Agriculture is generally in a wretched state; the mines which have filled the imagination with poetic ideas of great wealth and grandeur, have been in reality the source of the most sordid passions as well as a vast amount of poverty and ruin. It is when turning the attention to the prevailing aspect of national morals, and when endeavouring to arrive at the standard which has been erected in respect of feelings and customs, that the social disease of the people is most offensive. One or two extracts will indicate what we mean. Take first a view of the effeminacy of the citizens of Lima, and the tender feeble pitch to which bad habits and a transmitted viciousness of nervous system have reduced even the male portion :

"When somewhat weakened by bad health, or a slight indisposition which confines him to his apartments for a few days, should he happen to shave and wash the face with cold water, he is thereby put in danger of being visited by a spasmodic affection of one side of the mouth, or affected, as is more likely to take place, with a cold in the head, so that the inflammation thus induced in the nostrils and fauces may soon be observed to extend itself along the continuous mucous membrane, and through the windpipe into the cavity of the chest ; and there it is hard to foretel what ravages it may commit.

"We need not therefore be surprised to hear the often reiterated query of the convalescent in the words, No me hara dano lavar y afeytarme?'— will it not do me harm to shave and wash? Nor should we indulge in a smile at his expense, as we see him gradually venture on the first degrees of ablution, by rubbing over the hands and face with a cloth dipped in tepid water sharpened with aguardiente, or the common spirits of the country."

When the body is so frail and weakened, in what plight must the mind be? But the degeneracy of this noble part will be more correctly gauged if we look at the training of infants, boys, and girls. Let it be borne in view that females of European descent marry before it can be said that they are women; and that when they have children it is more than their habits, and indeed than their constitution, can safely allow to suckle their offspring. Black nurses are therefore procured, who have the forming of the moral habits as well as the feeding of the youngsters :

"When the young Don, thus nurtured in the very lap of bondage, comes to be fit for school, he goes to, and comes from it, in the company of a slave; and the young Miss, or Niña, who goes out to be educated, is, on her way to and from her parents' house, attended by a sort of dueña, or experienced zamba. On the customary plea, that the evils of life come early enough, children of gentle blood, especially such as are rubios,' or faircomplexioned, are allowed all manner of gusto, or indulgence; and in the morning, before they set out for school, they usually receive a real or medio, -sixpence or threepence, either as pocket-money, or as a bribe to be obedient and to submit to be taught. In this way expensive habits are early acquired, and where children are made to do what is right and proper from pecuniary notions, rather than a laudable sense of duty."

If we proceed to the mines, we shall not find a very flattering idea of the usages and speculations in these quarters :

"We see the Pasco miners always in the midst of riches, and always embarrassed; they are kept in a state of continued tantalization. The miner, it is true, sometimes has immense and rapid gains, in spite of rogues and plunderers everywhere about him, at comparatively little expense of time or money; and this occasional success leads others to indulge in a hope of similar good fortune, which hurries the majority of speculators in this channel into pecuniary difficulties; for, as we have seen, the necessary outlay is often great without any compensation; and when the capital is too limited, though in the main the undertaking be a good one, ruin is near. Shopkeepers and dealers in platapina are tempted by prospects of commercial advantage to lend mony to the harassed mine-owner to enable him to forward his works, and to repay the loan in pina at so much per marc. Such a lender is called habilitador; but it unluckily happens for this capitalist that, by the custom and usage of the miner, the last habilitador' has a claim to be first paid, which leads to the worst practical results. The miner is generally a reckless gambler, who spends money as fast as it comes to him, not in improving his mines, but indulging his vices; and in this manner the interest of the first habilitadors may be successively postponed to the claims of the most recent, who frequently is disappointed in his turn; while the difficulties of the miner are not removed, but merely prolonged; and he is involved in everlasting disputes and litigation."

