Having thus, and we hope satisfactorily, discussed the eatables and drinkables of Spain, attention must naturally be next directed to those houses on the roads and in the towns, where these comforts to the hungry and weary public are to be had, or are not to be had, as sometimes will happen in this land of “the unexpected;” the Peninsular inns, with few exceptions, have long been divided into the bad, the worse, and the worst; and as the latter are still the most numerous and national, as well as the worst, they will be gone into the last. In few countries will the rambler agree oftener with dear Dr. Johnson’s speech to his squire Boswell, “Sir, there is nothing which has been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern.” Spain offers many negative arguments of the truth of our great moralist and eater’s reflection; the inns in general are fuller of entertainment for the mind than the body, and even when the newest, and the best in the country, are indifferent if compared to those which Englishmen are accustomed to at home, and have created on those high roads of the Continent, which they most frequent. Here few gentlemen will say with Falstaff, “Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?” Badness of roads and discomforts of _ventas_ cannot well escape the notice of those who travel on horseback and slowly, since they must dwell on and in them; whereas a rail whisks the passenger past such nuisances, with comet-like rapidity, and all things that are soon out of sight are quicker out of mind; nevertheless, let no aspiring writer be deterred from quitting the highways for the byeways of the Peninsula. “There is, Sir,” as Johnson again said to Boswell, “a good deal of Spain that has not been perambulated. I would have you go thither; a man of inferior talents to yours, may furnish us with useful observations on that country.” [Sidenote: CONTINENTAL INNS.]