the infant to be murdered before his father's eyes.

LETTER XXI.

PRIVATE HOUSES, AND LOCAL CUSTOMS IN SEVILLE.

Seville.

The greater number of private houses are situated in an interminable
labyrinth of winding streets, between the Calle de la Sierpe, and Plaza
de San Francisco and the city wall, which connects the Aqueduct of
Carmona with the Alcazar. It is the South-eastern half of the city. To
the west of the Calle de la Sierpe there are also a few streets
containing private residences, but they are not in so large a
proportion. Some of the most elegant are, however, on this side; which
being less Moorish and more modern, is less chary of its attractions,
and allows a part of its decoration to enliven the external facades;
while its spacious doorways frequently open to the view of the passer-by
a gay perspective of gardens and courts.

The sunny balcony, crowded with a crimson forest of cactuses, is not
more attractive to the sight, than the more mysterious vista beneath
it, of retreating colonnades, mingled with orange and pomegranate trees,
through which the murmur of the fountain is scarcely audible. Few cities
present more charms to the wanderer than one in which the houses offer a
combination so luxurious as is met with in the greater number of those
of Seville. The cool summer rooms opening into the court, in which the
drawing-room furniture is arranged on all sides of a fountain,
plentifully supplied from the aqueduct of Carmona: and, on the upper
floor, the winter apartments, chosen from their being better lighted,
for the deposit of a collection of pictures and these almost always
excellent,--and opening to the gallery; to which, during this season,
the furniture having been removed from below, is placed, together with
the work frames and portable musical instruments, on the side exposed to
the sun. One sees these houses and their amiable and happy-looking
inhabitants, and imagines there is no life to be compared to it. Yet the
experiment may be made, and fail to answer the expectations of the
stranger, who, confident in his discovery of the road to happiness, may
have pitched his tent in the midst of these bewitching regions.

Can it be fatality--or is it essential in human nature, to find ever the
least felicity there, where it looks for the greatest? The experiment,
I say, was made. An Englishman, possessing every advantage of taste,
talent, and wealth, took up his residence here, resolve