want of respect for enterprise, industry, | bowed affectionately to her friends by way knowledge, and good faith, which make of bowing them out. The family, she the Spanish name so cheap and the Span- said, were going to supper! Yet families ish loans so dear. of this kind have no objection whatever

a

the supper was excellent, and the effect upon the Spaniards was extraordinary. Stout old ladies were heard exclaiming, through mouthfuls of unwonted fowl and tongue, that if they had thought it would be anything like this, they would have brought Tio Jorge - Uncle George. Where was he on such an occasion? Why was he not having a slice off the estranjero? The nephews of these old girls, meanwhile, organized a cutting-out expedition, and having discovered where more champagne was, made a gallant attack upon the stores. A British vessel on the Mediterranean station, detached to the coast of Spain, sometimes makes the mistake of attempting to begin friendly relations by a ball. The result, in every instance, is the same. The society of the place flocks to the entertainment, and the entertainers never hear of their guests afterwards.

The strange want of hospitality among to sup-ay, and right well, too - at the the Spaniards is so distinctly a national foreigner's expense. We remember feature that it deserves a few words to Yankee man-of-war giving a ball in a itself. The odd thing is, that they lay Spanish Mediterranean port. Yankee claim to it, along with all other virtues; officers are well paid, and the most cheerand that hospitality is attributed, in pub-ful of hosts. Champagne cocktails are lic, to cities in which nobody receives a found to enliven the eagle, and are freely stranger, just as culture to cities where supplied to the friends of that bird. So there are no pictures nor books. The pretence in this matter is perhaps the queerest of all pretences. The foreigner is told that a house is "at his disposition," and the quantity of house-property he acquires of this very peculiar kind is respectable. But he is not expected to call at his house, and he is never invited specially to it. This is more or less true of all Spain; less true, perhaps, of Madrid than of other cities; and less true of the Biscayan provinces, or Andalusia, than of Catalonia; but true, in the main, of the whole peninsula. Where did this strange element come from? It is not "Latin," for the Romans were dinner-givers from the beginning, like the Greeks, and much of the best fun of the comic writers, from Plautus to Petronius, turns upon that side of their sociable and brilliant life. It is not "Oriental." The Arab is ready with his tent, his bread and salt, and dates; and, in calling upon a pasha, if you are not sure of kabobs of pillau, you are at least never dismissed without pipes and coffee. It is not "Gothic." The Goth was of many varieties and of many lands, but he was always more or less given to keeping open house; and Adam Smith has taken the trouble to give a philosoph-gers in the land. Once, also, in another ical explanation of the hearty welcome city, at a table-d'hôte, some officers sent the and honest cheer of the old mediaval life. waiter round with their sherry-bottle, the The truth seems to be, that the races enu- contents of which were all the more welmerated, being conquerers only, and no come because good sherry can hardly be way related to the bulk of the indigenous got, except by ordering it expressly from population, which was far more numerous, Andalusia, and average sherry is as dear never penetrated deeper in their influence as in London. These humane practices, than a little below the surface, and thus though falling into desuetude, are not exaffected the formal manners of Spain, tinct; and the foreigner who finds himself without much actual impression upon the dining in public, may send a glass of chamnational character. Scratch a Russian, pagne to a lady without impertinence, said Napoleon, and you find a Tartar. and it will be a good preparation for a Scratch a Spaniard, he might have said, little chat. The Spaniards are sociable and you find an Iberian. We certainly when thrown in one's way in travelling, have known and seen incidents of Spanish in hotels, &c.; and are not haunted by the hospitality worthy of the Iberians of reserve which Johnson used to blame our Strabo. In one case a Spanish family people for, nor by the inward pressure of asked some foreigners to a dance. The class feeling from which many honest dancing went cheerfully on till about half- Britons suffer. Unfortunately, travelling past one, when the lady of the house' is very uncomfortable work in Spain; and a

Some vestiges still exist, however, of a friendly little custom which was wearing out in Mr. Ford's time. It has happened to ourselves, at least once, to find, on settling with the mozo at a café, that our shot had been paid by a Spaniard, who had done us that honour from observing (we fear from our accent) that we were stran

table-d'hôte makes severe demands upon the no doubt, be brought about slowly, and stomach, the nerves, and the temper. To they are - to employ a figure which our see a knife used as if the man using it were a readers may have heard before-steps in professional cut-throat about to practise on the right direction. Of the cookery rehimself: to see such a man spit freely dur-ceipts of our friend we cannot speak so ing the meal; to have a whiff of his tobacco-smoke flying lightly over your omelette, these are among the pangs of exile ! We welcome, therefore, a new edition of a Spanish cookery-book, which (in the interest of our readers) we bought the other day, and which contains some excellent observations on behaviour at table.

