23 
of Edinburgh, Session 1878 - 79 . 
winter, backed by Lord Normanby, and finding favour with the 
President of the Republic, he was, though not without great diffi- 
culty, at length permitted to peruse the precious MS. He found it 
a real treasure, based as it was on the correspondence of the Emperor 
Charles from his place of retreat, with the courts of Valladolid and 
Brussels. The information derived from the perusal of this MS. 
(which he was not allowed to copy) supplied the groundwork of 
Mr Stirling’s volume, on which, from his ample resources in Spanish 
literature, he founded the true story of Charles’s cloister life, so 
different from the life depicted in the charming pages of Robertson. 
We see the Emperor setting out from Elanders in a truly imperial 
manner, accompanied by his two sisters, queens of Hungary and 
France, with a train of 150 followers and a fleet of 60 sail. We 
see him arrived at Burgos amidst the pealing of bells and the shouts 
of the populace. We follow him threading the mountain passes of 
Spain till he reaches the castle of the Count of Oropesas, sick and 
worn out, not with fasting and prayer, but with excessive indulgence 
at table. We hear of the whole country-side aroused at his advent, 
and we have not long to wait till we find every pass which leads to 
his retirement threaded by strings of sumpter mules laden with 
everything which nature and art could find out to administer to 
Charles’s inordinate love of good cheer. We see him at length in 
his cell at Yuste — a cell which had been three years in its construc- 
tion, built especially for his use — with sixty attendants only, feasting 
right royally every day, and in all respects (if Mr Stirling has not 
somewhat overstated his case, which is more than probable) as much 
a man of the world and an emperor as he had ever been at Valla- 
dolid or in Brussels. To his countrymen (who had been enamoured 
with Charles’s cloister life from reading of it only in the fascinating 
pages of Robertson) the effect produced by Mr Stirling’s book must 
have been somewhat analogous to the deletion of one of the saints 
from their calendar. 
Mr Stirling having completed for the present his historical studies, 
returned to his first love — Spanish art, and three years later he pub- 
lished “Velazquez and his Works,” a singularly able monograph. 
It is not necessary in this place to notice the works which were 
privately printed at his expense, mostly illustrative of Spanish 
history and art. It is to be regretted that their circulation was 
