that. Some biographers suspect that while parting with his silver he was prudent enough to retain a purse lined with good gold onzas. This is pure speculation, but it is certain that he knew he could soon expect a remittance from home.

Portugal was at the time rent with civil war. The infanta Isabel María was acting as regent, and her weak government hesitated to offend the king of Spain. The liberal emigrants were kept under surveillance; some were imprisoned, others forced to leave the kingdom. Espronceda was forced to Live with the other Spanish emigrants in Santarem. There is no evidence that he was imprisoned in the Castle of St. George, as has so frequently been stated. He appears to have been free to go and come within the limits assigned him by the police; but he was constantly watched and at last forced to leave the country. It was in Portugal that the nineteen-year-old boy made the acquaintance of the Mancha family. Don Epifanio Mancha was a colonel in the Spanish army who, unlike the elder Espronceda, had been unable to reconcile himself to existing conditions. He had two daughters, one of whom, Teresa, was to play a large part in Espronceda's life. He undoubtedly made her acquaintance at this time. We are told that she embroidered for him an artillery cadet's hat; but the acquaintance probably did not proceed far. The statement that vows were exchanged, that the Mancha family preceded Espronceda to London, that on disembarking he found his Teresa already the bride of another, all this is pure legend. As a matter of fact, Espronceda preceded the Manchas to London and his elopement with Teresa did not take place until 1831, not in England but in France. All this Señor Cascales y Muñoz has shown in his recent biography.

Espronceda's expulsion from Portugal was determined upon as early as August 14, 1827; but the execution of it was delayed. He must have reached England sometime within the last four months of 1827. The first of his letters written from London that has been preserved is dated December 27 of that year. What his emotions were on passing "the immense sea ... which chains me amid the gloomy Britons" may be observed by reading his poem entitled "La Entrada del Invierno en Londres." In this poem he gives full vent to his homesickness in his "present abode of sadness," breathes forth his love for Spain, and bewails the tyrannies under which that nation is groaning. It is written in his early classic manner and exists in autograph form, dedicated by the "Citizen" José de Espronceda to the "Citizen" Balbino Cortés, his companion in exile. The date, London, January 1, 1827, is plainly erroneous, though this fact has never before been pointed out. We can only suppose that, like many another, Espronceda found it difficult to write the date correctly on the first day of a new year. We should probably read January 1, 1828. When he assures us in the poem: "Four times have I here seen the fields robbed of their treasure," he is not to be taken literally. Who will begrudge an exiled poet the delight of exaggerating his sufferings?

Five letters written from London to his parents have been preserved, thanks to the diligence of the Madrid police who seized them in his father's house in their eagerness to follow the movements of this dangerous revolutionary. They are the typical letters of a schoolboy. The writer makes excuses for his dilatoriness as a correspondent, expresses solicitude for the health of his parents, and suggests the need of a speedy remittance. In fact la falta de metálico is the burden of his song. Living is excessively dear in London. So much so that a suit of clothes costs seventeen pounds sterling; but there will be a reduction of three pounds if the draft is promptly sent. He asks that the manuscript of his "Pelayo" be sent to him, as he now has abundant leisure to finish the poem. He asks that the remittances be sent to a new agent whom he designates. The first agent was a brute who refused to aid him to get credit. He wonders that his father should suggest a call upon the Spanish ambassador. Not one word as to his political plans, a discretion for which Don Juan must have thanked him when these interesting documents fell into the hands of the police.

We have information that in London Espronceda became a fencing-master, as many a French émigré had done in the century before. This calling brought him in very little. He may have profited by the charity fund which the Duke of Wellington had raised to relieve the Spanish emigrados. His more pressing needs were satisfied by Antonio Hernáiz, a friend with whom he had made the journey from Lisbon; but the remittances from home came promptly and regularly, and Espronceda must have been one of the most favored among the refugees of Somers Town. If we may take as autobiographical a statement in "Un Recuerdo," he was entertained for a time at the country seat of Lord Ruthven, an old companion-in-arms of his father's. Ruthven is not a fictitious name, as a glance into the peerage will show. During all this time he was improving his acquaintance with Shakespeare, Milton, Byron, and other English poets. What is more surprising is that, if we may judge from his subsequent speeches as a deputy, he gained at least a superficial acquaintance with English political thought and became interested in economics. He was a convert to the doctrine of free trade.

Meanwhile the parents, who appear to have formed a bad opinion of a land where a suit of clothes cost seventeen pounds, were urging the son to go to France. He himself thought of Holland as a land combining the advantages of liberty and economy. But before leaving London he required a remittance of four thousand reales. This bad news was broken to the family bread-winner, not by José himself, but by his banker Orense. The debt, it was explained, had been incurred as the result of a slight illness. The four thousand reales were duly sent in December, but Espronceda lingered in London a few months longer; first because he was tempted by the prospect of a good position which he failed to secure, and second on account of the impossibility of obtaining a passport to France direct. He finally made his way to Paris via Brussels, from which city he writes, March 6, 1829. All this effectually dispels the legend that he eloped from England with Teresa by way of Cherbourg. The arrival in Paris of the revolutionary fencing-master put the Madrid police in a flutter. On the seventeenth of that same month the consul in Lisbon had reported that Espronceda was planning to join General Mina in an attack upon Navarra; and by the middle of April the ambassador to France had reported his arrival in Paris. It was then that the brigadier's papers were seized. Measures were taken to prevent Espronceda's receiving passports for the southern provinces of France, and for any other country but England. The friendly offices of Charles X, who had succeeded Louis XVIII on the throne of France, checked for a time the efforts of the patriotic filibusters. The latter, therefore, must have felt that they were aiding their own country as well as France when they participated in the July revolution of 1830. Espronceda fought bravely for several days at one of the Paris barricades, and wreaked what private grudge he may have had against the house of Bourbon. After the fall of Charles X, Louis Philippe, whom Espronceda was in after years to term el rey mercader, became king of France. As Ferdinand refused to recognize the new government, the designs of Spanish patriots were not hindered but even favored. Espronceda was one of a scant hundred visionaries who followed General Joaquín de Pablo over the pass of Roncevaux into Navarra. The one hope of success lay in winning over recruits on Spanish soil. De Pablo, who found himself facing his old regiment of Volunteers of Navarra, started to make a harangue. The reply was a salvo of musketry, as a result of which De Pablo fell dead. After some skirmishing most of his followers found refuge on French soil, among them Espronceda. De Pablo's