et
hedge. Here there would be no impunity for such malefactors; their
campaign against innovation would speedily conduct them to Newgate and
the hulks. Not so in the Peninsula, where roads are few, police
defective, and where, at the present time, smugglers and other notorious
law-breakers strut upon the crown of the causeway, appear boldly in
towns, and hold themselves in every respect for as honest men as their
neighbours. But it is not to be supposed that popular opposition,
probable, almost certain, as it is, to be met with in such a half
African, semi-civilized country, would be held worth a moment's
consideration by the dashing schemers who propose to cover the Peninsula
with iron arteries. The audacity of those persons is only to be equalled
by their consummate geographical ignorance, several instances of which
are shown up with much humour and irony by the author of the
"Gatherings." Some of the most notoriously absurd of the schemes set
afloat, have had their origin with Englishmen, of whom, since the close
of the civil war, and especially within the last year or two, a vast
number have betaken themselves to Spain, to follow up ventures more or
less hopeful or hopeless. Owing to a long peace, to a rapid growth of
population, and to the daily-increasing difficulty of fortune-making,
the class ADVENTURER has of late years, both in this country and the
sister kingdom, greatly augmented its numbers. This is evident from the
throng of unemployed and aspiring gentlemen ever ready to engage in any
undertaking, however desperate and doubtful of success. Let a
clandestine expedition be contemplated to some hole-and-corner state or
antipodean republic, and up start a host of mettlesome cavaliers, from
all ranks and classes, including Irish lords and English baronets and
squires of low degree, having all fought in three or four services, more
or less piratical or illegitimate, all bearded like the pard, and
be-ribboned like maypoles, and all eager once more to rush to the fray,
and signalise themselves under a foreign banner. These are specimens of
the adventurer bellicose, the Mike Lambournes and Dugald Dalgettys of
the nineteenth century. Of a more calculating and ambitious class is the
adventurer speculative, who possesses a Dousterswivel aptitude for
discovering mines, devising railways, projecting canals, and the like
undertakings. Spain has of late been favoured with the attentions of
many of these gentlemen, flying