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an end to all compromise. I happened to wear a sword, as the ambassador's was a party, en grande costume. Ordering my valet to wait the event, and see me quietly carried home, in case I was to give the guardsman the pleasure of running me through the præcordia, I sprang into the middle of the street, and prepared for combat; inwardly wondering at the ill luck which seemed to bring me into perpetual scrapes, and thinking how oddly the whole affair would sound in the English papers. Let no one raise the laugh of unbelief. I am not accountable for the capricios of the human mind. But nothing is more true to history than that, at the very instant when I was standing, with the bitter wind of a Madrid winter's night-and it needs not bow its honours, in that matter, to Siberia with ice shooting through my silk investitures into every pore of my frame, and with my rapier in position to do battle against an adversary whom I could barely see by the glitter of his own, I had constructed the very paragraph in which the Morning Post would announce to the "world of fashion" the "extraordinary rencontre, in Spain, in which Sir Charles at midnight, slew, or was slain," &c. I had not yet settled the latter point, when the guardsman made a sweep of his sabre at my head, which, if it had taken effect, would have furnished the journalist with intelligence of the most authentic nature. However, thanks to the Madonna, I escaped being cloven to the chine; for at that moment either she, or the wind, blew out her little lamp, and total darkness was the inevitable consequence. The Englishman knows nothing about the sword, and doubtless, if the affair had been suffered to turn into a fencing-match, the cavalier's sabre would have carved me quite at its ease. But the blowing out of our candle satisfied me that some exertion on my part might be necessary. I accordingly made a spring at my antagonist, which perplexed his science. I grasped him; our struggle now was close and fierce. I was strong, active, and, at last, angry. The guardsman was to the full as active, and at least as angry. But the John Bull nerve is a formidable rival to the nerve fed

from the cradle upon soups and omelets. I soon found that I had the Spaniard in a vice; he attempted to extricate himself with great gallantry, and at last slipped away from me like a serpent. Well it had been for him, if he had been satisfied with this piece of generalship. But he resolved to have another chance for the laurel. He rushed on me again. I received him on my sword's point, exactly in the centre of the right shoulder. It went through and through. He uttered a scream of agony, dropped his sabre on the ground, and stumbled after it. The field was now fairly my own. The cavalier's honour was satisfied-so was mine; and having no further reason for freezing in the Colle de San Agustino any longer, I had the gallant guardsman laid in the carriage, and carried groaning and tossing to my hotel.

His

If my good angels had intended to make me free of all the gay, graceful, eccentric, prodigal, and profligate higher society of the luxurious Spanish world, they could not have contrived a more effective expedient. Every human being worth knowing, and perhaps not worth knowing, in this most curious miscellany of mankind, was interested in some way or other about El Capitan Don Altuna. The hotel was crowded with visitants from morning till midnight. fame spread upward and downward, and it was said that even royal bosoms acknowledged the sympathy due to the suffering hero; for by a strange turn of fortune, our quarrel had taken a grand amatory shape, and the cavalier was declared to be the victim of an attempt to outwit him with his love, who was either the prima donna of the royal opera, one of the Queen's ladies of honour, or a Princess of the blood. The matter was uncertain, and therefore the latitude for fact and fancy was the greater. Fortune had thus shorn me of half my laurels, but even half were something. The Don had been so well known, and so little liked, as a first-rate swordsman, that to have fought, and still more to have wounded, and still more to have probably spoiled his science for life, was held by a very considerable circle, even of the royal guard themselves, to be a service entitled to no slight grati

tude; and the magnificent ball given by the guard to the court and nobility, saw the Englishman by no means unmarked by the attentions of the important members of the corps. Bright eyes, too, condescended to shoot additional rays when I happened to appear; and perfumed notes with the most exquisite borders, enclosing the most intolerable attempts at expressing the sentiments of the fair writers-for in Spain, as Dogberry says, "a good education comes by nature," at least art seldom troubles herself on the subject-lay, from time to time, on my table.

