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reason, the palace of St Telmo, the residence of the Duke of Montpensier, flanking the Guadalquivir, and surrounded by gardens, planted with very choice shrubs from all parts of the world, was not visible. But Seville itself is full of interest. There is much that is old, still Orange and lemon-trees spring

mingled with the new.

up everywhere—oranges are now the chief trade of the place—and the ladies of Seville are the most beautiful and fascinating in Spain. Let me venture to whisper it, there are two things, two things only, in which they surpass Englishwomen. They walk better. A Spanish lady glides, rather than walks, with a grace and dignity you see nowhere else. And then, as they never wear bonnets, but simply a black lace veil thrown over their heads, (a most becoming head-dress,) and invariably choose the quietest colours, (when they go to church, they always wear black,) they are preserved from that incredible rashness in mixing colours, which, with many of our own countrywomen, rob face and complexion and figure of more than half their due.

The great drawback to Seville is the plague of mosquitoes; and the inns are far from being equal to those of Madrid. Our way home we had intended to be by Lisbon, but circumstances made it expedient for us to return by the quickest route; and so we struck across the country for Valencia, a journey of forty-four hours, going by diligence to Santa Cruz, and then taking the railway to Alcazar, which there diverged in a branch line to the Mediterranean.

We were not prepared for the astonishing fertility we found in the district of Valencia, and which is mainly

owing to the system of irrigation handed down from the Moors. The view from the cathedral tower is a very panorama of richness, and the city itself is a thriving and bustling place. Evidently there is great heat, for the very streets are awned over from the sun. In the markets, we saw frogs and snails for sale as articles of food; and economical persons can buy as small an article as a chicken's leg. Tiles are manufactured here in great abundance, and also black silk. Here we finished Spain, ending well; and in a tartana, a kind of covered cart without springs, which has been compared to a gondola on wheels, we jolted down to the harbour, where we took the French steamer for Marseilles.

And now for a few closing sentences on Spain and Spaniards. In soil, in climate, in mineral wealth, in natural resources of all kinds, Spain is unrivalled; and it only needs a wise development of her commercial system to restore her to the level that she has so long lost. It is a great misfortune to her that the Tagus flows into the sea at Lisbon; and it was Philip II.'s fatal mistake in making Madrid the capital, that alienated Portugal. The settlement of the dynasty and the liberal constitution have done much to consolidate the institutions of the country; and the introduction of foreigners into Spain, as well as the taking of Spaniards out of it by increased facilities of travelling, must tend to introduce new ideas and principles into the country, and may pave the way for religious liberty. Borrow and Ford speak so severely of Spaniards, that I hesitate to give impressions which must be superficial, and are likely to be erroneous. But from what I heard from Englishmen resident in

Spain, and from what I saw with my own eyes-which I did my best to keep open-I quite came to the conclusion that, with all their faults, they are a great people, and are certainly a nation of gentlemen. They seemed social and light-hearted, with neither the heaviness of the Germans, nor the levity of the French, nor the somewhat sad gravity of the English. There is a great deal of real dignity in them. You can see this in the way they dress, for they are certainly the best-dressed people you will find anywhere; and masters treat their servants with a consideration that would surprise us here. As an instance of this, one person told me that a maid-servant had refused to come to him unless she was called Señora. They have great veneration for their parents, for whom they mourn two years, and during that time never enter a theatre, nor listen to music. Their faults remind one of a large family of brothers and sisters living together in a remote place, and who, compelled by circumstances to be independent of others, come to think there is nobody like themselves. Pride and poverty make them inhospitable. Their self-love creeps out sometimes very amusingly, and an English acquaintance told us, that during the royal festivities at Seville, when a few regiments were being reviewed, he overheard the people saying to each other, "What a wonderful people we are! Who is like the Spaniards? No wonder we conquered the Moors." They dislike foreigners, though they are very civil to them. One Spaniard, who had lived as a political refugee in England, remarked to a gentleman, who repeated it to me, that he should like to banish all foreigners and foreign productions out of Spain altogether,

and leave Spain to herself. But of all foreigners, they dislike us most, and for four reasons. We are heretics; we have laid them under great political obligations, which they to a man ignore; we have lent them money which they do not mean to repay; and we hold Gibraltar. And yet one Spaniard, who began his sentence by the flattering observation, “I hate England,” finished it by adding, "yet I never come into contact with an Englishman without liking him."

The serious faults of the Spaniards are pride, idleness, and corruption of morals. They have no domestic life: their faith is alloyed and encrusted with superstition : the shadow of the Inquisition still haunts them. Even now no man dares speak out his mind where the Church has dogmatised; and their Bible is sealed.

So, as we cross the Channel, and climb the old white cliffs, and rush up through the Weald of Kent, and enter once more the crash and roar of London, our one deep feeling is thankfulness that we are Englishmen.

A. W. THOROLD.

F

WE

V.

A RAMBLE IN NORTH ITALY.

WE would never urge any man or woman to cross the Channel, until they were tolerably well acquainted with the chief things worth seeing on this side of it. We are old-fashioned enough to believe that this "nice little, tight little island" contains within its rocky shores as wondrous a combination, and as great a variety of scenery as can be found in any one portion of the Continent of Europe twice its extent in surface. We back Great Britain and Ireland—not omitting even "the adjacent islands of the Great and Little Cumbraes"-against the world, for possessing the richest treasures of all that is beautiful, grand, and lovable in Nature. We may be pitied as ignorant provincials for such beliefs; but we are as nearly as possible in sober earnest when we declare them to be ours, after comparing both sides of the Channel many a time and oft during these last thirty years; and so with our whole hearts we sing with Coleridge

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