Where these encounters have proved fatal, the survivors, as I have stated, have, occasionally, gone mad. It is not very common, to be sure, for duels to produce such melancholy consequences, as those, which occurred, after that, between Cameron and McLean, in 1722. McLean was killed. Upon receiving the intelligence, his aged mother lost her reason, and closed her days in a mad-house. The lady, to whom he was betrothed, expired in convulsions, upon the third day, after the event--_n'importe!_ No. CXLIX. It is quite unpleasant, after having diligently read a volume of memoirs, or voyages, or travels, and carefully transferred a goodly number of interesting items to one's common-place book--to discover, that the work, _ab ovo usque ad mala_, is an ingenious tissue of deliberate lies. It is no slight aggravation of this species of affliction, to reflect, that one has highly commended the work, to some of his acquaintances, who are no way remarkable, for their bowels of compassion, and whose intelligible smile he is certain to encounter, when they first meet again, after the _éclaircissement_. There is very little of the _hæc olim meminisse juvabit_, in store, for those, who have been thus misled. If there had been, absolutely, no foundation for the story, in the credulity of certain members of the Royal Society, Butler would not, probably, have produced his pleasant account of "_the elephant in the moon_." There were some very grave gentlemen, of lawful age, who were inclined to receive, for sober truth, that incomparable hoax, of which Sir John Herschell was represented, as the hero. Damberger's travels, in Africa, and his personal adventures there gave me great pleasure, when I was a boy; and I remember to have felt excessively indignant, when I discovered, that the work was written, in a garret, in the city of Amsterdam, by a fellow who had never quitted Europe.