I STEPPED hastily after him: it was the very man whose success in asking charity of the women before the door of the hotel had so puzzled me; and I found at once his secret, or at least the basis of it:-'twas flattery.

Delicious essence! how refreshing art thou to Nature! how strongly are all its powers and all its weaknesses on thy side! how sweetly dost thou mix with the blood, and help it through the most difficult and tortuous passages to the heart!

The poor man, as he was not straitened for time, had given it here in a larger dose: 'tis certain he had a way of bringing it into less form, for the many sudden cases he had to do with in the streets; but how he contrived to correct, sweeten, concentre, and qualify it, I vex not my spirit with the inquiry; it is enough, the beggar gained two twelve-sous pieces, and they can best tell the rest who have gained much greater matters by it.

Mons. le Count de B****, merely because he had done me one kindness in the affair of my passport, would go on and do me another, the few days he was at Paris, in making me known to a few people of rank; and they were to present me to others, and so on.

I had got master of my secret just in time to turn these honours to some little account; otherwise, as is commonly the case, I should have dined or supped a single time or two round; and then, by translating French looks and attitudes into plain English, I should presently have seen that I had got hold of the couvert* of some more entertaining guest; and, in course, should have resigned all my places, one after another, merely upon the principle that I

could not keep them.-As it was, things did not go much amiss.

I had the honour of being introduced to the old Marquis de B****. In days of yore he had signalized himself by some small feats of chivalry in the Cour d'Amour, and had dressed himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since. The Marquis de B**** wished to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain. "He could like to take a trip to England:" and asked much of the English ladies.- -Stay where you are, I beseech you, Mons. le Marquis, said I.- -Les Messieurs Anglois can scarce get a kind look from them as it is.-The Marquis invited me to supper.

Mons. P****, the farmer-general, was just as inquisitive about our taxes.-They were very considerable, he heard.- -If we knew but how to collect them, said I, making him a low bow.

I could never have been invited to Mons. P****'s concerts upon any other terms.

I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q*** as an esprit.—Madame de Q*** was an esprit herself: she burnt with impatience to see me, and hear me talk. I had not taken my seat, before I saw she did not care a sous whe ther I had any wit or no-I was let in to be convinced she had.—I call Heaven to witness I never once opened the door of my lips.

Madame de Q*** vowed to every creature she met,-" She had never had a more improving conversation with a man in her life."

There are three epochas in the empire of a French woman:-She is coquette,-then deist, -then devoté: the empire during these is never lost;-she only changes her subjects; when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her domínions of the slaves of love, she repeoples it with the slaves of infidelity, and then with the slaves of the church.

Madame de V*** was vibrating betwixt the first of these epochas: the colour of the rose was fading fast away;-she ought to have been a deist five years before the time I had the honour to pay my first visit.

She placed me upon the same sofa with her, for the sake of disputing the point of religion more closely.-In short, Madame de V*** told me she believed nothing.-I told Madame de V*** it might be her principle; but I was sure it could not be her interest to level the outworks, without which I could not conceive how such a citadel as her's could be defended ;— that there was not a more dangerous thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deist;that it was a debt I owed my creed, not to conceal it from her ;-that I had not been five

VOL. V.

R

minutes sat upon the sofa beside her, but I had began to form designs ;-and what is it but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had excited in her breast, which could have checked them as they rose up?

-We are not adamant, said I, taking hold of her hand;-and there is need of all restraints, till Age in his own time steals in and lays them on us. But, my dear lady, said I, kissing her hand, 'tis too-too soon.

I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unperverting Madame de V***.- -She affirmed to Mons. D*** and the Abbé M*** that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion than all their Encyclopedia had said against it, I was lifted directly into Madame de V***'; coterie; and she put off the epocha of deism for two years.

I remember it was in this coterie, in the middle of a discourse, in which I was shewing the necessity of a first cause, that the young Count de Faineant took me by the hand to the farthest corner of the room, to tell me my solitaire was pinned too strait about my neck. -It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon his own;-but a word, Mons. Yorick, to the wise.

-And from the wise, Mons. le Count, replied I, making him a bow,-is enough.

The Count de Faineant embraced me with more ardour than ever I was embraced by mortal man.

