MONTRI UL.

I Am apt to be taken with all kinds of people at

firft fight; but never more fo, than when a poor devil comes to offer his fervice to fo poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always fuffer my judgment to draw back fomething on that very account and this more or less according to the mood I am in, and the cafe and I may add the gender too of the person I am to govern.

—

When La Fleur enter'd the room, after every discount I could make for my foul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter at once in his favor; fo I hired him firft and then began to inquire what he could do: But I fhall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want them befides, a Frenchman can do every thing.

Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, and play a march or two upon the fife. I was determined to make his talents do: and can't fay my weakness was ever fo infulted by my wifdom, as in the attempt.

La Fleur had fet out early in life, as gallantly as moft Frenchmen do, with ferving for a few years: at the end of which, having fatisfied the fentiment, and found moreover, "that the honor of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open'd no further track of glory to him he retired à fes terres, and lived comme il plaifoit à Dieu - that is to fay, upon nothing.

And fo, quoth Wifdome, you have hired a drummer to attend you in this tour of your's through France and Italy! Pfha! faid I! and do not one half of our gentry go with a hum-drum compagnon du voyage the fame round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay befides? When man can extricate himself with an equivoque in fuch an unequal match he is not ill off But you can do fomething elfe, La Fleur? faid I O qu'oui! he could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the fiddle Bravo! faid Wisdome Why I play a bafs myself, faid I - we shall do very well. You can fhave, and drefs a wig a little, La Fleur? He had all the difpofitions in the world It is enough for heaven! faid I, interrupting him and ought to be enough for me So fupper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one fide of my chair, and a French valet, with as, much hilarity in his countenance as ever nature painted in one, on the other . I was fatisfied to my heart's content with my empire; and if monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as fatisfied as I was.

MONTRIUL.

As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and
Italy with me, and will be often upon the ftage,

I muft intereft the reader a little further in his
behalf, by saying, that I had never lefs reafon to
repent of the impulfes which generally do deter-

he

mine me, than in regard to this fellow was a faithful, affectionate, fimple foul as ever trudged after the heels of a philofopher; and notwithstanding his talents of drum-beating and fpatterdash-making, which, tho' very good in themselves, happened to be of no great fervice to me, yet was I hourly recompenfed by the feftivity of his temper it fupplied all defects

I had a conftant refource in his looks in all difficulties and diftreffes of my own I was going to have added, of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of every thing; for whether 'twas hunger or thirft, or cold or nakedness or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his phyfiognomy to point them out by --he was eternally the fame; fo that if I am a piece of a philofopher, which Satan now and then puts it into my head I am it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this fellow, for fhaming me into one of a better kind. With all this, La Fleur had a small caft of the coxcomb but he feemed at first fight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and before I had been three days in Paris with him - he feemed to be no coxcomb at all.

THE

MONTRI UL.

poor

HE next morning La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to him the key of my

my

half a

with an inventory of portmanteau, dozen fhirts and filk pair of breeches; and bid him faften all upon the chaise get the horses and defire the landlord to come in with

put to
his bill.

C'est un garçon de bonne fortune, faid the landlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him,as the poftillion was leading out the horses. La Fleur kiffed all their hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.

The young fellow, faid the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and there is fcarce a corner in Montriul where the want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, "He is always in love. "I am heartily glad of it, faid I 'twill fave me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head. In faying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princefs or another almost all my life, and I hope I fhall go on fo till I die, being firmly perfuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in fome interval betwixt one paffion and another: whilft this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up I can scarce find in it to give Mifery a fixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as faft

as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generofity and good-will again; and would do any thing in the world either for, or with any one, if they will but fatisfy me there is no fin

THE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons, confpiracies and affaffinations-libels, pafquinades and tumults, there was no going there by day 'twas worse by night.

Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pafs, that the Andromeda of Euripides being reprefented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations, than the tender ftrokes of nature which the poet had wrought up in that pathetic fpeech of Perfeus, O Cupid, prince of God and men, &c. Every man almoft spoke pure iambics the next day, and talk'd of nothing but Perfeus his pathetic addrefs "O Cupid! prince of God and men. - in every street of Abdera, in every house "O Cupid! Cupid!" in every mouth, like the