But what heart had I for those triflings? I had come to Madrid merely on my way to hide my head in England, or wherever I might hide it most effectually. Every enquiry that I could make for the fate of the Ildefonzo family was totally in vain. I had traversed the south of Spain with fruitless perseverance. All that I could learn was that the Conde had been an insurgent against the New Régime, had collected troops, defied the Cortes, fought a pitched battle, in which the soldiers at liberty performed miracles of valour, and had finally retreated to his castle, which, in despair, he had been seen to set on fire, and finally perish with all his family in the flames. To this monstrosity the story of my brave and unfortunate friend had shaped itself in the hands of that greatest of authors, common fame. But the catastrophe coincided too painfully with my own knowledge. All was now certain. And with the calmness that belongs to insured misfortune, I made up my mind to enquire no more, but quit the country, where the very sound of the language reminded me of things which I had determined to forget, if possible, and spend the rest of my life in rambling, or in solitude, or in sleep! The guardsman's wound kept me in Madrid. His recovery was slow; to move him was pronounced hazardous; and with this new tie on my hospitality I remained. He had periods of pain and fever which made something more than hired attendance grateful to him; and in one of those rare evenings when we happened to be alone, I attempted to amuse him by some

mention of my Italian tours. He was intelligent, and our conversation insensibly touched on the forbidden topic. But here I found him quite at home. "He was perfectly well acquainted with the south and east of Spain; had been quartered in every city from Cadiz to Perpignan," &c. I was unable to resist the enquiry for the fate of my friends. "He had known them; been a guest in their mansion; felt a strong interest in their circumstances." As I alluded to my strange and melancholy adventure, he grew more interested; and I, in that universal propensity to make a confidant which is often so hard to resist, in return for his interest, by degrees gave him the whole disburthening of my wounded spirit. The effect of this confidence on the cavalier was like a total change of character. Always gay and graceful; he now became calmly kind, gravely listened to my rambling details, and exhibited the most generous anxiety to relieve me of the wretched indecision, which, in spite of all my vows to the contrary, embarrassed my mind. In a month he was able to move about, and his gratitude was employed in projecting amusements for the next month, which might have occupied half a life. The Don still had his personal pursuits, which he becomingly kept to himself. I had no desire to mingle in those scenes, whether of squalid indulgence, or brilliant excess, which make the employment of life in this profuse scene of indolent pleasure. Still it was not altogether possible always to put on a face of frowns against the elastic good-humour of the Don. I am one of those who have never been able to resist importunity, and, least of all, that importunity which comes armed with kindness. I went to some of his balls and al frescoes; and as a shewy idler, and an Englishman, and of course supposed to come loaded with the wealth of India, was welcomed to the saloons of the leaders of society in Madrid. But as an Englishman, I possessed a higher claim still on the popularity of the hour. Spain was in a ferment of patriotism. The army had shewn their respect for an oath by revolting against their King. The government was revolutionary. The populace were the sovereign;

and every heart was boiling over with the hope of a general sharing of the titles and orders, the houses and lands, the opulence and the appointments of the nobles. An English man, possessing any mark of distinction, and presumed to be opulent, was a sort of enemy to the new monarch in the streets. I was perfectly silent on the trite and tiresome subject, which constituted the grand science of regeneration among this new born race.

But even my scorn of their political frivolity assisted my easiness of intercourse among them. I should have shrunk from the real Jacobin. I was merely amused with the fictitious Revolutionist. The first evidence of genuine overthrow would have been the signal for my putting half-a-dozen mules to my carriage, and bidding farewell to the soil of sarabands for the next century. But my lively guest had determined on keeping me where I was, and I was not unwilling to gratify his determination. I thus mingled with partisans of all sides-was present at coteries of all orders of patriotism-and listened to the harangues at the Café del Sol, alternately with the graver and equally fruitless debates in the Cortes. To me all had equally the appearance of child's play. The Spaniard had his hour of fantasy; and in that hour fancied himself a republican. But, for one hour of this borrowed taste, he had three-and-twenty of the natural genius for doing nothing, playing dominos, and twanging the guitar. I made up my mind on the total impossibility of his going beyond the melodrama of Rebellion. The Frenchman alone was capable of the tragedy. Thus fortified, I looked upon myself as simply taking the world as it came.

But, after all, temptation is unsafe. Time, habit, and the eternal repetition of the same sentiments, will do something to entangle the wisest; and I am not inclined to reckon myself in that file. I became strongly involved in the political whirl. My purse, for money was now indifferent to me, was often called on; my name was reckoned among the resources of struggling patriotism; the sudden glow of the national temperament had begun to kindle something of a sympathetic

ardour in my brow; and while the gay Capitan kept up the ball with increasing vivacity, I was unconsciously gliding into an interest in the game.