*

well as of his labours in the cause of the moral reform of the table. He is too fond of garlic (ajo), that cicutis allium nocentius which is so disagreeable an element in the dishes, and the breaths of the sweet south. He is for destroying the flavour of partridges by cooking them with sardines inside, with laurel-leaves, orange-juice, and what not. But indeed, cookery is at as

"The man who is not a good gastro-low an ebb as any other art in Spain. The nome," says our writer, "uses the same materials for the artist are inferior to bespoon for every plate, strikes his fork gin with. The meat and poultry are badly against his teeth, and picks them with it fed; the sea-coast people fish as little as into the bargain." This unhappy being is possible; even the fruit is poor from want warned that such things are ridiculous and of cultivation-and that in a country disagreeable among people of fashion where oranges ripen in the open air. It is gente de moda. The good gastronome is often difficult to get fresh butter in the next brought forward to set him an ex-greatest cities, where an oil unsavoury ample. He employs spoon and knife on enough to spoil an Englishman's salad, proper occasions, according to the dish, serves as the native substitute. Thick well aware that if he makes a mistake in chocolate, bacalao or salt-fish, a puchero or helping fruit, ices, or pastry, he is giving stew, supplying first a rather watery soup proof that he has not been brought up in and then some stringy bouilli, make up à house where such dishes are known. with tomatoes, olives, and cakes, the ordiHaste in sitting down, the choice of a seat nary fare of a Spanish household. Forthat does not belong to him, an ostenta- eigners cannot take to it kindly, unless by tion of puerile appetite, eyes greedily beginning young; but they can do no fixed on the eatables, and a gluttonous air, better except by resorting to some restauun aire guloso, are all avoided by el buen rant kept by a Frenchman; or labouring gastrónomo. To eat in a hurry argues mis- to dine in the English manner in secondery and hunger, and that the guest has rate style, at prices for which excellent only come to eat. Nor is silence to be provender can be obtained in London. maintained; the guest is to enliven the The inferiority of kid to Scotch or Welsh table with jokes and festive conversations, mutton; of ewe cheese and goats' milk to since it is no place for treating of serious the produce of British dairies; the total events; yet he is not to be a mere buffoon, absence of such thing as salmon, grouse, lest the terrible suspicion should be aroused pheasant, venison, &c., not to mention the that the wine has got into his head. Those humbler luxuries, gooseberries, and gingerwho follow exactly these precepts, main- beer (in a climate, too, so suggestive of taining self-possession and decency, and shandy-gaff!); these are not considerations using tooth-picks (adroitly introduced in to be despised by any means. On the the concluding paragraph), will enjoy the other hand, it is difficult to master such pleasures of the table: "celebrating them" acquired tastes " as a taste for snails with the enchantments of festive poetry, and being at the same time the delight of society." (p. 50.)

In this little treatise we recognize the spirit of a man of genius, and a reformer, animated by a true ambition for the improvement of his race; a man, in fact, whom we do not hesitate to rank with the patriots of the Revolution that it fell to our lot to witness in 1868. Such changes as he recommends in Spanish habits, will,

Nuevo Arte de Cocina; Teorico y Practico. Por Juan Altimiras. (1871.)

(caracoles), although the ancients not only ate them, but had cochlearia, or cochlearum vivaria, in which to keep and fatten them. The Spaniards are fond of snails in soup and other forms. And after a thunderstorm, with its wild showers, has passed away, you may see the lights of the snailgatherers twinkling along the hill-sides, in the evening, as they search for their prey in the moist earth.

