Bruce returns to Europe.--Visits Paris--Italy.--Returns to England.--Quarrels with the Writers of the Day.--Retires to Scotland.--Marries.--At last publishes his Travels.--The Incredulity of the Credulous.--Bruce's Disappointment--Sorrow--Death. "Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself has said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart has ne'er within him burn'd, As HOME his footsteps he has turn'd, From wandering on a foreign strand?" But, although "home is home, though ever so homely," there is, perhaps, no idea in the human mind more indefinite than that which circumscribes the precise limits of our "home;" for, like the pupil of the eye, it dilates and contracts according to circumstances. The European who has long sojourned under the constellations of the southern hemisphere, feels that he is "at home" when, from the neighbourhood of the Line, he first sees his old friend, the north star, rising above the horizon. To this man, home is for a moment the hemisphere in which he was born. Our own country, our own county, our own town, parish, house, room, are homes of different dimensions; and, regardless of all these, the sailor-boy has often felt that he was not really "at home" till he once more found himself in his mother's arms. Bruce considered himself "at home" as soon as he landed at Marseilles; and we have deemed the foregoing observations necessary to account for the time which will yet elapse before he actually revisits his native land. The Comte de Buffon, M. Guys, and many others who had taken particular interest in his travels, came to congratulate him on his return, and to listen to his adventures and discoveries. From their honourable friendship and in their liberal society Bruce for a short time enjoyed that refined intellectual happiness which is only known in civilized life. His health, however, was much impaired, and for five-and-thirty days he suffered very great agony from a worm, called faranteit, which had bedded itself in his leg below the knee. This worm is supposed by the Arabs to afflict those who have been in the habit of drinking stagnant water; and their mode of extracting it is by seizing it gently by the head, and then gradually winding it round a feather. Bruce had tried this plan; but, from the unskilfulness of his attendant, the worm was broken, and such severe inflammation ensued that the surgeon advised him to submit to amputation; "but," says Bruce, "to limp through the remains of life, after having escaped so many dangers, was hard; so much so, that the loss of life itself seemed more desirable." The inflammation, however, was at last reduced, though it did not entirely terminate for nearly a year after his arrival in Europe; and, as soon as his health was sufficiently restored, he set out for Paris, accompanied by the Comte de Buffon.