The game was thickening; just at this time the question of King, or no King," was beginning to be pondered on by the philosophers of the party. I had heard of houses where the dance and the supper were combined with the most ardent "devotion to the grand cause of freedom," and of Madonna di Crescembini, as a first-rate friend to the grand cause. But my first visit was reserved for this evening. Altuna's cabriolet was at the door. We got in, and galloped over three-fourths of Madrid in its usual state of darkness; by what miracle we were saved from compound fractures of every limb of our bodies, is still unknown to me. However, we continued to wind along through a labyrinth of alleys, that seemed growing rougher and narrower at every yard.

"Where does Madonna live?" said I, at last. "This does not seem at least the court end?"

"How the deuce should it?" was the laughing answer. "La Crescembini disdains the aids of art; she has not to follow fashion; fashion follows her. But you shall see."

I began to think that I had trusted too far to the decorum of my volatile friend.

"I must desire, Altuna," said I, "that you do not bring me into any of those awkward positions, which sit so easy on such dexterous fellows as yourself; but from which no Englishman was ever made to escape.'

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He turned his face full upon me at the words. My old ally, the twinkle of a lamp before an image, the only light in the street, served me again. The expression of the very handsome face, was a sudden mixture of scorn and triumph. I probably gave some indication of my surprise, for the look was qualified instantly by a clasp of my hand of the most confiding order, and a speech of more than the usual length, in which the gallant cavalier solemnly protested that he had brought me to "that strange looking place, merely to shew me some

of the oddities of the capital, unknown to all but the select few; to introduce me to a singular source of amusement, and to give me an insight into the actual movements and movers of the public mind."

He sprang out of the vehicle. I followed. Our way led through a passage as long, winding, and silent, as the most romantic in a tale of banditti. We gave private signals at successive doors, were let in soundlessly, said nothing, and were passed forward. Whether I was in the subterraneans of the palace, of the Inquisition, or of the public jail,

began to be a doubtful matter with me, and I was on the point of thinking that nothing good was likely to follow such preliminaries, when a murmur of voices began to whisper in the night, a glimmer played in the air high above our heads, a low door opened; the Capitan bade me now prepare for a scene. We descended half a hundred steps through a dimly-lighted corridor, and, at the end of it, laying his hand on my arm, to intimate silence, he threw open a thick curtain, which hung across the entrance, and disclosed what was indeed an extraordinary scene.

STEPHEN OLIVER ON ANGLING. *

ALL the great poets seem to have left off work-we hope it is not so with all the great anglers. Age will deaden inspiration, and old swans sing but when they die. Yet a poet's life never grows prosaic-and there is ever a halo round his temples besprinkled thinly with grey hairs. Anglimania, again, survives in the blood as long as the heart beats, and the pulse can be felt, however feeble; and even after the wrist has lost its cunning, or, at least, is unable to practise it, sweet is the murmur of the fishy stream to mine ancient's ear, and beautiful to his dim eyes the breezy blue of its wrinkled surface, down which go flaunting, till they are sucked in, in fleets, and squadrons, and single sail, spring's flower and field and forest flies, ephemerals all like ourselves-but happier far in their airy waftage or watery voyaging, than the vain race of man!

We must not say that we were a great, but may say that we were once a good angler. You may ask Wordsworth. He will tell you of our killing a creelful in two hours, in the beautiful liquid link uniting Grassmere and Rydalmere, one day when Ned Hurd himself could not move a fin. But Ned had no idea of fine tackle-and ours was like the gossamer-invisible but in the

sun- glint, and then our flies were so lifelike that you thought you heard then hum. The great poet lay on the bank near the bridge, with a placid smile on his noble features, as at every other throw we hooked a golden star, and bid it shine on the sward among the brackens; yet, ever and anon, the fixed dim eyes told, that his spirit was in meditation's umbrage, haunted by sights too ethereal for sense to see, and we knew then that we passed to and fro before his couch an unregarded shadow. Divine day! and yet but one of a celestial series!-closed nowhaply never to be continued: but often renewed in imaginative memory-with many blank interruptions, and many dim fadings-away of uncertain imagery-yet restorative and elevating-in moonlight glimpses, or sudden sunbursts

"Because not of this noisy world, but

silent and divine."

