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THE LETTER.

"MADAME,-Je suis pénétré de la douleur la plus vive, et réduit en même temps au désespoir par ce retour imprévu du caporal qui rend notre entrevue de ce soir la chose du monde la plus impossible.

"Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne sera de penser à vous.

"L'amour n'est rien sans sentiment.

"Et le sentiment est encore moins sans

amour.

"On dit qu'on ne doit jamais se désespérer.

"On dit aussi que Monsieur le Caporal monte la garde mercredi: alors ce sera mon

tour.

"Chacun à son tour.

"En attendant-Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle !

"Je suis, Madame,

"Avec tous les sentimens les plus respectueux

et les plus tendres, tout à vous,

"JAQUES ROCQUE.”

It was but changing the corporal into the count, and saying nothing about mounting guard on Wednesday, and the letter was neither right nor wrong: so, to gratify the poor fellow, who stood trembling for my honour, his own, and the honour of his letter, I took the cream gently off it, and, whipping it up in my own way, I sealed it up, and sent him with it to Madame de L—; and the next morning we pursued our journey to Paris.

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PARIS.

WHEN a man can contest the point by dint of equipage, and carry all on floundering before him with half-a-dozen lackeys and a couple of cooks, 'tis very well in such a place as Paris; he may drive in at which end of a street he will.

A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whose whole infantry does not exceed a single man, had best quit the field, and signalise himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it: I say up into it, for there is no descending perpendicular amongst 'em with a "Me voici ! mes enfans"- "Here I am, whatever many may

think."

I own my first sensations, as soon as I was left solitary and alone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being so flattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my dusty black coat, and, looking through the glass, saw all the world in yellow, blue, and

green, running at the ring of pleasure: the old with broken lances, and in helmets which had lost their vizards; the young in armour bright, which shone like gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the east; all, all tilting at it, like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore for fame and love.

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Alas, poor Yorick!" cried I, "what art thou doing here? On the very first onset of all this glittering clatter; thou art reduced to an atom: seek, seek some winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled, or flambeau shot its rays; there thou mayst solace thy soul in converse sweet with some kind grisette of a barber's wife, and get into such coteries!

"May I perish if I do!" said I, pulling out the letter which I had to present to Madame de R. "I'll wait upon this lady the very first thing I do." So I called La Fleur to go seek me a barber directly, and come back and brush my coat.

THE WIG.

PARIS.

WHEN the barber came, he absolutely refused to have anything to do with my wig; 'twas either above or below his art: I had nothing to do but to take one ready made of his own recommendation.

"But I fear, friend," said I, "this buckle won't stand."

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You may immerge it," replied he, "into the ocean, and it will stand."

"What a great scale is everything upon in this city!" thought I.

"The utmost stretch

of an English periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further than to have dipped it into a pail of water.' What difference! 'tis like time to eternity."

I confess I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do the puny ideas which engender them; and am generally so struck with the great works of nature, that, for my own part, if I could help

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