by, and about the cornet's father. But the dinner moment has been trumpeted, and the general never supposing that the son of his comrade is a stranger to the comforts of a luxurious mess-room, relaxes not his hold, but plants the young man next to himself. There is some speculation at table, more in thoughtful than in spoken conjecture. The general is loquacious, drinks freely, and appears intent to draw Frederick Farquhar out. The young man feels proud, it is the first time that he has met with anything like a cordial greeting; and he responds to all that is put to him with consummate knowledge and dignity. The general enjoys the conversation, but is resolved to test the cornet to the uttermost. Accordingly, he propounds questions in military history, and even in the science and tactics of war. Farquhar modestly replies, and uniformly earns approval. In the meanwhile the wine is doing its office with the veteran, and unguardedly he resolves on propounding a question of a delicate nature for a regimental mess. Farquhar, a philosopher like you, should be prepared to give an opinion on the subject of duelling. Is the practice or system defensible in any case? I must have your judgment.' I once was told by a gentleman, who studied expediency above all things,' answered the cornet, with manifest reluctance, 'that no man should readily give out his sentiments on this vexed subject, lest they should be quoted to his injury afterwards. However, since you press me, I shall be candid with you, whatever the consequences may prove to myself; and a single sentence and argument will indicate what is my poor judgment. When a principal has once called in his adviser, he becomes a mere living pistol in the hands of another. Now, surely this should be sufficient to decide the folly of duelling. The idea of any reasonable being becoming a mere machine in the hands of another, in a case involving probably the life or death of himself and a fellow-creature, ought to be enough to make one reflect on the folly, and something worse, that he is guilty of. A man who consents to be a living pistol must indeed be well charged with lead, when he resigns himself, perhaps life and soul, to the will of another.' 'Capital !' exclaimed General Lambert; 'the best argument I ever heard,-shake hands with me, man,—I must let you alone, I see.'-And yet the general had been in more than one affair in the course of his life; but then he was not much of a philosopher.

"It would not be easy to say what were the cogitations which passed through the bosoms of those who listened to the dialogue between the general and the cornet. Perhaps envy, jealousy, or some degree of rancour prevailed on the part of the younger gentlemen. Be this as it may, not many minutes had elapsed after the subject of duelling had been dropped, when the expression of every malignant feeling had full scope against Frederick Farquhar.

"General Lambert had been observed for sometime fumbling from one pocket to another, and to be growing every moment more fidgety and anxious. At length he cried out,- What the devil has become of my snuff-box, the box which his Royal Highness presented to me, and which I value beyond the price which money can measure? I had it just before I entered your mess-room,-snuffed out of it, and put it into my pocket,-this identical pocket, (it was the pocket on the same side where Farquhar had walked when in close conversation with the general, and on which he now sat.) The precious gift I must and shall have, continued the excited general, clenching almost every fragment of his sentences with a round oath. More than one voice helped him out by swearing they had seen him make use of such a snuff-box as mentioned immediately previous to his sitting down to dinner, and therefore that it could not yet be far away. Every eye was now bent upon the cornet, and the scene waxed so fiery and terrible, that it will take another opportunity to describe it.

(To be continued.)

SEVILLE.

"It is at Seville I would pass my days."

LORD BYRON.

Do you know the ancient Hispalis, the city of a hundred towers, and its strong wall;-the smiling Seville; that city ever full of pleasure and enchantment? One loves to wander in her fertile fields, in that garden of Hercules, or gently to glide along its beauteous river beneath the shade of overhanging orange trees in blossom. We also love to saunter through the rooms of its old alcaçar (palace) in search of the vestiges of valour and love which remembrance of its early history brings to our thoughts. It was long the habitation of the Moorish kings of Spain. Afterwards it became that of the kings of Castile and of Leon-the Moorish palace formed a Christian dwelling; but then its chronicles changed their language; in their bloodstained pages we no longer read Saracenic legends of love, tournament, and war; we now read in deep red characters the word Fratricide! In one of these rooms, in the left-hand gallery, it was, that Peter the Cruel assassinated his two brothers.

Of all the monuments Seville contains, I prefer its alcaçar. There are, however many others that claim the attention of an amateur of the arts.

The singular magnificence of its cathedral must doubtless be admired, as well as its tower, named Giraldi, the work of the Moorish architect Guëver, he who invented and gave his name to that system of calculation known to us as the science of Algebra. But what do I care for its colossal statue that turns with the slightest breeze? I look for recollections that speak to my heart.

In the interior of the church these become more eloquent-its immense space offers an admirable coup d'œil, It is the largest and most regularly built church in Spain, and scarcely inferior to any in Europe. Its erection commenced in the reign of Don Sancho the Brave, and was completed in that of Don Juan II., a period including nearly a century. It once inclosed more wealth and precious objects than all the churches of the Peninsular included. The body of the edifice is an admirable chef d'œuvre of architecture, four hundred and twenty feet in length, by two hundred and sixty-three in breadth, and the height one hundred and twenty-six feet. When the last rays of an Andalusian sun penetrates the glass windows, painted by Arnao of Flanders, grotesque kaleidoscope figures of emerald, ruby, and sapphire hues, seem to dance upon the marble pavement of the nave, and shed a rainbow glory on the ancient tomb of the holy King Ferdinand. Then it is this old basilick is beautiful and mysterious, at that solemn hour when day is about to close its eyes, and night awakes to warn mankind of sleep, the emblem of death. At such a moment the seraphic tones of the finest organ in the world, resemble a choir of angels; and infidels might pray for the repose of the blessed king's soul that conquered Seville-the most delectable of cities.

