of a manufactory, as a means of employing his peasants and as a source of profit to himself. In some cases the manufactory is at work only during the winter, and the people are employed in the summer in agriculture; though, beyond what is necessary for home consumption, this is but an unprofitable trade in most parts of this empire, from the badness of roads, the paucity and distance of markets, and the consequent difficulty in selling produce.

The alternate employment of the same man in the field and in the factory, which would be attempted in most countries with little success, is here rendered practicable and easy by the versatile genius of the Russian peasant, one of whose leading national characteristics is a general capability of turning his hand to any kind of work which he may be required to undertake. He will plough to-day, weave to-morrow, help to build a house the third day, and the fourth, if his master needs an extra coachman, he will mount the box and drive four horses abreast as though it were his daily occupation. It is probable that none of these operations, except, perhaps, the last, will be as well performed as in a country where the division of labour is more thoroughly understood. They will all, however, be sufficiently well done to serve the turn-a favourite phrase in Russia. These people are a very ingenious race, but perseverance is wanting; and though they will carry many arts to a high degree of excellence, they will generally stop short of the point of perfection, and it will be long before their manufactures can rival the finish and durability of English goods.

Excursions in the Interior of Russia, by ROBERT BREMNER, two volumes, 1839, is a narrative of a short visit to Russia during the autumn of 1836. The same author published Excursions in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, two volumes, 1840. Before parting from Russia, it may be observed that no English book upon that country exceeds in interest A Residence on the Shores of the Baltic, described in a Series of Letters, 1841, being more particularly an account of the Esthonians, whose simple character and habits afford a charming picture. This delightful book was understood to be from the pen of a lady, Miss Rigby, afterwards Lady Eastlake, author of Livonian Tales, 1846.

Of Norway and Sweden we have accounts by MR SAMUEL LAING, of Papdale, Orkney, a younger brother of the author of the History of Scotland during the seventeenth century. This gentleman did not begin to publish till a mature period of life, his first work being a Residence in Norway in 1834-36, and the second, a Tour in Sweden in 1838, both of which abound in valuable statistical facts and well-digested information. Mr Laing resided for two years in different parts of Norway, and concluded that the Norwegians were the happiest people in Europe. Their landed property is so extensively diffused in small estates, that out of a population of a million there are about 41,656 proprietors. There is no law of primogeniture, yet the estates are not subdivided into minute possessions, but average from forty to sixty acres of arable land, with adjoining natural wood and pasturage.

Agricultural Peasantry of Norway.

The Bonder, or agricultural peasantry (says Mr Laing), each the proprietor of his own farm, occupy the country from the shore side to the hill foot, and up every valley or glen as far as corn can grow. This class is the kernel of the nation. They are in general fine athletic men, as their properties are not so large as to exempt

...

them from work, but large enough to afford them and their household abundance, and even superfluity of the best food. They farm not to raise produce for sale, so much as to grow everything they eat, drink, and wear in their families. They build their own houses, make their own chairs, tables, ploughs, carts, harness, ironwork, basket-work, and wood-work; in short, except window-glass, cast-iron ware, and pottery, everything about their houses and furniture is of their own fabrication. There is not probably in Europe so great a popu lation in so happy a condition as these Norwegian yeomanry. A body of small proprietors, each with his thirty or forty acres, scarcely exists elsewhere in Europe; or, if it can be found, it is under the shadow of some more imposing body of wealthy proprietors or commercial men. Here they are the highest men in the nation. The settlers in the newer states of America, and in our colonies, possess properties of probably about the same extent; but they have roads to make, lands to clear, houses to build, and the work that has been doing here for a thousand years to do, before they can be in the same condition. These Norwegian proprietors are in a happier condition than those in the older states of America, because they are not so much influenced by the spirit of gain. They farm their little estates, and consume the produce, without seeking to barter or sell, except what is necessary for paying their taxes and the few articles of luxury they consume. There is no money-getting spirit among them, and none of extravagance. They enjoy the comforts of excellent houses, as good and large as those of the wealthiest individuals; good furniture, bedding, linen, clothing, fuel, victuals, and drink, all in abundance, and of their own providing; good horses, and a houseful of people who have more food than work. Food, furniture, and clothing being all home-made, the difference in these matters between the family and the servants is very small; but there is a eat, sleep, and sit apart from the family, and have generperfect distinction kept up. The servants invariably ally a distinct building adjoining to the family house.

