clothes, white silk stockings, a blue riband over his left shoulder, and a star on his breast. The queen was then little more than twenty years of age, but her pale countenance already disclosed symptoms of that broken heart which soon after found repose in the grave. Her figure, which was slight and elegantly formed, was nearly enveloped in a blue silk mantle, edged with ermine. She wore on her head a pink hat, without feathers. Her appearance contrasted strongly with that of Ferdinand, as he handed her into the carriage. It is well known that his chin and lower lip were nearly in a right line with the extremity of a nose of no ordinary dimensions. The deformity of his features was, in some degree, palliated by large mustachios. But although his figure was erect, manly, and even princely, I could not help thinking, when he took his seat by his fragile consort, of the celebrated story of " Beauty and the Beast," until I beheld him taking, with his own hand, through the still open door, the petitions of the poor people whom he called to him for the purpose. His swarthy rude face was suddenly lighted up with an expression of kindness, which shewed that he was not wholly unaccustomed to acts of a benevolent description. I know not whether any of these supplicants ever received any answer to their representations; but I saw that they were already half satisfied, at least, by what I may really call the paternal smiles of their sovereign.

This royal attention to the lower orders is a practice of an ancient date in Spain. During the prevalence of the constitution, Ferdinand was not, indeed, allowed to give audiences to inferior persons, as suspicions were entertained, not without good grounds, that plots were often in preparation for effecting the escape of the royal family from Madrid to the French frontiers. But when the constitution was destroyed, the king resumed his former habits on this point, and once or twice every week admitted all persons, without any distinction of rank, to his presence. He rose generally at six, and soon after took a cup of chocolate and a cigar. His morning was passed in the apartments of the queen, and it is understood that he never was so happy in them as since they were occupied by her present majesty. He became devotedly attached to her from the moment that she gave those hopes, which were afterwards realized, of continuing his race-an object which he had always looked forward to with the utmost solicitude. He transacted business with his ministers regularly between twelve o'clock and half-past two, when he dined. He then drove out with the queen for two or three hours, after which he saw any person whom he had appointed to attend him. He supped at half-past eight, and retired early. During the whole of Ferdinand's reign, the manners of the Spanish court were extremely simple and unostentatious. He never had any avowed mistresses; indeed, after his restoration in 1814 he is said to have been without any liaison of that kind. The offices of religion were regularly performed every day in the beautiful chapel of the palace. But Ferdinand was at no time of his life impressed with the necessity of attending earnestly to that subject. He had, in this respect, more of the character of Louis XVIII. in him than of Charles X. The story of the embroidered petticoat has never been denied—so far, at least, as the presentation of such an ornament by Ferdinand to a particular church. This proceeding was, however, rather the result of his superstition, than of his religion, between which there is not only a distinction, but a wide difference.

Pascal was a thoroughly religious man, without a particle of superstition. Napoleon was superstitious in the extreme; but his most republican enemies never accused him of religion.

The society of Madrid has been uniformly grave since the war of independence. The poverty of the nobles, who suffered enormous losses of property at that period, has been, perhaps, the principal cause of this revolution in the manners of a capital which had long been remarkable for its gaiety. The personal dispositions and habits of Ferdinand gave moreover a tone of reserve and retirement to the court, which necessarily exercised an influence upon society. Brought up, I may say, a prisoner, and confined for nearly six years at Valençay, at a period of life when the character is most susceptible of permanent impressions, he was accustomed to find his pleasures and amusements within a narrow circle. He was, in truth, extremely domestic-too much so for a king. He smoked so great a number of cigars during the course of the day, that his breath was quite tainted with that unpleasant after-smell which tobacco leaves behind it. He ate also, sometimes inordinately. An over-indulgence in this way brought on the fit of apoplexy which terminated in his death. He drank very little more wine than Spaniards do in general; but it was always of the best description. For some years he had been afflicted with the gout, a complaint of which he fully availed himself, in order to delay his departure with the Cortes from Madrid to Seville, in 1823, The communication to him of the resolutions of that body for the removal of the court brought on an attack of that malady, which, according to his own report, tortured him incessantly for three weeks; but when the legislative physicians expressed an apprehension that it might, if it continued longer, lead to insanity, which would render the appointment of a regent indispensable, the disease quitted him with miraculous expedition.

