from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence never meant to grow higher.

A medical traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages-a splenetic one, to want of air-and an inquisitive traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses-the narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square in the sixth and seventh stories such numbers of the bourgeois eat and sleep together; but I remember Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any body else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred, that children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of Paris were so cooped up, that they had not actually room enough to get them-I do not call it getting any thing, said he -'tis getting nothing-Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got, after twenty or five and twenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more said upon it.

As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified in every lane and by-lane of Paris. I was walking down that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais-Royal, and observing a little boy in some distress at the side of the gutter, which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand, and helped him over Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I perceived he was about

F

forty-Never mind, said I; some good body will do as much for me when I am ninety.

I feel some little principles within me, which incline me to be merciful toward this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size or strength to get on in the world. I cannot bear to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer, ere the disgust was exercised, by seeing the very thing happen under the box we sat in.

At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you stand, as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. A poor defenceless being of this order had got thrust somehow or other into this luckless place the night was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than himself. The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which incommoded him most was a tall corpulent German, near seven feet high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of seeing either the stage or the actors. The poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening betwixt the German's arm and his body, trying first one side, and then the other; but the German stood square, in the most unaccommodating posture that can be imagined-the dwarf might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's sleeve, and told him his distress. The German turned his head back, looked down upon him as Goliath did upon David-and unfeelingly resumed his posture.

I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's little horn box-And how would thy meck 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 his first transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he would cut off his long queue with his knife. The German looked back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.

An injury, sharpened by an insult, be 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 sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger to the distress, the sentinel made way up to it. There was no occasion to tell the grievance the thing told itself -so thrusting back the German instantly with his musket-he 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

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.

It was now my turn to ask the old French 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 loges, 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 honestly confess, that many a thing gave me pain, and that I blushed at many a word the first month, which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.

Madame de Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of town -Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart. In our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord-I asked her