manner as I have seen a Manchegan bull rush into the amphitheatre when the gates of his pen are suddenly flung open.

He was closely followed by two mounted officers, and at a short distance by as many dragoons. In almost less time than is sufficient to relate it, several individuals in the crowd were knocked down and lay sprawling upon the ground beneath the horses of Quesada and his two friends; for as to the dragoons, they halted as soon as they had entered the Puerta del Sol. It was a fine sight to see three men by dint of valour and good horsemanship strike terror into at least as many thousands. I saw Quesada spur his horse repeatedly into the dense masses of the crowd, and then extricate himself in the most masterly manner. The rabble were completely awed and gave way retiring by the Calle del Comercio and the street of Alcala. All at once, Quesada singled out two Nationals, who were attempting to escape; and, setting spurs to his horse, turned them in a moment, and drove them in another direction, striking them in a contemptuous manner with the flat of his sabre. He was crying out, "Long live the absolute Queen!" when, just beneath me, amidst a portion of the crowd which had still maintained its ground, perhaps from not having the means of escaping, I saw a small gun glitter for a moment, then there was a sharp report, and a bullet had nearly sent Quesada to his long account, passing so near to the countenance of the general as to graze his hat. I had an indistinct view for a moment of a wellknown foraging-cap just about the spot from whence the gun had been discharged; then there was a rush of the crowd; and the shooter, whoever he was, escaped discovery amidst the confusion which arose.

As for Quesada, he seemed to treat the danger from which he had escaped with the utmost contempt. He glared about him fiercely for a moment; then leaving the two Nationals, who sneaked away like whipped hounds, he went up to the young officer who commanded the cavalry, and who had been active in raising the cry of the Constitution, and to him he addressed a few words, with an air of stern menace; the youth evidently quailed before him, and, probably, in obedience to his orders, resigned the command of the party, and rode slowly away with a discomfited air; whereupon Quesada dismounted and walked slowly backwards and forwards before the Casa de Postas, with a mien which seemed to bid defiance to mankind.

The treatment of poverty in Spain:

Opposite to my room in the corridor lodged a wounded officer, who had just arrived from San Sebastian on a galled broken-kneed pony: he was an Estrimenian, and was returning to his own village to be cured. He was attended by three broken soldiers, lame or maimed, and unfit for service: they told me that they were of the same village as his worship, and on that account he permitted them to travel with him. They slept among the litter, and throughout the day lounged about the house smoking paper cigars. I never saw them eating, though they frequently went to a dark cool corner, where stood a bota or kind of water-pitcher, which they held about six inches from their black filmy lips, permitting the liquid to trickle down their throats. They said they had no pay, and were quite destitute of money; that su merced the officer occasionally gave them a piece of bread, but that he himself was poor and had only few dollars. Brave guests for an inn,

thought I yet, to the honour of Spain be it spoken, it is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is never insulted nor looked upon with contempt. Even at an inn, the poor man is never spurned from the door; and if not harboured, is at least dismissed with fair words, and consigned to the mercies of God and his Mother. This is as it should be. I laugh at the bigotry and prejudices of Spain; I abhor the cruelty and ferocity which. have cast a stain of eternal infamy on her history; but I will say for the Spaniards, that in their social intercourse no people in the world exhibit a juster feeling of what is due to the dignity of human nature, or better understand the behaviour which it behoves a man to adopt towards his fellowbeings. I have said that it is one of the few countries in Europe where poverty is not treated with contempt, and I may add, where the wealthy are not blindly idolized. In Spain, the very beggar does not feel himself a degraded being, for he kisses no one's feet, and knows not what it is to be cuffed or spitten upon; and in Spain the duke or the marquis can scarcely entertain a very overweening opinion of his own consequence, as he finds no one, with perhaps the exception of his French valet, to fawn upon or flatter him.

There is hardly a page, or a portion of any considerable extent, in Mr. Borrow's volumes, that might not furnish passages equally lively and striking with any one here cited. But there must be an end to our copyings; and here we close.

ART. XI. The Eastern and Western States of America. By J. S. BUCKINGHAM, Esq. 3 vols. Fisher.

