The sound of timbrels and of Moorish pipes

And from th' adjoining street a greeting shout
Announce the coming of the gallant Moor,
The valiant challenger; and now throughout
The crowd below, the gall'ries round the lists,
Is one sole posture and expression seen;
All tow'rds the door that opens on the left
Turn eye and face, and outstretched person lean;
Dull buzzing murmurs grow upon the air.

Thus when resounds a sudden gust of wind
And sweeps the topmost branches of the trees,
In one direction are whole woods inclined.
First, two by two, slow entering the lists,

Eight Pages of sedatest mien appear,

Mounted on coal-black steeds, and black alike

Their vests, plumes, housings, all their horses' gear.
Next come four Squires in mourning garb arrayed;
Then four aged Cavaliers, each one revealed
By his bright burnished arms, by the black stains
Hiding the blazonry upon his shield,

By his unpennoned lance along the ground

Its steel point dragging, infamy's loathed sign,-
All evidence heart-wounding as 'tis plain,-

A member of the Lara's once proud line.
Follow the Moors. In Orient's splendour clothed
Comes Caleb, mounted on a dun-bay steed,
Waving an azure standard that displays

A broidered crescent, emblem of his creed.
And now Mudarra at the gate is seen,-

Enraptured at his sight, the multitude
Hail him with shouts that make the welkin ring,
Re-echoing from distant cave and wood.
And from balcony, scaffold, gallery,

White handkerchiefs that wave upon the air,
Give movement to the popular applause,

And to the challenger kind welcomes bear.
Upon a snow-white mare, the boasted gem

Of Andalusia's plains, that, breathing fire,
Speckles the air around with silvery foam,

Rides in the gallant Moor whom all admire.
His graceful person and his beauty rare
Might almost the credulity excuse
That deemed him a portent.

Zayde, as his Godfather of the lists,

On a cream-coloured horse beside him goes;
And after them ten mounted Moors in black,
The challenger's procession meetly close."

We omit the dresses, the now familiar ceremonies of the

lists, the long delay of Ruy Velazquez, with the various conjectures to which it gives rise, and his entrance and procession, proceeding to the combat. The justice of his cause does not gain Mudarra an easy victory. In fact, the challenger appears to be injudiciously mounted; for after a brilliant display of characteristic Moorish agility, when the combatants at last meet in full career, the beautiful Andalusian mare cannot stand the shock of the heavy Castilian charger; she is overthrown and rolls with her rider on the plain. Ruy Velazquez turns eagerly back to kill his antagonist, whilst encumbered with his fallen steed; but his own horse starts aside,

"When suddenly, a voice ringingly shrill,

Shrieks loud! Hold! Hold! Monster, perceiv'st thou not
How, their fall'n brother to assist and guard,

Lara's Infantes gather round the spot?

Six spectres dost not see? If thou be blind,

Thy charger sees, and shuns them.' By these cries
Startled, Velazquez pauses, terrified.

And thither, whence the voice proceeds, all eyes
Are turned; there, rising o'er men's heads, appears
A vision dire of witch or sorceress ;

A frightful crone whose leanness a red skirt
And inky cloak fantastically dress,

Her head a veil, disordered, soiled and torn;
Giving a sinister, unearthly air

To her gaunt form. With gesture menacing

Her arms are raised aloft, stiff, scraggy and bare.

Elvida 'tis, the wretched nurse, who seized

With horror or blind madness yells aloud

In voice of Demon to a popular air,

These verses that with horror chill the crowd.

See, the traitor, the assassin

Seas of blood surround!

Sunk by his unburied victims

'Neath the waves he's drowned!

See, for him Hell's jaws wide gaping;

Now they've gulphed him-Hear!

Hear ye not the demons yelling,

'Welcome, brother dear.'

Here ceased the beldam, as her horrid song

Broke off in bursts of laughter yet more dread;

Then with a piercing shriek she disappeared,

Down sinking in a swoon, and lay as dead."

This really striking intervention of the old mad woman and Ruy Velazquez's superstitious terrors give Mudarra time to recover his feet. The combat is renewed on foot and lasts

long. The challenger is desperately wounded, but his adversary is slain; and we give the impressive result―

"Mudarra rushes on the scarce fall'n corse,

Unsheathes his sharp barbaric poniard blade,
Severs the head from the yet throbbing trunk,
And firmly grasping, by the thick curls' aid,
Holds it aloft, as of his victory won

The trophy, as the pledge, assured though mute,
That reason, justice, had his challene urged;
As evidence that none might dare dispute,
Of his illustrious father's innocence.