For three weeks together, I was of every man's opinion I met.- -Pardi! ce Mons. Yorick a autant d'esprit que nous autres.-Il raisonne bien, said another.—C'est un bon enfant, said a third.-And at this price I could have eaten and drank and been merry all the days of my life at Paris; but 'twas a dishonest reckoning; -I grew ashamed of it.-It was the gain of a slave every sentiment of honour revolted against it ;—the higher I got, the more was I forced upon my beggarly system;-the better the coterie, the more children of Art,-I languished for those of Nature; and one night, after a most vile prostitution of myself to half a dozen different people, I grew sick,-went to bed ;ordered La Fleur to get me horses in the morning, to set out for Italy.

MARIA.

MOULINES.

I NEVER felt what the distress of plenty was in any one shape till now,-to travel it through the Bourbonnois, the sweetest part of France, in the hey-day of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is lifted up,-a journey through each step of which music beats time to Labour, and all her children are rejoicing as they carry

in their clusters;-to pass through this with my affections flying out, and kindling at every group before me,--and every one of them was pregnant with adventures.

Just Heaven!-it would fill up twenty volumes;-and alas! I have but a few small pages left of this to crowd it into,--and half of these must be taken up with the poor Maria, my friend Mr Shandy met with near Moulines.

The story he had told of that disordered maid affected me not a little in the reading; but when I got within the neighbourhood where she lived, it returned so strong into my mind, that I could not resist an impulse which prompted me to go half a league out of the road, to the village where her parents dwelt, to inquire after her.

"Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woeful Countenance, in quest of melancholy adventures;-I know not how it is, but I am never so perfectly conscious of the existence of a soul within me, as when I am entangled in them.

The old mother came to the door; her looks told me the story before she opened her mouth. -She had lost her husband; he had died, she said, of anguish, for the loss of Maria's sense, about a month before.--She had feared at first, she added, that it would have plundered her poor girl of what little understanding was left; but, on the contrary, it had brought her more to herself; still she could not rest. Her poor daughter, she said, crying, was wandering somewhere about the road.

-Why does my pulse beat languid as I write this? and what made La Fleur, whose heart seemed only to be tuned to joy, to pass the back of his hand twice across his eyes, as the woman stood and told it? I beckoned to the postillion to turn back into the road.

When we had got within half a league of Moulines, at a little opening in the road, leading to a thicket, I discovered poor Maria sitting under a poplar. She was sitting with her elbow in her lap, and her head leaning on one side within her hand:-a small brook ran at the foot of the tree.

I bid the postillion go on with the chaise to Moulines; and La Fleur to bespeak my supper; and that I would walk after him.

She was dressed in white, and much as my friend described her, except that her hair hung loose, which before was twisted with a silken net. She had superadded likewise to her jacket, a pale green riband, which fell across her shoulder to the waist; at the end of which hung her pipe.-Her goat had been as faithless as her lover; and she had got a little dog in lieu of him, which she kept tied by a string to her girdle. As I looked at her dog, she drew him towards her with the string."shalt not leave me, Sylvio," said she. I looked in Maria's eycs, and saw she was thinking

"Thou

more of her father, than of her lover, or her little goat; for as she uttered them, the tears trickled down her cheeks.

I sat down close by her; and Maria let me wipe them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. I then steeped it in my own,-and then in hers, and then in mine,-and then I wiped hers again; and as I did it, I felt such undescribable emotions within me, as I am sure could not be accounted for from any combinations of matter and motion.

I am positive I have a soul; nor can all the books with which materialists have pestered the world, ever convince me to the contrary.

MARIA.

WHEN Maria had come a little to herself, I asked her if she remembered a pale thin person of a man, who had sat down betwixt her and her goat about two years before? -She said,

she was unsettled much at that time, but remembered it upon two accounts:-That, ill as she was, she saw the person pitied her; and next, That her goat had stolen his handkerchief, and she had beat him for the theft ;-she had washed it, she said, in the brook, and kept it ever since in her pocket, to restore it to him, in case she should ever see him again; which, she add ed, he had half-promised her. As she told me this, she took the handkerchief out of her pocket, to let me see it; she had folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied round with a tendril. On opening it, I saw an S. marked in one of the corners.

-She had since that, she told me, strayed as far as Rome, and walked round St Peters once, --and returned back:-that she found her way alone across the Apennines,-had travelled over all Lombardy without money,-and through the flinty roads of Savoy without shoes:-how she had borne it, and how she had got supported, she could not tell;-but God tempers the winds, said Maria, to the shorn lamb.

-Shorn indeed; and to the quick, said I: -and wast thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, I would take thee to it, and shelter thee; thou shouldst eat of my own bread, and drink of my own cup ;-I would be kind to thy Sylvio;-in all thy weaknesses and wanderings I would seek after thee, and bring thee back; -when the sun went down I would say my prayers; and when I had done, thou shouldst play thy evening-song upon thy pipe: nor would the incense of my sacrifice be worse accepted for entering Heaven along with that of a broken heart!

