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306 the amusement is very properly adjourned until a more convenient season: accordingly, there was no bull-fight during my residence in the capital. This and the theatre are the only two public amusements which the place affords; but the deficiency is made up by the pic-nic or gipsying parties which I have before described: besides these, were occasionally little tertullas, or evening assemblies, enlivened with dancing and music, but rarely with any expensive collation: the enjoyment of life seemed to consist rather in its indolence than exertion, in its ease than in its pomp; not but what there were to be found, even amongst this primitive people, some of those affectations to preeminence, those exacerbations of jealousy and those flutterings of vanity which force themselves into society, throughout every situation of life;—tarnishing the brightest blossoms of existence. But nature feels no distinctions: the blight will affect the regal lily no less than the humble