The Sun.
London, England, 1847-01-28 00:00:00

streets reverberated with the warlike wail of

Ay tit mi Alhamal and the citizens drew their brands
against the Moors. Nevertheless, if his mind is
teeming with these remembrances, he seldom allows
them to appear, and that is what we conceive to be
the chief deficiency of the book. Probably he con-
ceives such dreams about the romantic chapters of
Spanish history to be the hallucinations of a contem-
plative rather than the embellishments of an observant
writer. For the pleasure of the -thousands, who are
lovers of that tobacco which Mr. Ford poetically and
expressively terms " the anodyne for the irritability
of human reason," we copy sundry notes about - the
"divine weed," contained in the closing pages :
"In Spain the bulk of their happy subjects cannot afford
either the expense of tobacco, which is dear to them, or
the gain of time, which is very cheap, by smoking a
whole cigar right away. They make one afford occu-
pation and recreation for half an hour. Though few
Spaniards ruin themselves in libraries, none are with-
out a little blank book of a particular paper, which is
made at Alcoy, in Valencia. At any pause all say at
once—" pees senores ! echaremos un cigaretto—well then,
my Lords, let us make a little cigar," and all set se-
riously to work ; every man, besides this book, is armed
with a small case of flint, steel, and a combustible tin-
der. To make a paper cigar, like putting on a cloak, is
an operation of much more difficulty than it seems, al-
though all Spaniards, who have done nothing so much,
from their childhood upwards, perform both with ex-
treme facility and neatness. This is the tootle :—the
petaca, Arabia, Butak, or little case worked by a fair
hand, in the coloured thread of the aloe, in which the
storke of cigars is kept, is taken oat—a leaf is torn from
the book, which is held between the lips, or downwards
from the back of the hand, between the fore and middle
finger of the left hand—a portion of the cigar, about a
third, is cut off and rubbed slowly in the palms till re-
duced to a powder—it is then jerked into the paper-leaf,
which is rolled up into a little squib, and the ends doubled
down, one of which is bitten off and the other end is
lighted. The cigarillo is smoked slowly, the last whiff
being the bonne bouche, the breast, la pechuga. The
little ends are thrown away : they are indeed
little, for a Spanish fore-finger and thumb are
quite fire-browned and fire-proof, although some
polished exquisites use silver holders : these
remnants are picked up by the beggar-boys, who
make up into fresh cigars the leavings of a thousand
mouths. There is no want of fire in Spain ; everywhere,
wkat we should call link-boys run about with a slowly-
burning rope for the benefit of the public. At many of
the sheds where water and lemonade are sold, one of the
ropes, twirled like a snake round a post, and ignited, is
kept ready as the match of a besieged artilleryman ;
while in the houses of the affluent, a small silver chafing-
dish, with lighted charcoal, is usually on a table. Mr.
Henningsou relates that Zumalacarreguy, when about
to execute some Christinos at Villa Franca, observed one
(a schoolmaster) looking about, like Raleigh, for a light
schoolmaster lighted
.a,and
d went his
awayown ,
ananking returned
and
for his last dying puff in this life, upon which the Gene-
ral took his own cigar from his mouth, and handed it to
ot him.other
r wTi
thse
a
respectful
reconciled to be shot. This urgent necessity levels all
ranks, and it is allowable to stop any person for fire ;
this proves the practical equality of all classes; and that
democracy under a despotism, which exists in smok-
ing Spain, as in the torrid East. The cigar forms a bond
of union, an isthmus of communication between most
heterogeneous oppositions. It is the habeas corpus of
Spanish liberties. The soldier takes fire from the canon's
lip, and the dark face of the humble labourer is whitened
by the reflection of the cigar of the grandee and lounger.
The lowest orders have a coarse roll or rope of tobacco,
wherewith to solace their sorrows, and it is theircalumet
of peace. Some of the Spanish fair sex are said to in-
dulge in a quiet hidden cigarrilla, una pajita, una reyna,
but it is not thought either a sign of a lady, or of one of
rigid virtue, to have recourse to these forbidden plea-
sures; for, sat a their proverb, whoever makes one basket
will make a hundred.

" Nothing exposes a traveller to more difficulty than
carrying much tobacco in his luggage ; yet all will re-
member never to be without some cigars, and the better
the better. It is a trifling outlay, for although any cigar
is acceptable, yet a real good one is a gift from a king.
The greater the enjoyment of the smoker, the greater
his respect for the donor ; a cigar may be given to every
body, whether high or low : thus the petaca is offered,
as a polite Frenchman of La Vieille Cour (a race, alas I
all but extinct) offered his snuff-box, by way of a prelude
to conversation end intimacy. It is an act of civility,
and implies no superiority, nor is there any humiliation
in the acceptance ; it is twice blessed, ' It blesseth him
that gives and him that that takes.' It is the spell
wherewith to charm the natives, who are its ready and
obedient slaves, and, like a small kind word spuken in
time, it works miracles. There is no country in the
world where the stranger and traveller can purchase for
half-a-crown, half the lore and good-will which its in-
vestment in tobacco will insure, therefore the man who
grudges or neglects it is neither a philanthropist nor a
philosopher."
This is a pleasant enough description. James I.
of England, and Louis XII'. of France, would have
thought differently ; but the imperturbable Spaniards
would, no doubt, have retorted upon their irascibility
—" Pues, senores! echaremos un cigarrito:' That
would have been an expressive counter-blast to the
counter-blast of James and also to Louis, " qui kris-
soil le tabac singulierement," according to La Beau-
melle.

THE ECLECTIC REVIEW.
We observe that the Eclectic Review, for January,
devotes more than a merely cursory review to the
progress of the present
as
agitation for the education of
the multitudet:otatkhien
the writings of Mr. Lines the texts of its observations
systems o.f Lancastera
uttering an ejaculation to andth Dr. Vaughen. After
ti
omemoryli o f
the of t '
andßobert
Bell,
Rthaeikwersitearndenters upon a consideration
for some
and of the
alarm-
ingva
at growthly
increased a nd e xt e n s l e
necessityn
systematic in-
struction. lie is irrate at the manmnfeer in which the
years the most
clergy continued for a long seriesano
inveterate opponents of the diffuissioinndo. f knowledge
sitegopn
part
rntt atw would
ladt
lbeccoanversion to the
among
same c
ltehreg
y poorer
on t
he ir classes,
unmi
gmarpnawlcdoyenahfnuet
wanting
their
fuofrtheerducaantitoangon(jas they saw
lise the direction and superintendence
ctbeautseutterly ineffectual), monopo-
lise ot)hoe-
national schools. We are amazed, considering the
frankness and impartiality of the article generally, to
find One reviewer in one part characterise the Crusade
against Ignorance, led on by Lord Brougham, as
" earthy" and its measures all of the earth. As if
the mere absence of conventional phrases of devotion
derogated from the divine and god-born influence of the
study of Nature's laws and of the organisation of the
universe ! As if the contemplation of the phenomena of
this globe, and of the mysteries of the skies were ini-
mical to religion, and not an almost irresistible im-
pulse to its more ennobling impressions ! The deve-
lopement of the Free Trade question in France is
noticed, as is also the doctrine of Future Punishment,
the Career of Thomas Clarkson, the Abolitionist, and
Dr. Croly's Fiction of Marston.

LVIGHT'S MONTHLY VOLUME. No. VI.—
Moller( and the trench Classical Drama.
To those enviable individuals who have not yet
made their acquaintance with Jean-Baptiste Pogue-
lin, commonly called Moliere, the little book which