part of Spain. I was detained at Montserrat, though I have been compelled to fix upon the

mountains near Loja, in Andalusia, as the scene of Hassan's adventure. In this part of my Poem, the situation of the Mahometan Chief has become unavoidably identified with my own. Let me request my readers not to carry the identity further.

However imperfectly I may have described the Guerilla, I have represented them according to no preconceived opinions: they were exaggerated in their ideas, but brave, enthusiastic, devoted to their sovereign, and to a cause which they conceived to be intimately connected with their religion. Had success attended their arms, they would probably have re-established that worst of evils,-absolute government, which, indeed, they effected sixteen months later, in conjunction with the French armies. Still I have little doubt that had they been subjected to more delicate management, had their prejudices been treated more leniently, and national and provincial feeling more respected, all the zeal and perseverance which they displayed in sup

porting the cause of arbitrary power, would have been devoted to the defence of the constitutional monarchy. Unfortunately a series of hasty and impolitic acts on the part of the Cortes exasperated public feeling, and paved the way for the entrance of the French armies. The melancholy close of the late revolution has impressed many persons with a belief that society is too abject in Spain, and the national character too degraded to permit the successful establishment of liberal institutions: this opinion, founded on recent events, and most unfavourable to the advancement of freedom and civilization, as it excludes the possibility of future improvement, or defers it to a very distant period, can only be removed by a knowledge of the circumstances of the country, the prejudices of the people, and the policy pursued by the Cortes with reference to national feeling. The hostility manifested by a large party towards the new institutions, and the failure of every attempt to excite public enthusiasm in their favour, arose more from the disgust occasioned by particular measures,

than from any inherent want of patriotism in the Spanish people. The principles of election under which the Cortes were convened, brought together an assembly, in which the opinions of a numerous class of the great towns predominated, but in which the landed proprietors, the clergy, a party in the cities, and an immense numerical majority in the provinces, were rather nominally than practically represented. This discrepancy between a representation founded on principles of democracy and a state of property held under tenures of the most aristocratic character, produced a fatal conflict of interests. Had a second chamber existed, it would have checked that headlong attack on old interests, which, to persons acquainted with the Spanish nation, will satisfactorily explain the failure of the revolution; but, on the other hand, it would have concurred with the Cortes in reducing the overgrown establishments that were supposed to depress the agriculture of the kingdom, and in breaking down those territorial accumulations which had become too extensive for single super

intendance, and rendered an opulent class of subjects discontented and dangerous, by preventing them from vesting their capital in land and acquiring a substantial interest in the welfare of the state. That a spirit of this kind prevailed among the aristocracy, is shown by the petitions which they presented to the Cortes, praying for the repeal of the laws touching entails: the entire repeal of those acts must have eventually proved fatal to the influence of the nobility, but in many instances, private and personal feelings prevailed over their interests as a body; the power of making larger settlements for younger children, the unlimited disposal of their properties during life, and, with a few, the desire of exonerating their remaining estates from heavy charges, induced many individuals to advocate the repeal of those laws, whose interests, as forming part of a privileged class, were most opposed to the measure in its unqualified state. Had a second chamber existed, the necessary modifications would have been made in the laws that regulated the disposition of property,

but political feeling would have operated more forcibly among the nobles, nor would those alterations have been carried to an extent incompatible with the permanent existence of an influential aristocracy. The establishment of a second chamber at the commencement of the revolution, might have conferred the greatest blessings upon Spain; such an assembly would have mediated between the spirit of reform that existed in the popular branch of the legislature, and the great interests affected by its resolutions; that spirit of reformation would have led to beneficial results, had it been controlled by the operation of another power, and rendered, in some degree, subservient to particular circumstances and national feeling. Many principles were established by the Cortes, just in the abstract, but most unjust when indiscriminately applied to the correction of abuses, which had grown out of ages of political misconception, and had become interwoven with the interests of large classes of the community. A second chamber, while it felt the necessity of concurring in those