1831.] I 303 ] 



PARAGRAPHS FROM A TRAVELLER'S PORTFOLIO. 



I SAW in the Superga the tomb of the Piedmontese princess, who ren- 

 dered herself famous by a single sentence. There was a famine in that 

 little kingdom. The princess was astonished. " Do they die of it?" 

 asked she. " In great numbers/' was the answer. *' What squeamish- 

 ness !" said her highness ; " why don't they eat beef and mutton ? I'm 

 sure I would do so^ rather than starve." 



The world has other instances of this high-life knowledge. The son 

 of an English duke, a guardsman, is still memorable for a sentiment of 

 equal ease. On his regiment's being ordered for Holland, in the first 

 French war, it was observed that he must prepare for some privations. 

 " To be sure I must," was his reply. " A bottle of good champagne and 

 a tolerable haunch, I suppose, are holiday fare among the Mynheers. 

 Let me have but a bottle of drinkable claret and a roast fowl, and I can 

 get on anywhere." 



The old Duke of Norfolk was a prodigious profligate, a prodigious 

 politician, and a prodigious eater — a combination of prodigies. He had 

 the art of throwing three dinners into one : " I first take my fish and my 

 bottle of claret," said he, " and then I go to dinner." All idlers and 

 idle nations are great eaters. The Italian will eat macaroni, as a horse 

 eats grass, every hour in the day, and perhaps in the night too. The 

 French gourmand will begin his dinner by eating a dinner of oysters. 

 The Russian noble gets drunk with brandy, before he gets drunk with 

 wine ; and, having finished his wine, gets drunk with brandy again. 



When the mob, in the French revolution, opened the tombs of the 

 sovereigns in St. Denis, they tossed the bones of all the Clothaires, and 

 Capets, Pepins, and Valois, into one pit, and quick-limed them, I sup- 

 pose, for fear that they would rise and form a counter-revolutionary 

 army. Henry IV. escaped a little better ; he was found in tolerable 

 preservation, and a )'oung soldier leaped into the coffin, took off one of 

 the king's mustachios, and, clapping it on his lip, said, " Ah, moi aussi, 

 je suis un soldat Fran9ois." He flourished about the church with this 

 new badge of soldiership upon him ; exclaiming, " that he would never 

 wear any other mustache." Then finishing with a true French boast, 

 that he was sure, " Avec cela, de vaincre les ennemis de la patrie, et de 

 marcher a la victoire." 



The English pride themselves in their nicety in wines — yet there is no 

 nation in the world more perpetually duped in this very point. Three- 

 fourths of the Bourdeaux clarets are made up of the rough hot wines of 

 Italy, mixed with the meagre French vintages. Half the white wines 

 on the English tables are made up of Cape, which the London palate 

 pretends to abhor. 



" Give me," said a French merchant, " six hours' notice of what wine 

 you like, and you shall have it out of those two barrels." There are 

 forty thousand pipes of IVLadeira sold annually in Europe, while the 

 island produces about ten thousand ! There are thirty thousand casks 

 of Frontignan sent every year from the French cellars, while the vine- 

 yards of Frontignan produce, in the best seasons, two thousand ! Con- 

 stantia is to be found in the hands of every dealer in Eiu-o])e, yet it is 



