only dinner they afforded us on the passage; and the same spirit of devotion made them, when the wind blew hard, turn in to bed and to prayers. The weather was bad and I was terrified; but, though I had not a brass heart, the ship had a copper bottom; and on the fifth morning we arrived in sight of cape Finisterre.

"We dropt anchor in the harbour at one o'clock, as hungry as Englishmen may be supposed to be, after five days imprisonment in a Spanish packet; and with that eagerness to be on shore, which no one can imagine who has never been at sea. We were not, however, permitted to land, till we had received a visit from the custom-house officers. To receive these men in office, it was necessary that Senor Don Raimudo Aruspini should pulchrify his person: after this metamorphosis took place, we were obliged to wait, while these unmerciful visitors drank the captain's porter, bottle after bottle, as fast as he could supply them; and though their official business did not occupy five minutes, it was five o'clock in the evening before we were suffered to depart, and even then we were obliged to leave our baggage behind us.

'Other places attract the eye of a traveller, but Corunna takes his attention by the nose. My head is still giddy from the motion of the ship, is confused by the multiplicity of novel objects,---the dress of the people---the projecting roofs and balconies of the houses--the filth of the streets, so strange and so disgusting to an Englishman: but, what is most strange, is to hear a language which conveys to me only the melancholy reflection, that I am in a land of strangers.

We are at the Navio (the Ship) a POSADA kept by an Italian. Forgive me for using the Spanish name, that I may not commit blasphemy against all English pot-houses. Our dinner was a fowl fried in oil, and served up in an attitude not unlike that of a frog, taken suddenly with the cramp. With this we had an omelet of eggs and garlic, fried in the same execrable oil; and our only drink was a meagre wine, price about two-pence the bottle---value worse than nothing, which by comparison, exalts small beer into nectar. In this land of olives, they poison you with the most villainous oil;

for the fruit is suffered to grow rancid before the juice is expressed.

"You must perceive that I write at such opportunities as can be caught from my companions, for the room we sit in serves likewise for the bed-chamber. It is now Monday morning. Oh, the misery of the night! I have been so flead, that a painter would find me an excellent subject for the martyrdom of St Bartholomew. Jacob's pillow of stone was a down cushion, compared to that which bruised my head last night; and my bed had all possible varieties of hill and vale, in whose recesses the fleas lay safe; for otherwise I should inevitably have broken their bones by rolling over them. Our apartment is indeed furnished with windows; and he who takes the trouble to examine, may convince himself that they have once been glazed. The night air is very cold, and I have only one solitary blanket; but it is a very pretty one, with red and yellow stripes. Add to this catalogue of comforts, that the cats were saying soft things in most vile Spanish; and you may judge what refreshment I have received from sleep.

'At breakfast they brought us our tea on a plate by way of cannister, and some butter of the country, positively not godown-able. This however was followed by some excellent chocolate, and I soon established a plenum in my system.

"The monuments of Spanish jealousy still remain in the old houses; and the balconies of them are fronted with a lattice more thickly barred, than ever was hencoop in England. But jealousy is out of fashion at present; and they tell me, an almost universal depravity of manners has succeeded. The men are a Jew-looking race; the little boys wear the monkey appendage of a tail, and I see infants with more feathers than a fantastic fine lady would wear at a ball. The women soon appear old, and then every feature settles into symmetry of ugliness. If ever Opie paints another witch, he ought to visit Corunna. All ideas that you can form by the help of blear eyes, mahogany complexion, and shrivelled parchment, must fall infinitely short of the life.

The carts here remind me of the ancient war-chariots, and the men stand in them as they drive. They are drawn by two oxen, and the wheels make a most melancholy and detestable discord. The governor of this town once ordered that they should be kept well oiled to prevent this; but the drivers presented a petition against it, stating, that the oxen liked the sound, and would not draw without it; and therefore the order was revoked.

A low wall is built all along the water-side to prevent smuggling. This town is admirably paved, but its filth is astonishing, when, with so little trouble, it might be kept clean. In order to keep the balconies dry, the water-spouts project very far: there are are no vents left in the wall, and the water and the filth lie in the middle of the streets, till the sun dries, and the winds sweep them. The market-place is very good; and its fountain ornamented with a fine squabfaced figure of Fame. The fountains are well contrived--the spouts are placed so high that no person can either dirt or deface them; and they therefore fill their vessel by the medium of a long tube, shaped like a tobacco pipe.'