Then universal plaudits wake the sky;
The whilst in that balcony, mourning-hung,
The Lara's seat, those pages suddenly
Uplifting, wave the pennon now restored

To pristine honour, and, by joy subdued,

The blind old Lord sinks prostrate, to just Heav'n
In speechless prayer breathing his gratitude."

The twelfth and last romance relates the slow recovery of Mudarra, through the tender care and leechcraft of Kerima who, arriving from Andalusia during the combat, had witnessed its close; the conversion of the Moslem lovers to Christianity and the preparations for their nuptials, which proceed as far as to the foot of the altar. There Kerima, when called upon for the decisive Yes,

"Exclaims, 'No, never ! With my father's blood

He's stained-The voice of Heav'n, such sinful vows
Sternly prohibiting, I hear-To God,

I consecrate myself-Of Christ the spouse.""

That Kerima must die or take the veil was self-evident from the moment that her lover slew her father; but we confess, to romance-accustomed ears it is an unsatisfactory conclusion to be explicitly told that Mudarra must, in the end, have reconciled himself to the loss of his first love and have taken another wife, since from him descend the Manriques de Lara.

Further criticism is we think superfluous; especially our object being more to show, in a pleasing form, the changes wrought by political convulsion in Spanish genius and Spanish taste, than to discuss the merits and demerits of a single poem, how great soever they may be. We shall therefore conclude with the remark, that the author's powers are great though to our mind, at present at least, rather graphic and lyric than epic or dramatic. In the lyric character Saavedra appears to

great advantage in some of the smaller pieces improperly appended, against his inclination, to the long poem on which he desires to rest his pretensions to fame*.

ARTICLE V.

Report from the Select Committee on Record Commission, together with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 15th August 1836.

THERE is no principle more clearly recognised in constitutional governments than this, that the people have a right to superintend the distribution of the money contributed by them for public purposes. And yet in England, where that principle is generally acknowledged, and has of late years been generally enforced, the most extraordinary misapplications of public money have taken place, and have remained long unnoticed. Parliament, the only body entitled on such occasions to guard the interests of the whole nation, is too unwieldly an assemblage to exercise the necessary superintendence effectually. The constant struggles of parties for the possession of power, the manœuvres of Whigs, Tories and Radicals, to defeat and unseat one another, are and must be the principal points upon which the attention of our representatives is rivetted. Members of parliament must be more than men before they become less than partisans. Here and there an individual struggling to raise himself into importance, devotes himself to the exposing of abuses, and no abuse is to be compared with that which dives into a man's pocket: but even such an individual, useful as his efforts become, is usually content to limit them to an attack upon an extravagant public office, an army or navy estimate, the pension list, or some other grievance, real or supposed, the mention of which will call up some sympathy among his actual or intended constituents. Meanwhile other abuses, more real and more immediate, fatten, ripen and rot, unnoticed, either because the corruption lies out of the highway, or because men are too busy with abating one, to take care of the other nuisance.

Since the above was written, we have understood that Don Angel has succeeded to the title of his family and is now Duque de Rivas; likewise, that the ruins of the old Lara palace are still extant at Salas.

Nothing but such a state of things can, we think, account for the little attention that has been paid in the country, generally, to the proceedings of the Commission of Public Records. At the same time, other circumstances have materially contributed to foster the ignorance and indifference which prevail. Very few persons indeed are aware of the existence of the records at all; a few lawyers, antiquarians and writers of general or county history, make up the whole mass of those who know any thing of the nature, the condition and the use of our national archives; and the gentlemen to whom the keeping of them is entrusted are from their very position those who are least anxious for a change in the system by which they are managed. A few loungers in our university or county libraries may have been led to look at the ouside of certain portentous folios, called Publications of the Record Commission, but the contents of those books are confined to the class above enumerated.

From the little interest generally taken in their proceedings, various commissions have existed without doing one single thing to remedy the evils which they were expressly intended to destroy, and have been permitted, in the course of an existence of some thirty-six years, to squander above three hundred and fifty thousand pounds sterling of the public money.

It is true that one or two attempts have been made to point out the mischievous working of these commissions. Sir Harris Nicolas and other gentlemen, thoroughly qualified by knowledge of the subject and zeal, have severally laid bare their faulty constitution, the irresponsible nature of their proceedings, the unblushing system of jobbing supported by them and their inefficient control over the arrangements of the Record Offices; in fine, to the efforts of these gentlemen we owe the account of the good left undone and the evil done by the Commissioners, and we may add, the ultimate appointment of a Committee of the House to take evidence, and report upon the manner in which they have discharged the trust reposed in them.

Upon the motion of Mr. C. Buller, 18th Feb. 1836, this committee was agreed to, and they have just published a Report, occupying, together with the evidence, the papers handed in and