See what are some of the evils to which the Peruvians have to submit under what is called a free and republican government. The militia are drilled on Sundays, and may then have to march to another place than the church :

"These Sunday exercises were generally ill attended; and of ten or twelve young men on an agricultural estate, it would be usually enough if two or three appeared at one time in the ranks. Upon one occasion, however, when the captain of local militia in the village of Ambo had the honour of having the additional appointment of governor conferred on him, he called upon the writer when indisposed and in bed, and with great ap pearance of sympathy and confidential cordiality, congratulated himself upon his promotion, because it would afford him the power, as he had the will, to serve his neighbour. With many such smooth expressions and assurances of kind and honest intentions, calculated to put even a misanthrope off his guard, he ended his visit by requesting that, as it was most desirable to keep up the military spirit of the district, he would expect of the writer that he should use his influence in persuading the young men on his hacienda to attend regularly at the military exercises in the adjacent village; a proposition to which he readily acceded, as it was agreeable to the established laws of the country. On the first or second Sunday following, six fine young men went to attend the exercises at Ambo; and were seized and put into prison, with many others, under strong guard, to be marched off the next day as recruits for the line."

Peruvian agriculture, as it is conducted in the Vale of Huanuco, is rather a sorry affair :

"The implements of husbandry are the rudest kind. The plough, which is slight and single handed, is constructed merely of wood, without mould-board, which we have seen a one-handed person manage with perfect dexterity. The ploughshare is a thick iron blade, only tied when required for use by a piece of thong, or lasso, on the point of the plough, which divides the earth very superficially. Where the iron is not at hand, as frequently happens, we understand that the poor peasant uses, instead, a share made of hard iron-wood that grows in the Montaña. Harrows they have, properly speaking, none: if we remember well, they sometimes use, instead, large clumsy rakes; and we have seen them use a green bough of a tree dragged over the sown ground, with a weight upon it to make it scratch the soil. In room of the roller, of which they never experienced the advantage, they break down the earth in the field intended for cane-plants, after it has got eight or ten ploughings and cross-ploughings, with the heel of a short-handled hoe, which they call lampa;' a tool which they use with great dexterity in weeding the canefields and clearing aqueducts. For smoothing down the clods of earth, we have seen some Indians use a more antiquated instrument. It consisted of a soft, flat, and round stone, about the size of a small cheese, which had a hole beaten through its centre by dint of blows with a harder and pointed stone. To the stone thus perforated they fixed a long handle, and as they swung it about, they did great execution in the work of • cuspiando,' or field-levelling."

Dr. Smith naturally bestows a good deal of notice in these volumes upon the diseases of the regions he traversed and resided in. But to these parts we do not think it necessary to invite particular attention, excepting in so far as certain lunar influences relate to the health of vegetable and animal life. The facts as stated in this our last extract are to us new, and help to impress us with the belief that Peru is not the land which our youthful dreams made it :

"The maize crops the farmers always harvest in the 'menguante,' or decrease of the moon; for it is a fact known to every husbandman, that if they collect the crop in the creciente,' or increase of the moon, it will not keep free of moths for three months, even though allowed the advantage of being left in husk, in which state it is found to be least liable to damage.

"In the valleys around Lima the agriculturist is very careful not to sow in the creciente, lest the seed should become so diseased and injured as never to yield a healthy crop. The same attention to lunar influence is bestowed by the wood-cutter, who knows that timber cut in the creciente soon decays, and on this account is not of use for constructing houses, or for any other permanent purpose; this is particularly the case with the willow and alder, as the writer had once occasion to know experimentally. Being disinclined to believe what he considered to be the prejudices of the natives respecting lunar influence, he insisted upon roofing in part of a house with alder and willow cut in the creciente; and after a couple of years he was convinced of his own error, when he

saw the timber employed become quite brittle and useless, so as to need to be replaced or supported to prevent the roof from falling.

"The 'arriero,' or muleteer, scrupulously attends to the influence of the moon on his cattle; for if he travels in the creciente, and in a warm or even temperate climate, he takes strict care not to unsaddle his ridinghorses, nor to unpad his cargo-mules, until they have rested awhile and cooled sufficiently; and, if he should neglect these precautions, he would be sure to have his cattle disabled by large inflammatory swellings, rapidly running on to suppuration, forming on their shoulders or loins."

ART. III.-The Idler in Italy. By the Countess of BLESSINGTON. 2 Vols. 8vo. London: Colburn. 1839.