Nature melted within me as I uttered this; and Maria observing, as I took out my handkerchief, that it was steeped too much already to be of use, would needs go wash it in the -And where will you dry it, Maria ?

stream.

I touched upon the string on which hung all her sorrows; she looked with wistful disorder for some time in my face;-and then, without saying any thing, took her pipe, and played her service to the Virgin.-The string I had touched ceased to vibrate; in a moment or two Maria returned to herself,-let her pipe fall,and rose up.

-And where are you going, Maria? said I.She said, to Moulines.Let us go, said I, together.-Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening the string to let the dog follow, in that order we entered Moulines.

MARIA.

MOULINES.

THOUGH I hate salutations and greetings in the market-place, yet, when we got into the middle of this, I stopped to take my last look and last farewell of Maria.

Maria, though not tall, was nevertheless of the first order of fine forms:-affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly ;-still she was feminine ;-and so much was there about her of all that the heart wishes, or the eye looks for in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out of her brain, and those of Eliza out of mine, she should not only eat of my bread and drink of my own cup, but Maria should lie in my bosom, and be unto me as a daughter.

Adieu, poor luckless maiden!-Imbibe the oil and wine which the compassion of a stranger, as he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy wounds; the Being who has twice bruised thee can only bind them up for ever.

THE BOURBONNOIS.

THERE was nothing from which I had painted out for myself so joyous a riot of the affections, as in this journey in the vintage, through this part of France; but pressing through this gate of sorrow to it, my sufferings have totally unfitted me. In every scene of festivity I saw Maria in the back ground of the piece, sitting pensive under her poplar: and I had got almost to Lyons before I was able to cast a shade across her.

-Dear Sensibility! source inexhausted of all that's precious in our joys, or costly in our sorrows!-thou chainest thy martyr down upon his bed of straw,-and 'tis thou who liftest him up to Heaven!-Eternal fountain of our feeling!-'tis here I trace thee,-and this is thy divinity which stirs within me,"-not that,

in some sad and sickening moments, " my soul shrinks back upon herself, and startles at destruction !"-mere pomp of words!--but that I feel some generous joys and generous cares beyond myself;-all comes from thee, great,-great Sensorium of the world! which vibrates, if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in the remotest desert of thy creation. Touched with thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when I languish,--hears my tale of symptoms, and blames the weather for the disorder of his nerves. Thou givest a portion of it sometimes to the roughest peasant who traverses the bleakest mountains. He finds the lacerated lamb of another's flock;-this moment I behold him leaning with his head against his crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon it!-Oh! had I gone one moment sooner!-it bleeds to death!-his gentle heart bleeds with it!

Peace to thee, generous swain !-I see thou walkest off with anguish,-but thy joys shall balance it; for happy is thy cottage, and happy is the sharer of it,-and happy are the lambs which sport about you.

THE SUPPER.

A SHOE Coming loose from the fore-foot of the thill-horse, at the beginning of the ascent of Mount Taurira, the postillion dismounted, twisted the shoe off, and put it in his pocket. As the ascent was of five or six miles, and that horse our main dependence, I made a point of having the shoe fastened on again as well as we could; but the postillion had thrown away the nails; and the hammer in the chaise-box being of no great use without them, I submitted to go on.

He had not mounted half a mile higher, when coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil lost a second shoe, and from off his other forefoot. I then got out of the chaise in good earnest; and seeing a house about a quarter of a mile to the left hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon the postillion to turn up to it. The look of the house, and of every thing about it, as we drew nearer, soon reconciled me to the disaster. It was a little farm-house, surrounded with about twenty acres of vineyard, about as much corn;—and close to the house, on one side, was a potagerie of an acre and a half, full of every thing which could make plenty in a French peasant's house; and on the other side, was a little wood, which furnished wherewithal to dress it. It was about eight in the evening when I got to the house, so I left the postillion to manage his point as he could; and, for mine, I walked directly into the house.

The family consisted of an old grey-headed man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law, and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them.

They were all sitting down together to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table; and flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy through the stages of the repast:-'twas a feast of love.

The old man rose up to meet me, and, with a respectful cordiality, would have me sit down at the table; my heart was set down the moment I entered the room: so I sat down at once, like a son of the family; and, to invest myself in the character as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and, taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon; and, as I did it, I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of an honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it.

