94G ANNUAL REGISTER, 1809. 



liis publication, lie says, it would 

 have been of no use; the fate of 

 Spain might have been decided be- 

 fore it could have appeared. It 

 would have been less interesting. 

 To describe and transmit to poste- 

 rity a full and faithful account of 

 Spain before the usurpation of the 

 crown by the Buonapartes, what- 

 ever might be the issue of the 

 struggle, would have been a li- 

 beral design. But this was not 

 the design of Laborde. He chose 

 to let his work go prematurely 

 into the world, with all its blun- 

 ders and defects about it, rather 

 than wholly to lose the market. 

 This opulent man, acquainted 

 " with so many families of distinc- 

 tion in Spain, and whose travels 

 in that country (we are told),* 

 including the various expenses 

 incurred with a view to his two 

 works, have not cost him less, 

 upon a moderate calculation, than 

 20,000 pounds sterling," this 

 rich banker, by his own confes- 

 sion, is to be classed among those 

 senseless, short-sighted, and hun- 

 gry booksellers, whose main aim 

 is to strike the senses by the 

 magnitude of their volumes, 

 and to get the start of their com- 

 petitors in tlie trade by early 

 publication. 



The portion of Laborde's •* View 

 of Spain" that does him most cre- 

 dit is, the passages relating to the 

 ■physical constitution oj' the Spa- 

 niards, their character and man- 

 ners, customs, dress, ceremonies, 

 &c. These evince a considerable 

 share of judgment and discrimina- 

 tion. We have made for the 

 amusement of our readers, pretty 

 copious extracts from these parts 

 of Laborde's work, imder our 



head of Characters. This porticftt 

 of the book will, no doubt, appear 

 the most interesting to the gene- 

 rality of readers. To those who 

 are at all conversant with the study 

 of nature, the most valuable part 

 is the section included in the Intro- 

 duction, intituled " Observations 

 upon the Face of the Country of 

 Spain and its Climate, with a Re- 

 presentation of the Elevation of the 

 two Castiles, in two geological en- 

 gravings by M. A. de Humboldt.'' 

 Here, again, the artifice of the 

 book-maker appears. '• For tliese 

 engravings, as well as for the inte- 

 resting explanation that accom- 

 panies them," Mr. Laborde 

 acknowledges that he is " indebted 

 to the great kindness of M. de 

 Humboldt." He was indebted, 

 perhaps, to Humboldt for the use 

 of the engraven plates. But as to 

 the explanation that accompanies 

 them, Mr. Laborde is not more 

 indebted than the whole literary 

 world, to the great kindness of 

 Mr. de Humboldt. The observa- 

 tions of Humboldt are these: 



*• No country of Europe pre- 

 sents so singular a configuration as 

 Spain. It is this extraordinary 

 form which accounts for the aridity 

 of the soil in the interior of the 

 Castiles, the power of evaporation, 

 the want of rivers, and that diffe- 

 rence of temperature which is ob- 

 servable between Madrid and Na- 

 ples, two towns situated in the 

 same degree of latitude. We shall 

 only be able to give a rough sketch 

 of this meteorological view ofSpain. 

 Very few observations have hi- 

 therto been made on the mean tem- 

 perature, or on the height of the 

 barometer. A great deal of valu- 

 able materials, perhaps, remains un- 

 known 



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