After this our author proceeds,--'I am just returned from the Spanish comedy. The theatre is painted with a muddy light blue, and a dirty yellow, without gilding, or any kind of ornament. The boxes are engaged by the season: and subscribers only, with their friends, admitted to them, paying a pesetta each. In the pit are the men, seated as in a great arm'd chair; the lower class stand behind these seats: above are the women; for the sexes are separated, and so strictly, that an officer was broke at Madrid, for intruding into the female places. The boxes, of course, hold family parties. The centre box, over the entrance of the pit, is appointed for the magistrates; covered in the front with red stuff, and ornamented with the royal arms. The motto is a curious one, "Silencio y no fumar.---Silence and no smoaking." The comedy, of course, was very dull to one who could not understand it. I was told that it contained some wit, and more obscenity; but the only comprehensible joke to me, was

"Ah!" said in a loud voice by one man, and "Oh!" replied equally loud by another, to the great amusement of the audience. To this succeeded a comic opera; the characters were represented by the most ill-looking man and woman I ever saw. The man's dress was a thread-bare brown coat lined with silk, that had once been white, and dirty corduroy waistcoat and breeches; his beard was black, and his neckcloth and shoes dirty:--but his face! Jack-ketch might sell the reversion of his fee for him, and be in no danger of defrauding the purchaser. A soldier was the other character, in old black velveret breeches; with a pair of gaiters reaching above the knee, that appeared to have been made out of some blacksmith's old leathern apron. A farce followed, and the hempstretch man again made his appearance; having blacked one of his eyes to look blind, M. observed that he looked better with one eye than with two; and we agreed, that the loss of his head would be an addition to his beauty. The prompter stands in the middle of the stage, about half way above it; before a little tin skreen, not unlike a man in a cheese-toaster. He read the whole play with the actors, in a tone of voice equally loud; and when one of the performers added a little of his own wit, he was so provoked as to abuse him aloud, and shake the book at. him. Another prompter made his appearance to the opera, unshaved, and dirty beyond descrip tion: they both used as much action as the actors. The scene that falls between the acts would disgrace a puppet-show at an English fair; on one side is a hill, in size and shape like a sugar-loaf, with a temple on the summit, exactly like a watchbox; on the other Parnassus, with Pegasus striking the top in his flight, and so giving a source to the waters of Helicon: but, such is the proportion of the horse to the mountain, that you would imagine him to be only taking a flying leap over a large ant-hill; and think he would destroy the whole ceconomy of the state, by kicking it to pieces. Between the hills lay a city: and in the air sits a duck-legged Minerva, surrounded by flabby Cupids. I could see the hair-dressing behind the scenes: a child was suffered to play on the stage, and amuse himself by sitting on the scene, and swinging backward and

forward, so as to endanger setting it on fire. Five chandeliers were lighted by only twenty candles. To represent night, they turned up two rough planks, about eight inches broad, before the stage lamps; and the musicians whenever they retired, blew out their tallow candles. But the most singular thing, is their mode of drawing up the curtain. A man climbs up to the roof, catches hold of a rope, and then jumps down; the weight of his body raising the curtain, and that of the curtain breaking his fall. I did not see one actor with a clean pair of shoes. The women wore in their hair a tortoiseshell comb to part it; the back of which is concave, and so large as to resemble the front of a small bonnet. This would not have been inelegant, if their hair had been clean and without powder, or even appeared decent with it. I must now to supper. When a man must diet on what is disagreeable, it is some consolation to reflect that it is wholesome; and this is the case with the wine; but the bread here is half gravel, owing to the soft nature of their grind-stones. Instead of tea, a man ought to drink Adam's solvent with his breakfast.

Wednesday.] I met one of the actors this morning, equipped, as though he had just made his descent in full dress from the gibbet. The common apparel of the women is a black stuff cloak, that covers the head, and reaches about half way down the back: some wear it of white muslin; but black is the most common colour, and to me a very disagreeable one, as connecting the idea of dirt. The men dress in different ways; and, where there is this variety, no person is remarked as singular. I walked about in my sea-suit, without being taken notice of. There is, however, a very extraordinary race of men, distinguished by a leathern jacket, in its form not unlike the ancient cuirass the maragatos or carriers. These people never intermarry with the other Spaniards, but form a separate race: they cut their hair close to the head, and sometimes leave it in tufts, like flowers. Their countenances express an openness which would be remarkable any where, and of course forms a striking contrast to the national physiognomy. Their character corresponds to this; for a maragato was never known to defraud, or even to loss any thing committed to his care.