But then comes some grouse. Hook, in his double-refined nonsense, palavers about the blasphemy of white wine after brown game—and he is not far wrong either;—at least I never thought he was, so long as my Hermitage lasted; but at the time I speak of, it was still to the fore-so the moment the pint a-piece was out, " Hold hard, Tom, now," cheeps little Conshy. "Why, only one glass of Hermitage, Conshy." Conshy shakes his head. Cheese-after the manner of the ancients-Hook again—" Only one glass of port, Conshy." He shakes his head, and at length the cloth is drawn, and a confounded old steward of mine, who is now installed as butler, brings in the crystal decanters, sparkling to the wax-lights-poor as I am, I consider mutton fats damnable—and every thing as it should be, down to a finger-glass. "Now, Mary, where are the children?" I am resolute. "Jack, I can't drink-out of sorts, my boy-so mind yourself, you and Peter.Now, Conshy," says I, "where are you now, my boy?" But just at this instant, Jack strikes out, with "Cringle, order me a tumbler-something hot-I don't care what it is."—" Ditto," quoth Peter; and down crumbles all my fine fabric of resolutions, only to be rebuilt to-morrow, before breakfast again, or at any odd moment, when one's flesh is somewhat fishified.-Another instance. “I say, Tom," says Conshy, "do give over looking at that smart girl tripping it along t'other side of the street."-" Presently, my dear little man," says I. " Tight little woman that, Conshy; handsome bows; good bearings forward; tumbles home sweetly about the waist, and tumbles out well above the hips; what a beautiful run! and spars clean and tight; back-stays well set up."-" Now, Tom, you vagabond, give over. Have you not a wife of your own?"-" To be sure I have, Conshy, my darling; but toujours per”—“ Have done, now, you are going too

far," says Conshy.-"Oh, you be

"." THOMAS," cries a still stern voice, from the very inmost recesses of my heart. Wee Conshy holds up his finger, and pricks his ear. "Do you hear him?" says he.-" I hear," says I, "I hear and tremble." Now, to apply. Conshy has been nudging me for this half hour to hold my tongue regarding Aaron Bang's sea-sickness." It is absolutely indecent," quoth he.-" Can't help it, Conshy; no more than the extra tumbler; those who are delicate need not read it; those who are indelicate won't be the worse of it."-"But," persists Conshy "I have other hairs in your neck, Master Tommy-you are growing a bit of a buffoon on us, and sorry am I to say it, sometimes not altoge ther, as a man with a rank imagination may construe you, a very decent one. Now, my good boy, I would have you to remember that what you write is condemned in the pages of Old Christopher to an amber immortalization," (Ohon for the Provost !)" nay, don't perk and smile, I mean no compliment, for you are but the straw in the amber, Tom, and the only wonder is, how the deuce you got there."

"But, my dear Conshy".

"Hold your tongue, Tom-let me say out my say, and finish my advice-and how will you answer to my father, in your old age, when youth, and health, and wealth, may have flown, if you find any thing in this your Log calculated to bring a blush on an innocent cheek, Tom, when the time shall have for ever passed away wherein you could have remedied the injury? For Conscience will speak to you then, not as I do now, in friendly confidence, and impelled by a sincere regard for you, you righthearted, but thoughtless, slapdash vagabond."

There must have been a great deal of absurd perplexity

in my visage, as I sat receiving my rebuke, for I noticed Conshy smile, which gave me courage.

"I will reform, Conshy, and that immediately; but my moral is good, man."

"Well, well, Tom, I will take you at your word, so set about it, set about it."

"But, Conshy-a word in your starboard lug-why don't you go to the fountain-head-why don't you try your hand in a curtain lecture on Old Kit North himself, the hoary sinner who seduced me?"

Conshy could no longer contain himself; the very idea of Old Kit having a conscience of any kind or description whatever, so tickled him, that he burst into a most uproarious fit of laughter, which I was in great hopes would have choked him, and thus made me well quit of him for ever. For some time I listened in great amazement, but there was something so infectious in his fun, that presently I began to laugh too, which only increased his cachinnation, so there were Conshy and I roaring, and shouting, with the tears running down our cheeks.

"Kit listen to me !—Oh, Lord"

"You are swearing, Conshy," said I, rubbing my hands at having caught him tripping.

"And enough to make a Quaker swear," quoth he, still laughing." No, no, Kit never listens to me-why, he would never listen even to my father, until the gout and the Catholic Relief Bill, and last of all, the Reform Bill, broke him down, and softened his heart."

So there is an allegory for you, worthy of John Bunyan. Next morning we got the breeze again, when we bore away for Santiago de Cuba, and arrived off the Moro Castle on the fifth evening at sunset, after leaving Port Royal harbour. The Spaniards, in their better days, were

Gradually vast fabrics nothing but one eternal

a kind of coral worms; wherever they planted their colonies, they immediately set to covering themselves in with stone and mortar; applying their own entire energies, and the whole strength of their Indian captives, first to the erection of a fort; their second object (postponed to the other only through absolute necessity) being then to build a temple to their God. appeared, where before there was forest, or a howling wilderness; and although it does come over one, when looking at the splendid moles, and firm-built bastions, and stupendous churches of the New World-the latter surpassing, or at the least equalling in magnificence and grandeur those of Old Spain herself— that they are all cemented by the blood and sweat of millions of gentle Indians, of whose harmless existence in many quarters, they remain the only monuments, still it is a melancholy reflection to look back and picture to one's self what Spain was, and to compare her, in her high and palmy state, with what she is now-to compare her present condition even with what she was, when, as a young midshipman, I first visited her glorious Trans

atlantic colonies.

Until the Peninsula was overrun by the French, Buenos Ayres, Laguayra, Porto Cavello, Maracaibo, Santa Martha, and that stronghold of the west, the key of the Isthmus of Darien, Cartagena de las Indias, with Porto Bello, and Vera Cruz, on the Atlantic shores of South America, were all prosperous and happy-" Llenas de plata ;" and on the Western coast, Valparaiso, Lima, Panama, and San Blas, were thriving and increasing in population and wealth. England, through her colonies, was at that time driving a lucrative trade with all of them; but the demon of change was abroad, blown thither by the pestilent breath of European liberalism. What a

vineyard for Abbé Sieyes to have laboured in! Every Capitania would have become a purchaser of one of his cut and dried constitutions. Indeed he could not have turned them out of hand fast enough. The enlightened few, in these countries, were as a drop in the bucket to the unenlightened many; and although no doubt there were numbers of the former who were well-meaning men, yet they were one and all guilty of that prime political blunder, in common with our Whig friends at home, of expecting a set of semi-barbarians to see the beauty of, and to conform to, their newfangled codes of free institutions, for which they were as ready as I am to die at this present moment. Bolivar, in his early fever of patriotism, made the same mistake, although his shrewd mind, in his later career, saw that a despotism, pure or impure -I will not qualify it- -was your only government for savages he had at one time dignified with the name of fellow-patriots. But he came to this wholesome conclusion too late; he tried back, it is true, but it would not do; the fiend had been unchained, and at length hunted him broken-hearted into his grave.

the

But the men of mind tell us, that those countries are now going through the political fermentation, which by and by will clear, when the sediment will be deposited, and the different ranks will each take their acknowledged and undisputed stations in society; and the United States are once and again quoted against we of the adverse faction, as if there were the most remote analogy between their population, originally composed of all the cleverest scoundrels of Europe, and the barbarians of Spanish America, where a few master spirits, all old Spaniards, did indeed for a season stick fiery off from the dark mass of savages amongst whom their lot was cast, like stars in a moonless night, but only to suffer a speedy eclipse from