alliance in question. But to return to Mr. Hughes and his journal. After a week's sojourn in Madrid, he proceeded by Talavera, Trujillo, Merida, Badajoz, and Elvas to Lisbon, which transit he accomplished in another week. For two months from that period his journal, occupying the latter half of the second volume, is dated from Lisbon, and treats exclusively of Portuguese matters; and among them principally of the recent political intrigues and revolutions in that part of the Peninsula.

Compounded of these various materials, the book will serve to beguile the time occupied by its perusal; but we question whether the reader will rise from it much better informed than he was before, either on local or on general topics. The latter have for the most part been amply discussed in the newspapers and elsewhere; and with regard to the former, the casual remarks of Mr. Hughes cannot for a moment endure comparison with the various and systematic information contained in Mr. Ford's inimitable digest of cosas de España. It is true that a great number and variety of topics meet the eye in running down over the table of contents, which leads one to anticipate much information and amusement; but we regret to add, that there is occasionally a good deal more of promise in the headings, than of performance in the chapters themselves. Thus, for instance, our attention was attracted by the legend "The valley of Loyola, with a reminiscence of the founder of the Order of Jesuits," among the items with which Chapter XVI. is labelled. Eagerly turning to the chapter, we sought for some time in vain, as for a needle in a bundle of hay; at last we discovered the passage we were in quest of, and to our disappointment found that the whole contents answerable to the above index consisted of the following half score lines:

"The beautiful valley of Loyola, distant only a mile from the town, should by all means be visited by the traveller who has an hour or two to spare. Here there are some picturesque farm-houses and a wooden bridge over the Uruméa, which winds through the valley as far as Astigarraga. This valley gave its name to the celebrated founder of

foes and friends, forgot their hatreds of creeds in the greater loathing for the abhorred intruder, whose 'peerage fell' in the memorable passes of Roncesvalles. The true derivation of the word Gabacho, which now resounds from these Pyrenees to the Straits, is blinked in the royal academical dictionary, such was the servile adulation of the members to their French patron Philip V. Mueran los Gabachos, 'Death to the miscreants,' was the rally cry of Spain after the inhuman butcheries of the terrorist Murat; nor have the echoes died away; a spark may kindle the prepared mine of what an unspeakable value is a national war-cry which at once gives to a whole people a shibboleth, a rallying watch-word to a common cause! Vox populi vox Dei."-Gatherings from Spain, p. 17..

the Order of Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, whose birth-place is at Azpeitra, a few leagues distant."-Hughes's Overland Journey, vol. i. pp. 185,

186.

And thus ends the "reminiscence of the founder of the Order of Jesuits." We are, however, disposed to forgive the author the disappointment which he has caused us in the article of "reminiscence of Loyola," in consideration of the indemnity which he offers to his readers, at the end of the same chapter, in the simple and pathetic tale of Dolorés del Arco, a young orphan girl committed to prison on the false charge of theft, maliciously preferred against her from motives of jealousy; whose sense of the disgrace to which she was innocently subjected was so keen and overpowering, that she put an end to her life over-night. We have rarely met with a more affecting trait of truly romantic feeling in real life, than the visit of her little brother, guitar in hand, to the prison window before day-break, and the impromptu poetic dialogue between him and his unhappy sister. The lament of the captive maiden in her part of the seguidilla contains touches of the truest poetry of nature: (vol. i. pp. 193, 194.)

Which for the benefit of those of our readers who are not versed in Spanish lore, we thus render into English :—

"Ah! what of life is left,

Poor life, by countless sorrows thronged,
When we, by vile oppressors wronged,
Of freedom are bereft !

"In plumage gay array'd

From branch to branch the linnet flies,
And free his love, without disguise,
He follows through the glade.

"When at the dawn of day
Enamell'd clouds the sky adorn,
Then free he greets the blushing morn
With loudly warbled lay;

"'Mid flowers free he roves,
And free across the waters flits;
Free on the greenwood bough he sits,
And blithesome sings his loves.

"But if, with sleight arranged

The springe around his foot should cling,
The merry flapping of his wing
To weary toil is changed.

"Nor cease his flutt'ring pains,
Till he resigns himself to death :
Welcome to him is life's last breath,

Who lingers bound with chains."

