l testimony necessary to prove the sincerity of your
sufferings, your favourite of favourites, Caliph, repulsed and
uncaressed, hung his silken ears, as he solemnly retreated to coil
himself on a distant rug, and voted the dog-days a misnomer.

Nor were you contented with your atmosphere, until, the season of
insects and _al-fresco_ suppers being long left behind, and the autumnal
equinox having peremptorily closed the doors and windows, fitted, alas!
by a carpenter who flourished in the reign of Louis the Fourteenth, so
plentiful a supply of air was afforded by the handy-works of the said
carpenter, that the Chinese screen had some difficulty in maintaining
its post, and the flames of the well-furnished elm-fire ascended with a
roar that would have shamed many a cataract of the rival element. Not
but that I would willingly forego the opportunity of sending you
erroneous information, in exchange for your presence in that country;
and for your assistance in comprehending the nature of a people
apparently composed of such contradictory ingredients. You might
probably succeed in fathoming the hidden springs of character, which
give birth to a crowd of anomalies difficult to explain. You would
discover by what mystery of organization a people, subject to the
influence of violent passions, combine an abject subjection to the forms
of etiquette, carried to its extreme in every-day life, with occasional
outbreaks of adventure and romance worthy of the days of Orlando and
Rodomonte; and account for a nation exchanging a costume which combines
utility with grace, for one inferior in both respects. Inventors of
whatever is most fascinating in dances and music--you would discover the
motive which induces them to abandon both, but principally the first,
which they replace by the French _rigodon_, or dancing-made-easy, and
adapted to youth, manhood, and all stages of paralysis; and, possessing
the cathedrals of Leon, Burgos, and Seville, to denounce Gothic
architecture as barbarous, and to brand it with the contemptuous
denomination of "crested masonry."

Should my mono-(--monument-) mania run riot, and over-describe,
over-taxing even your passion for that branch of art, be assured--and to
this promise you may always look back for consolation and
encouragement--that I will not write you a history of the recent, or any
previous Spanish revolution, _apropos_ of the first sentry-box I meet
with, even though its form be that of a Lilli