Instead of a gossiping trifle of two or three hundred pages, we have not merely what Cowper called a serious affair,' a volume; but two volumes of 400 pages each. The rough notes, which were by no means few, and must have been fresh, he has been all this time spoiling, and we have been kept out of the work too. It must be either a very good, or a very bad book, of trips, that will bear such tinkering and touching up. Incidents, which ought to strike the mind of the reader as vividly as if they befel himself, fade into digressions,-facts which ought to stare one in the face, as you sit, stand, ride, walk, go out, or come in, meander into reflections,-bright feelings, strong emotions, that come and go, and stir the heart for a moment, and then give way to the rout or routine course of adventure, extended into paragraphs of apostrophes, elaborated into sentimentality, and buried in fine writing; and to crown all, we are probably favored with afterthought essays, thrust in head and shoulders, political, physiological, geological, historical, and prophetical! We need not enlarge on other grounds of objection-but a very obvious one is, that it is impossible to say how far a procrastinatory author of this description may be indebted to others. This triennial mode of travelling and printing is a lamentable temptation to plagiary. We need not say we believe the author before us incapable of such an enormity. His style is evidently his own; all about his book is evidently his own; and very few indeed will be inclined to molest his claim to originality. It is the style of a man to whom a pen is probably less familiar than a pencil or a brush--but after all it is downright, earnest, and his own. Delays, however, are always dangerous; but fearfully so to travellers. Poets may keep their pieces by them for years-nay they should; because the more they work the mine of imagination within them, the brighter the products of invention; but trip-takers beware tell the story while it is fresh, lest you really tell a story; let the 'notes' be rough,' so that they be sterling, lest like some other 'notes' that poor authors burn their fingers with occasionally, they become over-due, and run no small risk of being, in the language of Change Alley, dishonored, and noted as such also, by the delicate hands of the common-notary. With all the gravity of our office do we, therefore, protest against this respectable author's flagrant innovation upon the immemorial custom of his superficial fraternity. Having thus performed a duty which we owed to our critical selves, we gladly proceed to discharge a more grateful one to the author, by inviting our readers to join us in this summer excursion; those who are otherwise engaged, or who choose other company, or who are so completely attached to their 'whereabouts,' by the excessive development of the bump of inhabitiveness, as to prefer a summer where they are—to a summer any where else, we must take unceremonious but hearty leave of, -being advocates of the voluntary principle' in all things, and abominating the most distant idea of scouring our pages like a press-gang. Advertising, therefore, for cheerful travelling companions, for a trip, viâ Lisbon, to Cadiz, Seville, Cordova, (and if possible to,) Grenada, Malaga, Ronda, and Gibraltar, we will set out forthwith, wishing with our excellent guide and cicerone for the translative power of Don Quixote's supernatural agents, who are beings of travel, and make whoever they will, travel 'with them, without tiring.' Dropping all further preface or ceremony, let us accompany our author, whom we shall solicit to tell his own story so far as we can, and certain we are no one could tell it better; throughout our brief notice this must be borne in mind, even when we do not indicate a quotation. Our traveller, being a lover of Spain, hails with rapture the first view of her dim mountains from the Bay of Biscay. Doubling Cape Finisterre, and passing Vigo in the night, they enter the Douro, when about the distance of three miles from its mouth, Oporto comes into view, with the towers of its churches and convents rising from the midst of groves, or crowning the cliffs. On casting anchor the deck was immediately covered with watermen, who fought for the honor of taking them on shore. They rowed standing, in the fashion of the Venetian gondolieri, with an oar fixed at either extremity of the boat. The Lisbon steamer not departing for a few hours, we may take a hurried glance at this interesting city. O Porto-the Port-as it is called by the natives, is built on several hills, so that scarcely a street preserves its level. But it is this which imparts so much picturesque beauty to the city, as it affords bird's-eye views over hollows filled with roofs and