the horse and the ass, the gentleman and the
clown. It now remains to speak of the
intermediate race—the hybrid resulting from
the alliance of the two species—the wealthy
bourgeois or burgess, the Mule.

The mule is the sad emblem of the
feudalism of money. The mule, or rather the
muless adores, like the horse, all sorts of
bells, plumes, embroidered caparisons, and
pompous galas. In like manner, the vain
bourgeois hunts after decorations and titles,
and his spouse aspires to figure in the crowd
that haunts the ante-rooms of princes. The
muless loves to be harnessed to the chariot
of popes and queens, peaceable royalties.
The bourgeois is not a bit less mean in his
interested adulation than the real gentleman
and the courtier. The muless steps high,
and sounds her bells as she walks along.
The big-bonnetted burgess of little towns, the
copple-crowned cock-o'-the-walk on 'Change,
loves to talk of his riches and jingle his
purse.

Unfortunately for the mule's reputation,
that ardour for the fight, and that boiling
courage, which poetise the tyranny of the
aristocratic caste, are not to be found in him.
In vain will the wealthy bourgeois try to
give himself an imposing air, by covering his
military representative with the fur cap. He
strains after the majestic and only reaches
the ridiculous. The martial head-dress,
instead of aiding to conceal the tips of the
ass's ears (it is a Frenchman who says this,
remember), only seems, on the contrary, to
display them in undue and gigantic proportions.
One of the unfortunate passions of
the trader, the manufacturer, and the officer
of the National Guard, is the passion for
horses. But there is an unsurmountable
antipathy between the two species.
Consequently, it is exceedingly rare that the forced
marriages which now and then take place
between them, do not speedily come to issue
in a separate maintenance.

The generous horse, like the true gentleman,
is always ready to fly to the assistance of the
state in danger; the mule (read bourgeois) is
equally fond of finding a substitute to fulfil that
very displeasing function. The mule (always
read bourgeois) is heartily delighted to abuse
all the privileges of manorial rights, such as
hunting, fishing, and all the rest of it; but
he would like at the same time to escape the
charges. He prefers to pay for the defence
of the land—to maintain order by coming
down with his cash—rather than to burden
his own dear self with the duty. Moreover,
this brave and worthy monopolist, who has
got thousands out of society by the exercise
of the corn and flour trade, only asks of
society one thing in return; namely, to insure
him the peaceable enjoyment of his rights,
the fruit of his LABOUR. He is the friend of
peace and order at any price; he regularly
subscribes to the journal of Judah, and is
exact in his payments.

The mule takes much more after the
intellectual faculties of his father the ass,
than of his mother the mare. Although less
adventurous and more deliberate than the
horse, he is much more headstrong and
obstinate. In respect to literature and public
performances, like the ass and the peasant, he
relishes above all things melodrama and the
guillotine. The mule, the emblem of
mercantile feudalism, of the obstinate, vain, and
timid bourgeois, the mule has not been
destined to leave a posterity. Heaven be praised!

QUICKSILVER.

HALF the world knows that the quicksilver
mine of Almaden, sixteen miles north of
Seville, is the finest that exists. Its annual
produce is twice as great as that of all the
mines of the same kind in Carniola,
Hungary, the Palatine and Peru put together.
Almaden therefore is worth visiting. The
place has its own traffic, and no other.
There is no high road in its neighbourhood,
and the quicksilver raised is carried by
muleteers to the Government stores of Seville,
where only it may be distributed; not being
delivered at the mine to any purchaser. The
muleteers take to Almaden wood, gunpowder,
provisions and all necessaries; and thus the
town lives and supports its eight thousand
inhabitants. It is built chiefly in the form of
one very long street, on the ridge of a hill, over
the mine, which in every sense forms the
foundation upon which it stands. It used to be
under the care of a sleepy old hidalgo of a
governor, but it is now controlled by a scientific
officer, entitled the superintendent, and
there is a good deal of vigour and practical
sense displayed in the arrangements of the
place. There is a town-hall in Almaden, a
well-endowed school, and a hospital for the
diseases of the miners.

The diseased forms of the men working
as excavators belong only too prominently
to a picture of Almaden. You meet men in
the street with wasted faces, fetid breaths,
and trembling hands; blind, paralytic. The
heat in the lower workings of the mine is
very considerable, the ventilation is imperfect,
vapour of quicksilver floats upon the
air, and condenses on the walls, down which
it trickles in little runlets of pure liquid metal.
Even visitors are sensibly atfected by it, and
retain for some time the metallic flavour in
their mouths. The miners—who number
more than four thousand—are divided into
three gangs, or watches, working six hours
each, and leaving the fourth six hours of the
twenty-four—from ten at night until four in
the morning—as an interval of perfect rest.
On account of the heat, and the deleterious
nature of the vapour, summer is made the
idle time, winter the great period of activity
among the population. As the winter closes,
the appearance of the miners begins very
emphatically to tell its own tale, and great