Characters.

my

guest; and in course should have resigned all 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 dress'd himself out to the idea of tilts and tournaments ever since-the Marquis de B**** wish'd to have it thought the affair was somewhere else than in his brain. "He could like to take a trip to England," and ask'd much of the English ladies. Stay where you are, I beseech you, Monsieur le Marquis, said ILes Messrs. 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 Monsieur P****'s concerts upon any other terms.

I had been misrepresented to Madame de Q**** as an esprit-Madame de Q**** was an

*This kind of easy flattery, which bears every mark of sincerity, seldom fails to wind its way into the heart; the whole consists in the manner of administering it.

The three Epochas.

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 whether I

had any wit or no. I was let in, to be convinced she had. I call heaven to witness I never once open'd the door of my lips.

Madame de V*** vow'd 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 devote: the empire during these is never lost --she only changes her subjects: when thirty-five years and more have unpeopled her dominions of the slaves of love, she repeoples it with 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 sopha with her, for the sake of disputing the point of religion

*This has been long said of the French, Deism is in general cultivated; to this they are probably led from the absurdities they behold in their established religion.

Deism confuted.

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 out-works, without which I could not conceive how sush 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 deistthat it was a debt I owed my creed, not to conceal it from her, but I had begun to form designs —and what is it, but the sentiments of religion, and the persuasion they had existed in her breast, which could have check'd 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 her 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 Monsieur D*** and the Abbé M***, that in one half hour I had said more for revealed religion, than all their Encyclopædia had said against it— I was listed directly into Madame de V***'s Coterie-and she put off the epocha of deism for two years.

The Disgust.

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 pinn'd too straight about my neck-It should be plus badinant, said the Count, looking down upon his own--but a word, Monsieur Yorick, to the wise

-And from the wise, Monsieur 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 Monsieur Yorick a autant d'esprit que nos 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 I was 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 a half dozen different people, I grew

Bounty of Nature.

sick--went to bed-order'd 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 heyday 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 the clusters---to pass through this with my affections flying out and kindling at every group before me--and every one of 'em 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

*The parts of France which Sterne here speaks of, exhibits at the time of the vintage the most luxuriant picture that can possibly be conceived, and were not the peasantry spoliated by the hand of power, nature has poured that profusion among them which would make them the happiest people in the world.