510 Spanish Highwai/.i and Byways. ([Nov. 



delight in the marvellousj and amongst other extraordinary facts, to 

 most of which he had been an eye-witness, he related the following — 

 " When the French entered Spain, at the commencement of the last 

 war," said my vivacious friend, " they wished it to be particularly un- 

 derstood, that they came as friends, and expected to be treated as such, 

 but having become in a measure domiciliated, they began to take liber- 

 ties which not even the utmost stretch of friendship could tolerate. 

 They averred, that for the inconvenience and expenses they had incur- 

 red for our sake, they ought to be recompensed ; and forthwith began 

 to levy contributions. These not succeeding so well as they could wish, 

 the patrimony of the church was coveted ; and the little moveables, such 

 as plate and jewels, began sensibly to disappear. Now as our property 

 of this description was by far of too sacred a description to be applied to 

 the irreverent uses of heretics, we employed two labourers to construct 

 a vault under the altar, in which they were concealed. One of these 

 sinners, stimulated by the liope of gain, offered to betray our hiding- 

 place, to the French commandant, for a certain sum, which was agreed 

 to ; but lo ! on crossing the threshold of our church, he suddenly be- 

 came blind and palsied !" — " And the sinners who tempted the poor 

 man," said I — " what mark of divine vengeance did they experience }" 

 " Why it could hardly be expected they should receive any," returned 

 my informant; — "such people are out of the pale of providence alto- 

 gether !" 



I passed Figueros, which is considered, next to Gibraltar, one of the 

 strongest fortifications in Europe, and crossed the Eastern Pyrenees into 

 France. On the same day the French army entered Spain. 



LIBERAL NOTIONS. 



From the earliest of my recollection, I have always entertained liberal 

 notions of men and things. I have such a thorough and hearty con- 

 tempt for meanness of spirit, and for people of narrow ideas, that I can 

 scarcely regard them with common patience. IMy father and mother, 

 and my old scamp of a schoolmaster, endeavoured to chain down my 

 aspiring spirit, and to degrade my soul, by instilling into my youthful 

 anind narrow and confined ideas ; but I was incapable of receiving them, 

 and I spurned them as a duck, when she shakes her feathers, scatters 

 the water from her back. I do really think that common arithmetic 

 has a tendency to fill tae mind with mean and pettifogging notions. There 

 is something so ridiculously contemptible in that silly accuracy of ad- 

 ding, subti'acting, multiplying, and dividing, even to the niceness of 

 a single farthing. I never in my life could make a sum in arithmetic 

 precisely right, and what in the name of common sense can a trifling 

 half dozen or so, one way or other, signify .'' That exceeding accuracy 

 of calculation shews a narrow mind. My old fool of a schoolmaster told 

 me, that if I did not do my sums right, I should never be able to keep 

 a set of books. Contemptible fellow ! Did he imagine that I was ever 

 going to let myself down to the meanness and sordidness of book-keep- 

 ing ? Look at those fellows who keep books ! What a mean, dull, 

 clodpated race of mortals they are, — no wit, no fire, no imagination, no 



