It was with these beneficent intentions that our good friend John Murray first devised Handbooks; and next, by writing them himself, taught others how to dip into inkstands for red books, which tell man, woman, and child what to observe, to the ruin of _laquais de place_, and discomfiture of authors of single octavos and long vacation excursions. Few gentlemen who publish the notes of their Peninsular gallop much improve their light diaries by discussing heavy handbook subjects; skimming, like swallows, over the surface, and in pursuit of insects, they neither heed nor discern the gems which lurk in the deeps below; they see indeed all the scum and straws which float on the surface, and write down on their tablets all that is rotten in the state of Spain. Hence the sameness of some of their works; one book and bandit reflects another, until writers and readers are imprisoned in a vicious circle. Nothing gives more pain to Spaniards than seeing volume after volume written on themselves and their country by foreigners, who have only rapidly glanced at one-half of the subject, and that half the one of which they are the most ashamed, and consider the least worth notice. This constant prying into the nakedness of the land and exposing it afterwards, has increased the dislike which they entertain towards the _impertinente curioso_ tribe: they well know and deeply feel their country’s decline; but like poor gentlefolks, who have nothing but the past to be proud of, they are anxious to keep these family secrets concealed, even from themselves, and still more from the observations of those who happen to be their superiors, not in blood, but in worldly prosperity. This dread of being shown up sharpens their inherent suspicions, when strangers wish to “observe,” and examine into their ill-provided arsenals and institutions, just as Burns was scared even by the honest antiquarian Grose; so they lump the good and the bad, putting them down as book-making Paul Prys:-- [Sidenote: DISLIKE TO OBSERVERS.] “If there’s a hole in a’ your coats, I rede ye tent it; A chiel’s amang ye, taking notes, And faith! he’ll prent it.”