= for him, and who, I believed, would have perish'd, ere he could have ask'd one for himself: he stood by the chaife a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days-Good God! said I -and I have not one fingle fous left to give him- I could afford nothing for the rest, but Dieu vous beniffe-Et le bon Dieu vous benisse encore→ faid the old foldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux could fay nothing-he pull'd out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away and I thought he thank'd me more than them all. THE Hi got THE BIDET. my AVING fettled all thefe little matters, I got into my poft chaife with more eafe than ever I got into a poft-chaife in life ; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far fide of a little bidet*, and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs)he canter'd away before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince But what is happiness! what is grandeur in this painted fcene of life. A dead afs, before we had got a league, put a fudden ftop to La Fleur's career his bidet would not pass by it a contention arofe betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd out of his jack-boots the very first kick. La Fleur bore his fall like a French chriftian, faying neither more or less upon it, than, Diable! fo prefently got up and came to the charge again aftride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his drum. The bidet flew from one fide of the road to the other, then back again then this way then that way, and in fhort every way but by the dead afs. La Fleur infifted upon the thing and the bidet threw him. What's the matter, La Fleur, faid I, with this bidet of thine?- Monfieur, faid he, c'eft un cheval le plus opiniatre du monde- Nay, if he is a conceited beaft, he must go his own way, replied Ifo La Fleur got off him, and giving him Poft-horse. T him a good found lafh, the bidet took me at my word, and away he scamper'd back to Montriul -pefte! faid La Fleur." It is not mal à propos to take notice here, that tho' La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this encounter namely, Diable! and pefte! that there are nevertheless three, in the French language; like the pofitive, comparative, and fuperlative, one or the other of which ferve for every unexpected throw of the dice in life. Le Diable? which is the first and positive degree, is generally ufed upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where fmall things only fall out contrary to your expectations fuch as the throwing once doublets -La Fleur's being kick'd off his horfe, and fo forth-cuckoldom, for the fame reason, is always Le Diable! But in cafes where the caft has fomething provoking in it, as in that of the bidet's running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots-'tis the fecond degree. 'Tis then pefte! And for the third But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow-feeling, when I reflect what miferies must have been their lot, and how bitterly fo refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it. Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in diftrefs ! whatever is my caft, Grant me but decent words to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way. But as these were not to be had in France, I refolved to take every evil just as it befell me without any exclamation at all. La La Fleur, who had made no fuch covenant with himself, followed the bidet with his eyes till it was got out of fight and then, you may imagine, if you pleafe, with what word he clofed the whole affair. As there was no hunting down a frighten'd horfe in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaife, or into it, I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got to the poft-house at Nampont. NAMPONT. A NAM PONT. THE DEAD AS S. ND this, faid he putting the remains of a cruft into his wallet and this fhould have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me. I thought by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his afs, and to the ve ry afs we had seen dead in the road, which had occafioned La Fleur's mifadventure. The man feemed to lament it much; and it inftantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature. The mourner was fitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the afs's pannel and its bridle on one fide, which he took up from time to time-then laid them down-look'd at them, and fhook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it? held it fome time in his hand then laid it upon the bit of his afs's bridle look'd wiftfully at the little arrangement he had made- and then gave a figh. The fimplicity of his grief drew numbers a bout him, and La Fleur amongst the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued fitting in the poft-chaife, I could fee and hear over their heads. He faid he had come laft from Spain, where he had been from the furtheft borders of Franconia and had got fo far on his return home, |