ings and doings represent the truest and most unchanged type of Spaniards of his class. Some substitute the mantas, which most Spaniards carry with them on their travels. This is a gay.coloured Oriental-looking striped blanket, or rather plaid; it is the milayeh of Cairo, the galmape of the Spanish Goth. When riding it is laid across the front of the saddle, when walking it is carried on the left shoulder, hanging in draperies behind and before. This forms the bed and bedding, for they never undress, but lie upon the ground. The ground was the bed of the original Iberians, χαμαίυναι (Strabo, iii. 233); and the word cama, bed, has been read quasi xapas, on the ground. Isidore thought the term was introduced by the Carthaginians. Their pillows are composed either of their pack-saddles, albardas, or of their saddle-bags, alforijas. No hay talcoma, como la de la enjlama.' There is no bed like the saddle-cloth."

All this is graphic in the extreme, and with a most exciting relish of, as it were, revived antiquity. Every thing in the main is, no doubt, as it was in the days of the Romans; that it is so in well-nigh all the details, might probably be established from the works of Strabo, Martial, Athenæus, Silius Italicus, and some more modern authorities. The sugges tion of an accurate comparison of the arrangements of a Spanish country venta with that of the Roman inn now uncovered at the entrance of Pompeii, and its exact counterpart the modern" osteria," in the same district of Naples, is one which all gentlemen must feel anxious to see carried out by some competent scholar; but, in fact, the objects of classical analogy and antiquarian research in Spain are multitudinous; and I earnestly hope that we may yet see the same energy, industry, and learning, applied to them, which have been so conspicuously displayed in the land of Egypt. Spain, in almost every point of view, presents a most noble field of research for the man and the scholar. Mr. Borrow, on some points, has done a good deal. Mr. Ford has done still more: his Hand- Book of Spain is, without comparison or approach, the best handbook of any country for all classes of travellers that was ever yet published; and it has other high and peculiar merits-it is most entertaining as well as most instructive. The

composition, generally speaking, is excellent, the descriptions of life animate and inanimate, vivid and fascinating. The narrative, easy and

genial. Deep thought and deep learning are constantly produced at need, but never obtruded; and there is throughout a heartiness of tone which could issue only from a cheerful, good humoured, courteous, gentle, bold, and manly breast, that is quite delightful. Since I first read, in my childhood, the works of Abyssinian Bruce, no traveller has taken me with him so completely in the spirit as Ford. He is exactly the sort of fellow I would rejoice in as a travelling companion, and especially in Spain or amongst the North American Indians, or in some of the little explored regions of the far East. I made my own (spiritual) acquaintance with him last long vacation, under circumstances favourable to a lasting friendship. I was myself a traveller in a region in which it was necessary to have recourse to the use of your own feet or a horse's; and, from "morn till dewy eve," I was in the free breeze of a most picturesque range of hilly country on horseback, where I could ride, and on foot when, for the time being, it answered my purpose best to walk. At nightfall I put up in some village inn, where the accommodation, so far as eatables and drinkables were concerned, was a vast deal worse than in any decent Spanish venta. Here I dined heartily on very indifferent specimens of bacon and cheese, aided, however, by good eggs and good bread, and washed them down, as it might be, with bad ale or worse cider (for there was no wine nor any spirituous liquor to be had, and, fool as I was, I had no bota to carry the one, nor any flask to convey the other, to supply the want). I, however, lit my cigar, and took my place merrily in the common room with mine host and the neighbouring miners and farmers, and, in their rough company, had the satisfaction not only of laughing gaily, but of learning much that was useful to me then, and may be, I trust, more so hereafter. This primitive party broke up at an early hour, I betook myself to my own room (where the arrangements of the cama, however, were unexception

