M THE MONK CALAIS heart smote me the moment he shut the door-Psha! said I, with an air of carelessness, three several times—but it would not do every ungracious syllable I had utter'd, crowded back into my imagination: I reflected, I had no right over the poor Franciscan but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language—I considered his grey hairs—his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter and gently ask me what injury he had done me ?—and why I could use him thus? I would have given twenty livres for an advocate—I have behaved very ill, said I within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels; and shall learn better manners as I get along. WH THE DESOBLIGEANT CALAIS HEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise-and nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walk'd out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose: an old Desobligeant1 in the furthest corner of the court hit my fancy at first sight, so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hôtel-but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite side of the court, in conference with a lady just arrived at the inn-I drew the taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being determined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and wrote the preface to it in the Desobligeant. IT PREFACE IN THE DESOBLIGEANT T must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, That nature has set up by her own unquestionable authority certain boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man: she has effected her purpose in the quietest and 1 A Chaise, so called in France, from its holding but one person. easiest manner, by laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his suffering at home. It is there only that she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of that burthen, which, in all countries and ages, has ever been too heavy for one pair of shoulders. 'Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond her limits, but 'tis so ordered, that, from the want of languages, connections, and dependencies, and from the difference in educations, customs, and habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility. It will always follow from hence, that the balance of sentimental commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what he has little occasion for, at their own price-his conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount—and this, by the bye, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his party This brings me to my point; and naturally leads me (if the see-saw of this Desobligeant will but |