The neighbouring country of Sweden appears to be in a much worse condition, and the people are described as highly immoral and depraved. By the returns from 1830 to 1834, one person in every forty-nine of the inhabitants of the towns, and one in every hundred and seventy-six of the rural population, had been punished each year for criminal offences. The state of female morals, particularly in the capital of Stockholm, is worse than in any other European state. Yet in Sweden education is widely diffused, and literature is not neglected. The nobility are described by Mr Laing as sunk in debt and poverty; yet the people are vain of idle distinctions, and the order of burgher nobility is as numerous as in some of the German states.

Society of Sweden.

licensed class or corporation, of which every member is Every man (he says) belongs to a privileged or by law entitled to be secured and protected within his own locality from such competition or interference of others in the same calling as would injure his means of living. It is, consequently, not as with us, upon his industry, ability, character, and moral worth that the employment and daily bread of the tradesman, and the social influence and consideration of the individual, in every rank, even the highest, almost entirely depends; it is here, in the middle and lower classes, upon corporate rights and privileges, or upon license obtained from government; and in the higher, upon birth and court or government favour. Public estimation, gained by character and conduct in the several relations of life, is not a necessary element in the social condition even

of the working tradesman. Like soldiers in a regiment, a great proportion of the people under this social system derive their estimation among others, and consequently their own self-esteem, not from their moral worth, but from their professional standing and importance. This evil is inherent in all privileged classes, but is concealed or compensated in the higher, the nobility, military, and clergy, by the sense of honour, of religion, and by education. In the middle and lower walks of life those influences are weaker, while the temptations to immorality are stronger; and the placing a man's livelihood, prosperity, and social consideration in his station upon other grounds than on his own industry and moral worth, is a demoralising evil in the very structure of Swedish society.'

Mr Laing has since published Notes of a Traveller in Europe, 1854; Observations on the Social and Political State of the European People in 1848-49; and Observations on the Social and Political State of Denmark and the Duchies in 1851.

Travels in Circassia and Krim Tartary, by MR SPENCER, author of a work on Germany and the Germans, two volumes, 1837, was hailed with peculiar satisfaction, as affording information respecting a brave mountainous tribe who long warred with Russia to preserve their national independence. They appear to be a simple people, with feudal laws and customs, never intermarrying with any race except their own. Further information was afforded of the habits of the Circassians by the Journal of a Residence in Circassia during the years 1837, 1838, and 1839, by MR J. S. BELL. This gentleman resided in Circassia in the character of agent or envoy from England, which, however, was partly assumed. He acted also as physician, and seems generally to have been received with kindness and confidence. The population, according to Mr Bell, is divided into fraternities, like the tithings or hundreds in England during the time of the Saxons. Criminal offences are punished by fines levied on the fraternity, that for homicide being two hundred oxen. The guerrilla warfare which the Circassians carried on against Russia, marked their indomitable spirit and love of country, but it, of course, retarded their civilisation.

A Winter in the Azores, and a Summer at the Baths of the Furnas, by JOSEPH BULLAR, M.D., and JOHN BULLAR of Lincoln's Inn, two volumes, 1841, furnish some light agreeable notices of the islands of the Azores, under the dominion of Portugal, from which they are distant about 800 miles. This archipelago contains about 250,000 inhabitants. St Michael's is the largest town, and there is a considerable trade in oranges betwixt it and England. About 120,000 large and small chests of oranges were shipped for England in 1839, and 315 boxes of lemons. These particulars will serve to introduce a passage respecting

March 26.-Accompanied Senhor B- to several of his orange-gardens in the town. Many of the trees in one garden were a hundred years old, still bearing plentifully a highly prized thin-skinned orange, full of juice and free from pips. The thinness of the rind of a St Michael's orange, and its freedom from pips, depend on the age of the tree. The young trees, when in full vigour, bear fruit with a thick pulpy rind and an

abundance of seeds; but as the vigour of the plant declines, the peel becomes thinner, and the seeds gradually diminish in number, until they disappear altogether. Thus, the oranges that we esteem the most are the produce of barren trees, and those which we consider the least palatable come from plants in full vigour.

