Here's a passage from an article that might be of interest to those keeping up with the Paseo del Prado tree thing. In case you hadn't heard, the Ruiz-Gallardon city government has come up with a plan to reorganize traffic in downtown Madrid that would include cutting down a substantial number of the enormous shady plane trees (I'm still not sure what the difference between what they call plane trees in Europe and what we call sycamores or sweetgums in the US is) along the boulevard in front of Spain's three most famous art museums, the Prado, the Reina Sofia, and the Thyssen. The Aguirre regional government is against the plan and has threatened to block it, since the Paseo del Prado is a national heritage site and it can't be changed without regional approval. And Carmen Cervera, the, uh, picturesque Baroness von Thyssen, has threatened both to chain herself to the trees and to break off negotiations on the transfer of hundreds of paintings from her personal collection to Spain.

The Prado of Madrid is, both to Spaniards and strangers,
a source of inexhaustible amusement. As a public walk, it
is one of the finest within the walls of any European city,
finer, in most respects, than either the Tuilleries at Paris, or
the Chiaja at Naples. It begins at the gate of Atocha, and
passing the magnificent entrance of Alcala, extends round to
the gate and convent of the Recoletos, following the limits of
the city. Anciently it was an uneven mea(low or field, as its
name, like that of the Prater at Vienna, derived from the
Latin, pratum, plainly shows; and, while it was in this con-
dition, it was famous as the scene of most of the plots, duels,
murders, and intrigues of the city, as is, at once, seen in
the old plays and ballads. It was not, however, until the
middle of the last century, when the adjacent palace of the
Buen Retiro rose to great favor, that Charles the Third
levelled it, planted it with trees, and made it the beautiful
walk it now is.

On entering it from the gate of Alcala, or rather from the
street of the same name, the stranger finds himself in the
midst of a superb, wide opening, called the saloon ; on the
right hand of which is a double walk, and on the left, first a
broad drive for the carriages, wide enough for four or five to
pass abreast, and afterwards another double walk; the whole
ornamented with three fine fountains and eight rows of trees,
statues, and marble seats. During the forenoon and nearly
the whole of the afternoon, in the fine season, no part of the
city is so silent and deserted as this; and yet when the heat
will permit, it is a spot, which, of all others in Madrid, is most
attractive by its freshness, its solitude, and its shade. Be-
tween five and six o’clock, the whole Prado is carefully
watered, to prevent the dust, which would otherwise be in-
tolerable, in a city where rain is very rare in the summer
season. Just before sunset the carriages of all Madrid, and
a great proportion of the population of the city begin to
appear; and about half an hour after sunset, the exhibition
is in its greatest splendor. There is nothing like it anywhere
else.

The article, titled "Amusements in Spain," was published in the North American Review in July 1825. It's rather a confused article, as it's a review of a book by a British officer in Wellington's army. There are basically three parts, a recounting of anecdotes from the book, a description of the Paseo del Prado, and a description of a bullfight. This is a must-read for anyone interested in history, and a damned good argument against cutting down any of the trees. If some American hack writer from 190 years ago turned out a piece saying that "there is nothing like the Prado anywhere else," he just might be worth listening to.

The piece is part of the Making of America website, which contains an enormous amount of links to American books and magazines from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It is an amazing collection of primary sources; just browse through it and you'll quickly find something that will catch your interests. In one afternoon of browsing I found articles including a German author's contempt for 1850s America, an anti-Nativist argument from the 1840s, a comparison of Webster's and Worcester's dictionaries, a nostalgic description of student life at Yale back in the good old days of the 1820s, the list of required courses at Harvard in 1818, a navy engineer's criticism of Lesseps' sea-level Panama Canal project, and several glorious chauvinistic paeans to the greatness of the United States.