The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-10-28

tAht olHeI uuhe WnOSe uuly ll was to remove the fire had left the castle of Lerma for Madrid, and Philip III died Of ceremony without word of protest or complaint. Yet there was stern rectitude in this fatal respect paid to propriety Spain might find another monarch, and at any rate no dishonor had been done to etiquette.
 In nothing was the sumptuous sim plicity of Spain more lavishly revealed than in her sports. When Philip " 1 was king there was scarcely a day without it's spectacle. The bull was killed in the Plaza Mayor, and the boar was hunted in the park of the Buen Retire. No distinguished visitors so- journed in Madrid without receiving l the tribute of a noble contest. Nor was the spectacle ever disgraced by vulgar display; it was designed with | taste and carried out with magnif- i cence. True, the unaccumstomed { stranger complained of cruelty, as he still complains to-day, but the com l plaint then, as now, was based on ig- norance. Cruelty is not an absolute i and immutable vice; rather it changes 1 as climate and tradition change The l Anglo-Saxon, savage only to his own kind, is revolted by the slaving of a bull; but he does not hesitate to grind his fellow man to dust or to crush him beneath the heel of competition EX- 1 plain to a modern Spaniard the meth- ods of Tammany hall, or show him the 1 difficult life of our own East End, and doubtless, if he were not too cautious, | wnI11H HnnnJ1nnn o w he was always innocent. But he is in- sensitive to the sufferings of beasts: the others are inensitive to the uffer- 1 ings of man; and who shall say which is the harsher vice?
 To the sober Spaniard, then, who gaze ed from the windows of the Plaza Mayor into the arena beneath, there came no though of cruelty or crime. They enjoyed the spectacle, to which their blood and the habit of centuries had accustomed them. Nor were the cavaliers content to play the passive part of spectators. They fought the bull themselves, now on foot, now mounted on well trained horses, whose hide it was point of vallor to pro- tect. Mime. d'Aulnoy, who visited Mad rid not many years after the death of Velasquez, once met a firefly of the court, all perfumed and tricked out, who none the less never attended a bullfight without venturing his own limbs in the arena. But the most glo- rious fight known to history was the combat of beast against beast presided over by Philip the Great himself. Into the ring were driven the fiercest ani- mals> that could be brought from the four corners of the world-lions, tigers, bears and bulls-and after a desperate fight they all lay dead save one bull of Andalusia, whose strength and cour- age had slain all his competitors. The patriotism of the Spaniards was touch- ed to the quick. The king seized his tgun and shot the valiant conquerer dead, for said he, so brave a beast
 deserves to meet death from no other than a royal hand; and forthwith the poets of Madrid celebrated the double victory of the king and the bull in son nets of fearless adulation, declaring that never since the beginning of time had deeds of braver consequence been
 done
 Such was the world of declining em- pire and majestic frivolity'' into which the young Velasquez came from Seville,
 that strange city of romance and fa-
 naticism, which was always ready to
 favor the arts, and which had cele-
 brated the doctrine of the immaculate
 conception by the staying of many
 bulls. He came under opportune pat
 ronage and at an opportune moment.
 Having won all the glory that the ad-
 miration of Andalusia had to confer he
 was fortunate enough to attract the
 notice of the young king, who loved
 the spendor of life even better than his
 empire, and to assure for himself the
 protection of the most powerful minis
 ter who had ever misdirected the des- tinies of Spain. Surely the gods had
 smiled upon his birth, for, though
 scarcely past twenty, he had won the
 fame best worth enjoying, the admira- tion of his fellows, and, despite the jeal. ousy of the few, he had not to fight
 the battle of recognition. The fetes
 given in honor of Charles I, two days
 after his arrival at Madrid, might have
 eclipsed anothers glory, but Velasque2
 deftly turned the occasion to advantage and made sketch of the English prince. And truly the capital did moi
 lack entertainment for the youth , whose eyes were accustomed to the water sellers and picaroons of Seville For it was packed with the mufflers of England and Spain. The fame o1 Kenelm Digby's exploits were on every
 tongue, and it was whispered at the street corners how Lord Bristols kins- man had met in combat and defeated , single handed half a dozen accomplish ed braves. And Buckingham was there , to intrigue against his own ambassa , dor, and every day brilliant spectacle
 celebrated the Spanish marriage, witt , neither the zeal of the prince nor the
 policy of his father availed to conclude But the festival came to an end; Prince , Charles and his courtiers set sail in g E storm; the princess escaped an unwel- ! come alliance, and of all the ditinguish. ed visitors who thronged Madrid Velas. uuez alone remained to take office ir 7 the kings household and to begin g . career of noble bearing and honorable work, which was only interrupted by
 his death. Now it was Philips ambi. ; tion to prove himself great patron as , well as a great king, and so well die < he perform the duty of a patron that ht , singled out Velasquez at first sight
 gave him a pension and a lodging, anC