We may, perhaps, at the risk of overrefining, connect the comparative discomfort of Spain home-life at once with the vulgarities of the table-d'hôte, and the tumid

extravagance of the politeness of the nally, as we all know, a Moorish one) was streets. Simplicity in good breeding is long confined to Andalusia and Madrid, or one of the last results of refinement, and chiefly cherished in those parts of Spain. refinement begins at home. The lowest It was a new thing in Barcelona so lately vulgarity is to put a diamond ring on dirty as 1835, and the massacres there, that fingers, and the exact analogy to this is year, began with the dragging of a bull the affectation of stately manners by that had displeased the populace through people whose domestic habits are sordid; the streets -no uncommon introduction their rooms musty, and so arranged that to Spanish tumults generally. What the very kitchen itself is in awkward would England say if Manchester should proximity to the most incongruous parts suddenly take up the prize-ring, or anof the building. In the promenade, how-nounce to the public the establishment of ever, the corridors of the theatre, and so a new League for the restoration of bearforth, the sham-baronial ideal resumes its baiting and cock-fighting? Now Catalonia ascendancy; and throughout the country, is a Spanish Lancashire, with Barcelona manners are coloured by the prevailing in- for its Manchester, as Mr. Ford obseves; fluence of non-domestic habits. Hence the and yet it not only adopted this old increasing dressiness of Spanish women, African recreation so recently as we have whose naturaleza their most famous seen, but its bull-ring is the second in size charm is observed to be losing its deli- of all Spain. It holds some eleven thoucate bloom, and going the way of the man- sand spectators, and there are bull-fights in tilla. Just at present, we are glad to say it every year. Having naturalized the that there is a reaction in favour of the bull-fight, Catalonia in a few years more veil; but the general tendency of the accepted the railway-system; and the railtimes is to supersede the old poetry of tra- ways of Spain have assisted in keeping ditional Spanish costume by all the showy bull-fighting up, for the "stars" of the extravagances of the modes. These de- ring go "starring" the provinces, when stroy the grace of the Andaluzas, and Madrid and Seville can spare them, just as turn into grotesque comedy the prosaic our actors go to Liverpool and Edinburgh, common-place of the Catalanas. As for and take the bulls with them. The bulls the men, their dress, now, is in a general are at first left in some field near the city way imitated from the French; and about in which they are to perform and be peras "romantic as if it had been modelled formed upon; and we once knew an Engupon those queer sketches of men of fash-lishman, when out shooting, drop upon a ion, which adorn the windows of enterpris- collection of them, to which he bid a civil ing Jew tailors in some quarters of our and very rapid farewell. own capital. It is curious to see how dependent the Spanish are upon the French whom they dislike so cordially for the little things as well as the great things of life. We showed in our last paper that they only know English books, and only a few of them, by translations made through the French. Even French fans are easier to get than Spanish in a country where fans are universally carried, indoors and out-of-doors, and are as indispensable as petticoats.

We might almost say that, nowadays, the one entirely distinctive feature of Spanish life left is the bull-fight. And this is a very significant fact. It shows that the essential Spanish character still remains unchanged, however much the novelties of external speculations and external habits may play upon and modify the country. Nay, the barbarism of the national sport has been adapted to the new world of railways in a business-like way; and from one point of view, it has expanded itself, and gained in strength, within the lifetime of the present generation. The sport (origi

The town is soon extensively covered with play-bills, in which a bull with formidable horns is a prominent object. The public is informed from what breedinggrounds the animals come, the best being as well known as the stables of our trainers of race-horses. A list of the different classes of the performers follows; and tickets are sold at the confectioners' and elsewhere. The entertainment is always presided over by the competent authority, generally the civil governor; and thus the State makes itself responsible for the effect upon the popular character of the amusement.