You felt that there was no affectation, no hypocrisy, no base, mean, and vulgar prejudices about him; no humbug, no snobbery, no cliquerie; you were with an independent author, and not with a littérateur of a league. In his frank, manly narrative, you saw that there was no straining after effect, no contorted phraseology, no preposterous similes redolent of the lamps and sawdust of Astley's Circus, or drawn from the fœtid atmosphere and the things and characters that appear in it behind the scenes of some minor theatre, where Cockneys do congregate in front of the green curtain, and amateurs half-crazed with personal vanity and presumptuous ignorance, behind. You perceive, too, that in Ford's book there is never the slightest depreciatory touch of a Smellfungus; nothing of the mere travelled derisor the most despicable buffoon of human kind; none of those lamentations about hardships and discomforts, which no man of manly feeling would make; none of those allusions to the luxuries, splendour, pomps, &c. &c.; not forgetting the towels, and such-like curiosities of literaturalitism, which the traveller had left behind him in his house in London; allusions which no man to whom this magnificence was not new and strange, and, in fact, as uneasy as, except from Fortune's jesting caprice, it would have been unknown in the way of toilette, would have dreamed of making. But Spain is no land for Cockneys errant in the philosophic and melodramatic line of the book-making business. Nor is it a country to attract the mere idler and pleasure-seeker.

"Spain," says Ford, " is not a land of fleshly comforts, or of social sensual civilisation. Oh, dura tellus Iberic !' God sends there meat, and the Evil One

cooks: there are more altars than kitchens, des milliers de prétres et pas un cuisinier! Life in the country is a Bedouin Oriental existence. The inland unfrequented towns are dull and poverty - stricken. Madrid itself is but a drear and secondrate inhospitable city. The maritime sea-ports, as in the East, from being more frequented by the foreigner, are more cosmopolitan, more cheerful and amusing. Generally speaking, as in the East, public amusements are rare. The calm contemplation of a cigar, and a dolce far niente siestose-quiet indolence, with unexciting twaddle, suffice; while to some nations it is a pain to be out of pleasure, to the Spaniard it is a pleasure to be out of painful exertion [bere is the key to the Spanish character and to that of all the cognate Celts.-M.R.]. Leave me, leave me to repose and tobacco. When, however, awake, the alameda or church-show, and the bull-fight, are the chief relaxations. These, however, will be best enjoyed in the southern provinces, the land also of the song and dance, of bright suns and eyes, and not the largest female feet in the world."

Such is Spain; but the last remark suggests to me a great fact, on which Ford does not so much insist as all the other men I have met who knew Spain well were wont to do; and that is, that the chief and real business of the population, high and low, rich and poor, and the only business that is carried on with any zeal and resolute industry and devotion, is making love. It is not, of course, every traveller who is qualified to take his part in this popular amusement, or would care to run the risks and dangers with which it bristles. And for this, amongst other reasons, Spain is only a land to be travelled "through" by the cavallero. who can use his weapons, and ride his horse, and strum his guitar, and woo in pure Castilian, and cheerfully encounter all hardships, aud privations, and dangers, will not fail to make himself very happy in the Spains; and if he be also, like Borrow and Ford, a scholar and a man of lofty thoughts and inspirations, with the good and graceful power to give them utterance, he may make multitudes happy, as these gentlemen, by their works, have oftentimes and for hours made me.

He

It will be seen that in this paper, long as it is, I have hardly entered on the subject.

Ir does occasionally happen in the unheeded vales of life that a tissue of facts, outdoing the creation of the novelist, makes up the web of a real history. Cottage life sometimes offers a moving story, or might do so if the thick veil were drawn aside which hangs around the rich and conceals from them the histories, and the doings, and the passions of the poor and lowly. When some such romance of real life has its scene in the cottage, the work-room, the small farm-house, or even, unromantic as it may sound, behind the counter, unknown and unheeded though it be, it usually contains within itself deep and sacred interest, because the inward feelings which conspire with outward circumstances to beget it are simple, real, undressed, and of soulstirring intensity.

Amongst the well-born, education and the etiquettes of society restrain much that is native and induce still more that is artificial. They disguise and half change the nature and chill the soul. It is in humble life that there is no semblance assumed, that all is reality; that passions, both good and evil, glow in unrepressed fervour; that words represent feelings, and that the emotion goes beyond the power to express it in language.

It is a tale of life other than their own that we are about to unfold to the inmates of the saloon.

Milly L is withered now; she is travelling down the hill, and with no "John Anderson" at her side. As you look into her face you see that sorrow has worked there; but it is a sweet and beaming face still,— it speaks of patient, unrepining, cheerful endurance, the fortitude of the undistinguished.

