, and I do not think that they have improved since the period of the sketches of the immortal Frenchman.  I would sooner talk of the lower class, not only of Madrid but of all Spain.  The Spaniard of the lower class has much more interest for me, whether manolo, labourer, or muleteer.  He is not a common being; he is an extraordinary man.  He has not, it is true, the amiability and generosity of the Russian mujik, who will give his only rouble rather than the stranger shall want; nor his placid courage, which renders him insensible to fear, and at the command of his Tsar, sends him singing to certain death. [127]  There is more hardness and less self-devotion in the disposition of the Spaniard; he possesses, however, a spirit of proud independence, which it is impossible but to admire.  He is ignorant, of course; but it is singular that I have invariably found amongst the low and slightly educated classes far more liberality of sentiment than amongst the upper.  It has long been the fashion to talk of the bigotry of the Spaniards, and their mean jealousy of foreigners.  This is true to a certain extent: but it chiefly holds good with respect to the upper classes.  If foreign valour or talent has never received its proper meed in Spain, the great body of the Spaniards are certainly not in fault.  I have heard Wellington calumniated in this proud scene of his triumphs, but never by the old soldiers of Aragon and the Asturias, who assisted to vanquish the French at Salamanca and the Pyrenees.  I have heard the manner of riding of an English jockey criticized, but it was by the idiotic heir of Medina Celi, and not by a picador of the Madrilenian bull ring.

Apropos of bull-fighters:—Shortly after my arrival, I one day entered a low tavern in a neighbourhood notorious for robbery and murder, and in which for the last two hours I had been wandering on a voyage of discovery.  I was fatigued, and required refreshment.  I found the place thronged with people, who had all the appearance of ruffians.  I saluted them, upon which they made way for me to the bar, taking off their sombreros with great ceremony.  I emptied a glass of val de peñas, and was about to pay for it and depart, when a horrible looking fellow, dressed in a buff jerkin, leather breeches, and jackboots, which came half way up his thighs, and having on his head a white hat, the rims of which were at least a yard and a half in circumference,
