We obtain the best impression from a book published in the year 1835, "embodying sketches of the metropolis and its inhabitants," by a resident officer. The most striking feature of Madrid at this time, according to this writer, was the irregularity in the height of the buildings. It was not uncommon to see a wretched tumble-down-looking house supporting itself against the palace of a grandee, displaying its checkered, moss-grown, weather-stained tiling in mockery of the marble and sculpture of its next-door neighbour. "The quarters of Madrid known under the name of the 'Rastro' and 'Barrios Bajos' presented a most unwholesome and ungainly appearance, being chiefly composed of hovels, with mud walls and tiled roofing, which contained but a ground-floor, and were inhabited by the dregs of the population. They were the purlieus of vice and crime, and were not only a disgrace to the capital, but would have been so to any sixth-rate town in the kingdom. This, and the great disparity in the buildings of Madrid at that time, may be accounted for by calling to mind the capricious way it commenced its importance as a capital. "It had struggled on, a second-rate town, until the Emperor Charles V. of Germany (Charles I. of Spain), suffering under a severe fit of the ague, which he had caught in Valladolid, the royal residence at that time, came to Madrid for change of air, and recovered; in consequence of which he continued to reside there till his death. Philip II. decided its prosperity by ultimately making it the seat of the Court, and after this it was augmented by bits and scraps as a building mania came on, or as the times permitted." The same discrepancy prevailed in the style and mode of living: everything was in extremes, both in houses, equipages, clothing, eating, and drinking. Luxury and misery, comfort and squalidness, were constantly elbowing each other. As to the inhabitants, had an Englishman been transported blindfolded into Spain and his bandage taken off when set down in Madrid, he might readily have believed himself in a seaport town from the great variety of costumes.