nished by these blemishes. From the earliest date of its establishment, the eminent men by whom it has been ornamented have been the object of the most authentic praises. In a royal schedule, dated in 1588, Philip II. thus expresses himself: "Our Lord has been well served, inasmuch as the effects have corresponded with the intention, to the manifest advancement of the general prosperity of the kingdom, by the means of the great exercise of letters made in the aforesaid university, which has thus been enabled to produce subjects of high consideration in each of the faculties." The marquis of Montes Claros, in his introduction to the ancient constitutions, expressed himself in a similar manner in 1614; and the learned Don Francisco Toledo asserted, that the tranquillity and harmony which the kingdom enjoyed, were the fruit of the progress and cultivation of letters. "In dissipating," he added, "those dark clouds which a blind religion had accumulated around the throne, they had multiplied the soft chains, the bands of flowers, which, even in submission, were the sure guides to freedom and repose."
It must be confessed, that our academy has not been able to free itself entirely, in the mode of instruction, from that conjunction of metaphysical opinions, which, on pretext of the investigation of truth, and the exercise of the understanding, occasion a loss of much time, to the prejudice of essential principles and solid acquirements. But when, in the eighteenth century, an enlightened Spaniard, in speaking of his nation, has observed: Paucissimi sunt qui colunt literas, cæteri barbariem: when, in 1771, the heads of the university of Salamanca, on being solicited by the supreme council of Castille, to reform their studies, replied, "that they could not depart