Ferdinand paid little attention to the grandees of Spain. His confidential ministers were seldom selected from that class. He was partial, rather than otherwise, to parvenus; and felt a pleasure in raising men to office who had often little to recommend them, beyond the talents which they exhibited in administering to his private amusements. His real courtiers were frequently persons of very low birth and station. At one period of his life, the most influential man in Spain was Chamarro, who was nothing more than a buffoon; but his fantastic tricks made Ferdinand laugh immoderately, and nothing was refused to his solicitations. He was so much pleased with Montenegro, who was one of his valets at Valençay, that he appointed him intendant of the royal palaces, and bestowed upon him, moreover, abundant marks of his favour. The queen (Maria Isabella,) fully participated in the king's attachment to this servant, Happening, one day to be engaged in fastening a cross of Charles III. to a riband of that order, she desired Montenegro to hold one of the ends of the riband. He knelt on one knee for the purpose, desirous of performing her Majesty's commands in the most respectful manner. The king, suddenly entering the apartment by a private door, beheld this apparent scene of gallantry with indignation; not perceiving how Montenegro was employed, and urged by an irrepressible feeling of jealousy, he rushed past the queen and knocked him down at full length on the floor. The queen shrieked, a number of domestics immediately hastened to her assistance; in the confusion, Montenegro got up as well as he

could and ran away. But when the affair was explained, Ferdinand had the grace to be ashamed of himself, and the quondam valet was raised to higher favour than ever.

It was, perhaps, a very natural trait in such a character as that of Ferdinand, that there was very little constancy in his preferences of this description. He was remarkably tenacious in causing it to be believed' that he acted in all things from his own unbiassed opinions, although every body about him well knew that he frequently made or rescinded" appointments, from the reports which were daily repeated to him even ̈ by the lowest of his domestics. He encouraged them at all times to tell him of what was going on in Madrid; and it is understood that they availed themselves frequently of these opportunities to recommend or baffle the views of those whom they wished to serve or to injure. Whenever he had any reason to suspect that any particular individual was considered out of doors as his favourite, he forthwith discarded that person from his presence. He was never believed to have entertained anything like a sincere attachment for his court companions, with the exception, perhaps, of a single instance. Lozano de Torrez, the nephew of a once well-known matchmaker of the same name in London, was the son of a carpenter at Cadiz, where, in his early days he sold chocolate. By some accident he obtained employment in the commissariat during the war of independence; he discharged his duties with considerable ability, When the king returned to Spain, Lozano, who was then at Badajoz, addressed to him a letter full of protestations of the most devoted zeal, and of bitter complaints against the liberals. This letter was answered by an order, directing Lozano to proceed to Madrid, where he was admitted at once to Ferdinand's confidence. Lozano was the most ingenious of courtiers. He wanted nothing for himself. His whole ambition was to serve about the person of his sovereign, in whose fortunes he felt a sympathetic interest which he could not describe, the cause of which was to him inexplicable. It seemed to him as if his heart must have been framed, as it were, in the same mould with that of the king. He wore Ferdinand's portrait in his bosom, knelt before it as an idol, and appeared to live only for his royal master. Whenever his opinion was asked upon any subject, he gave it candidly, always most disinterestedly; several valuable appointments were offered him he refused them all. He would rather be a lackey in the palace than captain-general of the two Castiles.

After a due course of servitude, Lozano was prevailed upon to accept the office of minister of state; that is to say, secretary for foreign affairs. Now this was a post to which, more than to any other, usage had established a certain right of succession among the members of that depart ment, gentlemen who had previously served abroad in a diplomatic capacity, who, of course, were acquainted with foreign languages, conversant with the whole train of pending negotiations, and experienced in official forms. Well knowing that they could not speedily be replaced, they resolved to resign in a body rather than serve under Lozano. He prudently yielded to the storm. To the astonishment of the nation the ci-devant vendor of chocolate was next appointed minister of grace and justice, which placed in his hands the entire patronage of the magistracy and the church. But he flattered the clergy, encouraged the fanatics, persecuted the liberals, terrified Ferdinand with the numerous conspi

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racies against the throne and the church which he daily discovered, and kept his place. A droll proof of Ferdinand's credulity, with respect to Lozano's sympathies, has been related by one of his biographers. The courtier was in the habit of sending a messenger every morning to inquire how the king passed the night. On one occasion the answer was, that his majesty had suffered from a severe fit of the colic. The moment Lozano heard this he ordered his carriage, posted to the palace in his dressing-gown, and demanded an audience upon business of extraordinary importance. Ferdinand, who was by this time convalescent, ordered him to be admitted. Seeing Lozano in such a dress, his face pale, and his hair in disorder, he eagerly inquired what was the matter. "Oh!" exclaimed the minister of grace and justice, "oh, señor, I have had such a terrible attack of the colic; I have been ill with it all night," and then he went on minutely detailing the symptoms (which he had not experienced) of that agreeable complaint. "Wonderful," cried Ferdinand; "they are precisely the pains which I have suffered myself; how very wonderful!"—" Not at all wonderful, señor," replied Lozano, nothing certainly can happen to your majesty without happening to me also. While you were ill I was ill. Now that you are better, I feel recovered again." At length Lozano fell into disgrace, and was exiled from Madrid. Ferdinand, when his liking was over, used often to laugh at the impositions which this fellow practised upon him.

