only to the patriotic sentiments of his own country, but to general interest in the world outside, were written rapidly some of them taking not more than a few weeks and occupy a place in Spanish literature akin to that of Dumas in French, although he has been successively compared to Erckmann-Chatrian, Balzac, and Zola."

ORBAJOSA.

After another half-hour's ride there appeared before their eyes a crowded and time-worn jumble of houses, above which rose a few black towers and the ruined fabric of a tumble-down castle on a height. A mass of shapeless walls formed the base, with some fragments of battlemented bulwarks, and under their guard a thousand humble huts raising their wretched fronts of mud like the bloodless and hunger-stricken faces of beggars beseeching the passer-by for charity.

A very poor river girdled the town with, as it were, a strip of tin, giving life as it passed to a few orchards, the only verdure which refreshed the eye. People were coming in and out, on horseback and on foot, and the movement of men, small as it was, gave a certain air of life to that tomb which from the look of its buildings seemed rather the abode of ruin and death than of progress and life. The innumerable and repulsive beggars who dragged themselves along on either side of the road, begging a trifle from the passer-by, presented a pitiful spectacle. No form of life could have harmonized better, or seemed more thoroughly at home in the crevice of that sepulchre where a city lay not only buried but corrupted. As our travelers drew near, the discordant clanging of bells showed by their expressive sound that even yet the soul lingered by the mummy.From Doña Perfecta; translation of DAVID HANNAY.

CABALLUCO.

He is a very brave man, a great rider, the best horseman in the country round. In Orbajosa we all love

him much, for he is - and I say it sincerely — as good as God's blessing. There as you see him, he is a dreaded cacique, and the governor of the province is hat in hand to him. When he collected the gate-dues there was no getting over him, and every night we had fighting at our gates. He has a following worth their weight in gold. He is good to the poor, and whoever comes from without, and dares to touch a hair of the head of any son of Orbajosa, may reckon with him. Now it seems he has fallen into poverty, and has taken to carrying the post. I don't know how it is you never heard his name in Madrid, for he is son of a famous Caballuco who was in arms during the troubles, and that Caballuco the father was son of another Caballuco the grandfather, who was out in the troubles before that again; and now, as they tell us we are going to have troubles again, for everything is adrift and upside down, we are afraid Caballuco will be off, too, thus completing the mighty feats of his father and grandfather, who for our great glory were born in our city.— From Doña. Perfecta.

PEPE'S OPINION OF THE CATHEDRAL SERVICE.

And as for the music, you may imagine how much my spirit was moved to devotion on the occasion of my visit to the Cathedral, when all at once, and at the moment of the elevation, the organist struck up a passage from La Traviata. But when my heart did indeed sink was when I saw a figure of the Virgin, which appears to be held in much veneration, to judge by the number of people in front of it and the multitude of candles burning around it. They had dressed it up in an inflated robe of velvet trimmed with gold lace, of a form absurd enough to surpass the most extravagant fashions of to-day. Her face disappears under a thick foliage formed of a thousand sorts of lace crimped with tongs, and the crown, half a yard high, surrounded by golden rays, is an ill-shaped catafalque which has been rigged on her head. Of the same stuff and same trimming are the trousers of the infant Jesus.- From Dona Perfecta.

ALILEI, GALILEO, an Italian astronomer; born at Pisa, February 14, 1564; died at Arcetri, June 9, 1642. He was not of the proletariat; he was the son of a Florentine nobleman, Vicenzo Galilei and Guilia, daughter of the ancient family of the Ammanati of Pescia.

Noble though his family was, Galileo was born into poor circumstances, and it was planned for him that, after an education at Pisa as befitted his rank, he should enter the honorable business of a cloth merchant. Only the first part of the program was carried out, and fortunately the young student was handed over to the learned monks at Vallambrosa, and with them he made such rapid progress, particularly in the classics, which no doubt laid the foundation of his splendid literary style of later years, that the father began to see that he had a universal genius on his hands and not an embryo man of trade. A universal genius in truth, a fine musician, an artist of more than common power. One well founded in the solid branches of learning, and with a lively interest in belles-lettres and a wonderful talent for mechanics. It was no longer a question of what to make of the boy, but what not to make of him, and finally medicine was chosen as a profession which such all round. cleverness might fit.

In 1851 he became a student at the University of Pisa. Here, besides his study of medicine, the youth attended a course of the peripatetic philosophy as it was there taught, and he quickly obtained the nickname of "The Wrangler " because his mind refused to accept the oracular dicta of Aristotle, which was then