Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1869-01-16
q the. Ohio Statesman. Ia
MADRID, Dec. %, 1868.

5<sf,sssss4lf - MADRlD, Lee. 20, 1000.
There are novels and plays destitute
of all intrinsic merit, without character,
without, style, and even without really
stirring merits, but the plot of which has
been either artfully or accidentally so
coritrived as to create and keep up a
breathless. interest from beginning to
end. The piece may be absurd, prosy
and even insuferably dull The author
may shock your common sense or out
rag your taste to the utmost. A hun
dred times you may be tempted to throw
drown the book or rise from your STALL
But no, the spell of curiosity has been
cast upon you. 7 ou must go through
with it and see how it will end. The
peculiar charm of Fenimere Cooper, the
American, who however he recommended
himself by other gifts, resided precisely
in the skill with which, in his novels, he
lays and spins out his "situation. He :
gets his two lovers, with some of the ac-
cessory personages, right in the middle
of frozen river, with the ice suddenly
cracking and groaning as it breaks all
round about them, or he places them on
board becalmed vessel with a murder
GUS pirate craft hovering in sight and
slowly gaining upon them, or he shuts
them up in a log hut, in swamp, beset
by yelling wild Indians, and then claps
his hands on his own achievement, defy
ing both the hero and heroine themselves,
or the reader, to get ont of the labrynth
till, in his own good time,- he chooses to
afford them the clue.
I suppose it is the innate pleasure in
trying to guess puzzle, common to all
men, that still rivets the worlds eyes on
the slow andvdragging manner in which
theperformers acted, Or are acting, de-
liberately on the matter; but they have
certainly managed to perplex politicians.
both native and foreign. to an extent
never known in previous complications.
The Spanish revolution has not yet been
signaIzed by any great heroic contest;
it has not produced men of any tram
scendent character or ability; it has not
gone: through any stage Of thrilling ca
tastrophes, but it has done something, to
certain minds, more enticing than all
that-it has nonplussed them; it has
driven them to their wits ends. Here is
aIwhols nation on the dissolving ice, ON
the stagnant ocean, in the beleagured
log hut, and actually no inventive wiz
ard to show it the way out of its awk
ward predicament Can we help being
all anxious FOR the solution of the riddle.
Spaniards themselves, at first, and
for along time, saw nothing new, and,
at all events, nothing perilous in the
anomaly of their position. In fact they
thought nothing could be more clear or
natural. They had rid themselves of
detested dynasty; !; they had no predi-
liction, and, as they suspected, no fitness
for a. Republic. The whole movement
was limited to a change of dynasty
Constitdtionalisni, which had for SO many
years been mockery, would become
reality. The new candidate for the
throne should be Piled with the old Ar
agonese "Y ,si, no, no.. to give him to
understand that the nation had will as
well as the Sovereign; all liberties, on
the most unbounded scale, would shoot
up in Spanish ground as on their most
eongenial soil, and Spain, which only
three months ago was voted "out of Eu.
rope" would become tie paragon of all
free and enlightened European cemmu-
mites. .bssassI.ast 4...s is
Who would have thought that all
these anticipations would have SO long
remained unfulfilled, simply because the
Spaniards have reckoned without their
King? Gould there ever be scarcity
of royal Servants out of work? We're
the Coburg and Habsburg nurseries ex-
hausted, and would not rather the diff
Guilty arise from the fembarrassmepts of
the choice, from the multitude Of pre-
tendersa So the King was put off as
matter for after consideration. Had the
leaders of this movement not hit upon
the right man in due time, the "Ghost',
would move the Constituent Cortes ON
their conyocation to point out what was
to become of-the capping stone Of their
rising edifce., The confidence of the
people has been rudely shaken from day
to day. The Spaniards have come to
this: that they really despair of King.
Sanguine Seriano, stubborn Prim, and
even shifty Olazaga, begin to make wo-
fully long faces about the matter. The
affair is falling into the ridiculous.
WHO shall be King =, is aready be-
ing played as farce in more than one
offhe minor theaters. With Montpen.
sier. who alone is willing, no one will
have anything to do. Espartero is hardly
;oIly enough, even for old King
Coles part. Young Asturias and young