LUIGI.- I will tell you: about sixteen years ago a universal desire seized our people in England to become something more than they had hitherto been, pedlars and trampers; they wished, moreover, for mankind are never satisfied, to see other countries: so the greater part forsook England.Where formerly there had been ten, at present scarcely lingers one.Almost all went to America, which, as Itold you before, is a happy country, and specially good for us men of Como.Well, all my comrades and relations passed over the sea to the West.I, too, was bent on travelling; but whither? Instead of going towards the West with the rest, to a country where they have all thriven, I must needs come by myself to this land of Spain; a country in which no foreigner settles without dying of a broken heart sooner or later.I had an idea in my head that I could make a fortune at once, by bringing a cargo of common English goods, like those which Ihad been in the habit of selling amongst the villagers of England.So I freighted half a ship with such goods, for I had been successful in England in my little speculations, and Iarrived at Coruna.Here at once my vexations began:
disappointment followed disappointment.It was with the utmost difficulty that I could obtain permission to land my goods, and this only at a considerable sacrifice in bribes and the like;and when I had established myself here, I found that the place was one of no trade, and that my goods went off very slowly, and scarcely at prime cost.I wished to remove to another place, but was informed that, in that case, I must leave my goods behind, unless I offered fresh bribes, which would have ruined me; and in this way I have gone on for fourteen years, selling scarcely enough to pay for my shop and to support myself.And so I shall doubtless continue till I die, or my goods are exhausted.In an evil day I left England and came to Spain.
MYSELF.- Did you not say that you had a countryman at St.James?
LUIGI.- Yes, a poor honest fellow, who, like myself, by some strange chance found his way to Galicia.I sometimes contrive to send him a few goods, which he sells at St.James at a greater profit than I can here.He is a happy fellow, for he has never been in England, and knows not the difference between the two countries.Oh, the green English hedgerows!
and the alehouses! and, what is much more, the fair dealing and security.I have travelled all over England and never met with ill usage, except once down in the north amongst the Papists, upon my telling them to leave all their mummeries and go to the parish church as I did, and as all my countrymen in England did; for know one thing, Signor Giorgio, not one of us who have lived in England, whether Piedmontese or men of Como, but wished well to the Protestant religion, if he had not actually become a member of it.
MYSELF.- What do you propose to do at present, Luigi?
What are your prospects?
LUIGI.- My prospects are a blank, Giorgio; my prospects are a blank.I propose nothing but to die in Coruna, perhaps in the hospital, if they will admit me.Years ago I thought of fleeing, even if I left all behind me, and either returning to England, or betaking myself to America; but it is too late now, Giorgio, it is too late.When I first lost all hope, I took to drinking, to which I was never before inclined, and I am now what I suppose you see.
"There is hope in the Gospel," said I, "even for you.Iwill send you one."
There is a small battery of the old town which fronts the east, and whose wall is washed by the waters of the bay.It is a sweet spot, and the prospect which opens from it is extensive.The battery itself may be about eighty yards square; some young trees are springing up about it, and it is rather a favourite resort of the people of Coruna.
In the centre of this battery stands the tomb of Moore, built by the chivalrous French, in commemoration of the fall of their heroic antagonist.It is oblong and surmounted by a slab, and on either side bears one of the simple and sublime epitaphs for which our rivals are celebrated, and which stand in such powerful contrast with the bloated and bombastic inscriptions which deform the walls of Westminster Abbey:
"JOHN MOORE, LEADER OF THE ENGLISH ARMIES, SLAIN IN BATTLE, 1809."The tomb itself is of marble, and around it is a quadrangular wall, breast high, of rough Gallegan granite;close to each corner rises from the earth the breech of an immense brass cannon, intended to keep the wall compact and close.These outer erections are, however, not the work of the French, but of the English government.
Yes, there lies the hero, almost within sight of the glorious hill where he turned upon his pursuers like a lion at bay and terminated his career.Many acquire immortality without seeking it, and die before its first ray has gilded their name; of these was Moore.The harassed general, flying through Castile with his dispirited troops before a fierce and terrible enemy, little dreamed that he was on the point of attaining that for which many a better, greater, though certainly not braver man, had sighed in vain.His very misfortunes were the means which secured him immortal fame; his disastrous route, bloody death, and finally his tomb on a foreign strand, far from kin and friends.There is scarcely a Spaniard but has heard of this tomb, and speaks of it with a strange kind of awe.Immense treasures are said to have been buried with the heretic general, though for what purpose no one pretends to guess.The demons of the clouds, if we may trust the Gallegans, followed the English in their flight, and assailed them with water-spouts as they toiled up the steep winding paths of Fuencebadon; whilst legends the most wild are related of the manner in which the stout soldier fell.Yes, even in Spain, immortality has already crowned the head of Moore; - Spain, the land of oblivion, where the Guadalete *flows.
* The ancient LETHE.