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THE DWARF.

PARIS.

IHA HAD never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was will pro= bably come out in this chapter; so that being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre = and that was, the unaccountable sport of nature, in forming such numbers of dwarfs

No doubt, she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world: but in Paris, there is no end to her amusements=The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.

As I carried my idea out of the opéra comique with me, I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by it = Melancholy application! espe= cially where the size was extremely little = the face extremely dark = the eyes quick=the nose long= the teeth white = the jaw prominent = to see so many miserables, by force of accidents, driven out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me pain to write down=every third man a pigmy! some by ricketty heads and hump backs others by bandy legs a third set arrested by the hand of nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth a fourth, in their perfect and na= tural state, like dwarf apple-trees, from the first ru diments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.

A medical traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages a splenetick 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 Bour geoisie 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 mat= ters, averred that children, like other animals, might be encreased 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 actual= ly room enough to get them = I do not call it getting any thing, said he = 'tis getting nothing = Nay, con= tinued 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 nutricious 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 so= lution 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 Carousel 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 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 ineline me to be merciful towards 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 par= terre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. A poor defenceless being of this order had got thrust some how 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 his 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, 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 Goliah 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 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 his first transports, which are generally un reasonable, 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 who 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 confu= sion; for leaning a little over, and nodding to a cen= tinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress = the centinel made his way up to it. = There was no occasion to tell the grievance = the thing told itself; so thrusting back the German in= stantly 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 allat ourease. The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in case I had been at variance, = by say ing it was a bon mot=and as a bon mot is always worth somethingat Paris, he offered me a pinch of

snuff.

THE ROSE.

IT

PARIS.

T 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 pers

du behind a couple of grisettes, in order to see the opéra, 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 ecclesiastick would pick the grisette's pocz kets? The old French officer smiled, and whisper= ing 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 grossièreté! added I.

The French officer told me, it was an illiberal sar= casm at the church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in it, by Molierebut, like other remains of gothick man= pers, was declining Every nation, continued he, have their refipements and grossièretés, 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 diffe rence was, I could not have expressed it half so well,

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