out of my monk's little horn box-Andhow would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk! so tempered to bear and forbear!-how sweetly would it have lent an ear to this poor soul's complaint!. The old French officer seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion, as I made. the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask. me what was the matter-I told him the story in three words; and added, how inhuman it was. By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in the first transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he would cut off his long queue with his knife-The German look'd back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it. An injury sharpened by an insult, bet it to whom it will, makes every man of sentiment a party-I could have leaped out of the box to have redressed it-The old French officer did it with much less. confusion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a centinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger to the distress, the centinel made way up to it. There was no occasion to tell the grievancethe thing told itself-so thrusting back the German instantly with his muskethe took the poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him.-This is noble! said I, clapping my hands together-And yet you would not permit this, said the old officer, in England. In England, dear Sir, said I, we sit all at Our ease. The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in case I had been at variance-by saying it was a bon mot-and as a bon mot is always worth something at Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff. THE ROSE. PARIS. Ir was now my turn to ask the oldFrench officer, "What was the matter?" for a cry of " Haussez les mains, Monsieur "l'Abbé," re-echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me, as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper lodges, who he supposed had got planted perdu behind a couple of Grissets in order to see the opera, and that the parterre espying him, were insisting upon his holding up both his hands during the representation-And can it be supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the Grissets' pockets?—The old French officer smiled, and whispering in my ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of Good God! said I, turning pale with astonishment-is it possible that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves-Quelle grossierté! added I. The French officer told me it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in it by Moliere-but, like other remains of Gothic manners, was declining-Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and grossiertés, in which they take the lead, and lose it of one another by turns-that he had been in most countries, but never in one where he found not some delicacies, which others seem to want: Le POUR, et le CONTRE se trouvent en chaque nation: there is a balance, said he, of good and bad every where; and nothing but the knowing it is so can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossessions which it holds against the other-that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the sçavoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mutual love. The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his character-I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the object-'twas my own way of thinking-the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well. It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast-if the latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every object which he never saw before I have as little torment of this kind as any creature alive; and yet I |