The perverse sentimentalism with which things Spanish are usually regarded by the wandering British tourist weighs upon us at this point. Shall we be thought destitute of a feeling for the picturesque, or cynical, or effeminate, or all three, if we venture to say in plain English that we think the Spanish bull-fight a degrading, savage, and rather stupid and tiresome exhibition? Be it so, if so it must be. But the truth is, that no writer has yet taken,

not the bull, but the bull-fight by the mere brute force of numbers rises strongly horns properly. Even the admirable Ford within you. Then, as to the skill disis too lenient, which is not his usual fault played. It sometimes happens that the -although, by the way, his comparative bull is "got at" before he is let out, and gentleness on this point will not atone, in more or less disabled by some cowardly Spanish eyes, for his loyal labours in hon- blow. But in any case the odds are so our of the campaigns of the Duke of Well- conclusively and overwhelmingly against ington. Already, in his time, within thirty him, that "fight" is not the proper word years, the graves of our Peninsular heroes for the game; and that so far from regard(when they did get graves) required an Old ing the bull as an enemy, you find yourMortality. self wishing that, once in a way, he would get the best of it, and hint a little lesson of humanity to his tormentors by giving them a friendly poke in the ribs. doubt there are pretty interludes. It is pretty to see the banderilleros charge the bull-light as dancing-girls, steady as

No

"But the bull-fight is such a capital thing to describe! Yes! and that is precisely why we do not choose to describe it. An honest description would be sickening. It would be a picture of a shambles; a lively sketch of a knackers'yard; something that would not be allowed skirmishing riflemen—and dart the gaudy to be hung up in a Smithfield tap-room. banderillas of gay colour and keen edge It may seem unfair to say that the modern into his dense hide. It is exciting also, bull-fight is a show, where people go to see and without the coarse excitement of broken-down cab-horses ripped up by half- mere cruelty, to watch the wary performwild bulls. But this is the exact truth, er, handkerchief in hand, receive a bull's nevertheless; and the proof of it is that charge, sitting on a chair, and evade it at all compromises, all displays of trained the last instant by the most dexterous bulls or bulls with tipped horns; mere bound aside that one can imagine. But feats of manly agility and grace, unaccom- all such little touches are few and rare; panied with downright slaughter, flanks and the steady rending of horses's bellies, streaming with gore, and entrails trailing the successive butchery of bull after bull, in the dust. all such displays, of which make up the real staple of the afternoon's torture forms no part, fall utterly flat, and pleasure, and are at once loathsome and hardly meet any patronage. The yells for wearisome. The bull, of course, ought to "caballos” when the carnage runs short, die at last by one subtle thrust — buen show what the public want; and they are estoque. But such artistic stabs of the content to wait for the concluding chapter, matador are rare. The majority of bulls the butchery of the bull, till they have are killed by repeated blows, and many of seen some more screws kicking in anguish them with a poniard or dagger. The upon the sand. Anciently, as still, in dragging away of the huge carcase by a theory, the bull-fight was a combat be- train of mules galloping and jingling their tween a well-mounted and skillful horse- bells is a favourite part of the display. man, with assistants on foot, and a wild When an unpopular man is assassinated in animal. But it has degenerated, like Spain, or a criminal's body falls into the everything else, till the pleasure of seeing hands of the populacho, a dragging of the a screw's side turned to receive the bull's poor dying victim, or the more fortunate horns has become the essential pleasure corpse by the heels more taurorum, is still of the holiday. If the bull stops to gore a common. Cases of it have happened more half-dead horse, in running round the than once not far from where we are writarena, there is a general laugh. Surely, ing, since the Revolution of 1868. there is nothing either picturesque or skilful in a detail like that?

And, indeed, the "picturesque" and "skilful" elements of this decrepit game are what writers for effect most exaggerate. The sweeping circles of a Southern crowd, rising row above row under a sky of milky blue, do undoubtedly produce an effect; but it is essentially an effect of the moment. The mass of spectators is temporarily impressive, but when you examine it, however briefly, the ruffianly elements stand forth so prominently, that the poetry vanishes, and a reaction against the

Perhaps the best omen regarding the future of the bull-fight, is a certain sensitiveness among the better educated Spaniards to the opinion of foreigners regarding it. They are glad to see Englishmen going there; but would find it difficult to prove that Englishmen of good condition and culture, or still less, English_women, ever make a habit of going. To do a thing from curiosity, or in order to acquire a right to criticize it, once in a way, is a very different matter from doing a thing for pleasure and as an amusement in harmony with a man's ordinary occupations.