Milly's father was a very small farmer, living by the sweat of his own brow and honestly paying his rent the very day on which it fell due, though it was at the cost of sharp privation sometimes that he managed to do so. He had only two children, and there was an interval of ten years between them. His

VOL. XXXIII, NO. CXCVI.

eldest daughter went, when about fourteen years old, to supply for a time, as best she might, the place of Lady C's maid, who had fallen sick of a rheumatic fever. Mary had a facetious manner, a facile temper, and aptitude to learn. She so well pleased Lady C— that on the recovery of the maid she was still retained, and by degrees crept on in favour, till at length Lady Chaving first had her taught some things that would enable her to pass in a station above that of her birth, elevated her to the post of her companion. She treated her with tenderness, and when, some years later she died, left her 500l. a-year for life. The heir to the remaining property, being at once vexed with the annual deduction from his own income and pleased with the girl, compromised the point by marrying her.

Mary had been fortunate, but it is a question whether she was happy. She had no heart. Our tale abides with Milly. She was her widowed father's darling. He was sixty years old when she was born to him, and her mother died in childbed. A neighbour nursed her for the first ten months, and then the little thing was left to his sole care. Never had child been more gently tended. The old man sunned himself in her fondness. She gambolled about him, received his caresses and caressed him again, and knew as much lightheartedness and infant joy as if she had been born the daughter of a palace. Her sister had left her father's house when she was four years old; then, as she grew older, and his hairs whitened, and his back gradually bent, she in turn became the nurse, and he received the care which he had bestowed; and when she left him for a few hours of the day to attend a school in the neighbouring town (for which her sister found the funds) he waited with fond anxiety for her return, and the sympathy between the old man and the young girl was as perfect as if no chasm of years had intervened.

But the day came when she must

DD

lose him; then was Milly's first sorrow. The allotted threescore years and ten of human life had indeed run out with him, and five years more had been added to their number; but he was a healthy man, and promised fair to live to the full limit of the days of man, when a sudden illness snatched him from her.

She nursed him fondly, and till the last breath he drew, hope never left her. If a tear crept into her eye she dried it hastily, for she remembered that the doctor had said, "You must be cheerful, Milly, for his sake." But when she stood by the bedside and gazed upon the corpse she felt that now all that made life happy and dear to her was taken from her, and she wished to die too. Then in frantic grief she called upon the doctor to say if it might not be a swoon or a trance.

"It is but a swoon," she said. "Surely the breath is not really gone; he is not dead-he is not dead. Try something more. Tell me what to do. Oh, do not stand idle, or it will be truth! You can save my father to me still."

But it was truth, indeed. Milly was taken from the room and put into her bed; her reason seemed to reel. In the madness of her agony she strove to disbelieve. She sobbed, and wept, and called upon her father; and now reproached, and now implored the doctor. At length exhausted nature sunk, and she slept that long heavy sleep which succeeds to the violence of grief; and then came the waking time, and with it the knowledge of the truth-the sense of utter desolation, and loneliness, and woe.

Who have known the waking after the first deep, real sorrow of life? They only can tell the anguish that that moment of recollection and realisation brings.

Poor Milly, she sought to close her eyes again, and annihilate her thoughts, and crush down busy memory; but it was in vain. Thought and memory were too powerful for her, and grief would have its sway. To grief succeeded torpor, and to torpor grief, till the funeral was over, and several weeks had passed away, and Mary had returned to her own home (the tidings of her father's illness had brought her to

him, and she had arrived the day before his death), and Milly found herself in the little dwelling of a maiden aunt who lived in the village hard by.

That aunt,-bless her worthy soul! -she helped all the neighbours round in their sorrows; she was like the ministering angel of that village. She waited no requests; but where she could soothe or aid there she was sure to be. She was, indeed, a kind and good-hearted woman. When things went smoothly a little acid was apt to ooze from her temper, and distilling in her words, to be sprinkled on those around her; but when suffering or sorrow came, oh! how tender was she then.

