and
unsavoury nature of this remark, we are quite puzzled to know what would
satisfy so captious a critic. One lady shows her ankle, and is set down
as an immodest schemer; another covers her neck, and is suspected of a
cutaneous affection. On a par with such an inference, is the gross
account of an alabaster group in a shop window, and the wit of the
conjecture whether Dr. Toothache, who attends to the "teeth, gums,
tongue, throat, &c., has any cure for a long tongue, or if he _patches
the gums with gum elastic_!" Such stuff as this would hardly pass muster
in familiar conversation, or in a gossipping letter to an intimate
friend; but in a printed book, intended, doubtless, for the perusal of
thousands, it is sadly out of place. It is a relief to revert from it to
the strong good sense and graceful raillery of Mr. Ford's pages.

Sure, where all is good, to fall in a pleasant place, we open the
"Gatherings" at random. Upon what have we stumbled? Railroads.
Interesting to Threadneedle Street. True that the mania days are past,
when an English capitalist caught at any new line puffed by a plausible
prospectus, however impossible the gradients and desolate the district.
Nevertheless, and in case of relapse, a word or two about the
practicability of Spanish railroads will not be out of place. Mr. Ford
is a man who knows Spain thoroughly: that none can doubt. Neither can
there be any question of his veracity and impartiality. Whatever
interest he might have to cry up such projects, he can have none to cry
them down. We, therefore, recommend all persons who have not already
made up their minds as to the bubble nature of Peninsular railway
schemes, to send forthwith to Mr. Murray for a copy of the "Gatherings,"
and to read thrice, with profound attention, the last six pages of
Chapter Five. They may also glance at pages 8 and 13, and learn, what
the majority of them are probably ignorant of, that the Peninsula is an
agglomeration of mountains, divided by Spanish geographers into seven
distinct chains, all more or less connected with each other, and having
innumerable branches and off-shoots. Notwithstanding this very
discouraging configuration of the land, "there is," says Mr. Ford, "just
now much talk of railroads, and splendid official and other documents
are issued, by which 'the whole country is to be intersected (on paper)
with a net-work of rapid and bowling-green communications,' which are to
create a 'perfect homogenei