shew me a little kindness, after he had been chiding and beating me the whole day before." So setting ourselves down by a hedge, "Come hither, Lazarillo," quoth he," and let us enjoy ourselves a little, and eat these raisins together; which that we may share like brothers, do you take but one at a time, and be sure not to cheat me, and I promise you for my part, I shall take no more." That I readily agreed to, and so we began our banquet; but at the very second time he took a couple, believing, I suppose, that I would do the same. And finding he had shewed me the way, I made no scruple all the while to take two, three, or four at a time; sometimes more and sometimes less, as conveniently I could. When we had done, the old man shook his head, and holding the stalk in his hand, "Thou hast cheated me, Lazarillo," quoth he, "for I could take my oath, that thou hast taken three at a time." "Who I! I beg your pardon," quoth I, "my conscience is as dear to me as another." "Pass that jest upon another," answered the old fox; "you saw me take two at a time without complaining of it, and therefore you took three." At that I could hardly forbear laughing; and at the same time admired the justness of his reasoning." Lazarillo at length quitted the service of the old hard-hearted miser, and revenged himself upon him at the same time, in a very summary manner. They were returning home one day on account of bad weather, when they had to cross a kennel which the rain had swelled to a little torrent. The beggar was about to jump over it as well as he could, when Lazarillo persuaded him to go a little lower down the stream, because there was a better crossing; that is, there was a stone pillar on the other side, against which he knew the blind old fellow would nearly dash his brains out. "He was mightily pleased with my advice. "Thou art in the right on it, good boy," quoth he, " and I love thee with all my heart, Lazarillo. Lead me to the place thou speakest of; the water is very dangerous in winter, and especially to have one's feet wet." And again :-"Be sure to set me in the right place, Lazarillo," quoth he; " and then do thou go over first." I obeyed his orders, and set him exactly before the pillar, and so leaping over, posted myself behind it, looking upon him as a man would do upon a mad bull. "Now your jump," quoth I, "and you may get over to rights, without ever touching the water." I had scarce done speaking, when the old man, like a ram that's fighting, ran three steps backwards, to take his start with the greater vigour, and so his head came with a vengeance against the stone-pillar, which made him fall back into the kennel half dead." Lazarillo stops a moment to triumph over him with insulting language; and then, says he, "resigning my blind, bruised, wet, old, cross, cunning master to the care of the mob that was gathered about him, I made the best of my heels, without ever looking about, till I had got the town-gate upon my back; and thence, marching on a merry pace, I arrived before night at Torrigo."

At the house of the priest, poor Lazarillo gets worse off than before, and is obliged to resort to the most extraordinary shifts to arrive at a morsel of bread. At one time, he gets a key of a tinker,

and opening the old trunk in which the miser kept his bread, (a sight, he says, like the opening of heaven) he takes small pieces out of three or four, in imitation of a mouse; which so convinces the old hunks that the mice and rats have been at them, that he is more liberal of the bread than usual. He lets him have in particular "the parings about the parts where he thought the mice had been." Another of his contrivances is to palm off his pickings upon a serpent, with which animal a neighbour told the priest that his house had been once haunted. Lazarillo, who had been used when he lived with the beggar to husband pieces of money in his mouth, (substituting some lesser coin in the blind man's hand, when people gave him any thing) now employs the same hiding-place for his key; but whistling through it unfortunately, one night, as he lay breathing hard in his sleep, the priest concludes he has now caught the serpent, and going to Lazarillo's bed with a broomstick, gives him at a venture such a tremendous blow on the head, as half murders him. The key is then discovered, and the poor fellow turned out of doors.

He is now hired by a lofty-looking hidalgo; and follows him home, eating a thousand good things by anticipation. They pass through the markets however to no purpose. The squire first goes to church too, and spends an unconscionable time at mass. At length they arrive at a dreary, ominous looking house, and ascend into a decent apartment, where the squire after shaking his cloak, and blowing off the dust from a stone seat, lays it neatly down, and so makes a cushion of it to sit upon. There is no other furniture in the room, nor even in the neighbouring rooms, except a bed "composed of the anatomy of an old hamper." The truth is, the squire is as poor as Lazarillo, only too proud to own it; and so he starves both himself and his servant at home, and then issues gallantly forth of a morning, with his Toledo by his side, and a countenance of stately satisfaction; returning home every day about noon with "a starched body, reaching out his neck like a greyhound." Lazarillo had not been a day in the house, before he found out how matters went. He was beginning, in his despair of a dinner, to eat some scraps of bread which had been given him in the morning, when the squire observing him, asked what he was about. "Come hither, boy," said he, "what's that thou art eating?" "I went," says Lazarillo," and shewed him three pieces of bread, of which taking away the best, " upon my faith," quoth he, "this bread seems to be very good." ""Tis too stale and hard, Sir," said I, "to be good." "I swear 'tis very good," said the squire : "Who gave it thee? Were their hands clean that gave it thee?" "I took it without asking any questions, Sir," answered I," and you see I eat it as freely." Pray God it may be so," answered the miserable squire; and so putting the bread to his mouth, he eat it with no less appetite than I did mine; adding at every mouthful, "Gadzooks, this bread is excellent."