THESE three stately volumes complete Mr. Buckingham's labours on the United States of America, making in all eight massive octavos; three of the volumes having been devoted to the Northern or Free States,-two to the Southern or Slave States,-and now three to the Eastern and Western States. And yet our author's transatlantic work, historical, statistic, and descriptive, may still be extended; for he thus speaks, "Whether in the spring of the coming year my health and avocations will admit of my giving to the world the remaining part of our Tour through Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, with a Description of these Dependencies of the British Crown, I cannot at present say; but I shall make an effort to bring it into a single volume, not necessarily connected with those that have already appeared, yet forming an appropriate addition." There is thus left a door open for the appearance of one or more volumes beyond the eight; nor do we see why, according to Mr. Buckingham's verbosity and method of collecting, repeating, and speculating, the single octavo might not swell into three bulky books, and after all obtain testi

monies from competent judges, just as well grounded and as flattering as those which have been accorded to the first five of the series.

Even no less an authority than Lord Morpeth,-and many other persons of acknowledged eminence, having an intimate knowledge also of the United States, have forwarded their unsolicited and warm approbation of Mr. Buckingham's work,-has said that he is "able to bear a witness's testimony to the three first volumes which accompanied him on his travels;" having found that "their truth, research, and general impartiality, independently of higher results, made them most useful and satisfactory guides and text-books." His lordship hints in complimentary language, that he is not likely to give to the world, in the shape at least of a historical, statistic, and descriptive account, his own notes of America! for he says, "You have so fully occupied the whole ground, that my abstaining from treading in your foot-prints cannot fail to be more generally acquiesced in."

While, then, we cannot but in some degree complain of Mr. Buckingham's prolixity and reiterations,—of his borrowings from quarters which are of easy access without leaving the shores of England, and also of a tendency to obtrude himself as well as commonplaces, at one time, and hobbies at another which he has ridden to leanness, we are bound to declare that in every chapter at which we have glanced in these closely-printed and thick volumes, there meet the eye valuable truths, solid information, and much right feeling. We say glanced; for how is the reviewer, who happens to have a pile of tomes to turn over, to undertake and deliberately perform the duty of thoroughly analysing and criticising "The Eastern and Western States of America," unless he entertain a passion for the subject and for Mr. Buckingham's manner of treating it, equal to that of the reverend gentleman, one of the ministers of London, who has read "both the first and the second series with the greatest attention, twice through, and with increased satisfaction?"

All we profess to do is only to dip, and very much at random, or as directed by some other rapid taster, here and there; avoiding, however, the author's teetotalism, and other topics on which he entertains strong opinions, such as those which concern free-trade and the corn-laws; for on a variety of social as well as political subjects Mr. Buckingham cherishes notions that are peculiar; and the subjects being at best of too dry or abstruse a nature to suit our present purpose. At the same time, it is At the same time, it is proper that we bear testimony to the fact, that many striking, and we may add excellent, passages will be met with in these volumes on commercial topics; while, of a still higher interest, are the author's ideas and statements relative to a variety of social phenomena as witnessed in the United States. Let us see with what becoming seriousness, with what healthy

humanity he expresses himself regarding the crying vices of the American newspapers. As is generally the case with Mr. Buckingham, he fortifies his ground by means of an array of facts, or of inferences that cannot be avoided.

As to the newspapers of the country, and the pernicious influence exercised by them over the minds of the unreflecting, which constitute a large mass of every community, every day furnishes melancholy proofs of its increasing power and effects. The New York Morning Herald, which has more obscenity, irreligion, and private slander in it than is to be found in all the papers of the State besides, has an immense circulation in all classes. Females, married and single, talk of the "exposures" in Bennett's paper, and laugh without the least apparent sense of shame at the "jokes" in it; many of which would raise a blush upon any female cheek in England, to hear them even alluded to, and the greater number of which would be thrown down with disgust; having contempt for religion, morality, and decency marked on their front. Though few ladies are seen reading this paper openly, yet it is hawked about the streets of every large city in the Union by newsboys, and is purchased by servants, and taken to their mistresses' bedrooms; while many gentlemen even read it by stealth, and hardly avow their habitual perusal of its unprincipled and contaminating pages. But even the larger and more respectable papers contain, every day, articles which betray a heartlessness and levity on the part of those who write and publish them, which, if long continued, cannot fail to sap the very foundations of social morality.

