[23], 6. alpargatas are rough shoes or slippers of canvas, with hempen soles; the montera is a woolen peasant's cap used in many provinces of Spain, and varying in form and color with the locality.
[24], 16. grana is the English grain, familiar in English literature as late as Milton; e. g. Moryson, Itinerary, III, 1, IV, 96 (1617): "The Spaniards and Portugals bought Graine for Scarlet Dye." Cf. the present English ingrain and ingrained.
[24], 22. Fernando VII, King of Spain, son of Charles IV and Maria Louisa of Parma. He was born in 1784, became king on the abdication of his father in 1808, was prisoner in France until 1813, was restored to the throne on the expulsion from Spain of Joseph Bonaparte, and reigned until his death in 1833. He was succeeded by his daughter, Isabella II.
[25], 8. Constitucionales de la de 1837. Constitutions were decreed in Spain in 1812, 1834, 1837, 1854 and 1869. The Constitution of 1837 was accepted by Queen Isabel on June 17th of that year; on its provisions, and on the events that led to its promulgation, see M. A. S. Hume, op. cit., pp. 338-340. It was an essentially radical programme, though much less broad than the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, and thus while it appeared reactionary and insufficient to the older Radicals, it pleased the younger Liberals with whom Alarcón cast in his lot when he first went into politics.
[25], 9. la, sc. constitución.
[25], 14. deshollinador, a long-handled scraper used by chimney sweeps to dislodge the soot.
[25], 16, 17. The reference in these lines is to Alarcón's own public career, and to his changes of political faith. He began as a revolutionary, and with growing years and discretion found himself in the ranks of the moderate conservatives, and a devoted royalist.
[25], 30. las Castillas: the Castiles, Old and New Castile. Madrid is in New Castile, the central part of Spain, reconquered from the Moors after the formation of the kingdoms of Castile, Leon and Navarre.
[26], 9. D. Eugenio de Zúñiga y Ponce de León. Spanish proper names when written in full regularly include the family name on both father's and mother's side. Thus D. Eugenio's father was a Zúñiga, his mother a Ponce de León. Women, when they marry, usually retain their own family name, adding the husband's with the copulative de; widows sign their own names, usually with the addition viuda de.... Thus Juana Suárez on her marriage to a Fernández becomes Suárez de Fernández; as a widow, she is Juana Suárez viuda de Fernández.