vivacity to their motions and beauty to their forms, which, among the Andalusians, are taller and more delicate than those of the females of other provinces. But throughout Spain, a girl always enters the room "As when a lady, turning in the dance, Doth foot it featly, and advances scarce Oue step before the other to the ground, Veiling her sparkling eyes."-DANTE, Cary's Transl. Our young ladies, having adopted the Spanish dress, conceived too late the dress ought to be adapted to the shape; then the short petticoats, which were only unbecoming to their feet, were condemned as indecent. In Spain, however, this shortness never appears improper, because it is a fashion enjoined by nature, which directs women to display to advantage their beauty, and the small feet of a Spanish girl deserve to be presented to the sight with the utmost care of the toilette. Their power is principally in the largeness and fire of their eyes. The blue ones are more admired, possibly for their rarity; but more probably because, though less striking than eyes of a darker hue, they are more lasting in their attraction. The girls are generally pale, which, by exciting the idea that the heart is not tranquil, renders them more interesting and more dangerous; yet, whatever be their complexions, the colour changes and succeeds with the quickness of their sensations, so that the same female might afford in the same day to a painter, the model of a young Bacchante and of a penitent Magdalen. As liberty is one of the passions of youth, and as almost all young men rank among the liberals, all the young ladies who have lovers are still more liberal. When, in 1820, Riego made his entry into Madrid, his carriage was covered with the flowers which they lavishly scattered from the windows, while their voices were heard mingling with those of the soldiers, chantVOL. I. PART II. Y ing patriotic hymns, of which this stanza may serve as a specimen: "¿Qué es la Francia en cotejo de España ? ¿Las naciones del norte ¿qué son? ¿Qué la Italia so el yugo del Austria ? ¿Lusitania so el yugo Breton ? El que quiera ser libre que aprenda : En España hay un Pueblo y un Rey, El segundo sujeto a la ley.” So many of the fair are partisans of the constitution, that youth and beauty are now synonymous with patriotism, insomuch that, as our author remarks, there are few old ladies who support the ancient government. They sing for liberty-they dance in commemoration of the revolution-at the theatre they applaud every passage which is directed against tyranny, and they even write in the cause of liberty. Thus, although the revolution has not altered in the least the manners of the country, yet the capital begins to resemble the other large cities of Europe. Sooner or later it is not improbable, that literature, the arts, and the refinements of life, will bring with them more civilization, more intelligence, more activity, and more enjoyment in Spain—and, perhaps, at the same time, more corruption and more wants, with less simplicity, originality, and real happiness. MEETING. [An extract from an unpublished Life.] MEETING, after long absence, with those dear to us, is said to be one of the highest enjoyments of human existence. To me it proved one of the saddest moments of a sad life. Revisiting the scenes of our childhood is also accounted a great, though a melancholy, pleasure: -my return to them was even more bitter than my departure had been. During the long and dreary years which I had passed in India, the thoughts of home had been the food on which my soul had lived. The hope of one day being restored to it-of being again united to the dear ones who dwelt there-had supported me under the martyrdom of the heart, which is caused by long banishment. At length the time was come to which I had looked unvaryingly for five-and-twenty years. I embarked for England; and, as our voyage lessened before us, my heart expanded with the near accomplishment of long-deferred hope. During the last week of the passage, I felt sickening impatience for the sight of land. Our course had been rapid till within a few days' sail of England, when we met with baffling winds, which increased my eagerness to a painful pitch. I used to pace the deck during the first watch with the officer until he was relieved, and listen with engrossing interest to his stories of the usual circumstances of approaching England-of the chances of wind at the entrance of the channel-of the pilot coming on board-of running up to the Downs-of all the minutiæ, in short, with which the close of his different voyages had been varied. This man and his fellows looked happily forward to reaching home: but how different were their feelings from mine! They looked to the recurrence of a periodical pleasure: I felt the condensed intensity of long years of hope. On the morning that we did make land, I was awakened by my servant with the tidings that we were close in shore. My cabin was on the seaward side of the ship, so, as I looked from the port-hole, I saw only the green waves dancing and glittering in the breeze and sunshine of a summer morning but the waves were green-and I blessed the colour, as assuring our nearness to land, and : that land my own. I was speedily dressed and on deck. We were running rapidly up channel with a brisk westerly breeze-and the green hills of the Devonshire coast stretched away a-head and a-stern of us as far as the eye could reach. It so happened that it was this very part of the coast which I had seen last, when I was leaving England nearly six-and-twenty years before. My last look of my native country was at one of these very hills in the cold dull light of a November evening. I now saw it again in all the glory of sunlight and of summer, and with the feeling of return, instead of departure, at my heart and yet with these causes, both physical and inward, for joyous sensation, I question whether my feelings were not less sad on the former occasion than now. It was true I was then quitting my country-my friends— my home-all those charities which entwine themselves with the heart-strings in a manner never to be unravelled, and which caused mine to strain almost to breaking as I left them; but to these pangs, many and bitter as they were, I had that all-powerful antidote-the buoyancy of a youthful spirit— that false vision of early days, which, like a Claude Lorraine glass, throws a warm tint of richness and of pleasure over every scene, however melancholy and unhopeful its reality may be. Now my years of trial were past, and the moment was come to which I had always looked for repayment for all I underwent. But it found me changed, as all men must be, by the lapse of years and suffering, as it is to be hoped all do not suffer, under the pain of bitter recollection. My heart was chilled with the restrospect of an unhappy life-and my joy for what was, was lost in my regret for what might have been. I felt, too, what all men must feel who pass the greater and better part of their life in present pain for the hope of future happiness. I felt that now, when it was at last within my grasp, I had but few and declining years to enjoy it. But this was only the foretaste of the pain my return. home was to cause me. I landed at Southampton,—and, without going to London, travelled post across the country to my father's. It was in the month of July, and at the close of the day, as my chaise wound slowly up the hill, from the top of which I knew I should see my father's house. For the last few miles, the country had been becoming familiar to me, and I now recognised every spot which we passed. I saw the wood where I had shot my first pheasant, and the cover where the hounds met on the day I was first out hunting; and I recollected the pride of my young heart at being allowed to mingle in the sports of grown men. But even here there was change-even the face of the country was not as I left it: how must, I thought, the human faces, which I loved, have altered in the same period! In the place of a wild heath, of which the cover I have mentioned formed part, there were ploughed fields, trim hedgerows, and a line of cottages which bore no mark of recent erection. The cover itself was railed in, and seemed kept as a preserve. All the free nature of the scene was lost; and, in my present mood, I thought it ill exchanged, even for the smiling fertility which occupied its place. When we reached the top of the hill, the well-remembered scene of my childhood burst upon my sight. In all the long and painful years which had passed since I last looked on it, that spot had remained green and fresh at the bottom of a blighted heart-uneffaced by time-unchanged by sorrow. As it burst at once upon me now, my heart swelled with unutterable feelings-I threw myself back in the carriage, and wept |