of learning-where the Sciences may be more fitly woo'd, or more surely won, than here-where Art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high-where Nature (take her all together) has so little to answer for-and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind with-Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going? We are only looking at this chaise, said theyYour most obedient servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat-We were wondering, said one of them, who, I found, was an inquisitive traveller-what could occasion its motion-'Twas the agitation, said I coolly, of writing a preface-I never heard, said the other, who was a simple traveller, of a preface wrote in a desobligeant-It would have been better, said I, in a vis-a-vis. -As an English man does not travel to see English men, I retired to my room. ..... CALAIS. I PERCEIVED that something darkened the passage more than myself, as I stepped along it to my room; it was effectually Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and, with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the desobligeant; and Monsieur Dessein speaking of it, with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belonged to some innocent traveller, who, on his return home, had left it to Monsieur Dessein's honour to make the most of. Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coach-yard; and having sallied out from thence but a vampt-up business at the first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventuresbut by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Monsieur Dessein's coachyard. Much, indeed, was not to be said for itbut something might and when a few words will rescue Misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them. -Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of my fore-finger on Monsieur Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate desobligeant-it stands swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it Mon Dieu! said Monsieur Dessein-I have no interest-Except the interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Monsieur Dessein, in their own sensations-I'm persuaded, to a man who feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits-You suffer, Monsieur Dessein, as much as the machine I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself whether to take it or let it alone: a Frenchman never is: Monsieur Dessein made me a bow. C'est bien vrai, said he-But in this case I should -only exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss: figure to yourself, my dear Sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got half way to Paris-figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit. The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not help taking it and returning Monsieur Dessein his bow, without more casuistry we walked together towards his remise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises. ...... IN THE STREET. 2 CALAIS. It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park-corner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor swordman, and no way a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to which the situation is incident-I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and througheyed him as he walked along in profile-then en face-thought he looked like a Jew-then a Turkdisliked his wig-cursed him by my gods-wished him at the devil And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be overreached in ?-Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment-base, ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man's hand against thee-Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk-she had followed us unperceived-Heaven forbid, indeed, said I, offering her my own-she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two fore fingers, so асcepted it without reserve-and I led her up to the door of the remise. Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times before he found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle, that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing it; so that Monsieur Dessein left us together with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the remise, and said he would be back in five minutes. Now, a colloquy of five minutes in such a situation is worth one of as many ages with your faces turned towards the street. In the latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences withoutwhen your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank, you draw purely from yourselves. A silence of a single moment upon Monsieur Dessein's leaving us, had been fatal to the situation-she had infallibly turned about-so I begun the conversation instantly. -But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for the weaknesses of my heart in this tour-but to give an account of them)---shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt them. WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the desobligeant because I saw the monk in close conference with a lady just arrived at the inn-I told him the truth-but I did not tell him the |