which a foreigner would infallibly consider such, are often suppressed, as in the instance of the convent of the Incarnation, alluded to above. We conclude, on the whole, that the fidelity of costume is carried in this novel to such an extent in all its branches, as to create a strong presumption that it could only have been written by a native Spaniard.*

* We will add here another example of this minute exactness, taken from concerns of a lower order. Gil Blas, in giving his account of the interior of the cavern inhabited by the robbers, remarks, that he saw in the stable an ample provision of straw and barley. The reader would probably pass over this trifling circumstance without perceiving that it indicated any local peculiarity; but if he were called upon to describe the contents of a stable from his own knowledge, he would find, perhaps, that instead of straw and barley, he had written hay and oats. Every one who has been in Spain will recollect, that the former articles are universally employed as the food of horses and mules, to the exclusion of the latter; but the fact is probably known to very few foreigners, especially of the character and habits of Lesage.

The habits of the robbers, as described in Gil Blas, are the same with those which still prevail among the persons who exercise this adventurous profession in the Peninsula. In proof of this, we add the following extract from a letter addressed by one of our countrymen, a lieutenant in the navy, to an American gentleman residing at Madrid, under date of Córdoba, April 17, 1827, in which he gives an account of a robbery of the diligence at Manzanares, a few days before. The letter was of course not intended for the press, but is written in a spirited style, and does credit to its author, whose name, not having his authority to publish it, we suppress.

'My dear Sir, I arrived here yesterday with sound ribs and a whole skin, but sadly out of pocket, and with my trunk in a very emaciated condition. I need not tell you that we have been robbed, for this you will have either heard or surmised already; but there will be no harm in saying something of the where and the how, so that when you come to the same spot, you may enjoy the pleasures of anticipation, and know exactly the formalities that are to be gone through on such occasions. It was, then, about three leagues before reaching Manzanares, that this robbery took place, on Thursday at two o'clock. We were going along very quietly, with our guard of four men in advance, and the conductor, who was in the rotunda, was talking with me, when we were suddenly interrupted by the discharge of muskets, followed immediately by the clattering of hoofs and loud and confused cries. The next moment the cause of this tumult was in sight, and the guards and their pursuers were seen flying rapidly past us, the lat

Some of these

The nice observations of the critics have nevertheless discovered in Gil Blas a considerable number of errors, more or less obvious, principally in the manner of writing the names of places and persons. are so glaring, that it is difficult to reconcile them with any theory in respect to the author, and they must be viewed by all as wholly accidental. The rest rather

ter discharging their carabines upon the guards, and urging their horses to come up with them. It was an animated scene this, such as I had frequently seen on canvass in the spirited little pictures of Wouvermans. The robbers were eight in number, and were variously dressed, many in sheep skins, some in montero caps, and others with handkerchiefs on their heads; they each, however, had two pair of pistols stuck into the front of the saddle, a sabre at the side, and a carabine in the moment of preparation thrown over the saddle in front. Besides this ornament, some had a second carabine hung to their saddles, with a long knife stuck in their belts.

In the mean time one of the guard had fled the field entirely, and the other three men were off at a respectful distance. One of the robbers, who had remained beside the postillion, now made us get down into the road, so that if the dilligence advanced it would have to pass over us. The conductor, as more experienced in these matters, placed himself on his hands and knees, like a frog when he is about to jump, and we all, by order of the fellow who was taking such good care of us, imitated his example; the more readily, because he was a young man of not more than twenty, a kind of Gil Blas at the business, and was a good deal agitated, and for that reason the more dangerous to unarmed men. On the coming up of the captain, who returned to the diligence, leaving five of his party to keep the guard in check, we were told to get up and not to be uneasy, that no harm was intended to our persons. He called for the hat of the conductor and told us to put our money and articles into it; he then ordered the conductor to mount upon the diligence and throw down the baggage. Our keys were then called for, and a curious and inquisitive sort of fellow commenced overhauling the trunks. Another fellow stood by with a long bag which opened in the middle, into which the accepted articles were stowed. In this way my go-a-shore watch went to look after the parade one, and most of the contents of my trunk followed the same example. When this fellow had finished his investigation, and the other passengers were stowing away their things, I asked, if what was left was mine, and being told, yes, I began to pack up, and no longer encountered that resistance in shutting my trunk, that I had met with the day before at Madrid. Down it went at the first push. The captain of the band allowed the trunk of the lady who was with us to pass unexamined, and began a long apology to us

tend to confirm the supposition, that the work is a translation from the Spanish, because they are most naturally accounted for by considering them as the errors of a person transcribing names with which he was not perfectly familiar. We shall mention one or two of each class.

for the trouble he was giving us; he said, that it was not his fault, — that they had refused to pardon him, and to employ him in conveying the diligence. "Soy Felipe Cano," says he, "y, por mal nombre, el Cacaruco." He told the conductor to tell his employers, that if they would procure his pardon and receive him into their service, he would guard the diligence for three months gratis.

