A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, &c. &c. BOOK. I. France They order, faid I, this matter better in - -You have been in France? faid my gentleman, turning quick upon me with the molt civil triumph in the world. Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, that one and twenty miles failing, for 'tis abfolutely no further from Dover to Calais, fhould give a man these rights I'll look into them: fo giving up the argument - I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen fhirts and a black pair of filk breeches "the coat I have on, faid I, looking at the fleeve, will do" took a place in the Dover ftage; and the packet failing at nine the next morning by three I had got fat down to my dinner upon a fricaffee'd chicken fo inconteftably in France, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have fufpended the effects of the Droits d'Aubaine * my fhirts, and black pair portmanteau and all must have of filk breeches gone to the king of France even the little pi&ure which I have fo long worn, and fo often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck. Ungene rous! to feize upon the wreck of an unwary paffenger, whom your subjects had beckon'd to their coaft by heaven! SIRE, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch of a people fo civilized and courteous, and fo renown'd for fentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reason with But I have fcarce fet foot in your dominions * All the effects of strangers (Swifs and Scotch excepted) dying in France, are feized by virtue of this law, tho' the heir be upon the fpot the profit of thefe contingencies being farm'd, there is no redrefs. CA CALAI S. When I had finifh'd my dinner, and drank the King of France's health, to fatisfy my mind that I bore him no fpleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his temper I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation. No faid I the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race: they may be misled like other people; but there is a mildness in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt a fuffufion of a finer kind upon my cheek more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a bottle, which was fuch as I had been drinking) could have produced. Juft God! faid I, kicking my portmanteau alide, what is there in this world's goods which should sharpen our fpirits, and make fo many kindhearted brethren of us, fall out fo cruelly as we do by the way? When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the heavielt of metals in his hand he pulls out his purfe, and holding it airily |