118 



DOMESTIC MANNERS OF THE SPANISH. 



. CONSIDERING the rich materials with which Spain abounds for the 

 work of the novelist, or the skilful depicter of manners and character, 

 it is a matter of surprize, that among our ten thousand writers, lumi- 

 nous, voluminous, not one should have attempted to give a portraiture 

 of the Spanish of the present day, as they are seen in their homes, 

 surrounded by the domestic influences of ordinary life, which in Spain 

 alone, of all countries of modern Europe, possesses the charm of 

 romance. In the singular, and perpetually-recurring contrasts of habits 

 and character ; in the extraordinary admixture of barbarism and civili- 

 zation, the one breathing all the energy of the heroic times of Pelajo, 

 the other as yet uninfected by the inactive and unrelieved coldness and 

 egotism which has overspread the surface of more polished communi- 

 ties ; the pen of a Scott, or a Cooper, might find abundant matter for 

 its enchanting combinations. In France, Mr. Salvandy, by the publica- 

 tion of his ingenious and excellent novel of " Alonzo," has happily 

 illustrated tAe truth of our assertion ; while in Germany, Huber, his 

 follower and competitor in the same track, has been no less successful in 

 earning for his exertions as wide and extensive a popularity. His 

 " Sketches in Spain," a work executed with great skill and practical 

 ability, entitles him to a high rank as a delineator of national manners 

 and character. He carries his reader to Spain, and makes him acquainted 

 with the many eminent characteristic points which mainly distinguish 

 it from other nations ; he introduces him to the domestic privacy of the 

 Spanish people ; he shows them to him in the seclusion of their own 

 homes, in society, and in active life, under the influence of fierce politi- 

 cal excitement. In the fervour of his zeal for setting the Spanish people 

 in a proper point of view, he pours out the vials of his wrath against 

 French, and more particularly English travellers, for the haughty con- 

 tempt and sarcastic flippancy which distinguish their accounts of his 

 favourite people ; and employs much ingenuity of argument, and warmth 

 of eloquence, to prove that the happiness of a people may not be incom- 

 patible with the absence of certain material enjoyments which are the 

 production of a more advanced state of civilization. 



Independent of the portraiture of national character and manners, the 

 work possesses an additional and more important claim to our attention, 

 as it presents us with a faithful picture of the political state of Spain,, 

 during the short, but memorable struggle of Riego. The rise, progress, 

 and melancholy termination of the attempted revolution ; the feelings 

 with which it was hailed by the different orders of men ; the splitting 

 of parties, the conflicting views and interests, the discussions, the dis- 

 putesare all displayed with great accuracy and effect. Just sufficient 

 fictitious private details are introduced, to give a dramatic form ; indeed, 

 he states formally, that the title of his work proves that he had no inten- 

 tion of writing a romance, and that, in the events described, he was 

 always a witness, most frequently an actor. 



In the following passages, he introduces his dramatis personae to the 

 render. 



" In the most comfortable place beside the fire, in the only arm-chair the inn 

 could boast of, sat a monk of the order of St. Dominick : the expression of his 