The treasure contained in the cathedral previous to the invasion of the Peninsular was inestimable, according to the roll preserved of the objects. Thirty altars of massive silver; the statues of St. Isidore and St. Leander, as large as life, in silver; golden candlesticks, ornamented with precious stones, ten feet high; a custodia of silver gilt, richly studded with gems, twelve feet high, containing a pix, weighing seventeen hundred marcs of silver, mounted with precious stones, and of still more precious sculpture; four hundred solid silver balustrades surrounding the high altar. These items are but a small portion of the immense wealth the piety of centuries had bestowed upon this splendid temple of God. Where are they now? The hand of conquest has violated and dispersed them. Shame to the guilty!

I have only named such treasures as come within the acceptation of things intrinsically of a given value. But much other treasure was stolen by the impious invaders, of a value beyond all estimation,-I mean those pictures of the most famous masters that decorated the various chapels and eighty

altars of the cathedral. How is it that the ghost of Murillo did not rise from the tomb to arrest the despoiler's ruthless hand from stripping his birth-place of the brightest honours. His choicest works, and those of almost every celebrated painter of Spain, were considered booty by the enemy. Poor Seville! poor Andalusia! how many gems have been stolen from thy crown of fame, so many centuries respected and admired by all civilized nations of Europe.

The cathedral and the alcaçar are the two monuments of antiquity I most admire in Seville. There are, as I have said, many others of high interest, but they none of them speak to my heart with the same force, or call forth such emotions as these do; none in my imagination are at all comparable to that antique palace of Moorish and Christian kings, or that splendid temple of the Deity, where sleep so many crowned heads no more to disturb the world or be troubled by its vanities.

All the cities of Spain possess an Alameda; that of Seville is distinguished from all the others by a remarkable singularity; this is the two antique columns on which were elevated two statues of equal antiquity,— one of Cæsar, the other of Hercules.

We know that of the forty-two or three Hercules of fable and of history, two went into Spain; one was a Lybian, the other a Theban. The latter went to Cadiz, with the Argonauts, from thence to Gibraltar, where he founded Heraclea. This Hercules came into Spain a thousand years after the other known by his strength and bravery.

Which of the two founded Seville is a question I do not pretend to answer. There are persons who affirm that they know the day and the time at which the Lybian Hercules died, adding that he went to Cadiz for that purpose, after having knocked Getion on the head, and eaten up all his sheep. I do not pledge myself to such particularities, and only narrate the tradition. That the foundation of Seville is attributed to one of these two Hercules appears in evidence, from the following lines sculptured on one of the twelve gates of the city, called Xérés:

Hercule me edifico.

Julio Cesar me cerco

De muro-y de torres altas.

Y el rey sante me gano

Con Garci Perez de Vargas.

Hercules founded me.

Julius Cæsar encircled me

With a wall and high towers:

And this holy king gained me

By Garci Perez de Vargas.

And on a very ancient painting of the city of Seville, was inscribed:

Ab Hercule et Cæsare
Nobilitas.

A se ipsâ fidelitas.

To Hercules and Cæsar

She owes her nobility.

And to it alone her fidelity.

The people know all these traditions by heart, and all those belonging to the old alcaçar, whose enchanting bowers, the best model of Moorish taste, become deserted at night-fall, by those who have whispered their tales of love beneath these shady and perfumed trees, in the freshness of evening.

The Xeneraliffa, the bowers of the Alhambra, evrything in Spain that recalls the Saracenic manners, must all cede to the garden of the Alcaçar of Seville. It has preserved its primitive form of a labyrinth composed of enormous myrtles, cut into fanciful shapes, whose alleys terminate at a sparkling fountain. A jasper basin, of rare beauty and workmanship, receives its liquid diamonds; and an Arabic inscription on it informs the spectator that this fountain is the emblem of sacred purity. When we remember that we are standing on the same mosaic pavement that was formerly pressed by the slipper of some favourite sultana, or some haughty sultan, who in olden time came here to perform his holy ablutions, imagination conjures up a crowd of illusions, and we are transported back to those scenes of romance whose memory now receives but a faint colouring of the truth. We behold around us the very scenes described in the Thousand and one nights, with

such graphic fidelity; and are almost induced to believe the mighty deeds

of necromancy and fairy goddesses to be equally true.

To these reminiscences, however romantic in their character, another brighter sentiment is associated in our memory-one that should inspire us with grateful thanks and admiration far beyond the emotion love and chivalry give rise to. It is, that Christianity and its bright rays of truth now shine where formerly mankind walked in the shadow of ignorance and paganism. Why, therefore, should we regret the lost domination of the Moors?-yet we do so,—at Seville. For what other feeling can be excited