W HEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have any thing to do with my wig: 'twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do, but to take one ready made of his own recommendation. -But I fear, friend! said I, this buckle won't stand. - You may immerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will stand What a great scale is every thing upon in this city! thought I-The utmost stretch of an English periwig-ma ker's ideas could have gone no further than : than to have "dipped it into a pail of water"- What difference! 'tis like time to eternity. I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature, that for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison lefs than a mountain at least. All that can be faid against the French fublime in this inflance of it, is this that the grandeur is more in the word; and less in the thing. No doubt the ocean fills the mind with vaft ideas; but Paris being fo far inland, it was not likely I should run post a hundred miles out of it, to try the experiment the Parisian barber meant nothing. The pail of water standing befides the great deep, makes certainly but a forry figure in speech-but 'twill be faid it has one advantage-'tis in the next room, and the truth of the buckle may be tried in it without more ado, in a fingle moment. : In honest truth, and upon a more candid revision of the matter The French expreffion professes more than it performs. 1 I think I can fee the precife and diftinguishing marks of national characters more in these nonfenfical minutie, than in the most important matters of state; where great men of all nations talk and ftalk so much alike, that I would not give ninepence to chuse amongst them. I was so long in getting from under my barber's hands, that it was too late of thinking of going with my letter to Madame Madaine R -- that night: but when a man is once dressed at all points for going out, his reflections turn to little account, so taking down the name of the Hotel de Modene where I lodged, I walked forth without any determination where to go-I shall confider of that, faid I, as I walk along. THE PULSE. PARIS. HAIL ye small sweet courtefies of life, for fimooth do ye make the road of it! like grace and beauty which beget inclinations to love at first sight; 'tis ye who open this door and let the stranger in. -Pray, Madame, faid I, have the goodness to tell me which way I muft turn to go to the Opera comique:Most willingly, Monfieur, faid she, laying afide her work I had given a cast with my eye into half a dozen shops as I came along in search of a face not likely to be disordered by fuch an interruption; till at last, this hitting my fancy, I had walked in. She |