gundian. You ask me, madam, why she is here? She says, pour ses petites affaires. I take for granted for the same reason that Francis was here two years before he was known.

"Nor was this all my entertainment this evening. As Mdlle. Common of Two's reserve is a little subsided, there were other persons present, as three foreign ministers, besides Barthelemy, Lord Carmarthen, Wilkes, and his daughter, and the chief of the Moravians. I could not help thinking how posterity would wish to have been in my situation, at once with three such historic personages as Deon, Wilkes, and Oghinski, who had so great a share in the revolution of Poland, and was king of it for four-and-twenty hours. He is a noble figure, very like the Duke of Northumberland in the face, but stouter and better proportioned.

"I remember, many years ago, making the same kind of reflection. I was standing at my window after dinner, in summer, in Arlington Street, and saw Patty Blount (after Pope's death) with nothing remaining of her immortal charms but her blue eyes, trudging on foot, with her petticoats pinned up, for it rained, to visit Blameless Bethel, who was sick at the end of the street."

"Miss Hannah More, I see, has advertised her 'Bas Bleu,' which I think you will like. I don't know what her Florio' is. Mrs. Frail Piozzi's first volume of 'Johnsoniana' is in the press, and will be published in February."-Vol. ii. pp. 253-4-5.

What an assemblage of notables to be packed away in a single letter! the Londoner may well cry: with a complaint against our degenerate days as producing nothing one half so edifying or special. Let us be just, however. We imagine that Lady Cork's rooms, to the last, would have displayed menageries as choice and curious to any painter with the true Landseer-touch. Do those who mourn over the brave days of Lions as utterly gone, forget that our saloons have in our own times enjoyed visits from such wondrous persons as a Countess Vespucci and a Princess of Babylon (how far different from De Grammont's!)-that we have had Nina Lassaves smuggled about from one great mansion in May Fair to another-Bush Children served up au naturel at aristocratic Belgravian luncheons-mesmeric ladies telling us the wonders of the sun, moon, and seven stars, in the back drawing-rooms of Harley-street and Russell-square? not to speak of such more honourable and legitimate objects of curiosity and enthusiasm as a Lady Sale, a Rajah Brooke, &c. And who need mourn over our epoch as not offering marvels enough for even the most blasé "man about town,"-when we have lived to see the newest of Napoleon "Pretenders " acting as special constable on the pavé of London on the day of a republican riot;-when the Archimage whose name like a charm for so many a year held all Europe in awe, Prince Metternich himself is here-without one single Trollope to trumpet his whereabouts or thereabouts. As for the Hannah Mores and the Mrs. Frail Piozzis, can we not match-can we not exceed them by the thousand, whether as regards the benevolence, the wit, or the learning? But we must return for yet an instant to the Strawberry store-house. Even within the compass of a very few pages, including those whence our extract is drawn, the amount of stores and stories is distracting. We dare not meddle with Mrs. Barnard, "the hen quaker," and her cows so much coveted by her gracious and somewhat covetous majesty Queen Charlotte,-neither with young Madame de Choiseul, "who longed for a parrot which should be a miracle of

eloquence,”-neither with "our Madame de Maintenon,” Mrs. Delany, whose establishment at Windsor by royal command, is bitten in with a very strong wash of aqua-fortis. But here is a sketch of a wandering educatrix, who, like many other enterprising and eccentric persons, seems to have proved far tamer and more like other people, when met face to face, than could have been expected :

"I will read no more of Rousseau," (cries Walpole, indulging in one of those bursts of petulance and prejudice, which are so doubly amusing in one so versatile, so liberal, and so far in advance of his time,) his confessions disgusted me beyond any book I ever opened. His hen, the schoolmistress Madame de Genlis, the newspapers say, is arrived in London. I nauseate her too; the eggs of education that both he and she laid could not be hatched till the chickens would be ready to die of old age."

Ere half a dozen pages are turned, we find something like a change of note. We must be allowed, too, to transcribe the earlier portion of the letter, for the sake of its sprightliness, though irrelevant to the vivacious French lioness.

July 23d. 1785.

"I am very sorry to hear that the war of bad seasons, which has lasted eight months, has affected your ladyship, too. I never knew so much illness; but as our natural season, rain, is returned, I hope you will recover from your complaints. English consumptions are attributed to our insular damps, but I question whether justly. The air of the sea is an elixir, not a poison; and in the three sultry summers which preceded the three last, it is notorious that our fruits were uncommonly bad, as if they did not know how to behave in hot weather. I hope I shall not be contradicted by the experience of last night. Mrs. Keppel had, or rather was to have had all London at her beautiful villa at Isleworth. Her grace of Devonshire was to have been there, ay, you may stare, madam! and her grace of Bedford too. The deluge in the morning, the debate in the house of commons, qualms in the first duchess, and I don't know what, certainly not qualms in the second, detained them, and not a soul came from town but Lady Duncannon, Lady Beauchamp, the two Miss Vernons, the Boltons, the Norths, Lord William Russell, Charles Wyndham, Colonel Gardiner, and Mr. Aston, and none of these arrived till ten at night. Violins were ready but could not play to no dancers; so at eleven the young people said it was a charming night, and went to paddle on the terrace over the river, while we ancients, to affect being very hot too, sat with all the windows in the bow open, and might as well have been in Greenland, &c.