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The suddenness with which Ferdinand constructed and dissolved his cabinets formed an essential part of his absolute system. He has presided at important councils, heard propositions discussed, to which he gave his unqualified assent, ordered the ministers, to whose department the execution of them belonged, to attend him with the necessary decrees the next morning; and before the morning came those very ministers might have been met with on their journey to a presidio.

I have never seen a good portrait of Ferdinand. The artists say that it was impossible to sketch one, on account of the singular mobility of his features, sometimes sombre in the extreme, sometimes so gay and lively, that they hardly seemed to belong to the same person. Öften when his brow was overcast with a shade, which deepened the habitual gloom of his shagged lips and chin, his eyes betrayed a pensive expression that made them for the moment almost beautiful. But it was "beauty sleeping in the lap of horror." He spoke generally with a nervous precipitation, indicative of the shallow source from which his thoughts emanated. He was a wrong-headed man, irascible, obstinate, and selfish. He died under the impression which he always entertained, that he was the most popular man in Spain. Perhaps he was; but he has not left a single individual in the world who laments his departure with a genuine tear.

By his repeal of the Salic law, he has bequeathed to the Peninsula à civil war, which, in whatever way it may terminate, will necessarily throw back that fiue country another half century, in addition to the period in which she is already behind the rest of Europe as to all the great improvements of modern civilization. During the reign of Charles II. a company of Dutch contractors offered to render the Manzanares navi gable to the point where it falls into the Tagus, and the Tagus navigable from that point to Lisbon. The proposal was laid before the Council of Castile, and the answer of that enlightened body was to this effect:

"That if it had pleased God that these two rivers should have been navigable, he would not have wanted human assistance to have made them such. As he had not done it, it was evident he did not think that any thing of the kind ought to be effected. To attempt it, therefore, would be to violate the decrees of Providence, and to mend the imperfections which he designedly left in his works." Strange to say, this doctrine is still practically enforced in Spain. The great public works begun before the war still remained unfinished. The few projects which have been since approved remain on paper, through the want of means for carrying them into execution. There is no country in the world in which so many natural facilities exist for the creation of canals, none in which such means of communication are so much required. But the only attempts at such achievements worth speaking of are the canals of the Ebro and of Castile, both of which were abandoned before they were extended to any considerable length. The civil war will postpone their completion to the next century.

It must be confessed that the contests for crowns now going on in Portugal and Spain between brother and brother, uncle and niece, are sufficiently calculated to make the inhabitants of those devoted countries envious of the democratic tranquillity and prosperity of the United States. Don Miguel has drawn upon himself the odium of every honourable mind. His conduct, since he left our shores to execute the functions of regent, has been so perfidious, that we all have felt a kind of personal anxiety to witness his downfall. But we suspect that the people of this country are almost indifferent to the result of the struggle about to be commenced in the other kingdom of the Peninsula. The manifesto of the queen-regent may have been a very politic one at home: abroad, at least in France and England, it has ruined her cause. If she is to govern without a Cortes, what guarantee are we to receive that she will not turn out as great a fanatic as Don Carlos is already reputed to be? The possession of absolute power in the midst of contending parties is necessarily calculated to lead to persecution. What matters it to the unfortunate Spaniards whether they are lawfully hanged by the court or butchered by the guerillas ?

M. M.

A WALK AND A DINNER.

It was November ;-a bitter cold wind blew resolutely and remorselessly. I am not easily to be set aside when I have once made up my mind for a walk; so cuddling up myself in my cloak, forth I sallied for an out-of-town perambulation-five miles out and five in. Nothing could be more uninviting than the day. The sky was of that lead-like colour which bespeaks an inclination to rain if it might be permitted, but that being denied, a resolution to satisfy itself with alternate sleet, snow, or bouncing and bounding hail-all pretty confectionary modes of cooking what was intended for so many showers of rain, which a man dressed in a little brief" discontent must be fastidious indeed utterly to disrelish. I, for my part, prefer these cold-cloud comforts to your more commonplace pelting shower: they may, it is true, cut your cheeks as with