of regeneration. It may be observed, however, that the priesthood and the nobles (comprising nearly one third of the whole population) were wholly exempt from taxes and military service under the ancient regime.

1.

The influence of the catholic superstition upon the minds of all classes in Spain, is described by M. Bourgoing in the following animated and lively manner:

When the holy sacrament is carried any where, a little bell announces its approach. Immediately all business, all entertainment, all pleasure, is suspended; and every one continues on his knees till it is past. Even Protestants, who look upon this homage as a species of idolatry, have much ado to dispense with it. So far there is nothing more than what is conformable to the faith and doctrine of the catholic religion; but when the ludicrous appears, it is, as I have seen more than once at Madrid, when the Host passes a playhouse. As soon as the little bell is heard, the play is instantly stopped. Spectators and actors, whatever their parts, Moors, Jews, and even Devils*, all without exception turn towards the door that leads to the street, and, kneeling, remain in that position as long as the bell can be heard; and it requires not a little selfcommand to check an inclination for laughter.

'Another custom which must appear singular to an observer, even if he is himself a catholic, is to see on certain days notice fixed on the churches to this effect: Oy-se saca amina ; To day souls are

released from purgatory." On the eve and the day of All-souls, this delivery is universally announced with the most doleful pomp. The churches are hung with black. The tombs are opened. A coffin, covered with black, and surrounded with wax lights, is placed in the nave of the church; and in one corner, figures in wood representing the souls of the deceased are half way plunged into the flames. To succeed in drawing from purgatory those for whom they interest themselves, they pray a long time with great fervour; and passing afterwards rapidly from these charitable funereal employments to every worldly recreation, the day is finished by a jovial banquet, the principal dish of which is called trépassés, a kind of cake made of flour, butter, and aniseed.

'In almost every catholic country these customs prevail, and tend to cast a ridicule upon devotion: but in none, except perhaps in Italy, are they so frequent and universal as in Spain.

Without being charged with impiety, or even philosophy,(which with certain people are synonymous,) I believe a man may avow that the custom observed at the door of the church of St. Anthony,

'I do not exaggerate: One day during the performance of the play called The devil turned preacher, a very whimsical piece, where the devil is introduced into a convent in the dress of a monk, the Sacrament passed just at the time the pretended monk was on the stage, and he was obliged to kneel as well as the others which of course stopped the performance for some minutes.

on the day of his festival,of driving horses and mules in great solemnity to partake of a small quantity of oats, which a priest has sanctified by his benediction, and which is to preserve these beasts from sickness all the year, is not sound religion,

'Preserving all due respect for the catholic religion, one cannot but be surprised at the strange inconsistency of those who profess it, at the little conformity there is in their lives and actions with their religious ceremonies. This contradiction is extremely general in Spain, and few classes of people are exempt from it. I shall not speak of the coachmen, who when they mount their box; cross themselves, and mutter a few prayers, which are instantly followed by those energetic phrases with which they animate the ardour of their horses. But I will mention their masters, who, for their part, repeat an anthem almost always to the Virgin, even when they are going to pay very profane visits. Shall I add what I have heard from some wags, whose veracity however I will by no means answer for,-that if they meet a rival in a cowl, on the staircase, they ask of him absolution beforehand for the same kind of sin which he himself, to his great regret, is going to commit.

'The monkish habit is so respected that a preservative virtue is attributed to it, even beyond this life, whatever irregularities may have been committed under it. Nothing is more common than to see the dead buried in a friar's dress, and conducted in this manner with their face uncovered, which is almost the general custom in Spain. The Franciscan habit is the object of a marked predilection in the devotion of the deceased. The convents of this order have a special warehouse appropriated to this posthumous wardrobe. There is such a sale of these habits, that a stranger, who was only a few months at Madrid, without being informed of this singular custom, and seeing nothing but Franciscans interred, expressed to me his surprise at the prodigious number of them in that city, and asked me seriously, if their community, whatever their number, were not entirely carried off by this violent epidemic.