"You surprise me, madam, by saying the newspapers mention my disappointment of seeing Madame de Genlis. How can such arrant trifles spread? It is very true that as the hill would not go to see Madame de Genlis, she has come to the hill. Ten days ago Mrs. Cosway sent me a note that Madame desired a ticket for Strawberry Hill. I thought I could do no less than offer her a breakfast, and named yesterday se'nnight. Then came a message that she must go to Oxford, and take her doctor's degree; and then another, that I should see her yesterday, when she did arrive, with Miss Wilkes and Pamela, whom she did not even present to me, and whom she has educated to be very like herself in the face. I told her I could not attribute the honour of her visit but to my late dear

friend, Madame du Deffand. It rained the whole time, and was as dark as midnight, so that she could scarce distinguish a picture: but you will want an account of her, and not of what she saw or could not see. Her person is agreeable, and she seems to have been pretty. Her conversation is natural and reasonable, not precieuse and affected, and searching to be eloquent, as I had expected. I asked her if she had been pleased with Oxford, meaning the buildings, not the wretched oafs that inhabit it. She said she had had little time; that she had wished to learn their plan of education, which, as she said sensibly, she supposed was adapted to our constitution. I could have told her that it is directly repugnant to our constitution, that nothing is taught there but drunkenness and prerogative, or, in their language, church and king. I asked if it is true that the new edition of Voltaire's works is prohibited. She replied, "Severely," and then condemned those who write against religion and government, which was a little unlucky before her friend, Miss Wilkes. She stayed two hours, and returns to France to-day to her duty."-Vol. ii. pp. 231-2-3.

The above are but mere average specimens of the matter and manner of these delightful letters: to talk about which, with annotations, comparisons, elucidations, &c., as we could like, would furnish us with pleasant subject-matter to the end of the year, making the widest miscellany too narrow for the publication of our gossip. And, not only does the variety of topics embraced, ranging from "predestination to slea silk" engage us; and not only are the notes on the great events of the time (from which we have reluctantly refrained) full of suggestion, because pregnant with interest, shrewd motherwit, and widely-nurtured experience; and not only are the glimpses at contemporary literature and art curious (though these, being taken through Claude Lorraine glasses tinged with a thousand modish dyes, demand some knowledge of the writer, his sympathies, and his associates, ere we can translate them into the natural and trustworthy testimony,)-but the character of the Man, too, brightens, deepens, and widens, as we read them, in conjunction with the former series of letters from the same prolific source. On this it is a pleasure to dwell-nay more, and a duty.

It was for some years a fashion to treat Walpole as a trifling Macaroni, to accept the disclaimers he was somewhat too fond of tendering when accused of sound sense, learning, genius, or philosophy, as so many truths beyond dispute. All the world knows how hard it is for the mediocre, the dull, and the ill-mannered, to forgive wit and high-breeding; and this difficulty, also, had its part in the popular judgment of Horace Walpole. Latterly, however, the mistake has been gradually rectified. His clear head, his kind heart, his gay spirits, his amazing memory, have come to be admitted. His works are no longer treated as trifles by "a person of quality," but valued as substantial and classical contributions to English literature. And it may be questioned whether such as desire to know how the world was really going on, when the Philosophe upset France and the Blues dispensed literary immortality in England, can find a work more valuable for the purposes of study, apart from its admirable fascination and entertainment, than the letters, thoughts, and anecdotes of Conway's cousin, and Du Deffand's friend, and Lady Ossory's cicisbè,-the gay, gifted, graceful architect, antiquarian, and Amphitryon of Strawberry Hill!

NOTES OF AN EXCURSION FROM LISBON TO ANDALUSIA, AND TO THE COAST OF MOROCCO.

BY HIS SERENE HIGHNESS PRINCE LÖWENSTEIN.*

The Tagus and its Banks.-Picturesque Scenery, and fine Climate.-Arrival at Cadiz.-First Aspect of the City.-Streets and Promenades.-Beauty of the Andalusian Women. - Male and Female Costume. — The Cathedral. — The Capuchin Convent.-The Orphan Hospital, and Lunatic Asylum.—Traits of Spanish Character.—A Tertulia.—Spanish Ladies.-Window Rendezvous.

