battle speeches or love-songs, whatever the
work in hand—grave, earnest, tender, mournful,
no matter what—the punning hobby thrusts his
snub nose into your face and neighs out a jingle
that scatters all your threads of thought or
snatches of song like broken cobwebs to the
wind. Yet on occasions this is a merry hobby
enough, and one to be patted and fed with sweet
food liberally; and when ridden by such men
as Sydney Smith, Ingoldsby, Hood, Hook, or
Jerrold, is worth a golden field for pasturage.
But in general it is a hobby with impertinent
proclivities, and to be ridden warily, and with a
rein well gathered up in hand.

Politics is a graver-visaged hobby and often
ends in a game at thumps more vigorous than
pleasant—a hobby to be a little afraid of, and
not ride openly in an enemy's camp, nor
aggressively anywhere. Of late days we have had
many such of ferocious aspect enough; and even
now there are caracollings in drawing-rooms,
with the irrepressible negro holding one bridle-
rein, and the representatives of state rights the
other, which make a stir and a pother little
suited to the ordinary character of those localities.
Criticism too is much ridden by certain
men, who expect that all the world shall bow its
thousand necks for their hobby to caper over at
its pleasure, and who carve the wooden legs
into sceptres, which every human mind must
recognise and obey. The riders of the critical
hobby count among the bores of society, being
generally gifted with a loud voice, a dictatorial
manner, a profound acquaintance with unpleasant
adjectives, and a self-complacency which if
it have a beginning, has assuredly no end.

Then come a crowd of smaller hobbies, such
as the hobby of dreaming dreams and telling
them; the hobby of collecting old china—Japanese,
Wedgwood, old Chelsea, Dresden, Gris de
Flandre, or what not; the hobby of turning the
house into the bad likeness of an old curiosity
shop, which be sure you call bric à brac; the
hobby of my family—my daughter's beauty, or
my son's talent, the fine match that Emily
Jane has made, and the one still finer that Mary
Anne is about to make—the hobby, in short, of
all our own grey geese being swans superlatively
white; the hobby of good dinner-giving; the
hobby of expensive party-giving; the hobby of
fine dressing, and that of the newest fashions.
The running after preachers and preachments,
and the belief that salvation is to be secured by
taking sittings in a certain church, is also a
hobby much bestridden by many, but one of
a grave and sober manner of being; to read all
the magazines the instant they appear, and to
have the first cut of a new novel before any one
else has seen it, and before it has even been
reviewed, is a hobby. A hobby is lion hunting,
both of the social and feral sort; though just
now I am thinking of the social kind, and of
all the pitiful shifts to which the hunters are
put in spreading their nets and stalking out
their runs. To be seen at certain grandee
houses is again a hobby not unknown to the
dwellers in the nineteenth century; and to be
able to stick cards of invitation and visiting
cards, coroneted, on one's chimney-piece is a
hobby the softness of whose sleek velvet muzzle
few are Spartan enough to withstand. In fact,
society is peopled and overrun with hobbies;
but we are not always honest enough to confess
that what we are riding is a hobby only—a
stuffed thing made of wood, and for the most
part useless and without meaning; which we,
however, do our best to persuade our neighbours
is a real and undeniable charger, bearing us
to battle or to the plough-field, as our pretence
is heroism or usefulness. Hobbies! hobbies,
my friend! almost all things well bestridden;
but why not confess the parentage and acknowledge
the plaything honestly, without pretence
and without disguise?

SPANISH POLITICAL TYPES.

ONE reason why so little interest has been
directed towards Spanish affairs by the
political information sent from Spain, has been the
ignorance of what section of public opinion was
meant by the terms Moderado, Neo-Catholic,
&c. As we have been favoured by Darnagas
with a definition of these and other terms, this
ignorance need exist no longer. To begin:

The Liberal de Corazon is a citizen with a
severe expression of countenance. His hair is
rough and straggling, and covers a large skull;
he shaves all the hair off his face, with the
exception of his moustaches. His eyes are sombre.
His neck moves freely in the unstarched, turned-
down collar of his shirt; his clothes fit him
loosely; he walks gravely and slowly. You are
in doubt whether you see in him the good,
honest, and methodical workman, or the retired
soldier; sometimes he is an artisan, possibly he
is a capitalist.

He is brave and self-denying. You will see
him in the street defending an irrational animal
against the rational brute his master. At a fire
he is the first you will see in the midst of the
flames, endeavouring to save whatever there is
to save, whether life or property. His house is
well known to borrowers and the unfortunate.
His sympathies are inexhaustible, and his purse
is not unfrequently drawn upon, even by the
holder of state securities, and he who is deaf to
matters affecting his own interests feels keenly
for those of others. His political ideas converge
round a single principle, that of fraternity,
of which liberty and equality are the
inevitable consequences. As to the form of
government he desires, he is undecided. He has
an ideal, but he does not like to pain his queen;
on the other hand, he does not wish it to rest
entirely with the people. His mind is
constantly engaged in the consideration of this
matter, to the neglect of his personal interests.

The Moderado. He is somewhat advanced
in years.  He gets himself up with care and
taste, but without pretension; he is commonly
bald; wears bristling moustaches and whiskers,
after the pattern worn by the Frenchman of