Dip into Bewick for that wiselooking order of birds, the Waders. Our physiognomy is more intellectual; but when you see their legs, you see ours; and we have forded the Tweed, in incipient spate, to the astonishment of the pedlar, shaking his head on the right bank of the river, while we were shaking our body,

Scenes and Recollections of Fly-fishing in Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmoreland. By Stephen Oliver, the Younger. 12mo. Chapman and Hall, 186, Strand, London,

like a joyous Newfoundlander, on the left; and then, at the first drop of our hare-lug, hooking a trout like a small fish at the tail of the ford, and running him up high and dry on the sand, as if he were amphibious, and had come ashore of his own accord, to take a frisk with the lambs racing in the sunshine.

Indian-rubber boots half-way up to the fork! Charles Macintosh is a man of genius-but he will pardon us for recommending to our rheumatic friends a panoply of caoutchouc-while we-should we ever angle again in the flesh-continue to shew our spindle-shanks and thighs to the tenants of the flood in worsted, flannel, and velveteen, and the warmer the wetter, till, thoroughly saturated, you feel as if wading to the waistband in cream of roses.

Is the angling in Scotland better, or worse, or the same as it used to be some thirty, forty, or fifty years ago? In the Lowlands we cannot help thinking it is not what it then was; some streams that were then trout ful shew now but an occasional minnow-shoal; and one in particular, which we shall not offend by naming -for that would be personal-we wept to find last spring every here and there as dry as the adjacent high-road, though not so well macadamized; without any cause or motive we could discover, except pure weariness of life. The Diving Pool, which Sandy Donald used to maintain had no bottom, we fathomed with the Crutch! The Lang holmswe fished-all the way down from the Brier-bush to the Stone-cross, if fishing it might be called, where fish were none and we heard but one plump in the water, which we at first fondly imagined might be a leaping trout, but on a narrower inspection, lo! striking out like a Byron, a most expeditious frog. A ploughman stared at us as his team were wheeling on the head-rig above the bank, wondering what the creature was doing there; but we told him we were merely taking exercise, at which he smiled, and crying "gee-ho," began to draw as pretty furrow as we ever saw the whole wide field having manifestly been long under cultivation, which we well remember to have been hundred year old lea, where twenty cows, pasturing

three parts of the year, left the gowans just as numerous as when they came flocking out in spring. Oh, those mills! those mills!

Yet the Tweed, Henry Scott, senior, (his hook is bloody,) thinks every whit as good as of yore; though the trouts have changed their ground, because their ground has itself changed from a hundred causes at work in flood, plain, and fell, which it would require a small agricultural treatise to elucidateand something of the sort was prettily done-with another object by Sir Walter, in one of his delightful papers in the Quarterly Review. But Cadrona mains are still prolific of pounders-along Elibank-wood the princes and princesses of the bloodroyal are black but comely; and, for our own parts, werewe to take a day, we should keep loitering and sauntering along the lovely levels all within sight of holy Ashestiel.

A paper of ours, in last year's Maga, entitled, Twaddle on Tweedside, a Cockney called Twaddle indeedbut he was one of the two artistes implicated in the charge of the double-rod. You may remember the picture-of our friend fast in a tree on one side of the river, and his brother-in-law attacked by a goat on the other-a patriarch whom it was in vain to attempt to rebut. You cannot have forgot the line baited with frogs, minnows, lob-worms, and salmon-flies. Ever since his perusal of that harmless article, has he, whose life we saved from that infuriated grey-beard, pursued us in print with unmitigated and unappeasable revenge. The very same day-and never till this moment did we mention the circumstance to a living soul-we rescued him from an onset of geese-after the squadron had twice charged over his body—and having ascertained that no bones were broken, supported him to a wayside inn, and committed him to the care of an old woman, who could not have treated him more tenderly had he been her own sonanointing his hinder-end with opodeldoc, and salving with Turner's cerate the wounds on his legs and thighs, which that cruel gander, with his bill so rough, had made. Thinking on him, we are almost disposed to question the truth of the senti

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