he was admitted to an interview with the minister Count Florida Blanca, and if we may judge of the character of his mission, from the mysterious precautions with which he was received, it must have been one of singular peril. He always visited this minister by night, and was ushered in by his confidential domestic, through a suite of five rooms, the doors of each being immediately locked when he had passed through. Thus impenetrably closetted, he commenced his operations, and with such auspicious beginning that he considered them prosperously advancing to a successful conclusion, when the riots, which disturbed London in the year 1780, being known at Madrid, (for an account of them was regularly transmitted to the Spanish court by their ambassador at Paris, Count d'Aranda) interposed an obstruction at so critical a juncture, that it was never afterwards possible to bring the matter to a similar point of propitious maturity. The tumults of the British metropolis were magnified into an actual rebellion, and it was thought impolitic at Madrid to enter into any negociation with the agents of a government whose overthrow was hourly expected, and was, perhaps, hourly desired. Cumberland did all he could to counteract the unlucky effect of this intelligence, by assuring the ministers that these dissentions would soon be quieted, and that there was no danger to be apprehended in regard to the stability of the government. His predictions had the fate of Cassandra's. They were addressed to men who

were either weak enough to believe what was so improbable, or crafty enough to assume that belief as a pretext for delaying a business they were in no hurry to complete.

Cumberland had not the good fortune to please his employers, and he enters into a laboured vindication of himself, in the second volume of his Memoirs. No question can be justly understood if the testimonies on only one side be given; but, admitting that what Cumberland states is strictly true, I think there can be no doubt that he was censured by Lord Hillsborough, without sufficient cause. He seems to have acted with caution, when caution was required, and with vigor and promptitude when delay or timidity would have probably precipitated the ruin of his schemes. To excite the captious displeasure of a minister, however, has been the fate of abler negociators than Cumberland.

No interest can possibly attach, at this moment, to the detail of what Cumberland did, or what he did not do, in the capacity which he filled at the court of Madrid. To himself the recollection of that period must always have had an importance which it would necessarily lose in the eyes of others; nor do I blame him that he dwelled so copiously upon the transaction; it was the most memorable epoch of his life, and in him it was venial to be diffuse. The reader, however, is wearied before he gets through the pages that contain

his despatches to Lord Hillsborough, his confer. ences with Florida Blanca, his arrangements with Mr. Hussey, and his explanations of what should have been done at home, and what omitted. The time is gone by; the occasion that called him forth is forgotten; and neither hope nor fear is now excited by the prospects of his success or failure.

It will be prudent in me, therefore, not to encum. ber my pages with a recapitulation of what exhibits little else but tediousness in those of Cumberland; and it will suffice to add, that in February, 1781, his recall was signified to him by Lord Hillsborough, to which intimation he paid due obedience, and, travelling through Spain and France, in a state of great bodily debility from illness, reached England after an absence of about twelve months, during which nothing had been successfully accomplished.

But while I thus briefly dismiss the political details of his Spanish journey, I propose to dwell somewhat longer upon other topics connected with it, both as they concern Cumberland himself, and as they may be amusing or interesting to the reader. Wholly to omit these would be as culpable as in a biographer of Milton to relate only that he went to Italy and back again, without telling what befel him personally during his absence.

It betokens a lamentable state of society when the public teachers of religion have nothing but

bigotted zeal for their qualification, without that learning which discovers the path of truth, and that persuasion which leads man into it. When Cumberland visited the Escurial, the prior accompanied him in his examinations of whatever was curious and worthy of notice. Among other things he inquired about a manuscript, which was said to be some original letters of Brutus, written in Greek. These letters both Dr. Bentley and Sir John Dalrymple had mentioned, and Cumberland found them, upon examination, manifestly spurious. The prior thought so too; but the reasons of his belief were sufficiently curious. They could not be the true letters of Brutus he said, because they professed to be written after the death of Julius Cæsar, but it was well known that Brutus died before Julius Cæsar. Cumberland politely endeavoured to rectify this anachronism by hinting that it was generally believed Brutus was one of those conspirators who effected the assassination of Cæsar. The prior allowed that such a rumour was rather prevalent, but he hastened into his cell, and produced a large folio volume of chronology, where that idea was fully proved to be erroneous. With such an antagonist Cumberland forebore to contend; but what a picture does it exhibit of the keeper of a royal library, and a professor of the learned languages!

What little he has said of the Escurial may be passed over in silence. We know enough of this

singular building from other travellers, who either examined it more leisurely, or had more inclination to describe it.

He seems to dwell with peculiar complacency upon every mark of attention which he received from the royal family during his residence in Spain. They distinguished him, indeed, in a manner sufficiently flattering to his feelings, whether it arose from any personal regard for him, from any consideration of his country, or from an urbanity of conduct, natural to those illustrious personages. The king permitted him to select two of the finest chargers from his stud, as a present to his own sovereign, and the Prince of Asturias condescended to change the arrangements of a room which had been furnished in the Chinese style, in compliance with his observations. These marks of consideration were sufficient to gratify vanity, and Cumberland tells of them with a minuteness which shews that his vanity was gratified. They were not, indeed, all which he received; but the reader can dispense with an ampler detail; they were no less gracious in the donors than pleasing to the receiver. We are told, indeed, that the queen took the pattern of his daughter's riding-habits, and that she "put broad gold lace round the bottom of the skirt," and that she sent for several other articles of their dress as samples."

Of the society which he either found or made in Madrid, he does not say much. He gives an