The actual security of the Spanish highways is due to the _Moderados_, as the French party and imitators of the _juste milieu_ are called, and at the head of whom may be placed _Señor Martinez de la Rosa_. He, indeed, is a moderate in poetry as well as politics, and a rare specimen of that sublime of mediocrity which, according to Horace, neither men, gods, nor booksellers can tolerate; his reputation as an author and statesman--alas! poor Cervantes and Cisneros--proves too truly the present effeteness of Spain. Her pen and her sword are blunted, her laurels are sear, and her womb is barren; but, among the blind, he who has one eye is king. This dramatist, in the May of 1833, was summoned from his exile at Granada to Madrid by the suspicious Calomarde. The mail in which he travelled was stopped by robbers about ten o’clock of a wet night near Almuradiel;--the _guard_, at the first notice, throwing himself on his belly, with his face in the mud, in imitation of the postilions, who pay great respect to the gentlemen of the road. The passengers consisted of himself, a German artist, and an English friend of ours now in London, and who, having given up his well-garnished purse at once with great good-humour, was most courteously treated by the well-satisfied recipients: not so the Deutscher, on whom they were about to do personal violence in revenge for a scanty scrip, had not his profession been explained by our friend, by whose interference he was let off. Meanwhile, the _Don_ was hiding his watch in the carriage lining, which he cut open, and was concealing his few dollars, the existence of which when questioned he stoutly denied. They, however, re-appeared under threats of the bastinado, which were all but inflicted. The passengers were then permitted to depart in peace, the leader of their spoilers having first shaken hands with our informant, and wished him a pleasant journey: “May your grace go with God and without novelty;” adding, “You are a _caballero_, a gentleman, as all the English are; the German is a _pobrecito_, a poor devil; the Spaniard is an _embustero_, a regular swindler.” This latter gentleman, thus hardly delineated by his Lavater countryman, has since more than gotten back his cash, having risen to be prime minister to Christina, and humble and devoted servant of Louis-Philippe, _cosas de España_. [Sidenote: GUARDIAS CIVILES.]