THE journal of the Countess extends over a great deal more ground than that of the most frequented paths of Italy; for she passed through France, touching and halting at some of its northern parts, as well as at Geneva and Ferney, &c., before reaching Genoa. All this took place in the years 1822-3; so that the publication of her notes at such a distant period as this from the date of their inditing furnishes a striking contrast to the modern practice, which is so general, of hurrying to the press the crudities collected during a steam-speed journey in foreign and strange countries by these summer birds of passage, the majority of English tourists.

But it is not merely as regards an impatience to appear in print that Lady Blessington, in the present instance, offers a gratifying example. Her journal is of a quality and possesses the attributes which the lapse of years cannot put out of date. We should, indeed, suppose that the dressing, the working up and out of her notes has been a pains-taking affair,-an oft-recurred-to occupation; for though her vivid impressions of what is beautiful in nature and art are well known to be rapidly received, and her observation of human life, manners, and character to be nice, accurate, and shrewd, yet very many of the sketches have the appearance of anxious and protraeted thought about them,-the very sparkle and gracefulness of the writing, though generally easy in its construction and flow, being too often overlaid and charged with pretty conceits.

Yet the whole is altogether woman-like, and hence much of its adornment and charms. Nay, what is far better, it is an individual, and we have no doubt, a sort of autobiographical likeness; at least we have in almost every page been, not involuntarily, led to feel that there is placed before us much of Lady Blessington's mental history; much with which she identifies her recollections and anticipations. The joys, the sorrows, the aspirations of her heart, have appeared every now and then to be about becoming the subject of confession or of confidings. Everywhere the reader, from the things that are, it may be in their homely and ludicrous aspects, is gently and tastefully lifted to a sphere where the finest

sympathies are awakened, and the beauties of pure sentiment appreciated; the mind feeling persuaded that the fair writer has experienced all that is indicated, or more than is actually expressed. From these and other symptoms in these volumes, we infer that they have been the work of earnestness, of cherished affection, and of that direction of thought which is pensive and sombre, instead of boisterous and gloriously bright and fervid. Two short extracts from her Ladyship's own will bear out, to a certain extent, our meaning. "One day of idleness, like one of sin, is sure to beget another; and I sometimes think that I shall leave of journalizing altogether. But then comes the thought, that, perhaps in years to come, these hastily scribbled pages may bring back pleasant recollections, when nought but recollections of pleasure shall be mine; and this foreboding induces me to continue." Again,-" It is not mountains alone to which distance lends charms, it gives a halo to anticipated happiness, that reality dissolves; gilds the visions of hope, and disarms grief of its stings; subduing the memory of sorrow to a pensive but not unpleasing recollection."

These few hints may serve to introduce the passages about to be quoted from "The Idler's" journal, and as a sort of key to its tone and matter; that matter, let it be observed, comprising, besides vivid landscapes, portraits, and highly-wrought sentimentality, many sound aphorisms, and many interesting anecdotes. Where satire enters it is without bitterness; where wit, it is quiet and polished.

The closeness and keenness of Lady Blessington's observation of the world and of mankind may be tested by taking her sketches of certain national characteristics, and her speculations about the nature and merits of the manners of the French and English, when contrasted. It will be seen that the leaning is towards her own country. The New Year is the period to which the following notes belong, and the writer is in France :

"I am as triste as a bonnet de nuit,' to use a French phrase I often have heard employed, though why a night-cap should be triste, does not seem evident. It is one of the phrases received into use without a due examination of its aptitude; for the tristesse of a bonnet de nuit must depend wholly on the head that wears it. We have no phrase that conveys the same signification: we do not consider the hours allotted to repose as being dull; but then, we are a reflecting race, and are not disposed to find fault with aught that tends to make us think, even though it should not make us sleep. The French, au contraire, being constitutionally gay, are prone to regard the hours given to rest as stolen from amusement. Thence the night-cap is viewed as a symbol of dulness, and has given rise to the phrase triste comme un bonnet de nuit,' I have explained this momentous affair according to national prejudice, which invariably operates more or less in all our views and deductions. It is this national prejudice, whic we designate with the high-sounding title of patriotism, that makes

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