ADOLPHUS'S LETTERS FROM SPAIN. * THESE letters, descriptive of two journeys
in Spain, are printed just as they were written off to the traveller's wife, additions being made in the form of notes, and the omissions indicated by asterisks. This method gives nature and freshness to the ac- count, but it involves if not actual repetition yet a repetition of the same sort of thing, and that relating too much to everyday detail. If a man has not some definite purpose in connexion with art or industry,—which does not appear to have been the case with Mr. Adolphus,—a bridle journey in Spain becomes monotonous in the end, though delightful at starting from its varying land- scape, half-wild adventure, and independent mode of life. Such is the case with its narration. Having escaped robbery and at- tempts at assassination, and not having encountered many adven- tures by the way or fallen in with very extraordinary characters, there is too much of uniformity in these letters, while the subject matter itself verges ripen the common. In fact, the author's quo- tation tells against himself, the joker suffering from his own joke.
How John Adolphus rode "from post to post, What inns he dined in, and what bridges crossed ; How many eagles by the way were seen, How many asses grazed upon the green."
-Unless a land is so rarely visited as to furnish information in the mere account of it, or the writer has a remarkable power of delinea- tion, possibly of " dressing np," a tour requires an object to give connexion and purpose. The country described in "Travels in the Footsteps of Don Quixote" was mostly bare enough, and. the manner of description not particularly remarkable ; but the end • Letter* from Spain in ISM end NM. By John Leycester Adolphus, M.A. Published by Murray.
purpose' would have in view gave an interest to trivial things, which precisely the same „journey without that illustrative wanted.
The first tour of Mr. Adolphus, in 1856, was made on horseback through Andalusia. Landing at Cadiz, he rode to Gibraltar, and thence by an in-and-out journey reached Granada by Malaga, re- turning by way of Seville to Cadiz. The tour of 1857 started from the French frontier, extending partly along the battle- grounds of Wellington's Pyreneau campaign, and finishing by a passage across the mountains into France, visiting San Se.. bastion, Pamplona, and Huesca en route. During his actiourn at Gibraltar, Mr. Adolphus ran across to Tangier, which has more character than his Spanish journey, because the place has not been so often described. Spain, indeed, is not yet a part of the common autumnal tour, but there have been a good many books of various kinds published of late years upon the subject, and Granada has been exhausted.
The most distinct impression left by our author is, that the Span.. iards, or at least many of them are progressing. The roads are still bad enough, but they are better guarded, robberies being more the exception than the rule. The Republican attacks upon the priesthood, and the confiscation of church property, though in- flicting unjust suffering upon many, and far from being prodoe. five of unmixed good, appear to have shaken the prestige of the churchmen, and to have caused "the right of private judgment" to grow up in minds where it might not have been looked for. Some years ago, an anecdote like the following could not have occurred with a man of the rank in question. "In the churchyard, while I was admiring the view, a good yeoman. looking man was talking politics behind me to Ximenez and others. It seems there was some church edict which had put his blood up, and he ap- peared to be talking very well, and like an honestly-intentioned man, though with the petulance of the self-educated, against assumptions of this kind in general. I did not hear or understand all that he said, but there was BO much of the John Bull aplomb about it, and such a mixture of ho- nest with some wrong feeling, (for I heard hint talk some nonsense about worshiping God in the fields,) that I could not help having more respect for him, as he touched his cap and went away, than I should probably have had for Sir — — after a popular address upon religious liberty at --."
This description of a poorhouse in the neighbourhood of Pam- plona strikes us as new information, both as to the management of the house and its part support by rates.
"We went to a place called the Misencordia, a little way from the town: it is the poorhouse of the district, and supported partly by bequests, which have been very large, (one equal in 25,0001. of our money,) and by contri- butions, which are not voluntary, but like a poor-rate. People who have no apparent means of subsistence must go there, and they are not let out unless they can certify that they have resources. At present there are about four hundred inmates. It is as pretty as such a place can reasonably be, with a court-yard and fountain, and a profusion of flowers and trees, some of which you would long to cut down as unwholesome but it is a pleasant shade and lounge for the poor people. The house is attended by Sisters of Charity, one of whom always sits up all night to keep watch. It was delightful to see the simple good manners and unassumed cheerfulness of these good wo- men, and the kind greetings between them and Mrs. March. The visits of my friends, I perceived, were no unusual event, and many of the poor people seemed to be aware that their coming was for good. The rooms and ar- rangements were remarkably neat and Englishlike ; the air, except in one or two places, quite unobjectionable. The attendance of the Sisters here is by no means an affair of sunshine. One of them said the men were ma- nageable, but the women not at all so : if, for instance, they have the least suspicion that they do not get equal shares of food, they throw it about and quarrel like tigers. To convince them that the bread is equally shared, the whole loaf is exhibited with the cuts in it before it is divided. Men and wives are separated, as under our workhouse system."
Spain was reached on the first occasion by means of the Penin- sular Company's steam-vessel Madrid, and the account of the voyage forms a pleasant chapter in the book. It also furnishes this information for people contemplating a trip to Portugal : Mr. Adolphus "perceived no trace of the nuisances to sight and smell which used to offend travellers in the streets of Lisbon."
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