queen he added the motto 'TATO MÕTA,' tanto monta—i. e. one is of as much worth as the other-which is the true etymology of our tantamount. Their grandson Charles V. brought into the shield the quarterings of Austria, Burgundy, Brabant, and Flanders; the apostolic one-headed eagle gave way to the doubleheaded eagle of the Empire. The shield was encircled with the golden fleece; the ragged staff of Burgundy and the pillars of Hercules were added as supporters, which are of rare occurrence in Spanish heraldry, and are in fact very much a fancy of English seal-engravers. The emperor struck out the negative from the 'ne plus ultra' of Hercules, and proclaimed to the world that there were no limits to Spanish ambition. The imperial eagle was discontinued by Philip II., when the empire reverted to the Austrian branch. He added the arms of Portugal, and of Flanders impaling Tyrol. The Bourbon Philip V. introduced the three fleur-de-lys of France, in an escutcheon of pretence. The arms of Spain, as struck on the common dollar, the colonati, the universal specie of the four continents, are the simple quarterings of Castille and Leon, between the Pillars of Hercules, as sup porters. The arms of private families are carved over the portals of their family houses the outward and visible signs of Hidalguia* Great legal importance is attached to the estate and mansion from whence the family sprung-(las casas solares, solariegas, la casa del obolengo).The possessor, the head of the family, el pariente mayor,' the echejauna of the Basque provinces, could not sell this, except to one of his own name and kin. If he were compelled to part with it, the next nearest relation had a right to the refusal at a fair valuation. It could not be taken from him for debt. Such manor-houses abound in Biscay and the Asturias. These mountain provinces, the Wales of the Peninsula, were never yet conquered either by Phoenician, Roman, Goth, or Moor. The families, even in the days of Strabo, were illustrious in their generation.—Τα γνωριμα εθνη (iii. 408). Their neighbours, the Gallicians, claimed a descent from Teucer after the fall of Troy (Justin, xliv. 3), which withstood the Gothic predilection for a pure Teutonic origin (St. Isidore, Etym. ix. 2). These decayed gentlemen have now become the porters of Spain. The gallegos' are hewers of wood and drawers of water at Madrid-the biblical expression for those from whose hard-worked brows the largest sweat-drop falls. Yet the feeling exists in the mountains in full force at the present day, and operates beneficially in the Consult Nobiliario de la Valdorba-Escudos de sus palacios y casas nobles.'Elorza y Rada. Pamplona, 1714. † Recop. vi. 3, 2. Ibid. v. 11, 7, existing existing struggle against brandy-begotten democracy and bloodstained corruption. The Basques are all peers among each other. This innate nobility, hardly a distinction among themselves, operates in their favour as regards all born in other and less-favoured provinces. A Basque hidalgo considers himself as much a gentleman as the king; tan hidalgo como el rey;' and something more, un poquito mas,' in allusion to the Bourbon dynasty. The mere fact of being born amidst these noble highlands constitutes gentility, provided the qualifications of reading and writing be added; then, as Sancho Panza said, a native of Biscay is fit to be secretary to an emperor. Don Quixote well knew how to affront the Biscayan by telling him that he was no gentleman' (i. 8). True highlanders, they are much attached to their native soil. This love of country in nations (like self-love in individuals) reconciles them to all local or personal disadvantages; they are poor and proud-the lot of the mountaineer; although Solomon's soul hated a poor man who was proud' (Ecc. xxv. 2), that feeling is often all which prevents the trampling of the rich and powerful. This consciousness of generous birth is essentially opposed to meanness and dishonour. The Basque, who was silent under repeated torture, when adjured on the word and honour of an hidalgo, instantly spoke out. They are no trencher-slaves, nor eat the bitter salt of dependence. In these agricultural provinces, tilling the soil and tending the flock-the destiny of Adam, and primitive occupation of patriarchs -has never been considered as derogatory. If these pursuits have not mainly contributed to advance science and civilisation, they have, at least, nurtured a happy population-simple, honest, contented, and uncorrupted. The small proprietors glory in the armorial shields which are sculptured over the porches of their humble dwellings. Time may have stripped the roof-the storm may have shattered the windows-the plunder-seeking Christinos may have dismantled the interior-but the ennobling sculpture remains, like the hatchment over the dead, enduring and immortal as the pride of the Basque and his dogged constancy and revenge. The poorer they become the more they cling to these distinctions of family: it is all that is left to them which adversity cannot take away, new-gotten riches purchase, nor kings confer. μυριο As the monarch has set his seal on all the public buildings, the hidalgo his on all private, so the cathedrals and churches bear, in addition to their peculiar arms, those of the Virgin, the Isis μupiovous of Spain-a branch of lilies issuing from a vase with two handles, un jarro de acucenas.' The word azucena is Arabic, and derived from the root zuzan = chaste. The true explanation VOL. LXII. NO. CXXIII. K of of this hieroglyphic is the incarnation of the Deity, born of a virgin, the seed of the woman alone. It is a revival of the waterlily, the lotus, the symbol of the fecundity and reproductive powers of nature. This Lucina sine concubitu has been immemorially connected, in the most ancient creeds, with certain mandrakes. bulbs, and flowers, and doubtless was based on an indistinct tradition of the promise made to man at the fall. The lotus (Nymphæra nelumbo, Linn.) is emblematic of the fertility of the Nile; the self-created deity arose from the petals. Harpocrates. with finger on the lip and seated in the flower, indicated the generation of all things, and the divine principle of life. The lotus was the emblem of Isis and Ganga, the goddesses of the Nile and Ganges. In the Hindoo Sheeva Puranna, Vishnu. when about to create the universe, produced a lotus, from the unfolded flowers of which the incarnate Bramah proceeded. Therefore, the kernel was held sacred by the Brahmins; for, as Cicero remarks (de Nat. D. iii. 6), no heathen ever dreamed of