towers, mingled with foliage, to opposite heights, crowned by fantastic spires, with here and there a peep of the azure ocean, the rockbound river, or the rich and sunny country inland, with ranges of lofty grey mountains in the horizon. Some of the streets are broad and handsome, but in general they are narrow, tortuous, steep, rugged, and filthy, though in this last particular it cannot rival those of the capital. Our Protestant tourist soon found he was in the land of superstition. On the walls of the only church which he visited, he found suspended numerous rude representations in wax, of arms, legs, and heads-thanksgiving offerings to the Virgin or saints, for the recovery of the corresponding members from disease,-together with many small pictures representing miracles, visions, or supernatural communications. The Convent do Serra would have well repaid a more lengthened visit, for the sake of the prospects which it commands. The upper and middle classes of citizens dress in the English fashion; the lower orders only retaining any national peculiarities of costume. Mendicants aboundedcrowds of women and filthy brats besetting and tormenting all strangers. Every one, however, must remember and admire, the valor displayed by the inhabitants of Porto, during the last seige. The author is soon en voyage again. The coast to the south of Oporto is low, with a sandy beach; the country inland, woody and well cultivated, the mountains of Coimbra long bounding the horizon. After a very rapid run for the rest of the day, we have the following evening scene off Cape Mondego, which the reader may admire or not, just as he thinks proper. The sun, after a career of undivided glory, was sinking to meet the western wave: the horizon was one transparent blaze; and the surface of the ocean glowed with the restless and dazzling reflection of golden and orange hues. Then, while day was yet richly lingering on the waters, on the one hand, the moon stole forth in pearly splendour on the other, and shot her glittering streams of light across the ocean. Then, too, as the night advanced-what is rarely seen in northern climes, every wave as it broke was crested with a blaze; the paddles of our vessel seemed to move in light, and in her wake were trains of liquid fire. The beauty of these phosphoric illuminations is indescribable. Who indeed can find words to describe the glories of an evening at sea in such a season, and in such a climate? The dark expanse of waters sparkling with innumerable lights, the clear warm glow, long lingering on the western horizon--the supernatural radiance of the moon, and the inexpressible beauty of the heavens, in which the stars,' &c., &c.-Vol. i. p. 12. Day breaks, and they are running along a rocky coast, with low dark cliffs; a wild chain of peaked mountains, towered in the south-east. Passing the Rock of Lisbon, and steering eastward, the Tagus opens to their view off the strong fort of Cascaes, the entrance guarded by the forts St. Julias and Bugio. Entering between these forts, the Castle of Belem is seen five miles ahead. They now sweep by, passing, 'too rapidly,' the charming quintas (country seats) and smiling villages, and the city opens to their view. What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold, Here is an eloquent a-la-George-Robins description of Lisbon from the river.' The many hilled city now opened upon the view, in all its magnificence-its splendid palaces-the domes, towers, and spires of its innumerable churches and convents-its white or yellow mansions and public buildings glittering in the sun-its majestic castle on the heights beyond its delightful villas peeping from the luxuriant groves and gardens, which covered the slopes, or crowned the numerous low hills around. Then, on the opposite shore, were fertile and sloping banks adorned with villages and quintas, and terminating in the lofty and precipitous cliffs of Almada; and before me was the broad bosom of the river glittering with gold, and chequered with snowy sails flitting over its waters ;-while a long line of huge men-of-war, at anchor, decked out with many coloured streamers, stretched up the centre of the stream almost as far as the eye could reach. Add to all this, the intense azure of a southern sky, canopying all, and that blaze of the noonday sun, which imparts to every object a splendour unknown in a northern climate-and the reader may perhaps form some conception of Lisbon, as it appeared to me for the first time. No hum of a busy city disturbed the tranquillity of the scene, for it was the Sabbath, and the silence was only broken, at intervals, by the bells of the churches summoning the citizens to their devotions.'