but my

of at this long distance from his death eyes gush out with tears. For his fake, I have a predilection for the whole corps of veterans; and fo I Itrode over the two back rows of benches, and placed myself beside him.

The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet, it might be the book of the opera, with a large pair of spectacles. As foon as I fat down, he took his spectacles off, and putting them into a shagreen cafe, return'd them and the book into his pocket together. I half rose up, and made him a bow.

Tranflate this into any civilized language in the world the fenfe is this:

"Here's a poor stranger come in to the box - he "seems as if he knew no body; and is never likely, "was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man "he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose "'tis shutting the door of conversation absolutely in "his face and using him worse than a German,"

The French officer might as well have faid it all aloud; and if he had, I should in course have put the bow I made him into French too, and told him, "I was fenfible of his attention, and return'd him a "thousand thanks for it."

There

There is not a fecret so aiding to the progress of fociality, as to get master of this short hand, and be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind in the circle, where not three words have been faid, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to,

I was going one evening to Martini's concert at Milan, and was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquesina di F- was coming out in a fort of a hurry she was almost upon me before I faw her; fo I gave a spring to one fide to let her pass - She had done the fame, and on the same lide too; so we ran our heads together: she instantly got to the other fide to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been for I had sprung to that fide, and opposed her passage again - We both flew together to the other fide, and then back - and fo it was ridiculous; we both blush'd intolerably; so I did at last the thing I should have done at first

on

I stood stock still, and the Marquesina had no more difficulty. I had no power to go into the room, till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the passage She

fo

She look'd back twice, and walk'd along it rather fideways, as if the would make room for any one coming up stairs to pass her - No, faid that's a vile tranflation: the Marquefina has a right to the best apology I can make her; and that opening is left for me to do it in - so I ran and begg'd pardon for the embatrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention to have made her way. She answered, the was guided by the same intention towards me we reciprocally thank'd each other. She was at the top of the stairs; and feeing no thichesbee near her, I begg'd to hand her to her coach so we went down the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure - Upon my word, Madame, said I when I had handed her in, I made fix different efforts to let you go out - And I made fix efforts, replied she, to let you enter I wish to heaven you would make a seventh, faid I - With all my heart, said the, making room Life is too short to be long about the forms of it-so I instantly stepp'd in, and she carried me home with her - And what became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who, I fup pose, was at it, knows more than I.

I will only add, that the connection which arofe out of that tranflation, gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in Italy,

THE

THE DWARF

PARIS.

I had never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was, will probably 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 alınost as merry as the is wife.

As I carried my idea out of the opera comique with me, I measured every body I saw walking in the streets by 'it - Melancholy application! especially where the fize was extremely little the face extremely dark - the eyes quick - the nose long - the teeth white - the jaw prominent - to fee so many miferables, 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

the hand of Nature in the fixth and seventh years of their growth a fourth, in their perfect and natural state, like dwarf apple-trees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.

and

A medical traveller might say, 'tis owing to undue bandages a splenetic one, to want of air an inquifitive 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 fixth and feventh stories such numbers of the Bourgoifie eat and fleep together; but I remember, Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing like any body elfe, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred, that children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any fize, provided they come right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of Paris were fo coop'd up, that they had not actually room enough to get them - I do not call it getting any thing, faid he 'tis getting nothing Nay, continued he, rifing in his argument, 'tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got, after 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 faid upon it,

As