In the same manner that the monkish habit accompanies some to the grave, it rises with others from the cradle. It is not uncommon to see gamboling in the streets, little monks of the age of four or five years. Sometimes the parents, whose whimsical vow they thus expiate, take the liberty of exercising their paternal severity under this holy robe: but that is perhaps the only outrage the habit receives in Spain; and these innocent creatures are the only monks who submit to the austerities of penance.

'Besides this a certificate of confession is required from every faithful catholic, native as well as stranger, which must prove that he has observed the precepts of the church during Lent; a very idle measure, because it is so very easy to procure them without accomplishing the formalities they require; because they are sold in the market like all other articles; because the filles de joie (who have numerous correspondents) have always to sell again to the bearer those they have obtained gratis, it is easily guessed how.

'One of the most familiar gestures of the Spaniards is the sign of the cross. It is even their manner of expressing their surprise when ever they hear any thing extraordinary, pronouncing at the same time the name of Jesus. At each flash of lightning they repeat this sign; and even cross their mouth with their thumb when they gape: every step they take, it may be said, is marked with a grimace

of devotion.

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'When you enter a house, unless you wish to be considered as impious, or, what is still worse, a heretic, you must begin with these words, Ave Maria purissima; to which you will certainly receive this answer, sin peccado concebida. There is still fixed every year at the church doors, the index, or the list of those books, especially foreign, of which the Holy Office has thought proper to interdict. the reading on pain of excommunication. But many of them certainly have not sufficient merit to deserve this proscription: What respect can we have for the thunder of the church, when it is hurle ed only by caprice or ignorance? Can the impious, or, if you please, the philosophers, wish for any other means to render it contemptible.

Finally, that tribunal, secretly appreciated by a good number of wise men in the country, the Inquisition, is still honourably receiv ed by a great part of the nation. It has still its tremendous forms, its familiers, even in the most exalted classes, and sometimes its victims, &c. &c. &c.

Let us be just, at the hazard of wounding the pride of those who are too ticklish, and desire nothing but praise without restriction, and declare without calumny that Spain is still the birth-place of mummery, and the land of fanaticism and superstition.?

After this gloomy picture of one part of the national eharacter, the author appears before his readers as a man of gallantry, and apostrophises the Spanish ladies in the amo. rous strains of a love-sick novellist. It would, perhaps, be doing injustice to M. Bourgoing not to present him before our readers in a character which he seems to have assumed with exultation: if he has been too luxuriant in his descrip tion, his long residence in Spain, added to the natural gaiety of a Frenchman will plead his excuse.

Jealousy, that odious passion, once so offensive in its suspicions, so injurions and cruel in its precautions, and implacable in its resentment, is now much weakened among the modern Spaniards. If in Spain the lovers are tormented with suspicion, and sometimes too severe in their vengeance, there is no country in Europe that can boast of so few jealous husbands. The women, who were formerly deprived of all intercourse, who could hardly be seen through the jalousies of their windows, (which certainly owe their name to the vile sentiment of him who invented them)-these women now enjoy perfect liberty. Their veils (mantiltas,) the only

remains of their ancient slavery, now serve no other purpose than to defend them from the sun, and to render them more attrac tive. A tissue at first invented by jealousy now belies its intention. Coquetry has made it one of its most seducing articles of dress; and, in favouring half-concealment, has indirectly encouraged the stolen glances of love. Those lovers who breathed the tale of their disconsolate sufferings under the balcony of their invisible mistresses, and had no other witness or interpreter than their guitar, are now only to be found in plays and romances. Conquests are become less cruel, and less dilatory, and husbands are become more tractable, the women more accessible.