-Ib. p. 15. Now for a nearer general view of this city. Lisbon is built on several hills-the mystic number of seven, I believe. Many of the streets are necessarily very steep; and, in general, they are narrow, badly paved, and execrably filthy; yet those which stretch northwards in parallel lines from the Praça do Commercio, are broad and handsome, and reminded me of Paris, but there is a fine trottoir on either hand, with heavy stone posts, such as the Gallic capital cannot boast. The houses are lofty, with white-washed exteriors, and sometimes curiously painted façades; the roofs project very much, and the eaves are of bright red tiling, which contrasts gaily with the fronts; the corners of the overhanging roofs are often turned up as in Chinese buildings. Every window has its railed balcony, generally overhung by a blind, and filled with flowers; and every balcony, on this occasion, had its fair occupant-dark, I should rather say, for the Portuguese are a very swarthy race. The shops are curious; representations of the articles sold being usually painted on a board placed outside the door-way. Many streets contain, with few exceptions, a particular description of shops. In one, for example, all are workers in leather, saddlers, or shoemakers; in the Praça do Rocio nearly all are hatters. We have our Row,' where book-' merchants most do congregate;' but in Lisbon, though by no means universal, the custom is far more prevalent, and might be regarded by one eager to discover traces of oriental manners, as a relic of Moorish times, for it has existed from the remotest ages in the cities of the East.' -Ib. p. 19. We must omit the enthusiastic description of the ride to Cintra, with the picturesque accounts of Ramalhâo, Montserrat, Convento da Penha, Penha Verde, Cintra, and its truly Elysian scenery; nor shall we have room to touch upon sundries-such as Lisbon vehicles,' 'Lisbon costume,' or the varieties met with on the road to Cintra, such as the Lisbon ox-cars, &c. The filth of this capital is as notorious as its glories. Southey says an English pigsty is cleaner than the metropolis of Portugal. We cannot resist giving the following Sketch from the Quays. 'From my windows on the Caes do Sodre the view was most animated. Before me lay the noble Tagus, bounded by the fortified heights of Almada opposite, and stretching away to the left into a deep bay, backed by hills at the distance of eight or ten miles; while to the right it extended beneath the mansioned heights of Buenos Ayres, to mingle with the blue horizon of the Atlantic. The centre of the stream was occupied by ranges of men-of-war-liners and frigates-at anchor; and merchant vessels of all nations were scattered here and there on its broad bosom, which seemed teeming with life, as numerous pleasure-boats and small craft chased each other over the sun-lit waters. Many feluccas, too, with their long yards hung with festoons of snowy canvass thrown obliquely against the azure sky, lay along the quay beneath my window, with cargoes of fish from the Atlantic, or of passengers from the villages on the opposite shore. Rows of half-naked boatmen were seated on the parapet overhanging the water, or squatting beneath its shade, smoking paper-cigarsquarrelling one moment over a game of cards, and scrambling the next for a fare, as any one approached the landing-place. With their long red pendant caps-open shirts, displaying their hairy, brawny chests-and loose white nether garments, girt about their middle with a crimson sash, and reaching only to the knee, leaving their limbs to be blackened by the sun-they are picturesque fellows; but what are they in uncouthness to the solitary gaunt figures, wrapt only in a short cloak of coarse rush matting, disposed in layers like a thatch, which, with their shaggy heads, matted beards, and sunburnt features and limbs, makes you fancy them some importation of savages from New Zealand? They are but peasants in the costume of the rainy season. 'There is a market-place on my right, where fruit, fish, meat, and a thousand etceteras are laid out in stalls, and served by fair Portuguezas; and this causes a continual ebb and and flow of citizens of all orders, self-important National Guards in uniform, and prying customhouse officers, mingling with filthy, importunate beggars, and the lower classes of both sexes in many varieties of singular costume. Amongst them a party of tall, well-made figures, in high conical hats, gay short jackets, crimson sashes, and figured spatterdashes of white leather, strutting boldly along with the left hand on the hip, and a paper-cigar in the mouth-at once arrest the attention. The picturesque dress, the graceful bearing, the haughty and contemptuous looks which they cast around, show them to be Spaniards, for 'Well doth the Spanish hind the difference know |