ide, exceeding that of the most extensive flock of
merinos that ever cropped Castilian herbage. Was it because they were
certain of a dance that these barrack-yard minstrels came provided with
music, sure, in any case, to have the piper to pay? If the instruments
were provided to celebrate a triumph, they might as well have been left
at home. In Spain, however, time has effaced, or greatly weakened, the
remembrance of many reverses, whilst slight and dubious successes,
carefully treasured up, have swollen by the keeping into mighty
victories; and at the present day, foreigners who should be so
uncourteous and impolitic as to express, in the hearing of Spaniards, a
doubt that Spanish valour was the main agent in driving the French from
the Peninsula, might reckon, not on a stab--knifeing being less in vogue
beyond the Bay of Biscay than is often imagined--but certainly on a
scowl, and probably on an angry contradiction. And in every province,
almost in every town, in Spain the traveller may, if he so pleaseth, be
regaled with marvellous narratives of signal victories, gained over the
_gavachos_, in that immediate neighbourhood, by valiant generals whose
names, so partial is fame, have never transpired beyond the scenes of
their problematical exploits. Under the constitutional system, and owing
to the long civil war, Spanish troops have improved in discipline and in
various other respects; and with good generals, there is no manifest
reason why they should not successfully cope with Frenchmen, although we
doubt whether they could. But in Napoleon's day matters were very
different, and in the open field their chance was desperate. The
Portuguese were doubtless of a better quality; and in the pages of
Napier and other historians, we find them spoken of in terms of praise.
They had British officers to head them, and there is much in good
leading; they had British troops to emulate, and national pride spurred
them on. At the same period, Italians--certainly very poor soldiers when
left to themselves--fought gallantly under French generals, and with
French example before them. Of the general bearing of the Portuguese,
however, we have heard few Peninsular men speak very highly. They appear
to have been extremely inconsistent; brave one day, dastards the next.

At, Ciudad Rodrigo, Mr Grattan greatly lauds their gallantry, which
struck him the more as being unexpected. At Salamanca, on the other
hand, he records their weakness, a