She had flown to her brother's sick-bed and helped Milly to nurse him. The dying father, when he felt himself going, had called her to him, and said,

"Martha, my girl will soon be left, for I shall not get over this. Take her when I am gone; it is the last thing I shall ask of ye, and do the best you can for her, and give her no hard words, for she's never had the like of them from me; and be ye good to the fatherless. God will bless ye for it. There'll be a few pounds of mine left when all is sold up, and my burial and the rent is paid; and maybe Mary 'll think to help her poor sister a bit. But, any way, ye'll be no worse in the other world because ye've stinted yourself something in this that ye might help along the orphan. A good girl she is too, Milly. She'll pay you back with her love more than you can do for her."

Probably, Mrs. Martha might have needed no asking; sure it is that, being asked, she promised, and kept her word.

For a time she was hurt that Milly looked coldly upon her, and that her heart seemed buried in the grave with her father, for her eyes would often be filled with tears; her spirits and gladness were gone. She talked very little, and never sang (in her father's days she had talked and sung from sunrise to resting-time). But though the aunt was hurt at all this, she did what in her power lay to make the poor orphan a second happy home.

Milly was not ungrateful; she felt

that her aunt was both kind and forbearing, and time brought to her that relief which it always does bring even to the sorest sorrows. It cannot be said that she ceased to mourn, but her grief was more under control and found its seasons of respite, and she awoke by degrees to the cares and duties, and even to the pleasures, which were daily scattered round her. Her heart was open to new affections, and it was claimed by new affections. Her aunt grew very fond of her, and as her gaiety by slow degrees returned, a youth, who had long thought of her with partiality, had watched her gentle duty to her father, and pitied her sorrow for his loss, now came from time to time to her aunt's little dwelling, first on one plea and then on another, till at length all pleas were dropped, and John S came without excuse, but always welcome. Sometimes he brought a few fresh eggs from his mother's little farm, sometimes a bunch of flowers that he had gathered by the stream, and sometimes a little basket of mushrooms to make the old lady and her niece a savoury supper. One evening when he had been taking tea at Mrs. Martha's he invited Milly to have a little stroll with him, and she did not refuse. The sun was setting beautifully; the air was sweet and still, it was fragrant from the new-cut hay. It was the beginning of hay season, and the wild roses and vetches were in blos

som.

They strolled along and enjoyed the beauties round them, and sniffed the scented air. These things can delight the lowly of the earth as richly as Fortune's children; they are the enjoyments which God has given indiscriminately to all; they cheer old age, and gladden laughing childhood, and smile upon poverty, sending a stealing sense of joy, though it be but fleeting, into the heart even of the poor destitute. And after all that wealth can purchase, it is to these that its possessors must come at last for their highest, purest pleasures.

John and Milly were luxuriating in the fragrance and beauty spread around them. Each enjoyed the scene more deeply because each was enjoying it with the other. They sat down upon a little bank and

looked upon each other, and listened to the rural sounds. Perhaps if the soft sweet notes of the birds, and the cheerful chirp of the grashoppers, and the bubbling of the stream, had been exchanged for the rough, rude sounds of a busy city, those sounds might still have seemed music to their ears, for they were happy; there was magic in their souls, casting its spell upon all around. They had wandered far, and it was growing late; but with them there seemed no distance and no time. They were so happy, they were conscious only of the sensations within themselves.

At length John looked earnestly into Milly's face and said, "England's a fine country, Milly."

"That it is, John," said she; "and I'm glad our lot's cast in it. What a pleasant thing it is when one's done the duties of the day to turn out for such an evening as this!"

"Yes, and you here Milly," said he; "and that's what makes it so pleasant to me. I'm so happy now, I've almost forgotten what life was like before I knew you."

Milly's heart beat fast. He took her hand passionately and went on.

"I'm so happy now, dear Milly. I think of you by day and dream of you by night; but things can't go on always like this, you know" (Milly gasped-she had not known it). "Indeed, I suppose we should neither of us be content that they should; and if it were not for what's before us, Milly dear, I should have taken courage to tell you long ago how I loved you; but I couldn't find heart."

Milly felt sick, very sick. She had been happy in the present and had not thought of the future. She did not understand John; she could not speak; she was about to draw away her hand. He held it, and