"The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate:
Death lays his icy hand on kings.
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade." [14]
The evening shades were falling as we emerged from the Escorial; the wild pine forests covering the mountain sides, seemed like a deep pall spread upon the land; and we looked lingeringly back on the great mass of the prodigious edifice rearing all its domes and pinnacles against the last melancholy glory of the sunset.