The moralist might here ask, can the people of the United States ever become a truly great people till their social views and habits are vastly improved? It may be all very true that this people are singularly eager and active; that, as one of them declared, "we are an anxious people. Our minds are always on the stretch. Such is the nature of those pursuits in which we are most devoutly engaged, that we can seldom or never be satisfied." "Give," said the same speculatist, "an Englishman his mug of porter and his chunk of beef, and he is contented:-Poor wretch! he has no idea of any felicity more exalted. Give a Frenchman 'his fiddle and his frisk,' and he is happy. Give a Dutchman his kraut and his pipe, and he sets himself down without one aspiration. But an American is always on the alert,'—his mind is in constant activity,-his hopes and fears are always excited. He hopes to make a good speculation, -to invent some wonder-working machine, or, perhaps, to get into a good office; and he fears some of those untoward events which often frustrate the wisest plans laid for the good of our temporalities. We Americans are an anxious people." Be it so; but with all this anxiety, alertness, and "go-a-head" principle, is it accordant with the human mind or the history of communities, that so long as the moral standard is low and the social manners degraded, that a people can ever achieve greatness in the true and best sense of the

term? Can even their literature ever reach an exalted rank?

The thing is impossible: the realization of such an eminence appears to be yet remote in the history of the Americans.

Ón the mal-administration of the laws in the United States, Mr. Buckingham should be heard with attention. At the same time it is inseparable from the new condition of many districts, that wholesome laws should be easily evaded, and that crimes of a particular description, or a special nature, should prevail. Hear what our author has to state, after speaking of a fire which occurred in the town of Bath:

Within the last three months, indeed, there appears to have been more extensive and destructive fires in the United States than in any ten other countries, I should think, in the same space of time. Several small towns on the Mississippi have been reported as reduced to desolation by the devouring element; New York has had four large and several smaller fires; New Orleans and Charleston each their full share; and Mobile five successive conflagrations, believed to be the work of incendiaries, by which that rising and beautiful city has been made a heap of ruins; and with this, and its visitation by disease, nearly depopulated. Even Boston is reported, in its own journals, to have had thirty-five fires within a single month, some of them, at least, extensive ones; and in the New York Observer of September 21, is the following paragraph respecting Philadelphia, the most orderly city in the Union-the city of Brotherly Love. "During the last month there were in Philadelphia thirteen fires, four rail-road accidents, six stabbings, two attempts to stab, one murder, three suicides, seven coroner's inquests, five persons drowned, two attempts to murder, and four sudden deaths." The close connexion between the increase of fires and the increase of other accidents from recklessness, as well as the increase of crime, is not at first apparent, but it is nevertheless true. There is scarcely a fire that happens at which there are not robberies committed; and it is often to facilitate these, and to profit by the plunder, that incendiaries create these fires. Besides this, fraudulent traders find this an easy way of accounting for losses and justifying insolvency, while others effect insurances at sums above the worth of the property destroyed, and profit in this way. Again, the young men and boys who are called out as firemen learn to drink, swear, and gamble, and to form the most dangerous associations; while the very frequency of the scenes of misery and destitution which these fires occasion, hardens the heart and leads to ferocity and cruelty of disposition. The following paragraph, taken from a recent Boston Courier, exhibits this in a striking light:"A savage feeling scems to have been created by the desperate degree of misery to which Mobile is reduced. Lynch law is now added to the catalogue of other crimes; and burning at the stake, it is presumed, will be the finishing touch. A young bar-keeper named Gosling, of the City Hotel, Mobile, having lost his wallet of money, which he was accustomed to place at night under his pillow, some time ago threw out a hint, before the hotel was burnt, that a Dutch servant-girl in the house had probably taken it. A Dutchman present remarked, that a thing more probable was that he himself had burnt the hotel. Five persons, including the Dutchman,