Lazarillo in short here finds the bare table so completely turned upon him, that he is forced to become provider for his master as well as himself; which he does by fairly going out every day and begging, the poor squire winking at the indignity, though not without a hint

at keeping the connexion secret. The following extract shall be our climax, which it may well be, the hunger having thus ascended into the ribs of Spanish aristocracy. Lazarillo, one lucky day, has an ox-foot and some tripe given him by a butcher-woman. On coming home with his treasure, he finds the hidalgo impatiently walking up and down, and fears he shall have a scolding for staying so long: but the squire merely asks where he has been, and receives the account with an irrepressible air of delight. "I sate down," says Lazarillo, upon the end of the stone seat, and began to eat that he might fancy I was feasting; and observed without seeming to take notice, that his eye was fixed upon my skirt, which was all the plate and

table that I had.

"May God pity me as I had compassion on that poor squire; daily experience made me sensible of his trouble. I did not know whether I should invite him, for since he had told me he had dined, I thought he would make a point of honour to refuse to eat; but in short, being very desirous to supply his necessity, as I had done the day before, and which I was then much better in a condition to do, having already sufficiently stuffed my own guts; it was not long before an opportunity fairly offered itself; for he taking occasion to come near me in his walks, Lazarillo," quoth he, (as soon as he observed me begin to eat)" I never saw any body eat so handsomely as thee; a body can scarce see thee fall to work without desiring to bear thee company: let their stomachs be never so full, or their mouth be never so much out of taste." Faith, thought I to myself, with such an empty belly as yours, my own mouth would water at a great deal less.

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"But finding he was come where I wished him. "Sir," said I, good stuff makes a good workman. This is admirable bread, and here's an ox-foot so nicely drest and so well seasoned, that any body would delight to taste of it.".

"How!" cried the squire, interrupting me, "an ox foot?" "Yes, Sir," said I," an ox-foot." "Ah! then," quoth he, " thou hast in my opinion the delicatest bit in Spain; there being neither partridge, pheasant, nor any other thing that I like nearly so well as that."..

"Will you please to try, Sir," said I, (putting the ox-foot in his hand, with two good morsels of bread) "when you have tasted it, you will be convinced that it is a treat for a king, 'tis so well dressed and seasoned,

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Upon that, sitting down by my side, he began to eat, or rather to devour what I had given him, so that the bones could hardly escape. "Oh! the excellent bit," did he cry, “that this would be with a little garlick." Ha! thought I to myself, how hastily thou eatest it without sauce. "Gad," said the squire, "I have eaten this as heartily as if I had not tasted a bit of victuals to day;" which I did very readily believe.

"He then called for the pitcher with the water, which was as full as I had brought it home; so you may guess whether he had eat any. When his squireship had drank, he civilly invited me to do the like; and thus ended our feast."

We hope the reader is as much amused with this prolongation of

the subject as ourselves, for we are led on insensibly by these amusing thieves, and find we shall have yet another paper to write upon them, before we have done. We will therefore conclude the present one by giving another specimen or two of the sharping Spaniard out of Quevedo. The Adventures, by the way, of Lazarillo de Tormes, were written in the sixteenth century by a Spanish gentleman, apparently of illustrious family, Don Diego de Mendoza, who was sometime ambassador at Venice. This renders the story of the hidalgo still more curious. Not that the author perhaps ever felt the proud but condescending pangs which he describes; this is not necessary for a man of imagination. He merely meant to give a hint to the poorer gentry not to overdo the matter on the side of loftiness, for their own sakes; and hunger, whether among the proud or the humble, was too national a thing, not to be entered into by his statistic apprehension.

