Here, with the lumps of ore heaped high around They found a human skeleton; hard by, A rusty cutlass, such as mariners use, Whereon was rudely graven, and half-effaced, The words “Michael De Mas;” and underneath, “I die of want upon a bed of gold.” THE VINEYARDS OF BORDEAUX.[32] It is no easy matter now-a-days, for a tourist, whether he travels for pleasure, health, or information, to throw his notes and memoranda into such a shape as shall excite the interest of the reading public. Nothing new is to be picked up by traversing the beaten highways of Europe. We know all about Madrid, and Stockholm, and St Petersburg, and Vienna, and Rome, and Naples. Not only the banks of the Danube and the Rhine, but the coasts of Brittany and the fiords of Norway have been deflowered of all their legends. There exists not as much virgin romance in this quarter of the globe as would furnish a decent excuse for the perpetration of three octavo volumes. Then, as to observations upon men and manners—a line which earnest-minded travellers, who have an eye to the regeneration of the human race, most commonly adopt—we shall fairly confess that we take little interest, and repose less faith, in their fancied discoveries. Your regenerator is almost invariably an ass;—ignorant, garrulous, and as easy to be gulled as the last convert to the Papacy. At every _table d’hôte_ he makes a violent effort to increase his stores of knowledge by inveigling his nearest neighbour into a discussion upon some point of grand social importance; and, in nine cases out of ten, the result is, that he has to pay for the whole of the liquor consumed, without being any wiser than before. And yet, perhaps, even the travelling regenerator is less liable to be humbugged than the travelling collector of statistics. The most truthful people in the world neither think it necessary nor expedient to speak the truth regarding themselves. Individuals are not apt to answer the queries of a stranger touching the state of their own particular finances—neither do men choose to disclose to foreigners the real nature of their national relations. We are all in the habit of fibbing most egregiously, when the honour, the pride, or the interest of our country is in any degree concerned. Why should we scruple to confess that, on various occasions, we made statements to confiding foreigners, under a solemn pledge of secresy, which, when afterwards printed—the inevitable fate of all such confidential statements—have greatly tended to the renown of this portion of the United Kingdom? Our rule has always been to act upon the principle professed by Caleb Balderstone, and never to stick at trifles when the “credit of the family” was involved. We wholly deny that fictions of this kind can be classed in the category of falsehoods. They arise from a just and honourable estimate of the value of national