Our friend was increasing the number of his trees by layers. These usually take root at the end of two years. They are then cut off from the parent stem, and are vigorous young trees four feet high. The process of raising from seed is seldom, if ever, adopted in the Azores, on account of the very slow growth of the trees so raised. Such plants, however, are far less liable to the inroads of a worm which attacks the roots of the trees raised from layers, and frequently proves very destructive to them. The seed or pip' of the acid orange, which we call Seville, with the sweeter kind grafted upon it, is said to produce fruit of the finest flavour. In one small garden eight trees were pointed out which had borne for two successive years a crop of oranges which was sold for thirty pounds. that in St Michael's, where, after they are planted out, The treatment of orange-trees in Fayal differs from they are allowed to grow as they please. In this orange. garden the branches, by means of strings and pegs fixed in the ground, were strained away from the centre into the shape of a cup, or of the ribs of an open umbrella turned upside down. This allows the sun to penetrate, exposes the branches to a free circulation of air, and is said to be of use in ripening the fruit. Certain it is that oranges are exported from Fayal several weeks earlier than they are from St Michael's; and as this cannot be attributed to greater warmth of climate, it may possibly be owing to the plan of spreading the

trees to the sun.

The same precautions are taken here as in St Michael's to shield them from the winds; high walls are built round all the gardens, and the trees themselves are planted among rows of fayas, firs, and camphor-trees. If it were not for these precautions, the oranges would be blown down in such numbers as to interfere with or swallow up the profits of the gardens; none of the windfalls or ground fruit,' as the merchants here call them, being exported to England.

Suddenly we came upon merry groups of men and boys, all busily engaged in packing oranges, in a square goodly pile of the fresh fruit, sitting on heaps of the and open plot of ground. They were gathered round a dry calyx-leaves of the Indian corn, in which each Near these circles of laughing Azoreans, who sat at orange is wrapped before it is placed in the boxes. their work and kept up a continual cross-fire of rapid repartee as they quickly filled the orange-cases, were a party of children, whose business it was to prepare the husks for the men, who used them in packing. These youngsters, who were playing at their work like the children of a larger growth that sat by their side, were with much difficulty kept in order by an elderly man, who shook his head and a long stick whenever they flagged or idled. . . .

Á quantity of the leaves being heaped together near the packers, the operation began. A child handed to a workman who squatted by the heap of fruit a prepared husk; this was rapidly snatched from the child, wrapped round the orange by an intermediate workman, passed by the feeder to the next, who, sitting with the chest between his legs, placed it in the orange-box with amazing rapidity, took a second, and a third, and a fourth as fast as his hands could move and the feeders could supply him, until at length the chest was filled to overflowing, and was ready to be nailed up. Two men then handed it to the carpenter, who bent over the orange-chest several thin boards, secured them with the willow-band, pressed it with his naked foot as he sawed off the ragged ends of the boards, and finally despatched it to the ass which stood ready for lading.

Two chests were slung across his back by means of cords crossed in a figure of eight; both were well secured by straps under his belly; the driver took his goad, pricked his beast, and uttering the never-ending cry Sackaaio,' trudged off to the town.

The orange-trees in this garden cover the sides of a glen or ravine, like that of the Dargle, but somewhat less steep; they are of some age, and have lost the stiff clumpy form of the younger trees. Some idea of the rich beauty of the scene may be formed by imagining the trees of the Dargle to be magnificent shrubs loaded with orange fruit, and mixed with lofty arbutuses

Groves whose rich fruit, burnished with golden rind,
Hung amiable, and of delicious taste.

