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 they all. THE BIDET. HAVING fettled all these little matters, I got into my poft-chaife with more ease than ever I got into a poft-chaife in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jackboot 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 scene of life! A dead ass, before we had got a league, put a fudden ftop to La Fleur's career-his bidet would not pass by ita contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd out of his jack-boots the very firft kick. * Poft-horse. La La Fleur bore his fall like a French christian, faying neither more or lefs upon it, than, Diable! fo presently 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 waythen 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'est le cheval le plus opiniatre du monde-Nay, if he is a conceited beaft, he must go his own way, replied I,-fo La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good found lafh, the bidet took me at my word, and away he fcamper'd back to Montriul.-Pefte! faid La Fleur. It is not mal à propos to take notice here, that though 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 used upon ordinary emotions of the mind, where finall 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 reafon, 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 a-ground 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 miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly fo refined a people must have finarted, to have forced them upon the use of it.— Grant 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 thefe were not to be had in France, I refolved to take every evil juft as it befell me without any exclamation at all. 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 please, 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. NAM PONT. THE DEAD AS S. -AND 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 apoftrophe to his child; but 'twas to his afs, and to the very afs we had feen dead in the road, which had oc cafioned 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 ftone 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 cruft of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it; held |