The most popular work connected with sharping adventures is Gil Blas, which though known to us as a French production, seems unquestionably to have originated in the country where the scene is laid. It is a work exquisitely easy and true; but somehow we have no fancy for the knaves in it. They are of too smooth, sneaking and safe a cast. They neither bespeak one's sympathy by necessity, nor one's admiration by daring. We except, of course, the robbers before-mentioned, who are a picturesque patch in the work, like a piece of rough poetry.

Of the illustrious Guzman d'Alfarache, the most popular book of the kind, we believe, in Spain, and admired, we know, in this country by some excellent judges, we cannot with propriety speak, for we have only read a few pages at the beginning; though we read those twice over, at two different times, and each time with the same intention of going on. In truth, as Guzman is called by way of eminence the Spanish Rogue, we must say for him, as far as our slight acquaintance warrants it, that he is also "as tedious as a king.' They say however he has excellent stuff in him.

We can speak as little of Marcos de Obregon, of which a translation appeared a little while ago. We have read it; and if we remember rightly, were pleased; but want of memory on these occasions is not a good symptom. Quevedo, no ordinary person, is very amusing. His Visions of Hell in particular, though of a very different kind from Dante's, are more edifying. But our business at present is with his "History of Paul the Spanish Sharper, the Pattern of Rogues and Mirror of Vagabonds." We do not know that he deserves these appellations so much as some others; but they are to be looked upon as titular ornaments, common to the Spanish Kleptocracy. He is extremely pleasant, especially in his younger days. His mother, who is no better than the progenitor of such a personage ought to be, happens to have the misfortune one day of being carted. Paul, who was then a school-boy, was elected king on some boyish holiday; and riding out upon a half-starved horse, it picked up a small cabbage as they went through the market. The market-women began pelting the king with rotten oranges and turnip-tops; upon which, having

feathers in his cap, and getting a notion in his head that they mistook him for his mother, who agreeably to a Spanish custom was tricked out in the same manner when she was carted, he, halloo'd out, "Good women, though I wear feathers in my cap, I am none of Alonza Saturno de Rebillo. She is my mother."

Paul used to be set upon unlucky tricks by the son of a man of rank, who preferred enjoying a joke to getting punished for it. Among others, one Christmas, a counsellor happening to go by of the name of Pontio de Auguirre, the little Don told his companion to call Pontius Pilate, and then to run away. He did so, and the angry counsellor followed after him with a knife in his hand, so that he was forced to take refuge in the house of the schoolmaster. The lawyer laid his indictment, and Paul got a hearty flogging, during which he was enjoined never to call Pontius Pilate again; to which he heartily agreed. The consequence was, that next day, when the boys were at prayers, Paul, coming to the Belief, and thinking that he was never again to name Pontius Pilate, gravely said, "Suffered under Pontio de Auguirre ;" which evidence of his horror of the scourge so interested the pedagogue, that by a Catholic mode of dispensation, he absolved him from the next two whippings he should incur.

But we forget, that our little picaro was a thief. One specimen of his talents this way, and we have done with the Spaniards. He went with young Don Diego to the university; and here getting applause for some tricks he played people, and dandling, as it were, his growing propensity to theft, he invited his companions one evening to see him steal a box of comfits from a confectioner's. He accordingly draws his rapier, which was stiff and well pointed; runs violently into the shop; and exclaiming "You're a dead man," makes a fierce lunge at the confectioner between the body and arm. Down drops the man, half dead with fear: the others rush out. But what of the box of comfits? "Where are the box of comfits, Paul?" said the rogues : 66 we do not see what you have done after all, except frighten the fellow." "Look here, my boys," answered Paul. They looked, and at the end of his rapier beheld, with shouts of laughter, the vanquished box. He had marked it out on the shelf; and under pretence of lunging at the confectioner, pinked it away like a muffin.

Upon turning to Quevedo, we find that the story has grown a little upon our memory, as to detail; but this is the spirit of it. The prize here, it is to be observed, is something eatable; and the same yearning is a predominant property of Quevedo's sharpers, as well as the others.

Adieu, ye pleasant rogues of Spain! ye surmounters of bad government, hunger, and misery, by the mere force of a light climate and fingers! The dinner calls;—and to talk about you before it, is as good as taking a ride on horseback.

Orders received by the Booksellers, by the Newsmen, and by the Publisher, Joseph Appleyard, 19, Catherine-street, Strand.-Price Twopence. Printed by C. H. Reynell, No. 45, Broad-street, Golden-square, London.,