Was it this? or tell me, Nature, what else it was that made this morsel so sweet,-and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this hour?

If the supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so.

THE GRACE.

WHEN Supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them prepare for the dance; the moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran altogether into a back apartment to tie up their hair,-and the young men to the door to wash their faces, and change their sabots; and, in three minutes, every soul was ready upon a little esplanade before the house to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and, placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door.

the

The old man had some fifty years ago been no mean performer upon the vielle,-and, at age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted,-and joined her old man again as their children and grand-children danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for some pauses in the movement wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance ;-but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of

thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay

-Or a learned prelate either, said I.

THE CASE OF DELICACY.

WHEN you have gained the top of Mount Taurira, you run presently down to Lyons ;adieu then to all rapid movements!-'tis a journey of caution; and it fares better with sentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; so I contracted with a voiturin to take his time with a couple of mules, and convey me in my own chaise safe to Turin, through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honest people! fear not; your poverty, the treasury of your simple virtues, will not be envied you by the world, nor will your vallies be invaded by it.-Nature! in the midst of thy disorders, thou art still friendly to the scantiness thou hast created: with all thy great works about thee, little hast thou left to give, either to the scythe or to the sickle but to that little thou grantest safety and protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so sheltered!

Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the sudden turns and dangers of your roads, your rocks, your precipices; the difficulties of getting up, the horrors of getting down, mountains impracticable, and cataracts, which roll down great stones from their summits, and block up his road. The peasants had been all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between St Michael and Madane; and, by the time my vioturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing, before a passage could any how be gained. There was nothing but to wait with patience;-'twas a wet and tempestuous night; so that by the delay and that together, the voiturin found himself obliged to put up five miles short of his stage, at a little decent kind of an inn by the road side.

I forthwith took possession of my bedchamber, got a good fire, ordered supper, and was thanking Heaven it was no worse, when a voiturin arrived with a lady in it, and her servantmaid.

As there was no other bedchamber in the house, the hostess, without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as she ushered them in, that there was nobody in it but an English gentleman;-that there were two good beds in it, and a closet within the room which held another. The accent in which she spoke of this third bed, did not say much for it; however, she said there were three beds, and but three people,--and she durst say the gentleman would do any thing to accommodate matters.I left not the lady a moment to make a conjecture about it, so instantly made a declaration that I would do any thing in my power.

As this did not amount to an absolute surrender of my bed-chamber, I still felt myself so much the proprietor, as to have a right to do the honours of it;-so I desired the lady to sit down, pressed her into the warmest seat, called for more wood, desired the hostess to enlarge the plan of the supper, and to favour us with the very best wine.

The lady had scarce warmed herself five minutes at the fire, before she began to turn her head back and to give a look at the beds: and the oftener she cast her eyes that way, the more they returned perplexed.—I felt for her-and for myself; for in a few minutes, what by her looks, and the case itself, I found myself as much embarrassed as it was possible the lady could be herself.

That the beds we were to lie in were in one and the same room, was enough simply by itself to have excited all this;-but the position of them (for they stood parallel, and so very close to each other, as only to allow a space for a small wicker-chair betwixt them) rendered the affair still more oppressive to us;-they were fixed up, moreover, near the fire, and the projection of the chimney on one side; and a large beam which crossed the room on the other, formed a kind of recess for them that was no way favourable to the nicety of our sensations:

if any thing could have added to it, it was that the two beds were both of them so very small, as to cut us off from every idea of the lady and the maid lying together; which, in either of them, could it have been feasible, my lying beside them, though a thing not to be wished, yet there was nothing in it so terrible which the imagination might not have passed over without torment.

As for the little room within, it offered little or no consolation to us: 'twas a damp, cold closet, with a half dismantled window-shutter, and with a window which had neither glass nor oil-paper in it to keep out the tempest of the night. I did not endeavour to stifle my cough when the lady gave a peep into it; so it reduced the case in course to this alternative,―That the lady should sacrifice her health to her feelings, and take up with the closet herself, and abandon the bed next mine to her maid,—or, that the girl should take the closet, &c.

The lady was a Piedmontese of about thirty, with a glow of health in her cheeks. The maid was a Lyonoise of twenty, and as brisk and lively a French girl as ever moved. There were difficulties every way, and the obstacle of the stone in the road, which brought us into the distress, great as it appeared whilst the peasants were removing it, was but a pebble to what lay in our way now-I have only to add, that it did not lessen the weight which hung upon our spirits, that we were both too delicate to communicate what we felt to each other upon the occasion.