ust describe this picture in
the words of the catalogue:--

This represents a Guerrilla council of war, at which three reverend
fathers--a Dominican, a monk of the Escurial, and a Jesuit, are
deliberating on some expedient of national defence, with an emissary in
the costume of Valencia. Behind them is the posadera, or landlady,
serving her guests with chocolate, and the begging student of Salamanca,
with his lexicon and cigar, making love to her. On the right of the
picture, a contrabandist of Bilboa enters, upon his mule, and in front
of him is an athletic Castilian armed, and a minstrel dwarf, with a
Spanish guitar. On the floor are seated the goatherd and his sister,
with the muzzled house-dog and pet lamb of the family, and through the
open portal in the background is a distant view of the Guadarama
mountains--It is next to impossible for us to do justice to the
diversified character of this picture. The deliberation of the fathers,
and the little bit of episode between the landlady and student are
extremely interesting.

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

SPITTLE-FIELDS, AND WEAVING IN FORMER DAYS.

(_For the Mirror_.)

Stowe says, "On the east side of the churchyard of St. Mary Spittle,
lyeth a large field, of old time called _Lolesworth_, now
_Spittle-Field_, which about the year 1576, was broken up for clay to
make bricke; in digging thereof many earthen pots called urnae, were
found full of ashes and the bones of men, to wit of the Romans that
inhabited here. For it was the custom of the Romans to burne their dead,
to put their ashes in an urne, and then bury the same with certain
ceremonies, in some field appointed for the purpose neere unto their
city. Every one of these pots had in them (with the ashes of the dead)
one piece of copper money, with an inscription of the emperor then
reigning. Some of them were of Claudius, some of Vespasian, some of
Nero, &c. There hath also been found (in the same field) divers coffins
of stone, containing the bones of men; these I suppose to be the bones
of some speciall persons, in the time of the Brittons, or Saxons, after
that the Romans had left to govern here.

"The priory and hospital of St. Mary Spittle, was founded (says Pennant)
in 1197, by Walter Brune, Sheriff of London, and his wife, Rosia, for
canons regular of the order of St. Augustine. It was remarkable for its
pulpit cross, at which a preacher used to preach a sermo