in armour of a Lord Mayor's show with bonneted head-gear, astride of a pot-bellied Clydesdale. Perhaps he may have been caricaturing "the ingenious gentleman" of La Mancha. My most grateful anticipation of Spain was, that it was behind the age, and was in no hurry to overtake it. But this did not hold good in Madrid, and dear womankind with the tiny feet was the culprit. She disfigured herself at that epoch with an enormous bustle on which a Barbary ape might conveniently rehearse a bolero. Well, we have had our Grecian bends, our crinolines and crinolettes, our pull-backs and Piccadilly limps. Fashion spells despot everywhere, and dear womankind will cheerfully obey its dictates, even though she have to blur her cheeks with patches, distort her spine, or tightlace herself into consumption. In the afternoon a long procession of carriages (mostly hired) traverses the Calle de Alcalá and the promenade to the left of the fountain where Cybele is sculptured driving a pair of meekest ox-like lions; the folk in the carriages are not wildly joyous in their dissipation, nor are the horses that draw them restive with excitement. Everything is dull, consequently respectable; orderly, consequently dreary. The Foresters' _fête_ at the Crystal Palace is more hilarious. No shafts of delicate raillery are shot by cherry lips; no peal of silvery laughter rings out. The Carnival is "stale, flat, and unprofitable," except to those mumming musicians who have paid sixteen shillings for the license to beg during the three mock-mirthful days. I survey the scene from a window in the Paseo de Recoletos, and get all my enjoyment out of the cynical remarks of a monstrously fine Burgundian lady, who criticises the dresses of her Spanish sisters as they glide by. The dresses are very tasteless, but the Frenchwoman's remarks are very ill-natured, and ill-nature is gratifying when your neighbour is its object. A friend enters and claps me on the back. "Do you know, old fellow, that that stormy petrel of the Revolution, Cluseret of the Commune, is said to be in Madrid?" "Never! What brings him here?" "_Said_ to be, was my expression," he added. "As a fact, I don't believe he is here, but they take you for him. That is how the tale of his arrival has got into the papers." The Burgundian lady turns. "Cluseret!" she ejaculates; "absurd! I have seen Cluseret; he is much taller and much handsomer than this gentleman!" I bowed to hide my face, which was what Mr. Whistler might have called a symphony in black and red, frown and blush. I have since thought what a caustic retort I might have made if I had said politely, "And, it is to be hoped, much more well-bred." But I said nothing, for the same reason that Dr. Johnson gave once to Boswell--"I had nothing ready, sir."