The dedication of my first book was therefore most certainly due to your Lordship; but besides its own unworthiness, another reason, applicable to all that I have subsequently written, hindered me from laying at your feet this tribute of affection and respect. I was then younger than I am now, and probably more foolish; and asking the notice of the Public under a fictitious name, your Lordship would have said, “who is this Derwent Conway, who impertinently addresses me, My dear Lord, and subscribes himself my Cousin?” But Spain is a country so associated with romance, that a fictitious name to a book of travels in that country, might almost warrant the conclusion, that the book was altogether a fiction: and so now throwing off this veil which was unmeaningly assumed, I take this earliest opportunity of making your Lordship’s acquaintance in the character of an author. Sweet shades of Ammondell! I remember them well,--that Gothic bridge, that plantation that skirts the river; where, when a boy, “just let loose from school,” I used to be met and welcomed by that fine, grey-headed man, your Lordship’s sire,--the elegant, the learned, the witty, the eloquent, the consistent politician, the upright man, the unrequited;--Ay! the unrequited; heaven rest HIS soul! who remembered not his friends in the day of His prosperity. It is difficult to tear oneself from the “deep solitudes” and quiet glades of Ammondell; and I know that your Lordship enjoys there the elegancies of life--the delights of rural retirement--and the sweets of literary leisure; but your honourable father had battled with the world, and in the cause of independence and freedom, before he retired to the tranquil shades of the Ammon, and said-- Give me a nook in some secluded spot That business shuns, and din approaches not; Some quiet retreat, where I may never know Which monarch reigns,--what ministers bestow. Your Lordship inherits the genius, with the titles of your family; and it were a noble spectacle to see the Aristocracy of the land stand forth, the champion of Political Liberty, and lending the weight of its influence to the claims of those who have only right and reason on their side. Forgive, my dear Lord, this boldness; which must only be attributed to the respect and great regard with which I have the honor to subscribe myself, Your Lordship’s affectionate Cousin, HENRY DAVID INGLIS. _Barcellona, Jan. 2nd, 1831._ CONTENTS OF VOL. I. CHAPTER I. BISCAY. PAGE