From the volumes of Mr. Hughes we now turn to M. Quinet's "Vacances en Espagne;" a book which differs from the two preceding ones still more widely than they do from each other, whether we consider the purpose for which M. Quinet's tour was undertaken, or the highly entertaining and instructive result of it which lies before us. With regard to the former, the object of M. Quinet's visit to Spain, nearly four years ago, the volume itself is silent; for information on this point we must refer to his lectures delivered in the spring of the year 1844; the two first of which were exclusively devoted to Spain, and for which he deemed

These lectures were published in the course of the same year, under the title, "L'Ultramontanisme, ou l'Eglise Romaine et la Société Moderne." The two first of them, entitled "Du Royaume catholique par excellence," and "Résultats politiques du Catholicisme en Espagne," which belong properly to the present work, will be noticed in the following pages. The seven remaining lectures treat of the Roman Church in her relation to the State, to science, to history, to law, to philosophy, to the nations, and to the Catholic Church.

it necessary to qualify himself by a personal visit to that country. M. Quinet's tour was, therefore, strictly speaking, a professional, professorial tour, and he seems to have considered it at the time as a great personal hazard and sacrifice. At least so he spoke of it at the opening of his course:

"Intending to speak of the south of Europe, I am fresh from Granada and Cordoba. At the point at which we have arrived, and under existing circumstances, I felt that in order to say a serious word on the genius of the south, and the Catholic nations, it was indispensable for me to visit the nation which, in the midst of every distraction, has not ceased to personify the orthodoxy of Rome in its most inflexible strictness. This I considered as part of the task which I have to perform here. I set off for Spain, without support from any one, against the advice and the wishes of all my friends, who in their anxiety predicted to me nothing but ruin and disaster in that miserable land. And certainly of this I should not say a word, did I not know that while I was running and searching alone, and more than once (since the truth must be told) at the peril of my life, over the most inhospitable sierras, falsehood and calumny were lying in wait for me here."L'Ultramontanisme, pp. 1, 2.

The "falsehood and calumny" here alluded to seem to have amounted to this, that M. Quinet was said to have accepted a diplomatic mission to Spain, as an honourable retirement from his chair at the Collège de France, where he had made himself obnoxious to the Government; an insinuation which, he says, he treated with the utmost contempt, not condescending even to contradict it, on the principle that,—

"It would be honouring malignity too much, to admit, that every invention has a chance of gaining credit, provided it be of a calumnious character, and that a man's life and his actions are not to protect him in the least."-Ibid. p. 3.

We quite agree with the learned professor, that silent contempt is the best reply which a man of character can give to calumnious misrepresentations; but we apprehend that on this occasion he has, with an egotism not at all unnatural to a professor at the Collège de France, made the most, both of the ridiculous stories circulated by his real enemies, and of the dangers which, he says, he incurred in his encounters with imaginary foes in the sierras. It is very amusing to follow M. Quinet on his would-be adventures with the banditti of Spain; for while it is quite clear that he never had the good or ill luck to set eyes upon a real highwayman, it is equally certain that he was always on the look out for them, and no less certain that he was terribly afraid. There is something

inexpressibly ludicrous in the account which he gives of the "tactics" adopted by him on his equestrian progress from Granada to Cordoba::

"My pistols brightly polished, and placed conspicuously on my saddle, procured for me in the sierras the greater respect, as these kinds of arms are prohibited, and scarcely ever carried by any one except felons. This suggested to my mind the notion that if, wrapped in my mantle, I assumed a martial attitude, and an ill-boding look, I might at a distance myself easily pass for a robber in full chase, and frighten other people at least as much as they could frighten me; and upon this notion I had recourse to the following tactics :-As soon as a human figure appeared in the distant horizon, (for in these solitudes every human being is a danger,) I started off at full gallop to meet my knight-errant. In nine cases out of ten my knight-errant turned out to be some donkey driver or muleteer; and in that case I was saluted at a great distance with the most profound reverence, the fellow taking off his hat, and crying, Caballero, vaya usted con Dios,' i. e. May your honour speed well! But sometimes my knight-errant happened to be a man on horseback, well-armed right and left with carbines and horse-pistols. Astonished at my movements the fellow thought I was pursued, and passed by me like an arrow, without uttering a word. Among these personages with frightful countenances, there were certainly some terrible misanthropists. These tactics, which before a band would have been altogether useless, did me excellent service with regard to individuals."-Vacances en Espagne, pp. 288, 289.

To complete this amusing picture, we must figure to ourselves M. Quinet's Sancho Pança, falling back from precisely the same feeling which caused his master to advance, and intoning with a faltering voice, somewhat like a bee in a pitcher, a melodious air, in illustration of the classical adage,

"Cantat vacuus coram latrone viator."

To relieve our readers from all apprehension for the safety of the valorous professor, and for their own safety if they should ever set out on an exploring expedition through the less frequented parts of the Peninsula, we refer them at once to the sensible remarks which Mr. Ford has on this subject :

"An olla without bacon would scarcely be less insipid than a volume on Spain without banditti; the stimulant is not less necessary for the established taste of the home-market, than brandy is for pale sherries neat as imported. In the mean time, while the timid hesitate to put their heads into this supposed den of thieves as much as into a house that is haunted, those who are not scared by shadows, and do not share in the fears of cockney critics and delicate writers in satin-paper