I HAD been sojourning for some time in Lisbon when my friends M. de S and Herr E- prevailed on me to accompany them on an excursion to the south of Spain and Morocco. The time fixed for departure was the 12th of March, 1845, and on that day we went on board one of the Peninsular company's steamers, then lying in the harbour.

About eleven in the forenoon we weighed anchor, and favoured by a fresh breeze from the east, we dropped rapidly down the river. The custom-house, the Sodre quay, the palace of the empress (Don Pedro's widow), and the Necessidades were soon left in the distance, and a series of splendid prospects rose successively before us as we glided along the picturesque banks of the Tagus. This enchanting scenery has repeatedly been the theme of glowing description, both in prose and verse; but the magical effect of the glorious climate defies description. It must be felt to be understood.

The tower of Belem stands on a projecting tongue of land, and, viewed from a distance, it looks as if built in the midst of the water. A battery with the Braganza frigate stationed in front of it, commands the river both up and down. The situation of the tower is highly picturesque. As we passed by it, we saw on the battlements the Duchess de Terceira with her lovely nieces, and they waved their handkerchiefs as the signal of farewell. The duchess is the wife of the distinguished general who rendered such important service to the cause of Don Pedro, and she is one of the few Portuguese ladies who can justly be called beautiful. Generally speaking the women of Portugal are distinguished for intelligence, and for refined tact of manner; but they have few claims to personal beauty. In this respect they challenge an unfavourable comparison with their fair neighbours of Spain.

A feeling of melancholy is created on beholding the now deserted state of the Tagus; that noble river, over whose bosom so many ships might float, and along whose banks the city of Lisbon extends to the distance of several miles. But the appearance of the river is in perfect accordance with the desolate aspect of its shores on either side, and indeed with the whole face of the country. Ruined churches and convents speak of the fallen clergy; whilst deserted castles and dilapidated country-houses denote the poverty of nobles and landowners. Even yet there remain visible traces of the great earthquake of 1755; and the ravages of the last civil war are still

* First Secretary of Legation to the Prussian Embassy now in London.

conspicuous. That war visited Portugal with disasters, from which she will not speedily recover. In the middle of the bar at the mouth of the Tagus, stands the light-house of Bugea; the waves of the Atlantic wash its base, and the entrance of the river is guarded by several forts.

On rising from our berths on the morning of the 14th we found we were rapidly approaching Cadiz Harbour. Masses of building became gradually discernible through the morning mist which overspread the sea, and as we advanced we beheld the white city rising above the waves, like a colossal swan, floating in majestic repose over its own watery domain. The slip of land on which Cadiz is built is so narrow, and it stretches so far into the sea, that when the horizon is overhung with clouds, the mainland is not discernible, and Cadiz seems to be an insular city like Venice. The rising sun, dispelling the light mist, soon unveiled the verdant shores of the bay, and enabled us to obtain a clear view of the town. The roofs of the houses are flat; some being castellated, and others having towers which serve as belvideres. One side of the town is protected by a range of chalky rocks which rise along the shore. Against these rocks the waves break with considerable fury, often scattering their foam over the wall which bounds the Almeda. This place is the summer promenade of the inhabitants of Cadiz, and here the coquetish Gaditana enjoys the cool sea breeze, half concealing her face by the folds of her mantilla and her ever-moving fan. Along the wall of the Almeda are planted some old rusty pieces of cannon, venerable witnesses of past glory, but now somewhat vauntingly turning their mouths towards the sea.

On one side of the Almeda, and at some distance from the promenade, are several ranges of buildings, consisting of store-houses, the custom-house, and barracks. Here and there are scattered groups of neat-looking private houses, having balconies filled with garden pots, and windows shaded by green Venetian blinds. In the middle of the quay, which runs along the side of the harbour, there is a vast circular building, the use of which is immediately understood by the traveller when he recollects that he is in Spain. It is the circus for bull-fighting, and, like the theatre, the building is public property. Every considerable Spanish town contains a similar edifice. Cadiz is celebrated for its bull-fights; for owing to the peculiar construction of the circus, the toreros are exposed to great danger, for, when pursued by the infuriated animals, they cannot save themselves in the usual way by leaping over a barrier; they can only escape by getting into little recesses made in the inner wall of the circus.

We observed but little bustle in Cadiz harbour, for the trade of the place has long been in a declining state. It has been transferred partly to Gibraltar, which is the central point of smuggling, and partly to Puerto Santa Maria, whence all the Sherry wine is now shipped. Nor is the trade of this once flourishing commercial city likely to revive as long as the existing system of custom-house duties continues in force. The question of making Cadiz a free port was at one time brought under the consideration of the Cortes; but it fell to the ground through the opposition it encountered from the deputies of the manufacturing districts of Arragon and Catalonia. We were assured on very good authority, that the city of Cadiz

VOL. XXIII.

U U