"The sensation which you experience at the approach of a handsome Spanish lady has something so bewitching that it baffles description. Her coquetry is more open and less restrained than that of other women. She cares little about pleasing the world in general. She esteems its approbation much more than she courts it; and is perfectly contented with one, if it be the object of her choice. If she neglects nothing which is likely to carry her point, at least she disdains affectation, and owes very little to the assistance of her toilet. The complexion of a Spanish woman never borrows any assistance from art. Art never furnishes her with a colour which Nature has denied to her by placing her under the influence of a buruing sun. But with how many charms is she not endowed, as a compensation for her paleness! Where can you find such fine shapes as theirs ; such graceful movements, such delicacy of features, and such lightness of carriage? Grave, and sometimes at first sight even a little melancholy, when she casts upon you her large black eyes full of expression, and when she accompanies them with a tender smile, insensibility itself must fall at her feet. But if the coldness of her behaviour does not hinder you from paying your addresses to her, she is as decided and mortifying in her disdain as she is seducing when she permits you to hope. In this last case she does not suffer you to be long in suspense, but perseverance must be followed by happiness; and this line from a well known poem,

Nourri par l'espérance, il meurt par les plaisirs, cannot be applied to a Spanish lady.

'Perseverance is, without doubt, pleasure with a Spanish woman; but is at the same time a rigorous and slavish duty. Love, even when crowned with success, requires that you belong to her alone. The man who has enlisted under her banners, must sacrifice to her all his affections, all his desires, and all his time. He is condemned, not to languor, but to idleness. Those happy mortals whom the Spanish women deign to subdue, and are named cortejos, are less disinterested, but are not less assiduous, than the Italian cicisbeos. They must be ready to prove their devotion every hour of the day; to accompany their beloved to the promenade, to the theatre, and even to the confessional. More than one tempest disturbs the serenity of such an union; the slightest incident produces alarm; and a transient wavering is punished like infidelity. It may'

be said, that in Spain Jealousy has fled from Hymen to take re fuge in the bosom of Love; and that it belongs more particularly to that sex which seems made rather to inspire than to experience

it.

To be brief. The bonds of a handsome Spanish woman are less pleasant to support than difficult to avoid. Their caprices, the natural offspring of a lively imagination, are sometimes obstinate and unruly. But it is not easy to reconcile with those transient humours the constancy of most of the Spanish women in their attachments. The infatuation which they occasion and which they experience, so different from all extreme situations that do not last long, is often prolonged much beyond the ordinary time; and I have seen in this land of ardent passions more than one lover die" of old age. May not this apparent contradiction be accounted for from their religious scruples, ill understood as they almost always are? The conscience of a Spanish woman, though complaisant enough to permit one only choice at which her duty murmurs, would it not be frightened with a succession of infidelities? Does she find for the first an excuse in her frailty, and in the irresistible vow of her heart, that draws her to the only object which Nature designed for her? Or does she find in succeeding attachments the sin appear again in all its ugliness? This is another enigma to explain in the Spanish women. They reconcile their inconsistency in morals with the minute observance of religious duties. In many countries these excesses succeed one another alternately. In Spain they are inseIn this association parable, as well among the men as the women.

of the most incoherent things, their object seems to be not to prevent scandal or to change their conduct, but to make a kind of compensation for their faults.

'I have known many women, abandoned to au attachment which their duty disproves, surrounded with relics and scapularies, bind thm selves by the most insignificant vows, and fulfil them with scrupulosity.

I believe that hypocrites, the true Tartuffes, are rare in Spain; but this fantastic association of immorality with superstitious practices ismore common in Spain than elsewhere. That horrible gift which the New World has given to the Oid, is become in Spain the patrimony of whole families, and the degeneration of a great number of illustrious races is strikingly visible. This plague, which seems to have become very common here, is of most dangerous consequence to those who have been born in another climate; and though a thousand charms and attractions incite, a prudent foreigner will hesitate before he bends his neck to this dreadful yoke.

6

This depravity is, however, not so general as the libertine would insinuate. There are, indeed, in Madrid many exemplary families, faithful spouses, and women that might be quoted as models of reserve and decorum.'

To be continued.)