“I know you, however,” replied the man; “you purchased the first knife that I ever sold in the market-place of N---.” {370a} _Myself_.—Ah, I remember you now, Luigi Piozzi {370b}; and well do I remember also how, when a boy, twenty years ago, I used to repair to your stall, and listen to you and your countrymen discoursing in Milanese. _Luigi_.—Ah, those were happy times to me. Oh, how they rushed back on my remembrance when I saw you ride up to the door of the _posada_! I instantly went in, closed my shop, lay down upon my bed and wept. _Myself_.—I see no reason why you should so much regret those times. I knew you formerly in England as an itinerant pedlar, and occasionally as master of a stall in the market-place of a country town. I now find you in a seaport of Spain, the proprietor, seemingly, of a considerable shop. I cannot see why you should regret the difference. _Luigi_ (dashing his pipe on the ground).—Regret the difference! Do you know one thing? England is the heaven of the Piedmontese and Milanese, and especially those of Como. We never lie down to rest but we dream of it, whether we are in our own country or in a foreign land, as I am now. Regret the difference, _Giorgio_! Do I hear such words from your lips, and you an Englishman? I would rather be the poorest tramper on the roads of England, than lord of all within ten leagues of the shore of the lake of Como, and much the same say all my countrymen who have visited England, wherever they now be. Regret the difference! I have ten letters from as many countrymen in America, who say they are rich and thriving, and principal men and merchants; but every night, when their heads are reposing on their pillows, their souls _auslandra_, hurrying away to England, and its green lanes and farmyards. And there they are with their boxes on the ground, displaying their looking-glasses and other goods to the hones, rustics and their dames and their daughters, and selling away and chaffering and laughing just as of old. And there they are again at nightfall in the hedge alehouses, eating their toasted cheese and their bread, and drinking the Suffolk ale, and listening to the roaring song and merry jests of the labourers. Now, if they regret England so who are in America, which they own to be a happy country, and good for those of Piedmont and of Como, how much more must I regret it, when, after the lapse of so many years, I find myself in Spain, in this frightful town of Corunna, driving a ruinous trade, and where months pass by without my seeing a single English face, or hearing a word of the blessed English tongue! _Myself_.—With such a predilection for England, what could have induced you to leave it and come to Spain?