"'All prejudices, Don Judas. Have you read my Tell?'
"'Miguel Tell, the Treasurer? No. I never read; it injures my sight.'
"'Well I must read an extract from my great historical work on William Tell, not Miguel the Treasurer.' (Here poor Don Judas began to meditate an escape, the very thing the lady wished.)
"'William Tell, my hero, was a native of Scotland who refused to bow down to the beaver hat of the English General, Malbrun, set up on a high pole. Out of this circumstance arose the thirty years' war, at the end of which Tell was proclaimed King of England under the title of William the Conqueror. He brought disgrace on his royal name by causing his wife, the beautiful Anne Boleyn, to be beheaded. Struck with remorse he sent his son Richard Lion-heart on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his return he was imprisoned for his great admiration of Luther, Calvin, Voltaire, and Rousseau, members of the Revolutionary Directory which put the pious King Louis XIV. to death. About that time Don Pedro the Cruel established the inquisition in Spain to prevent such proceedings in his kingdom, and thus he obtained his surname'"
Poor Don Judas was terrified by the erudition of the cunning lady, who thus got rid of him.
The collected works of this lady have been printed at the expense of the queen. It is only seventeen or eighteen years since she began to write, and, if we can trust the accuracy of foreign biographers, she is now in her seventieth year. Two volumes of selections from her works entitled The Castle and Cottage in Spain, have appeared in an English dress.
Rustic Tales:
Don Antonio De Trueba.
The writer next to be noticed, by birth a Biscayan peasant, is now or was lately a sub-editor of a newspaper. Don Antonio de Trueba y la Quintana was born 24th December, 1821. In the preface to one of his works he presents this picture of his birthplace and his early life.
"On the slope of one of the mountains of Biscay stand four white houses nearly hidden in a wood of walnut and chestnut trees, and which cannot be seen at any distance till winter has deprived the trees of their foliage. There I passed the first fifteen years of my life.