eating his god. This mystery was revealed to Pythagoras by the Indian priests on his return, he substituted the bean, xvaus, because the lotus did not grow in Greece. Pliny clearly understood the intended identity (N. H. xvi. 53). The bridal couch of Jupiter and Juno is described by Homer as strewed with the lotus-flower-earth's freshest, softest bed' (Il. č. 348). Lotis. the virgin daughter of Neptune, was metamorphosed into this flower when flying from the love of Priapus (Ovid, Met. ix. 347), a myth most entirely in point. Juno becomes the mother of Mars, solely by touching the flower (Fasti, v. 255). middle ages, an idea was prevalent that any female who ate the common lily would become pregnant. The curious romance of Don Tristen turns on this idea;* consequently, a mysterious importance has long been attached to the lily in Spain. In the year 1043, Garcia VI. of Navarre founded at Najera the order of our Lady and the Lily,' on the occasion of the discovery of an image of the Virgin issuing from that flower with the Infant in her arms. In 1403, on the day of her Assumption, the Regent Fernando instituted, at Medina del Campo, the order of the 'Earthen Jar,' la Terraza,' the vase in which these lilies are placed; and, on the conquest of Antequerra, he gave the badge— the arms of the Virgin-to that city, which still bears it on the shield. * Romancero de Romanceros. Duran. iv. 22. Alli nace un arboledo Que acusena se llamaba, Luego se siente prenada. The The preceding remarks, selected from many more researches made on this subject, which we are not aware has ever been noticed or explained, will perhaps connect the armorial bearings of the Virgin in Spain with some of the most ancient and universal floral symbols of a miraculous incarnation and immaculate pregnancy: "Quod petis, Oleniis, inquam, mihi missus ab arvis FLOS DABIT; est hortis unicus ille meis. OVID. ART. IV.-1. Works of Art and Artists in England. By G. F. Waagen, Director of the Royal Gallery at Berlin. London. 3 vols. 12mo. 1838. 2. Painting and the Fine Arts; being the Articles under those heads contributed to the Seventh Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. By B. R. Haydon and William Hazlitt, Esqrs. Edin. 12mo. 1838. 3. Report from the Select Committee on Arts, and their Connexion with Manufactures. 1836. 4. Histoire de l'Art Moderne en Allemagne. Par le Comte A. Raczynski. Paris. 1836. THE title of Mr. Waagen's book is perhaps calculated to excite more curiosity than will be gratified by its contents. As far as contemporary art and its professors are concerned, the author is not only gentle in criticism but sparing in remark. Whatever be the merit of modern productions, his experienced eye found metal more attractive in the ancient vein which it was his peculiar purpose to explore; and in this he has delved with a German assiduity, which probably left him little leisure to expatiate in the regions of Somerset House. Candidates for praise he sends supperless to bed; and others, who might expect and desire to find in his volumes a free dispensation of wholesome but unpalatable truths from a foreign and impartial hand, will be no less disappointed. His visit to the Exhibition of 1836 is comprised, as far as painting is concerned, in four pages; and if to these we add a few observations on the deceased masters of the English school, and some scattered remarks on contemporaries, we shall have exhausted nearly all that concerns us in a national point of view, and shall look in vain for any comprehensive estimate of the state of art in this country, as compared with its progress and condition on the Continent. With the modern French school we believe, indeed, Mr. Waagen was little acquainted at the period of his visit England, for Paris had not lain on his route; but the rising school of Dusseldorf, and those of his native Berlin, and of Munich, might have afforded him fertile and instructive topics of comparison. We suspect that Mr. Waagen's reserve on such themes may, in part, be attributable to the cordiality (which he acknowledges) of his reception, at the hands both of lovers and professors of art, in this country. The severer functions of criticism are also, perhaps. in some respects, more painful in the matter of the fine arts of painting and sculpture, as practised by the living, than in the departments of science or literature. The painter or sculptor has, generally speaking, from the nature of his pursuit, a more obvious claim on forbearance than the man of letters. The publication of a volume is seldom evidence in itself of the choice of a profession, or that devotion to a particular career, which hazards on success the means of subsistence as well as the attainment of reputation. The race of writers in these days is not, as in those of Johnson, a class apart, fed by the proceeds of dedications to noblemen, or looking for a dinner to the pot-luck of Mr. Lintot's back room. Such authors, doubtless, still there are; but a large proportion of the volumes which now issue from the press are written by men who have resources, private and professional, fall back upon-who have something else, and frequently, as there is every reason from the result to conjecture, something better to do. The garrets of Grub-street, such as Hogarth painted, have now, we believe, few inspired tenants. The shaded lamp sheds its light on many a MS.; the morocco chair lends its aid to medi tation; and well-filled book-shelves supply those means of reference and extract which the sub-dio' book-stall once afforded to starving industry and genius out-at-elbows. On the other hand, the atelier of many a pallid student in this country, and stil more, perhaps, on the Continent, could tell, as we believe, a tale, which, if disclosed at the moment, would freeze the ink on the pen of a Zoilus. It is, therefore, painful to endeavour to aid the less discerning to the discovery of imperfections which may damp their disposition to purchase, or to wield in matters of taste the rod which we apply without compunction, where immorality calls for censure, or false reasoning for refutation. We have been led to these passing observations by the perusal of a recent volume, entitled Notice of the Life and Works of Leopold Robert,' a French artist;-not one of those, indeed, whe struggled and failed, but who, in the plenitude of success (we know not how far justified by his works), lately committed suicide. The brief record of his life, however, drawn up a surviving brother, presents a touching picture of the early by difficulties |