'When they had completely gone through with their undertaking, they went quickly off in sight of several galeras that had halted at no great distance from us, and in about a quarter of an hour disappeared in a hollow that lay to the right of the road. They had at first taken away the two horses that led the team, but the postillion followed them, and begged the captain to give him up the poorest, to which he at last consented. When the robbers had disappeared our guard returned, and commenced railing at the authorities of the neighboring villages, who, they said, were protecting the robbers openly; the three guards had behaved extremely well, for we could distinctly hear them challenge the assailants to come to them man for man and that they would meet them. Glory, however, was not the object of these sturdy Manchegos, and they were content to have succeeded in their enterprise. On arriving at Manzanares, among the crowd that came out to hear the story of our disaster, was a little girl of seven or eight years old, the daughter of Cacaruco. She was well dressed and clean; the poor little thing was very much disconcerted by the attention she attracted, and hid herself from our observation behind the door of the stable. Though we were not much indebted to Mr. Cacaruco for the service he had done us, there was no feeling of animosity towards this innocent child, who seemed entirely ignorant of her father's vocation. It appears, that the innkeepers have taken a hatred to the diligence from its carrying travellers, (who used frequently to loiter from inn to inn,) so rapidly through the country, that only a few of the public houses gain anything by their passage; and it is thought that their instigations have as much to do with the frequent robbery of the diligence, as the necessities of the robbers themselves. This may, at least, account for the impunity with which Cacaruco might have returned, and perhaps did return, to his own house, situated in a village, on the very night of having committed so bold an offence, and of having so publicly avowed it.'

Since the first publication of this article, the writer of the letter quoted has published a fuller narrative of the adventure in his interesting volume of travels, "A Year in Spain."

In giving an account of his journey from Madrid to Oviedo, at the beginning of the fourth volume, Gil Blas mentions that he slept the first night at Alcalá de Henares, and the second, at Segovia. This is an error of the same kind, as if a man should say, that in travelling from Boston to New York, he slept the first night at Newburyport, and the second at Providence. Alcalá de Henares and Segovia are both among the most considerable and noted cities in Spain. The former is well known for its university, which is one of the first in the country, and familiar to scholars as that where the Complutensian Polyglott (so called from Complutum, the Roman name of Alcalá,) was printed by order of Cardinal Ximenes. The latter was distinguished in its better days, as a great manufacturing town, and is now remarkable for its Moorish Alcázar, its Roman aqueduct, and its Gothic cathedral. The first of these edifices derives some little additional celebrity from being the place in which the author of Gil Blas has laid the scene of his hero's imprisonment.* Alcalá is about ten English miles east of Madrid, and Segovia about

*The Alcázar of Segovia, as the name indicates, was originally a Moorish palace. It has also been occupied as a residence by the kings of Spain, and large additions were made to it in the time of Philip the Second, under the direction of Herrera, the architect of the Escurial. It is still în perfect preservation, and is now appropriated to a military school, the only one in Spain. The writer of this article visited the Alcázar of Segovia in the summer of 1826, and had an opportunity of witnessing from its upper windows what Don André de Tordesillas represented as the flowery banks of the Eresma, and the delicious valley that separates the two Castiles; but he found the view, as Gil Blas is said to have done, very much embellished by the warder's description. The Eresma is a meagre stream, and the country through which it passes, like the greater part of Old and New Castile, is wholly bare of wood, and presents a monotonous and melancholy aspect. The aqueduct of Segovia is one of the most remarkable Roman works of the kind in existence. It is in perfect preservation, and is still employed to supply the city with water. It consists of two lines of arches, one above the other, constructed with large square masses of granite,

thirty west. The critics are sadly at loss to imagine for what reason, or by what accident Gil Blas should have been made to pass through the former place on his way to the latter; as it is impossible to suppose that the author, whether native or foreign, could have fallen into a geographical error of this magnitude. Father Isla believes. that Lesage introduced this blunder on purpose, in order to mistify the public, and make it appear improbable that the work could be a translation from the Spanish; but this system, though ingenious, is not to us completely satisfactory. Count de Neufchâteau makes no attempt to account for the circumstance, and declares it to be wholly mysterious and incomprehensible. It is evident, however, that the error must have been either voluntary

without cement, and in the highest part is a hundred and two feet high. The Gothic cathedral is one of the finest in Spain; so that the three nations who within the memory of man have successively possessed the Peninsula, have each left at this particular spot a specimen of the very best manner of its peculiar style of architecture.

Every thing at Segovia, excepting these three monuments, has an air of decay, or rather of complete ruin. This city formerly contained the greatest cloth manufactories in Spain. These are said to have employed, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, no less than seventy-two thousand persons, a number which would give, on the usual principles of calculation, a population of at least three hundred thousand souls. The present population is not thought to exceed five thousand, who depend for subsistence upon the military academy and the church. The decay of industry in this and the other once flourishing and wealthy cities of the interior of Spain, took place with almost inconceivable rapidity soon after the commencement of the seventeenth century. Seville, which contained sixteen thousand looms for weaving silk in the preceding century, had, in the year 1636, only sixty. Segovia sunk at the same time. The quantity of wool washed at Cuenca fell off, between 1620 and 1640, from sixty-two thousand five hundred quintals, to two thousand five hundred. This unexampled revolution in the economy of the country was the real cause of the decline of the political consequence of Spain; but it is not very easy to account for the fact itself. No satisfactory reason has yet been assigned for it; and it must apparently have been owing to a combination of disastrous accidents. The expulsion of the Moors, in 1614, probably did more than any other single circumstance.