In one part scores of children were scattered among the branches, gathering fruit into small baskets, hallooing, laughing, practically joking, and finally emptying their gatherings into the larger baskets underneath the trees, which, when filled, were slowly borne away to the packing-place, and bowled out upon the great heap. Many large orange-trees on the steep sides of the glen lay on the ground uprooted, either from their load of fruit, the high winds, or the weight of the boys, four, five, and even six of whom will climb the branches at the same time; and as the soil is very light, and the roots are superficial-and the fall of a tree perhaps not unamusing-down the trees come. They are allowed to lie where they fall; and those which had evidently fallen many years ago were still alive, and bearing good crops. The oranges are not ripe until March or April, nor are they eaten generally by the people here until that time-the boys, however, that picked them are marked exceptions. The young children of Villafranca are now almost universally of a yellow tint, as if saturated with orange juice.

Travels in New Zealand, by EARNEST DIEFFENBACH, M. D., late naturalist to the New Zealand Company, 1843, is a valuable history of an interesting country, destined apparently to transmit the English language, arts, and civilisation. Mr Dieffenbach gives a minute account of the language of New Zealand, of which he compiled a grammar and dictionary. He conceives the native population of New Zealand to be fit to receive the benefits of civilisation, and to amalgamate with the British colonists.

MR ANTHONY TROLLOPE's Travels in Australia and New Zealand, 1873, supply recent and minute information. The vast improvements of late years the formation of railroads and general progress in New Zealand-have been extraordinary. Of the squatters and free settlers, Mr Trollope says:

The first night we stayed at a squatter's house, and I soon learned that the battle between the squatter and the free-selecter, of which I had heard so much in the Australian colonies, was being waged with the same internecine fury in New Zealand. Indeed the New Zealand bitterness almost exceeded that of New South Wales-though I did not hear the complaint, so common in New South Wales, that the free-selecters were all cattle-stealers. The complaint made here was that the government, in dealing with the land, had continually favoured the free-selecter at the expense of the squatter —who having been the pioneer in taking up the land, deserved all good things from the country of his adop: tion. The squatter's claim is in the main correct. He has deserved good things, and has generally got them. In all these colonies-in New Zealand as well as New South Wales and Victoria-the squatter is the aristocrat of the country. In wealth, position, and general influ

ence he stands first. There are no doubt points as to which the squatters have been unjustly used-matters as to which the legislature have endeavoured to clip their wings at the expense of real justice. But they have been too strong for the legislature, have driven coaches and horses through colonial acts of parliament, have answered injustice by illegal proceeding, and have as a rule held their own and perhaps something more. I soon found that in this respect the condition of New Zealand was very similar to that of the Australian colonies. The gentleman who accompanied us was the government land-commissioner of the province, and, as regarded private life, was hand and glove with our host; but the difference of their position gave me an opportunity of hearing the land question discussed as it regarded that province. I perceived that the New Zealand squatter regarded himself as a thrice-shorn lamb, but was looked upon by anti-squatters as a very wolf.

Of the Maoris he takes a less romantic or sympathetic view than some writers:

They are certainly more highly gifted than other savage nations I have seen. They are as superior in intelligence and courage to the Australian aboriginal as they are in outward appearance. They are more pliable and nearer akin in their manners to civilised mankind than are the American Indians. They are more manly, more courteous, and also more sagacious than the African negro. One can understand the hope and the ambition of the first great old missionaries who had dealings with them. But contact with Europeans does not improve them. At the touch of the higher race they are poisoned and melt away. There is scope for poetry in their past history. There is room for philanthropy as to their present condition. But in regard to their future -there is hardly a place for hope.

Life in Mexico, during a Residence of Two Years in that Country, by MADAME CALDERON DE LA BARCA, an English lady, is full of sketches of domestic life, related with spirit and acuteness. In no other work are we presented with such agreeable glimpses of Mexican life and manners. Letters on Paraguay, and Letters on South America, by J. P. and W. P. ROBERTSON, are the works of two brothers who resided twenty-five years in South America.

The Narrative of the Voyages of H.M.S.' Adventure' and 'Beagle,' 1839, by CAPTAINS KING and FITZROY, and C. DARWIN, Esq., naturalist of the Beagle, detail the various incidents which occurred during their examination of the southern shores of South America, and during the Beagle's circumnavigation of the globe. The account of the Patagonians in this work, and that of the natives of Tierra del Fuego, are both novel and interesting, while the details supplied by Mr Darwin possess a permanent value (ante, p. 762).

