There is a sort of relief in turning from these two narratives of rascality to the next hook on our list, though in literary merit it is very far inferior to {123} them. It is the narrative of a lady's travels in Spain. There is not much novelty in the subject, and only a very moderate degree of skill in the execution; but it is something to get into decent company. Mrs. William Pitt Byrne [Footnote 26] travelled from the Pyreneean frontier of Spain, through Valladolid, Segovia, Madrid, Toledo, and Cordova, to Seville. Her book, with all its faults, supplies some lively pictures of modern Spanish life, and the reader who has patience to hunt for them will also find in her pages some valuable bits of information about the condition and prospects of the kingdom. She has a great deal to say about the discomforts of travelling in Spain, and the horrors of the hotels and inns, which are scarcely less abominable than those of Russia. However useful these particulars may be to persons meditating a trip through the Peninsula, they can scarcely be thought very important to the public generally; and we shall therefore content ourselves with extracting from Mrs. Byrne's two handsome volumes an account of a bull-fight at Madrid, which, notwithstanding her sex, she was induced by a sense of public duty to witness. We pass over the description of the arena and the spectators, and the preliminary procession of the actors in the bloody spectacle, and come at once to the moment when the bull is let into the ring: [Footnote 26: Cosas de España: Illustrative of Spain and the Spaniards as they are. By Mrs. Wm. Pitt Byrne, Author of Flemish Interiors, etc. 2 vols. 8vo. pp. 279, 322. London and New York: Alexander Strahan.]