606, 
late change, -and is still cherished by 
numbers, who have. been brought up in 
the fatal belief, that the honours and re- 
wards earned three hundred years ago, 
are a sufficient excuse for their own sloth 
and inactivity. The proofs of this anxiety 
to derive importance from ancestry, are 
most conspicuous in Biscay, Asturias and 
Navarre, where every one lays claim to 
nobility, and the very cottage doors are 
surmounted with an immense escutcheon, 
to ornament which, the whole animal 
and vegetable world has been put in re- 
quisition. 
The lovers of heraldry would do well 
to visit those provinces, in which a wide 
field is open to their researchés: there ne- 
ver was such an abundant display of gules 
and quartering, lionsrampant and couch- 
ant, tygers, cats, dogs, hawks, pigeons, 
&e. &c, The chief difficulty I found, 
was in ascertaining what the animals 
were meant to represent: it frequently 
occurred to me that, if interrogated, the 
artists would, themselves, be somewhat 
at a loss on this subject. 
With respect to the rage for nobility, 
it was so great, some years ago, that ac- 
cording to the calculation of La Borde— 
made in 1788—all the families in Biscay 
and Asturias, considered themselves as 
possessing noble blood: in the first named 
province, there were 116,910 titles, 
amongst a population of 308,000 souls; 
while Asturias boasted no less than 
114,740, out of 347,766, its total num- 
ber of inhabitants. It should be observed 
. that titles were formerly to be bought 
here, as in Italy and Germany. The 
same writer estimated that there were 
119 Grandees, 535 Counts, Marquesses, 
and Viscounts, making a total of 478,716 
nobles. The number of titles has been 
greatly increased during the reigns of 
Charles IV., and Ferdinand. 
The scandalous prostitution of honours 
and rewards, during the last forty years, 
in this country, by which riches and ti- 
tles have been almost exclusively reserved 
for the most profligate and corrupt of 
the nation, is, of itself, a sufficient reason 
for the contempt into which titles and 
decorations have fallen. These, like 
laws, become ridiculous or contemptible, 
when unnecessarily multiplied ; their num- 
ber, and the facility of obtaining them 
in this country, bave produced those 
very effects; while the extreme poverty 
into which some of the highest nobility 
have fallen, from various causes, renders 
their titles only an additional source of 
unhappiness. The nobility of Spain 
would act wisely, by bearing in mind 
Blaquiere’s Spain and Spanish Kevolution, | 
a truth, which is too generally disre- 
garded: that titles are respectable only” 
when accompanied by probity and virtue. 
The examples shown by the heroes of 
La Isla, in so peremptorily rejecting the 
honours offered to them, has had a most 
salutary effect on the public. The crosses 
and ribbons bestowed in former reigas, 
have now been thrown aside for the na- 
tional cockade, composed of green and 
white, adopted at San Fernando, The 
patriots are also said to have formed the 
resolution of not accepting any more ex- 
ternal badges of honour, except those 
conferred by the representatives of the 
people, in the form of thanks; this de- 
termination is worthy of freemen, who 
have acquired distinct notions of the dig- 
nity of their nature. 
MENDICITY. 
The extent of mendicity in Spain 
ought not to be attributed to any mean 
or grovelling motive; it arises no less 
from the proverbial penury of the people, 
than the example constantly before their 
eyes, in the mendicant orders; another 
of those monstruosities that has grown 
up with the religious establishments; and 
by which, beggary is, as it were, sancti- 
fied. When the yarious ways adopted 
by the monks and priesthood for extort- 
ing money from the faithful are consi- 
dered, no wonder that begging should 
be regarded as altogether harmless, if not 
an agreeable pastime; nor is it thought 
degrading even in persons of rank: to 
such a state can defective institutions 
reduce a people! A dowager, or a 
Knight of Calatrava, St. Hermandad and 
the Golden Fleece, who solicit alms in 
Spain, do not think it aderogation from 
their dignity ; and why should they, when 
it is countenanced by the ministers of re- 
ligion, who are seen at every door, per- 
forming the same office. 
Next to the legitimacy of begging 
should be ranked, what is so well known 
in England by the name of place-hunt- 
ing. This mania prevails to a degree 
here, not to be exceeded in any other 
part of the world: but, like mendicity, 
it originates in the example of the great ; 
who, while they have been in the habit 
of engrossing patronage for their own 
immediate followers, never fail to encou- 
rage a crowd of expectants. Those who 
have attended the ministers’ levees dur- 
ing the last three months, and seen the 
tayriads of both sexes who were jostling 
each other in their anti-chambers, must 
have thought that, instead of a reformed 
government, and the loss of a world, 
Spain had just recovered her colonics, 
an 