Notes on the United States during a Phrenological Visit in 1839-40, have been published by MR GEORGE COMBE, in three volumes. Though attaching what is apt to appear an undue importance to his views of phrenology, Mr Combe was a sensible traveller. He paid particular attention to schools and all benevolent institutions, which he has described with care and minuteness. Among the matter-of-fact details and sober disquisitions in this work, we meet with the following romantic story. The author had visited the lunatic asylum at Bloomingdale, where he learned this realisation of Cymon and Iphigenia-finer even than the version of Dryden!

An American Cymon and Iphigenia. In the course of conversation, a case was mentioned to me as having occurred in the experience of a highly respectable physician, and which was so fully authenticated, that I entertain no doubt of its truth. The physician alluded to had a patient, a young man, who was almost idiotic from the suppression of all his faculties. He never spoke, and never moved voluntarily, but sat habitually with his hands shading his eyes. The physician sent him to walk as a remedial measure. In the neighbourhood, a beautiful young girl of sixteen lived with her parents, and used to see the young man in his walks, and speak kindly to him. For some time he took no notice of her; but after meeting her for several months, he began to look for her, and to feel disappointed if she did not appear. He became so much interested, that he directed his steps voluntarily to her father's cottage, and gave her bouquets of flowers. By degrees he conversed with her through the window. His mental faculties were roused; the dawn of convalescence appeared. The girl was virtuous, intelligent, and lovely, and encouraged his visits when she was told that she was benefiting his mental health. She asked him if he could read and write? He answered, No. She wrote some lines to him to induce him to learn. This had the desired effect. He applied himself to study, and soon wrote good and sensible letters to her. He recovered his reason. She was married to a young man from the neighbouring city. Great fears were entertained that this event would undo the good which she had accomplished. The young patient sustained a severe shock, but his mind did not sink under it. He acquiesced in the propriety of her choice, continued to improve, and at last was restored to his family cured. She had a child, and was soon after brought to the same hospital perfectly insane. The young man heard of this event, and was exceedingly anxious to see her; but an interview was denied to him, both on her account and his own. She died. He continued well, and became an active member of society. What a beautiful romance might be founded on this narrative!

America, Historical, Statistical, and Descriptive, by J. S. BUCKINGHAM, is a vast collection of facts and details, few of them novel or striking, but apparently written with truth and candour. The work fatigues from the multiplicity of its small statements, and the want of general views or animated description. In 1842 the author published two additional volumes, describing his tour in the slave-states. These are more interesting, because the ground is less hackneyed, and Mr Buckingham felt strongly, as a benevolent and humane man, on the subject of slavery. Mr Buckingham was an extensive traveller and writer. He published narratives of journeys in Palestine, Assyria, Media, and Persia, and of various continental tours. He tried a number of literary schemes, establishing the Oriental Herald and Athenæum weekly journal, and was a successful lecturer. He had published two volumes of an autobiography, when he died somewhat suddenly in 1855, aged sixty-nine.

Among other works on America we may mention the Western World, by ALEXANDER MACKAY, three volumes, 1849, a very complete and able book up to the date of its publication; Things as They are in America, by DR WILLIAM CHAMBERS; and Life and Liberty in America, by DR CHARLES MACKAY. 'A visit to America,' as Dr Chambers has said, 'is usually one of the early aspirations of the more impressionable

youth of England. The stirring stories told of Columbus, Sebastian Cabot, Raleigh, and Captain

John Smith; the history of the Pilgrim Fathers Penn's transactions with the Indians; the narfleeing from persecution; the description of ratives of the gallant achievements of Wolfe and Washington, and the lamentable humiliations of Burgoyne and Cornwallis; the exciting autobiography of the Philadelphian printer, who, from toiling at the press, rose to be the companion of kings-all have their due effect on the imagination.' The facilities afforded by steam-boat communication also render a visit to America a matter of easy and pleasant accomplishment, and the United States are every season traversed by hosts of British tourists-men of science, art, and literature, and pleasure-seekers, while the international commerce and trading is proportionally

extended.

