The opening lines of Don Carlos.
[204] An exceedingly ancient town, celebrated in the days before the Roman dominion.
[205] See Glossary, sub. verb. Schophon. As to rabbits in Spain, see note, vol. i. p. 25.
[208] The modern La Granja or San Ildefonso is, in the season, anything but desolate: the beautiful, if somewhat over-elaborate gardens, are admirably kept up, and the general atmosphere of the plain is bright and cheerful, though the Court of to-day prefers the sea-breezes of Biscay to the air of the Guadarrama, when Madrid becomes, as it does, well-nigh uninhabitable in summer.
[211a] A particular scoundrel. His massacre of prisoners, November 9, 1838, was remarkable for its atrocity, when massacre was of daily occurrence. See Duncan, The English in Spain, pp. 247, 248.
[211b] See note, vol. i. p. 164.
[213] August 31, 1838.
[215] Don Carlos, who probably died a natural death in 1568.
[217] The etymology of Andalusia is somewhat of a crux; the various authorities are collected and reviewed in an appendix to Burke’s History of Spain, vol. i. p. 379. The true etymology may be Vandalusia, the abiding-place of the Vandals, though they abode in Southern Spain but a very short time; but the word certainly came into the Spanish through the Arabic, and not through the Latin, long years after Latin was a spoken language. The young lady was quite right in speaking of it as Betica or Bœtica; though the Terra would be superfluous, if not incorrect.
[218] He had succeeded to that title on the death of his uncle, December 22, 1838.