THE ESCORIAL.

the promise which follows-"Then said He unto me, Prophesy unto the wind; prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. So I prophesied as He commanded me; and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.'

The Escorial and Segovia may be visited en route to Madrid from the north. But for many reasons it is more convenient to take these places as a separate tour from the capital. The hotel accommodation is very bad at both of them; and the diligence and railway trains are so ill-adjusted to one another that it is difficult to combine them as parts of a longer tour. We therefore include them in this chapter as excursions from Madrid.

The Escorial is about thirty-five miles from Madrid, on the northern line of railway. Its situation, though ill-suited for a residence, is very grand as a piece of natural scenery. It stands with a vast sweep of barren moor in front, which stretches away into the distance in almost endless undulations. Behind it rise a range of hills of noble height and form, dark and savage in the foreground, till, as they recede into the distance, they melt into a tender delicious blue. The scenery is like that of the Highlands of Scotland. A young Scotchman resident in Madrid told me that he used to run over to the Escorial as often as he could get away from his duties in the city, "it reminded him so much of his old home." But nowhere in Great Britain have we a line of snow-clad peaks like the Sierra de Guadarrama, which form the northern horizon. The keen, serrated edges stand up clear and sharp against the sky, and seem in the keen, pure air as though they were only a few miles away. Mr. Sala speaks of it as "a background of mountain scenery more beautiful and sublime than any I have seen out of Mexico." In this he probably exaggerates more suo. But he is certainly nearer the truth than the ordinary run of tourists, who go on repeating the same hackneyed description of the surrounding country, as though it had neither grandeur nor interest. Beauty it confessedly has none, but the scenery round Balmoral is not more grand and wild-and Balmoral has no chain of snow-peaks in view.

It affords a striking illustration of the immense size of the Escorial that even in such a situation as this it looks massive and imposing. An ordinary palace would be dwarfed into insignificance in this waste of moorland and mountain. The stern and severe simplicity of its architecture, almost entirely without decoration or ornamentation of any kind, is in harmony with the scene, and adds to its impressiveness. One cannot, however, suppress a smile at the aptness of the description, that "it is like Newgate magnified a hundred times, with the cupola of Bethlehem Hospital on the roof."

The Escorial was built by Philip II., originally with the view of founding a

* Ezekiel xxxvii. 1-10.

magnificent burial-place for the Spanish sovereigns; but as he proceeded, his plans were enlarged, and not only was it formed to receive the royal dead, but it was also destined as a splendid though most gloomy residence for them during their lives. Nor was the all-powerful Church forgotten: a convent arose within the walls for the reception of a number of monks. In this strange manner did the royal bigot fulfil a vow made by him when suffering from the dread of the French army, about to engage his own forces and those of his allies in a decisive battle. Contrary to his panic fear, he was victorious, and in the first enthusiastic warmth of his gratitude, he fulfilled the vow he had made to erect a convent on a certain spot. Building became his favourite pursuit, and the immense pile rose gradually under his auspices. For nineteen years after its completion (it was nearly twenty-two years before it was finished) did this singular sovereign reside within its melancholy walls, and finally he died there in 1598.

As it first appears in sight the palace has a very imposing effect, but a nearer approach rather lessens these first impressions. It has too modern an aspect, though this in reality arises from the materials used in the building, which have in no way suffered from the lapse of time. Still, even on a near approach, it is very fine. The severity and simplicity of taste apparent in the stately pile give a certain grandeur of effect that is very striking on a first view. Its situation is in perfect keeping with its style of architecture. It is, as it were, actually built on the rocks; and, unlike any other royal palace, it has no external embellishments of luxuriant nature to set it off all is rugged, and grand, and melancholy. The grey granite of which it is composed sends a cold shudder through one, as one thinks of the cold, cruel heart of its royal founder!

The grand entrance is never opened excepting to admit the reigning sovereign, or the corpse of the monarch when brought there for interment. I have never been more impressed than by the sight of the chapel of the Escorial. Instead of entering it by stately portals, as is usually the case, this sacred edifice is approached from a dark passage. As one emerges from it, and stands at the arched entrance, it is impossible to describe the effect produced by its simple majesty. After a while you begin to wonder what it is that has produced so startling an impression. There is no ornament of any kind-nothing to interfere with the solemn feeling that one stands in a building consecrated to the worship of the Almighty: there is nothing to diminish the grandeur of the idea. All is solemn and imposing; everything trifling seems banished. One can hardly understand how a Roman Catholic chapel can have preserved such severe simplicity in everything belonging to it. Truly the architect of that chapel was a master in his profession. There are none of those puerile trifling decorations which, in Spain, so often mar the beauty of the churches; but all is in severe taste, from the sombre black-and-white pavement to the beautiful screens of bronze and jasper.