THE UNSUCCESSFUL INQUIRY.

AT length I reached the spot where the calamity had happened. Amidft the general confufion that still prevailed, I inquired if any lodger had loft a cafket of jewels; adding that upon giving a proper description of them, they fhould be reftored. But no perfon would claim them. I then inquired if a lady resembling the picture I had in my hand, was any where to be found; but this refearch was as ineffectual as the former. No fuch lady was known in the neighbourhood. I could not point out the houfe from the window of which they were thrown, for the walls were all levelled, and it was impoffible to difcriminate one house from another.

In this perplexity 'I went to my acquaintance. Mademoiselle Laborde ( for that was the name of my female acquaintance whom I have hitherto distinguished only by being fille de chambre to Madame R-) I acquainted her with the accident, and my diftrefs at not being able to difcover the proprietor of the cafket, and the fituation of the dear original of the miniature.

But how great was my astonishment, on being nformed that the lady whom I had conveyed to Mademoifelle Laborde's lodging had, as foon as fhe recovered from her terror and aftonishment,

expreffed the greatest concern at the lofs of a fimilar casket.

THE DEFINITION.

I WAS ruminating upon the abfurdity of the

name of that street which formerly bore a still more abfurd appellation, whilft I unfolded half a dozen pair of filk stockings, which I had juft purchased, and which were wrapt up in an old manufcript that seemed of a very ancient date. It was written in old French, and upon a piece of paper that required fome reparations to make it legible. I had at firft conceived the thought of tranfcribing it; but récollecting it would coft me little more trouble to tranflate it, I fet about it, and produced the following English translation.

TRANSLATION OF A FRAGMENT.

JEAN François de Vancourt of Franche-Comté,

by his marriage-articles with Marie Louise Anne "de Rochecoton, of Champagne, does agree, that "confidering the disparity of their years, he be"ing now in his eighty- third, and fhe in her "fixteenth, and also the warmth of her confti"tution, and the amorousness of her complexion, "to allow unto the Vicar of the faid parifh all

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"the rights of cuissage and jambage, in their full extent, agreeable to the juft claims of the holy "church; and moreover, and moreover, does permit him to "continue the fame,' in his abfence, during the "natural life of him, the faid Jean François de "Vancourt. Provided, nevertheless, that the faid "Vicar, upon the return of the faid Jean François, "fhould, after the faid Jean François had pro"nounced in an audible voice at the door of the "bed-chamber, Tire V-t, three times, withdraw "himself therefrom, and leave the faid Jean François in the full poffeffion of Marie Louife Anne, "his faid wife, any thing notwithstanding to the CC contrary that may herein be contained.

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Provided always, on the part of the faid "Marie Louife Anne, that fhe has a negative "voice in favor of the Curate, when the faid "Vicar fhall be above the age of thirty-five, or "otherwife in her opinion difqualified for the "rites of cuiffage and jambage, in their full extent; "he the faid Curate, in cafe of fuch election on "her part, fubmitting to the fame provifo, in "favor of the faid Jean François, upon his pro

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nouncing in an audible voice, at the said cham"ber door, Tire Vt three times."

Having tranflated thus much of this Fragment I fhall leave the reader to make his own fentimental reflections, after obferving, that the good queen who ordered the name to be changed, feemed to difplay more knowledge than delicacy:.

but it

must be obferved in her favor, that according to the Salique law, a queen of France never wields the fceptre in her widowhood, and is therefore glad of every opportunity of difplaying her authority during the life of her husband.

If this be not a fufficient apology for the queen, let any lady of any quality or fashion, from a dutchefs down to a milk-maid, take both names (without the Tire) and make the most of them.

AN ANECDOTE.

WHEN Mr. G made his first trip to Paris,

he had not ftudied fo much of the rudiments of the French language, as always to be critically grammatical in his genders: he would confound them together, and blend the mafculine and the feminine in the most heterogeneous manner.

He was recounting to a lady at Versailles, remarkable for the smartness of her repartee even at the expense of decency, the impofitions he had met with upon the road from Calais, on account of his being an Englishman, and not fpeaking the language with the ftricteft propriety: and he particularized having paid a postilion twice, who asked him even a third time for the money. "Eft-il CC poffible?" faid fhe. "Oui, Madame, j'avois déchargé deux fois, fur mon vie.

"Beaucoup

mieux, replied fhe, que fur mon Con-te." The divifion of the laft word had the defired effect, and raised fuch a laugh in the gallery, that the king could not refrain afking what they tittered at, as he passed along.

THE DENOUEMENT.

THE reader, I believe, was not apprized, that

Mademoiselle Laborde informed me, the lady whom I had faved from perifhing, and had conducted to the apartments of Mademoiselle, was withdrawn from thence, and conveyed by her friends to another lodging, which had been provided for her; whereby I was fruftrated in my hopes of obtaining an eclairciffement from that quarter, concerning the picture and the jewels.

Having discovered the lodging to which the frighted lady was carried, I was now flattered with the pleafing intelligence concerning the fair original.

The reader may perhaps fancy that he has anticipated the unravelling of this ftory, by pronouncing the lady, whom I was inftrumental in affifting, the identical original herself. But to prevent any fuch erroneous conclufions, I fhall here inform him, that any fuch anticipation is a groundless miftake. Though there was a general refemblance