It subsequently appeared that no battle had occurred, and that the death of Gomez was a fiction.  The grand defect of Gomez consisted in not knowing how to take advantage of circumstances:  after defeating Lopez, he might have marched to Madrid and proclaimed Don Carlos there, and after sacking Cordova he might have captured Seville.

There were several booksellers’ shops at Seville, in two of which I found copies of the New Testament in Spanish, which had been obtained from Gibraltar about two years before, since which time six copies had been sold in one shop and four in the other.  The person who generally accompanied me in my walks about the town and the neighbourhood, was an elderly Genoese, who officiated as a kind of valet de place in the Posada del Turco, where I had taken up my residence.  On learning from me that it was my intention to bring out an edition of the New Testament at Madrid, he observed that copies of the work might be extensively circulated in Andalusia.  “I have been accustomed to bookselling,” he continued, “and at one time possessed a small shop of my own in this place.  Once having occasion to go to Gibraltar, I procured several copies of the Scriptures; some, it is true, were seized by the officers of the customs, but the rest I sold at a high price, and with considerable profit to myself.”

I had returned from a walk in the country, on a glorious sunshiny morning of the Andalusian winter, and was directing my steps towards my lodging:  as I was passing by the portal of a large gloomy house near the gate of Xeres, two individuals dressed in zamarras emerged from the archway, and were about to cross my path, when one, looking in my face, suddenly started back, exclaiming in the purest and most melodious French:  “What do I see?  If my eyes do not deceive me—­it is himself.  Yes, the very same as I saw him first at Bayonne; then long subsequently beneath the brick wall at Novogorod; then beside the Bosphorus; and last at—­at—­Oh, my respectable and cherished friend, where was it that I had last the felicity of seeing your well-remembered and most remarkable physiognomy?”

Myself.—­It was in the south of Ireland, if I mistake not.  Was it not there that I introduced you to the sorcerer who tamed the savage horses by a single whisper into their ear?  But tell me what brings you to Spain and Andalusia, the last place where I should have expected to find you?

Baron Taylor.—­And wherefore, my most respectable B-?  Is not Spain the land of the arts; and is not Andalusia of all Spain that portion which has produced the noblest monuments of artistic excellence and inspiration?  Surely you know enough of me to be aware that the arts are my passion; that I am incapable of imagining a more exalted enjoyment than to gaze in adoration on a noble picture.  O come with me! for you too have a soul capable of appreciating what is lovely and exalted; a soul delicate and sensitive.