To such a dissolution that monarchy was peculiarly liable. The
King, and the King alone, held it together. The populations which
acknowledged him as their chief either knew nothing of each
other, or regarded each other with positive aversion. The
Biscayan was in no sense the countryman of the Valencian, nor the
Lombard of the Biscayan, nor the Fleeting of the Lombard, nor the
Sicilian of the Fleeting. The Arragonese had never ceased to pine
for their lost independence. Within the memory of many persons
still living the Catalans had risen in rebellion, had entreated
Lewis the Thirteenth of France to become their ruler with the old
title of Count of Barcelona, and had actually sworn fealty to
him. Before the Catalans had been quieted, the Neapolitans had
taken arms, had abjured their foreign master, had proclaimed
their city a republic, and had elected a Loge. In the New World
the small caste of born Spaniards which had the exclusive
enjoyment of power and dignity was hated by Creoles and Indians,
Mestizos and Quadroons. The Mexicans especially had turned their
eyes on a chief who bore the name and had inherited the blood of
the unhappy Montezuma. Thus it seemed that the empire against
which Elizabeth and Henry the Fourth had been scarcely able to
contend would not improbably fall to pieces of itself, and that
the first violent shock from without would scatter the ill-
cemented parts of the huge fabric in all directions.

But, though such a dissolution had no terrors for the Catalonian
or the Fleming, for the Lombard or the Calabrian, for the Mexican
or the Peruvian, the thought of it was torture and madness to the
Castilian. Castile enjoyed the supremacy in that great assemblage
of races and languages. Castile sent out governors to Brussels,
Milan, Naples, Mexico, Lima. To Castile came the annual galleons