Wheat. 1st,......32s. Od. 2d,......30s. Od. HADDINGTON.-JAN. 7. Barley. 2d, Oats. 1st,......18s. Od. 1st,......16s. Od. 1st,.....16s. Od. .18s. Od. | 2d,......16s. Od. 2d, ......14s. Od. 2d,......14s. Od. ......16s. Od. 3d, .......14s. Od. 3d, ......12s. Od. ] 3d,..............12s. 6d. Average of Wheat, £1:9:9: 8-12ths. 3d, ..............28s. Od. | 3d, METEOROLOGICAL REPORT. DURING the first week of December the Thermometer never sunk to the freezing point. On the night of the 8th it stood at 244; on the 9th at 23; and on the 10th at 94. Between the 10th and 16th the frost was more moderate, though uninterrupted; but on that day the weather became open, and continued so till the 21st. On that night the thermometer stood at 29, and the frost continued till the end of the month. During this period the greatest depression of temperature took place on the 26th and 30th, the former being 16, and the latter 144. The consequence of this continued frost is, a considerable depression in the mean temperature of the month, which is about six degrees lower than December last year. The mean height of the Barometer is about a tenth below the annual average, and the mean daily range a little greater. The greatest depression of the mercury took place during the fresh weather about the middle of the month, accompanied by a fall of rain amounting to one inch. On the 10th the ground was covered with snow to the depth of 6 inches. A second fall took place on the 28th, amounting to 3 inches, and a third on the evening of the 29th. The Hydrometer frequently indicated complete saturation; and the hoar frost was at times very heavy. The mean of the extreme temperatures is again lower than that of 10 and 10. The greatest depression of temperature generally took place about 8 in the evening. METEOROLOGICAL TABLE, extracted from the Register kept on the Banks of the Tay, four miles east from Perth, Latitude 56° 25′, Elevation 185 feet. at most elegant of sciences were cultivated together with equal zeal. Averroes translated and expounded Aristotle at Cordova: Ben-Zaid and AboulMander wrote histories of their nation at Valencia ;-Abdel-Maluk set the first example of that most interesting and useful species of writing by which Moreri and others have since rendered services so important to ourselves; and an Arabian Encyclopædia was compiled under the direction of the great Mohammed-Aba-Abdallah Grenada. Ibn-el-Beither went forth from Malaga to search through all the mountains and plains of Europe for every thing that might enable him to perfect his favourite sciences of botany and lithology, and his works still remain to excite the admiration of all that are in a condition to comprehend their value. The Jew of Tudela was the worthy successor of Galen and Hippocrates while chemistry, and other branches of medical science, almost unknown to the ancients, received their first astonishing developements from Al-Rasi and Avicenna. Rhetoric and poetry were not less diligently studied-and, in a word-it would be difficult to point out, in the whole history of the world, a time or a country where the activity of the human intellect was more extensively or usefully or gracefully exerted, than in Spain, while the Mussulman sceptre yet retained any portion of that vigour which it had originally received from the conduct and heroism of Tariffa. Although the difference of religion prevented the Moors and their Spanish subjects from ever being completely melted into one people, yet it appears that nothing could, on the whole, be more mild than the conduct of the Moorish government towards the Christian population of the country during this their splendid period of undisturbed dominion. Their learning and their arts they liberally communicated to all who desired such participation, and the Christian youth studied freely and honourably at the feet of Jewish physicians and Mahommedan philosophers. Communion of studies and acquirements continued through such a space of years could not have failed to break down, on both sides, many of the barriers of religious prejudice, and to nourish a spirit of kindliness and charity among the more cultivated portions of either people. The intellect of the Christian Spaniards could not be ungrateful for the rich gifts it was every day receiving from their misbelieving masters; while the benevolence with which instructors ever regard willing disciples must have tempered in the minds of the Arabs the sentiments of haughty superiority natural to the breasts of conquerors. By degrees, however, the scattered remnants of unsubdued Visigoths, who had sought and found refuge among the mountains of Asturias and Gallicia, began to gather the strength of numbers and of combination, and the Mussulmen saw different portions of their empire successively wrested from their hands by leaders whose descendants assumed the titles of kings in Oviedo and Navarre-and counts in Castille-Soprarbia-Arragon-and Barcellona. From the time when these governments were established, till all their strength was united in the persons of Ferdinand and Isabella, a perpetual war may be said to have subsisted between the professors of the two religions-and the natural jealousy of Moorish governors must have gradaully, but effectually diminished the comfort of the Christians who yet lived under their authority. Were we to seek our ideas of the period only from the events recorded in its chronicles, we should be led to believe that nothing could be more deep and fervid than the spirit of mutual hostility which prevailed among all the adherents of the opposite faiths: but external events are sometimes not the surest guides to the spirit either of peoples or of ages-and the ancient popular poetry of Spain may be referred to for proofs, which cannot be considered as either of dubious or of trivial value, that the rage of hostility had not sunk quite so far as might have been imagined into the minds and hearts of those engaged in the conflict. There is, indeed, nothing more natural, at first sight, than to reason in some measure from a nation as it is in our own day, back to what it was a few centuries ago: but we believe nothing could tend to the production of greater mistakes than such a mode of judging applied to the case of Spain. In the erect and high-spirited peasantry of that country we still see the genuine and uncorrupted descendants of their manly forefathers-but in every other part of the population, the progress of corruption appears to have been no less powerful than rapid, and the higher we ascend in the scale of society, the more distinct and mortifying is the spectacle of moral not less than of physical deterioration. This unusual falling off of men may be traced very easily to an universal falling off-an universal destruction of principle-in regard to every point of faith and feeling most essential to the formation and preservation of a national character. We see the modern Spaniards the