18 OCTOBER 1873, Page 23

impressions which he formed on the spot. Nevertheless, he would

have done well in subjecting his letters to some sort of editorship. It is a ridiculous interruption, for instance, when we want to be reading about Spain, to find the traveller lecturing one of his correspondents about the proper way of making an E. If he had given us an illustra- tion of the peccant letter it might have been amusing. Elsewhere, too, we find passages which would be quite as well away, not for anything objectionable in them, but as hindering the general impression of the whole. It is a pleasant, readable book, with nothing very profound about it, but getting a special interest from the time at which it was written. When we know what Spain is now, one notes with curiosity what a candid and intelligent observer saw there about eighteen months ago.