BARCELONA, the Barcinona of the Romans, is the capital of the province of Catalonia, and one of the principal cities of Spain. It is situated on the Mediterranean between the rivers Bezos and Llobre gat, in a beautiful and fruitful country, which forms an oblong irregular plain, encircled with hills on one side, and bounded by the sea on the other.
Barcelona was founded about .250 years before Christ by the Carthaginians, who called it after their general Hannibal Barcino. After having passed un der the dominion of the Romans, the Goths, and the Moors, Barcelona was besieged in A. D. •,302 by the generals of Louis, king of Aquitania. Having opposed a heroic resistance for seventeen months to the continual assaults of the besiegers, it yielded to the French arms after its walls were demolished, and one half of its inhabitants destroyed by famine or the sword. In the year 985 it was taken by the Moors, who burned the city, and carried into slavery almost all the inhabitants ; but it afterwards fell into the possession of Count Borel. The rebellion of the Catalonians in 1465 against Don Juan, king of Arragon, was fos tered in the capital of the province. The .king be sieged it in vain in 1462 ; but on the 17th October 1472, after a siege of six months, it yielded to the su perior force which he brought against it. The revolt of the Catalonians in 1610, exposed Barcelona to new dangers. It maintained its independence for twelve years against the arms of Philip IV. ; but it was at last taken by Don Juan of Austria in 1652, after a blockade and siege of ten months. In 1689 it oppo sed an ineffectual resistance to Charles II.: In 1697, fifty days after the trenches were opened, it was ta ken by the French under the Duke of Vendome, though the bravery of the inhabitants was seconded by a garrison of 12,000 men under the Prince of Darmstadt. Although the citizens had sworn alle giance to Philip V., they invited the English and Dutch to deliver them from his yoke. The city yielded to the allied arms, and Charles, afterwards emperor, was proclaimed king. In 1704, Philip, aided by the French, besieged Barcelona in person, and took the fortress of Montjouy ; but the English fleet com pelled him to raise the siege on the 12th of May. In
consequence of the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Cata lonia and the neighbouring provinces resumed their allegiance to Philip V. ; but Barcelona refused to join in the universal submission, and in 1714 sustained-one of the most memorable sieges that history has to re cord. Feats of heroism, worthy of the best ages of Rome, and efforts of individual courage, which have perhaps never been surpassed, but by the modern in habitants of Zaragosa, distinguished that dark and bloody night in which the streets and houses of Bar celona were filled with the mangled bodies of its war riors.—May the same spirit again animate their chil dren, who are at this moment armed for a more ardu ous struggle, and in a more glorious cause ! . The city of Barcelona is defended on one side by the shallowness of the sea, and on the other by nu merous bastions, the approaches to which are guard ed by many advanced works. Its chief defence, however, is the citadel, which was erected in 1715 at the north-cast point, to overawe the inhabitants, and the fort of Montjoily on the top of a mountain at the south-east point. The ramparts, called the sea wall and the land wall, embrace about three-fourths of the town, and form a superb terrace, from which there is a delightful view of the town and the surrounding country. At the end of the land wall is the espla nade, a large open piece of ground turfed and plant ed with trees, and extending from the new gate to the citadel. A handsome walk through it, about 414 yards long, was finished in 1801.
Though some of the streets of Barcelona arc suffi ciently spacious, yet, in general, they arc narrow and crooked. The town abounds in squares, which are small and irregular. The largest of them is very 13i spacious and elegant, decorated on one side by the L. governor's palace, on the opposite side by the ex change, on the other by the sea gate and the custom house, and on the north by.a row of good houses. The architecture of the houses is, in general, pleasing and simple ; they are about four or five stories high, having large window; with balconies. Most of the houses which have been built within the last thirty years, have their fronts adorned with paintings in fresco.