FERDINAND VII. OF SPAIN.
There is no court in Europe about which so little is known as that of Madrid, and certainly no European sovereign whose character and habits have been so studiously misrepresented as those of Ferdinand. The first time we beheld this monarch, we could scarcely credit the evidence of our senses. Walking in the gardens of the Retiro, at the time crowded with company, we encountered a portly old gentleman, quite unattended, habited in a plain, blue coat and nankeen trousers. This was Ferdinand, El Rey absoluto, whom, in our mind's eye, we had long sketched with the dark pencil of a Murillo. On a countenance that we expected to have seen marked by all the dark and fiery passions of a Caesar Borgia, we beheld an expression of bonhomie—a total absence of hauteur, still less of ferocity; in fact, so totally different was he in appearance from all that we had preconceived, that it was with some difficulty we could persuade ourselves that our cicerone was not practising upon our credulity. So much, then, for the notion, that he never trusts himself out of his palace without being surrounded by a formidable guard. Perhaps no monarch is oftener seen without, or evinces less fear for his personal safety, than the tyrant Ferdinand.
By men of all parties, at Madrid, he is spoken of as a man not naturally vicious, but equally prone to good or evil, according to the direction impressed upon him towards either of these two ends, arising from a wily indolence of character, that, conscious of its own inability, throws itself on another. Leave him, say they, but the name of king, his secretaries, his valets, and his favourite amusements,—give him his Havanna cigars, (a lot of which he sends daily to the officer of the guard,)—and he would willingly consent to any change that might be proposed to him. The faults or the vices of Ferdinand are owing to his neglected and defective education; no care was taken to prepare him for his high station.
It was in the spirit of party that he embroidered a petticoat for the Holy Virgin, solely with the view of pleasing and cajoling the clergy; for, in his heart, Ferdinand is rather a devotee to pleasure than religion. In his habits he is remarkably domesticated; he rises at an early hour, and passes the greater part of the day in his wife's apartment, of whom he is passionately fond. The queen unites to a very graceful figure an interesting expression of countenance, that sometimes wears an appearance of sadness. Such is Ferdinand of Spain, whose actual demise will disclose scenes that at present almost set political calculation at defiance.
Ferdinand has been married four times:—1st, To Marie Antoinette, daughter of the King of the Two Sicilies; 2ndly, To his neice, the Infanta of Portugal, Maria Isabella; 3rdly, To the Princess Maria Josepha-Amelia, daughter of Prince Maximilian of Saxony; and, lastly, to his present queen, Maria Carletta, daughter of the late King of Naples.—Metropolitan.