Two remarkable works on Spain have been published by MR GEORGE BORROW, late agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society. The first of these, in two volumes, 1841, is entitled Zincali, or an Account of the Gipsies in Spain. Mr Borrow calculates that there are about forty thousand gipsies in Spain, of which about onethird are to be found in Andalusia. The caste, he says, has diminished of late years. The author's adventures with this singular people are curiously compounded of the ludicrous and romantic, and are related in the most vivid and Mr Borrow's second work is dramatic manner.

named The Bible in Spain; or the Journeys, Adventures, and Imprisonments of an Englishman in an attempt to circulate the Scriptures in the Peninsula, 1844. There are many things in the book which, as the author acknowledges, have little connection with religion or religious enterprise. It is indeed a series of personal adventures, varied and interesting, with sketches of character and romantic incidents drawn with more power and vivacity than is possessed by most novelists.

squares,

Impressions of the City of Madrid.

From Borrow's Bible in Spain.

I have visited most of the principal capitals of the world, but upon the whole none has ever so interested me as this city of Madrid, in which I now found myself. I will not dwell upon its streets, its edifices, its public squares, its fountains, though some of these are remarkable enough but Petersburg has finer streets, Paris and Edinburgh more stately edifices, London far nobler though not cooler waters. But the population! Within whilst Shiraz can boast of more costly fountains, a mud wall, scarcely one league and a half in circuit, are contained two hundred thousand human beings, certainly forming the most extraordinary vital mass to be found in the entire world; and be it always remembered that this mass is strictly Spanish. The population of Constantinople is extraordinary enough, but to form it twenty nations have contributed-Greeks, Armenians, Persians, Poles, Jews, the latter, by-the-bye, of Spanish origin, and speaking amongst themselves the old Spanish language; but the huge population of Madrid, with the tailors, glove-makers, and perruquiers, is strictly Spanish, exception of a sprinkling of foreigners, chiefly French though a considerable portion are not natives of the place. Here are no colonies of Germans, as at St Petersburg; no English factories, as at Lisbon; no multitudes of insolent Yankees lounging through the streets, as at the Havannah, with an air which seems to

say, 'The land is our own whenever we choose to take it;' | but a population which, however strange and wild, and composed of various elements, is Spanish, and will remain so as long as the city itself shall exist. Hail, ye aguadores of Asturia! who, in your dress of coarse duffel and leathern skull-caps, are seen seated in hundreds by the fountain-sides, upon your empty water: casks, or staggering with them filled to the topmost stories of lofty houses. Hail, ye caleseros of Valencia! who, lolling lazily against your vehicles, rasp tobacco for your paper cigars whilst waiting for a fare. Hail to you, beggars of La Mancha! men and women, who, wrapped in coarse blankets, demand charity indifferently at the gate of the palace or the prison. Hail to you, valets from the mountains, mayordomos and secretaries from Biscay and Guipuscoa, toreros from Andalusia, riposteros from Galicia, shopkeepers from Catalonia! Hail to ye, Castilians, Estremenians, and Aragonese, of whatever calling! And, lastly, genuine sons of the capital, rabble of Madrid, ye twenty thousand manolos, whose terrible knives, on the second morning of May, worked such grim havoc amongst the legions of Murat ! And the higher orders-the ladies and gentlemen, the cavaliers and señoras; shall I pass them by in silence? The truth is, I have little to say about them; I mingled but little in their society, and what I saw of them by no means tended to exalt them in my imagination. I am not one of those who, wherever they go, make it a constant practice to disparage the higher orders, and to exalt the populace at their expense. There are many capitals in which the high aristocracy, the lords and ladies, the sons and daughters of nobility, constitute the most remarkable and the most interesting part of the population. This is the case at Vienna, and more especially at London. Who can rival the English aristocrat in lofty stature, in dignified bearing, in strength of hand, and valour of heart? Who rides a nobler horse? Who has a firmer seat? And who more lovely than his wife, or sister, or daughter? But with respect to the Spanish aristocracy, I believe the less that is said of them on the points to which I have just alluded the better. I confess, however, that I know little about them. Le Sage has described them as they were nearly two centuries ago. His description is any thing but captivating, and I do not think that they have improved since the period of the immortal Frenchman. I would sooner talk of the lower class, not only of Madrid, but of all Spain. The Spaniard of the lower class has much more interest for me, whether manolo, labourer, or muleteer. He is not a common being; he is an extraordinary man. He has not, it is true, the amiability and generosity of the Russian mujik, who will give his only rouble rather than the stranger shall want; nor his placid courage, which renders him insenible to fear, and at the command of his czar sends him singing to certain death. There is more hardness and less self-devotion in the disposition of the Spaniard he possesses, however, a spirit of proud independence, which it is impossible but to admire.

