strong a term to express the national
feeling entertained toward Isabella. Her sweet, womanly gentleness,
blended as it was with the dignity of the sovereign; her ready
sympathy in all that concerned her people--for the lowest of her
subjects; doing justice, even if it were the proud noble who injured,
and the serf that suffered--all was so strange, yet fraught with such
national repose, that her influence every year increased; while every
emotion of chivalry found exercise, and yet rest in the heart of the
aristocracy for their Queen; her simple word would be obeyed, on the
instant, by men who would have paused, and weighed, and reasoned,
if any other--even Ferdinand himself--had spoken. Isabella knew her
power; and if ever sovereign used it for the good, the happiness of
her people, that proud glory was her own.

In spite of the miserable condition of the people during the civil
struggles, the wealth of Spain had not decreased. It was protected
and increased by a class of people whose low and despised estate was,
probably, their safeguard--these were the Jews, who for many centuries
had, both publicly and secretly, resided in Spain. There were many
classes of this people in the land, scattered alike over Castile,
Leon, Arragon, Navarre, and also in the Moorish territories; some
there were confined to the mystic learning and profound studies of the
schools, whence they sent many deeply learned men to other countries,
where their worth and wisdom gained them yet greater regard than they
received in Spain: others were low and degraded in outward seeming,
yet literally holding and guiding the financial and commercial
interests of the kingdom;--whose position was of the lowest--scorned
and hated by the very people who yet employed them, and exposed to
insult from every class; the third, and by far the largest body of
Spanish Jews, were those who, Israelites in secret, were so completely