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 diplomacy; and no one but an arrant idiot would hesitate to contribute his humble quota towards the exaltation of his race.
What right has a Frenchman or any other foreigner to inquire what is going on in the heart of Great Britain? What business is it of his how we cultivate our fields, work our machinery, or clear out the recesses of our mines? Ten to one the fellow is no better than a spy; and if so, it is our bounden duty to mislead him. But patriotism does not belong to one nation only. When the Frenchman or other foreigner beholds an unmistakable Briton, clad, perhaps, in the drab uniform of Manchester, making curious investigations into the value of his crops, and the other sources of his wealth, he most naturally concludes that the child of perfidious Albion is actuated by some sinister motive. The result may be conceived. Figures, more mendacious than any that were ever promulgated by the League, are supplied with amazing liberality to the believing statist. He calculates the product of a province, after the inspection of a single farmyard; commits his observations to the press, and is henceforward quoted as an oracle!
It is not from tourists that we can hope to gather accurate information of the state of other countries. A very great amount of mischief and misconception has arisen from an absurd reliance in the accuracy of men who were absolute strangers to the country in which they sojourned, and necessarily exposed to every sort of imposition; and really, with all deference to our brethren of the daily press, we must be allowed to express our conviction that the system of “Commissionership” has, of late years, been carried a great deal too far. Of the talents of the gentlemen so employed we would wish to speak with the utmost respect. They are, almost all of them, clever fellows, sharp, shrewd, and observing; but it is too much to expect that, at a moment’s notice, they can forget the whole previous antecedents of their lives, and discourse dogmatically and with perfect precision upon subjects of which they knew nothing until they were gazetted for the special service.