Mr Borrow has since published Lavengro--the Scholar, the Gipsy, the Priest, 1851; Romany Rye, a sequel to Lavengro; and Wild Wales, its People, Language and Scenery, 1870. These works are inferior in interest to his former publications, but are still remarkable books. Mr Borrow is a native of Norfolk, born at East Dereham in 1803.

RICHARD FORD.

One of the most vivid pictures of a great country and people ever drawn, is presented in the Handbook for Travellers in Spain and Readers at Home, by RICHARD FORD (1796-1858). The first edition of this work appeared in 1845, in two volumes. In 1846 the author selected portions of it to form,

with additions and corrections, a work suited to the library, and bearing the title of Gatherings from Spain. A new edition, partly rewritten, was issued in 1855, as one of the series of Murray's Hand-books. This interesting and valuable work has elicited praise from all travellers in Spain and all literary critics, as the best book that has ever appeared for illustration of the national character and manners of the Spaniards, as well as for its descriptions of the scenery, and topography of the country. Mr Ford was the eldest son of Sir Richard Ford, at one time M.P. for East Grinstead, and chief police magistrate of London. He studied for the bar, but never practised, devoting himself to art and literature, and residing for many years in Spain. He was an occasional contributor to the Quarterly Review.

Spain and Spaniards.

Since Spain appears on the map to be a square and most compact kingdom, politicians and geographers have treated it and its inhabitants as one and the same; practically, however, this is almost a geographical expression, as the earth, air, and mortals of the different portions of this conventional whole are altogether heterogeneous. Peninsular man has followed the nature by which he is surrounded; mountains and rivers have walled and moated the dislocated land; mists and gleams have diversified the heaven; and differing like soil and sky, the people, in each of the once independent provinces, now bound loosely together by one golden hoop, the crown, has its own particular character. To hate his neighbour is a second nature to the Spaniard; no spick and span constitution, be it printed on parchment or calico, can at once efface traditions and antipathies of a thousand years; the accidents of localities and provincial nationalities, out of which they have sprung, remain too deeply dyed to be forthwith discharged by theorists. The climate and productions vary no less than do language, costume, and manners; and so division and localism have, from time immemorial, formed a marked national feature. Spaniards may talk and boast of their Patria, as is done by the similarly circumstanced' Italians, but like them and the Germans, they have the fallacy, but no real Fatherland; it is an aggregation rather than an amalgamation-every single individual in his heart really only loving his native province, and only considering as his fellow-countryman, su paisano—a most binding and endearing word-one born in the same locality as himself: hence it is not easy to predicate much in regard to 'the Spains' and Spaniards in general which will hold quite good as to each particular portion ruled by the sovereign of Las Espanas, the plural title given to the chief of the federal union of this really little united kingdom. Espanolismo may, however, be said to consist in a love for a common faith and king, and in a coincidence of resistance to all foreign dictation. The deep sentiments of religion, loyalty, and independence, noble characteristics indeed, have been sapped in our times by the influence of Trans-Pyrenean revolutions.

Two general observations may be premised: First, The people of Spain, the so-called lower orders, are superior to those who arrogate to themselves the title of being their betters, and in most respects are more interesting. The masses, the least spoilt and the most national, stand like pillars amid ruins, and on them the edifice of Spain's greatness is, if ever, to be reconstructed. This may have arisen in this land of anomalies, from the peculiar policy of religious and civil monopolies, who dreaded knowledge government in church and state, where the possessors of as power, pressed heavily on the noble and rich, dwarfing down their bodies by intermarriages, and all but extinguishing their minds by inquisitions; while the people, overlooked in the obscurity of poverty, were allowed to grow out to their full growth like wild weeds