spoke good Spanish, I asked where was the master?' The girl on this called out, Here is a Spaniard who wants you.' He came, and perceiving that I was French, turned his rhetoric upon the girl. Ignorant fool, are you not ashamed to call a gentleman like this a Spaniard ?'

"But the Spanish boasting was sometimes elegant and satirical. When the French lost Naples, and D'Aubigny their general was taken prisoner, the Frenchman, to show that he did not feel his defeat, applied to the Spanish general for a set of stout and good horses, that he might return.' The equivocal phrase struck the Spaniard, who replied, That he might return as soon as he pleased, and that he should be always treated with the same liberality.'

Some of these rodomontades are pleasant from their boundless extravagance. They are chefs d'œuvre of boasting, fine displays of the genius of bombast.

"I was," said a Spanish captain, "in the battle of Lepanto, in Don John's galley. We attacked the Turkish admiral's galley. I gave a thrust with my sword, it went into the water. I did not give it with my whole force, but down it went, deep as hell, and split Pluto's nostrils."

"Go," said a soldier, "if you know that fellow just past, or if you have any regard for him, say prayers for his life. He has displeased me."

"D'Estrosse and I once asked a Spanish soldier in Italy, whose name was Don Diego Leonis, what was the reason of this grand appellation. It was given,' said he, because I killed three lions in Barbary.'

"

"A young Spanish soldier was asked, how he had contrived to have his moustaches so large. These moustaches,' said he, were made of cannon smoke, and it is that which has fed and cherished them so fast and so long."

That brief and famous speech of Pescara, the favourite officer of the Spanish companies, is more than a boast, it was the noble speech of a gallant warrior.

"The army was drawn up to at

tack Alviano the celebrated Venetian. Pescara dismounted, and advancing to the front with his pike in his hand, turned to his troops with these words: Gentlemen, if it is my chance to fall in this battle, let me not be trampled on by any feet but your own.' The soldiers on this gave a general shout, charged, and won the field.”

The last anecdote I shall give is one interesting to our English pride.

When Philip II. equipped his grand fleet against England, I frequently met Spanish soldiers and officers, who, after their shipwreck, were making their way homewards. They were full of lofty stories. Among the rest they told me that there were in the fleet 120 ships, the least of 300 tons. That they had forty or fifty of 7 or 800 tons, and twenty of from 1000 to 1200, and of those four or five of the most incomparable kind. Then came on the rodomontade. The king had ordered the ocean to be ready to receive throughout his realm, his ships, or rather not ships, but mountains of timber. He had, in the same way, ordered the winds to be quiet, or to blow fair, without any storms, for his fleet; whose shade, he declared, would darken and overtop, not merely the trees and masts, but the weather-cocks on the steeples in England.' This was certainly a grand rodomontade. But the Armada came to nothing at all; partly by the vigilance and courage of that famous commander Drap, (for thus the Frenchman mutilates Drake) one of the greatest officers that ever fought on the seas, or, perhaps, ever will; and partly by the storms and waves, probably too much offended by all this threatening, as, we well know, they are extremely proud, and by no means pleased at being insulted in any way."

Thus simply and plainly does the old Cavalier give the recollections of his brilliant period, with the vivacity of a Frenchman, the poignancy of a court wit, and that mixture of pleasant garrulity and diligent minuteness, that makes the chronicles of his age the most delightful of all reading for the idle of the earth.

sublimity will compare with the Celtic remains, nothing which in insinuating sweetness will compare with the

Chi bussa alla mia porta? chi bussa al mio porton,

or the

C'erano tre zitelle, e tutte tre di amor

of the Italians. Our ballads present themselves under a less imposing and less alluring aspect: but whatever their merit or demerit, they are our own; and as parents, however plainlooking themselves, are always well pleased to see their features reflected in those of their offspring; children carrying with them such strong proofs of their filiation as our old ballads possess, will never address themselves in vain to us. Besides, independently of all considerations of mere literary merit, the ballads of the Teutonic nations, connected as they are with the essential character of the people, have a separate claim on general attention, derived from the importance of these nations. The Teutonic, Germanic, or Gothic nations, have long been the leading people of the world. Distinguished above every other European race by their size and bodily strength, by their cool intrepidity, their steady perseverance, and the phlegm and moderation of their character, they succeeded in conquering and subjugating all their neighbours, and they are now masters of the best part of Europe and America, and of some of the finest regions of Asia.Soon after their first appearance in history, we find their arms spread terror throughout the whole of the west.-A Gothic empire formerly extended from the Wolga to the Baltic. In Thrace, Mæsia, Pannonia, Italy, Gaul, Spain, and even in Africa, various Gothic, or Germanic tribes, at different times, formed settlements and founded kingdoms.-It was they who mastered the Romans, Saracens, Gaels, Cimbri, Lapps, Finns, Esthonians, Sclaves, Kures, and Prussians, -who founded, and who continue to rule in, all the existing kingdoms of Europe, and who every where introduced their government by estates, and their own laws.

The whole of the people in whom Germanic blood preponderates (ex

cluding the French, and other nations who were only conquered by Germans) may be divided into two great classes, which though they both have many common points of resemblance, yet, from the earliest times of which we have any record, seem to have differed considerably from each other in habits, customs, and in dialect; namely, the upper, or inland Germans, and the maritime, or low Germans. The chief of the former are the Swiss, Austrians, Swabians, Bavarians, and Alsatians; and of the latter, the Netherlanders, Frisians, and lower Saxons, the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians, and the English and lowland Scots. It may be remarked, as a peculiarity of the latter, that they can all pronounce the consonants b and d, which the former uniformly pronounce p and t.

If we did not, historically, know that England was settled by emigrations from Holland, Frieseland, Lower Saxony, and Denmark, the similarity of language, popular superstitions, manners, and customs, and other unequivocal tests, would place the matter beyond all doubt.But in no circumstance is the relationship more strongly marked than in the similarity of the old ballads and old music of these countries.

We have already noticed the very great resemblance of the old Danish to the old English ballads, not merely in tone and cast of sentiment, but even in subject and mechanical structure. This great resemblance is not confined to the Danish ballads, but extends to those of Sweden, Norway, and the Scandinavian islands, for in all these countries the same ballads and songs are current among the people. Nothing, indeed, is more curious, than the wonderful coincidence between the Danish ballads, published nearly two centuries and a half ago, and the ballads in a recent collection in three volumes, derived, with few exceptions, from the recitations of the peasantry of the different provinces of Sweden.This collection from tradition, exhibiting the variations of the different provinces, with an accompanying volume of tunes,* was finished in 1817, and forms a very valuable