CHEAP PROVISIONS.

45

for a pound of seventeen ounces. A lamb is two shillings, and the best bread a penny-halfpenny a pound. Game is cheap and plentiful; woodcocks not more than a shilling a couple; and I have been credibly informed, that few persons can contrive to spend more than three hundred a year. Lest these advantages should appear too desirable, we must remember, that it is the stagnation of trade and of intellect, the little emulation in all classes, and the absence of all those social advantages which we enjoy in England, that occasions these low prices. In this point of view they cease to be cheap."

On the last evening of their stay in Bilboa they went to see the new cemetery, the design of which was novel. A square, containing six acres of land, was surrounded by a covered arcade, supported by columns. The back of the arcade is an immense wall of brick-work, in which there are four rows, or spaces, for coffins. The opening, one yard wide, and six feet and a half long. Into this the coffin is deposited and the space bricked up. It is arranged to hold three thousand bodies. Beyond the arcade there is a garden and a shrubbery. The whole had an air of neatness and attention that was soothing to the feelings.

As they walked back to the inn they met two children, who were, like themselves, returning to the city, though by different roads. The younger

was a girl with the large Spanish black eyes, dark hair, and brown complexion. She was leading by the hand a boy, older and fairer than herself; his light blue eyes and flaxen hair bespoke him of another lineage. On questioning them, the girl alone answered: the boy looked up with a vacant smile, that showed at a glance his unsound intellect.

"He is not my brother," said the youngest child. "His mother died of fright when the French set fire to our village. She was an Englishwoman. She lost her senses before he was born, and Andrew has never had his."

The boy gave a melancholy laugh, as if to confirm the truth of what was said, while she passed on with the same grave and composed air with which she had spoken.

"Poor child!" said Ellen, with a sigh, “ he can never be happy."

Why not, my dear," said her mother: " perhaps he has greater freedom from care than more rational persons. The mental malady under which he suffers, is not, like madness, the consequence of some delusion in which the mind still participates, even in its diseased state. His soul, which seems a blank to us, may possibly have modes of felicity known only to itself. I have observed that persons in his situation seem to derive great satisfaction from the objects of nature: flowers and

HIS CONSOLATIONS.

47

shells, and running streams always appear to delight them."

Mamma," said Ellen, "may I repeat to you those lines my aunt liked so much, by Montgomery, upon an Idiot Boy. We are just at the

inn."

"Do, my love: it will put us in mind of England and of home."

Thus encouraged, Ellen repeated, with an unaffected grace, the following beautiful lines.

"Down yon romantic dale, where hamlets few
Arrest the summer pilgrim's pensive view,
The village wonder, and the widow's joy,
Dwells the poor mindless, pale-faced maniac boy.
He lives and breathes, and rolls his vacant eye,
To greet the glowing fancies of the sky;
But on his cheek unmeaning shades of woe
Reveal the wither'd thoughts that sleep below;
A soulless thing, a spirit of the woods,

He loves to commune with the fields and floods.
Sometimes, along the woodland's winding glade,
He starts and smiles upon his pallid shade;
Or chides, with idiot threat, the roaming wind,
But rebel music to the ruin'd mind:
Or on the shell-strewn beach delighted strays,
Playing his fingers in the noontide rays;
And when the sea-waves swell their hollow roar,
He counts the billows plunging to the shore;
And oft, beneath the glimmer of the moon,
He chants some wild and melancholy tune,

48

DIVINE PROTECTION.

Till o'er his soft'ning features seem to play
A shadowy gleam of mind's reluctant sway.
Thus, like a living dream, apart from men,
From morn to eve he haunts the wood and glen;
But round him, near him, wheresoe'er he rove,
A guardian angel tracks him from above.
No harm from flood or fen shall e'er destroy
The mazy wand'rings of the maniac boy."

66

These," said Mrs. Delville, are gentle and beautiful conceptions, which soften our sense of a heavy calamity. This is to be really a poet: to in reverence, to the hand that has wound

lead us,
ed and alone can heal."

CONVEYANCE TO MADRID.

49

CHAPTER IV.

THE ARABS AND CONQUEST OF GRENADA.

MR. DELVILLE was of opinion, that when it is possible, a stranger does wisely to adopt the customs of the country in which he travels. He therefore hired a galera, or light waggon upon springs, to perform their journey to Madrid; and they soon began to think it a luxurious mode of conveyance. It was open before and behind, and admitted, in a most reviving manner, the fresh air: it was covered above to exclude the sun, and there was plenty of clean straw to recline upon, for those who wished it. Their road lay through a narrow valley, among hills rising to the height of two and three thousand feet, their summits crowned with oak: a little rivulet flowed through the valley, and the country people were busy in the field. It was a prospect of calm and cheerful beauty, highly agreeable to the English party.

"I believe," said Mr. Delville, "the positive mental gratification which an Englishman receives. from the sight of well-directed industry is pecu

E