most bigotted and enslaved and ignorant of Europeans; but we must not forget that the Spaniards of three centuries back were, in all respects, a very different set of beings. Spain, in the first regulation of her constitution, was as free as any nation needs to be for all the purposes of social security and individual happiness. Her kings were her captains and her judges-the chiefs and the models of a gallant nobility, and the protectors of a manly and independent peasantry: But the authority with which they were invested was guarded by the most accurate limitations-nay, in case they should exceed the boundary of their legal powerthe statute-book of the realm contain ed exact rules for the conduct of a constitutional insurrection to recal them to their duty, or to punish them for its desertion. Every order of society had its representatives in the national council, and every Spaniard, of whatever degree, was penetrated with a sense of his own dignity as a freeman-his own nobility as a descendant of the Visigoths. And it is well remarked by the elegant Italian historian of our own day,* that, even to this hour, the influence of this happy order of things still continues to be felt in Spain-where manners and language and literature have all received indelibly a stamp of courts, and aristocracy, and proud feeling-which affords a striking contrast to what may be observed in modern Italy, where the only freedom that ever existed had its origin and residence among citizens and merchants. The civil liberty of the old Spaniards could scarcely have existed, so long as it did, in the presence of any feeling so black and noisome as the bigotry of modern Spain; but this In was never tried, for down to the time of Charles V. no man has any right to say that the Spaniards were a bigotted people. One of the worst features of their modern bigotry-their extreme and servile subjection to the authority of the Pope, was entirely awanting in the picture of their ancient spirit.In the 12th century, the kings of Arragon were the protectors of the Albigenses; and Pedro II. himself died in 1213, fighting bravely against the red cross, for the cause of tolerance. 1268, two brothers of the king of Cas tille left the banners of the Infidels, beneath which they were serving at Tunis, with 800 Castillian gentlemen, for the purpose of coming to Italy and assisting the Neapolitans in their resistence to the tyranny of the Pope and Charles of Anjou. In the great schism of the west, as it is called (1378,) Pedro IV. embraced the party which the Catholic church regards as schismatic. That feud was not allayed for more than a hundred years, and Alphonso V. was well paid for consenting to lay it aside; while down to the time of Charles V., the whole of the Neapolitan princes of the house of Arragon may be said to have lived in a state of open enmity against the papal see-sometimes excommunicated for generations togetherseldom apparently-never cordially reconciled. When Ferdinand the Catholic, finally, wished to introduce the Inquisition into his kingdom, the whole nation took up arms to resist him.The Grand Inquisitor was killed, and every one of his creatures was compelled to leave the yet free soil of Arragon. But the truest and best proof of the liberality of the old Spaniards is, as we have already said, to be found in their beautiful ballads. Throughout the far greater part of these compositions, many of which must be, at least, as old as the 10th century, there breathes a charming sentiment of charity and humanity towards those Moorish enemies with whom the combats of the national heroes are represented. The Spaniards and the Moors lived together in their villages beneath the calmest of skies, and surrounded with the most lovely of landscapes. In spite of their adverse faiths-in spite of their adverse interests-they had much in common-loves, and sports, * Sismondi. at and recreations-nay, sometimes their ses were repeated by liberal encomi- Stand noble steed this hour of need, be gentle as a lamb, * * * King Juan's horse fell lifeless-Don Raymon's horse stood by, 'Gainst the same tree their backs they placed-they hacked the king in twain, Don Raymon's arms the corpse embraced, and so they both were slain. But when the Moor Almazor beheld what had been done, He oped Lord Raymon's visor, while down his tears did run ; Even in the more remote and ideal chivalries celebrated in the Castillian ballads, the parts of glory and greatness were just as frequently attributed to Moors as to Christians;-Calaynos was a name as familiar as Guyferos. At somewhat a later period, when the conquest of Grenada had mingled the Spaniards still more effectually with the persons and manners of the Moors, we find the Spanish poets still fonder of celebrating the heroic achievements of Moors; and, without doubt, this their liberality towards the "Knights of Grenada, Gentlemen, albeit Moors," Caballeros Grenadinos Aunque Moros hijos d'algo, must have been very gratifying to the former subjects of king Chico. It must have counteracted the bigotry of Confessors and Mollahs, and tended Ber It to inspire both nations with sentiments All the picturesque details, in fine, of that splendid, and not unfrequently, Bernardo qui vio del Moro Y pues el cielo lo quiere, But as the fine series of ballads in which the history of Bernardo is told, may probably furnish us with the sub ject of a separate article, we shall not at present enter deeper into any of their beauties. They form probably the oldest series extant in the language, and next to those of the Cid, the most extensive as well as the most beautiful. The history of the children of Lara is another series from which many rich illustrations of our proposition might be borrowed, but we decline entering upon it at present for similar reasons and as to the ballads of the Campeador himself, our readers may refer to the best of them translated, as never ballads nor any other compositions that we are acquainted with The were translated, by Mr Frere.* dark and bloody annals of Pedro the cruel, are narrated in another long and exquisite series-and in these too we might find much to our purpose. As a specimen of the style in which they are written, will our readers accept, by the way, the following specimen? It contains the narrative of the tyrant's murder of Blanche of Bourbon, his young and innocent queen, whom he sacrificed very shortly after his marriage to the jealous hatred of his Jewish mistress, Maria de Pedilla. The version is quite literal. THE DEATH OF QUEEN BLANCHE. MARIA DE PEDILLA be not thus of dismal mood, But if upon Queen Blanche ye will that I some scorn should show, The work shall be of Blanche's tears, of Blanche's blood the ground; Then to the Lord of Ortis, that excellent baron, He said, now hear me, Ynigo, forthwith for this begone. Much grieved the bowman for her tears' and for her beauty's sake, • At the end of Mr Southey's History of the Cid. |