recommended to them in the most acceptable likeness of current coin. [Sidenote: GOLD COINAGE.] In Spain cash, ambrosial cash, rules the court, the camp, the grove; hence the extraordinary credit of three millions recently required for the secret service expenses of the Tuileries, and official enthusiasm and unanimity secured thereby in the Montpensier purchase. The whole decalogue is condensed at Madrid into one commandment, Love God as represented on earth not by his vicar the Pope, but by his lord-lieutenant, Don Ducat. _"El primero es amar Don Dinero,_ _Dios es omnipotente, Don Dinero es su lugarteniente."_ Thus grandees and men in Spanish offices, both governmental and printing ones, have preferred the other day five-franc pieces to the ribbons of the Legion of _honor_; nor, considering the swindlers on whom this badge of Austerlitz has been prostituted, were these worthy Castilians much out in their calculations, if there be any truth in the catechism of Falstaff. [Sidenote: AVARICE OF SPANIARDS.] The _gold coinage_ is magnificent, and worthy of the country and period from which Europe was supplied with the precious metals. The largest piece, the ounce, “_onza_,” is worth sixteen dollars, or about 3_l._ 6_s._; and while it puts to shame the diminutive Napoleons of France and sovereigns of England, tells the tale of Spain’s former wealth, and contrasts strangely with her present poverty and scarcity of specie: these large coins have however been so _sweated_, not by the sun, but by Jews, foreign and domestic, so clipped worse than Spanish mules or French poodles, that they seldom retain their proper weight and value. They are accordingly looked upon every where with suspicion; a shopkeeper, in a big town, brings out his scales like Shylock, while in a village shrugs, _ajos_, and negative expressions are your change; nor, even if the natives are satisfied that they are not light, can sixteen dollars be often met with, nor do those who have so much ready money by them ever wish that the fact should be generally known. Spaniards, like the Orientals, have a dread of being supposed to have money in their possession; it exposes them to be plundered by robbers of all kinds, professional or legal; by the “_alcalde_,” or village authority, and the “_escribano_,” the attorney, to say nothing of Señor Mon’s tax-gatherer; for the quota of contributions, many of which are apportioned among the inhabitants themselves of each district, falls heaviest on those who have, or are supposed to have, the most ready money.