"Exaggeration in all things," says the English resident, "is the leading vice of Spain. There is not a city in the Peninsula that is not '_muy noble, muy leal, y muy heroica_;' not a corporate body that is not 'most excellent,' or 'most illustrious;' not a military corps that is not renowned, and matchless for its valour; not a ragamuffin in Castile that does not esteem himself noble, nor a brigand in Andalusia but calls himself a soldier; not a man but is a Don, nor a woman but is a Dona; not a dunce of a doctor but is profoundly learned, nor a scribbling poetaster but is a European celebrity. Where all are first-rate, how shall there be improvement? Where there is no humility, how shall there be acquisition of knowledge? Pangloss might here have found his perfect world." It is, we fear, this Bobadil vein, this unbounded self-approval and vain-gloriousness, entailing an unwillingness to acknowledge obligations, and an impatience of feeling that they have received any, which renders a large proportion of Spaniards less amicably disposed towards England than we might expect them to be, when we look at the recent history of the two countries, and recall all the friendly offices Spain has received at the hands of England. We have ourselves noticed amongst Spaniards--even amongst men of good average intelligence and education--a fretful sort of feeling whenever the support for which their country has been indebted to Great Britain was alluded to. Some of them go so far as to endeavour to persuade the world, and more especially themselves, that the parts played by English and Spaniards in the Peninsular War were the converse of what is usually supposed--that it was Spanish valour, skill, and generalship that swept Napoleon's armies before them, and drove his best commanders across the Pyrenees. The English were there, certainly; they were very useful, but they played second fiddle to their allies on most occasions. In short, to hear many of the present generation of Spaniards talk, one might suppose that it was their ill-disciplined, badly-officered troops which won the numerous hard-fought fields of the War of Independence.