are scattered, pairs in conversation; and the light of a lamp, as it occasionally flashes upon their privacy,--revealing a sparkling eye, and the flutter of a fan,--interprets its nature. The use of the _toledo_ or the _bravo_, to avenge private wrongs among the upper ranks, is now comparatively unknown in Spain; else I should often have run some risk, by strolling leisurely through the centre of the Café Catalina, that I might get some insight into the state of Castilian morals. There is a great paucity of cafés in Madrid; excepting the Café de Santa Catalina, and another, the name of which I forget, in the neighbourhood of the Prado, there is only the _Fontaña de Oro_ in the _Calle de San Geronimo_. But it is not likely that there should be many coffee-houses in a country where there are no newspapers. Both in France and in England, the majority of persons who frequent coffee-houses, go to read the newspapers; but in Spain, no one enters a coffee-room except to sip iced water. During the forenoon, indeed, the doors of the cafés, excepting the Fontaña de Oro, are generally shut, and nobody is within. An Englishman, or a Frenchman, who is accustomed to connect with a coffee-room,--half-a-dozen public journals,--organs of intelligence and public opinion, upon subjects connected with his political rights, and with the state of his country,--is instantly reminded on entering a Spanish coffee-room, of the degraded political condition of the country he is in: and the difference between the enjoyment and the want of political rights, is forcibly thrust upon him. He takes up the _Gaceta de Madrid_, and finds there a royal ordinance, breathing vengeance against those who desire to be restored to their homes and their country; and whose prayers are for its happiness. He turns over the leaf, and he finds another ordinance, declaring that the universities shall be closed, and education suspended, during his Majesty’s pleasure; and he then looks for the comment upon these facts: but he looks in vain. He sees that his Majesty and the royal family enjoy good health; that the king has appointed a bishop to one cathedral; and that the bishop has named a canon to another; and that the procession of _St. Rosalio_ will issue from the convent of St. Thomas, precisely at four o’clock next day; but he sees not a syllable about the ordinances that deal out injustice, or strangle improvement; and he says within himself, this is the most wonderful country under the sun; for here, intellect wields no power.