A

i SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY

THROUGH

3

FRANCE AND ITALY.

THEY order, faid I, this matter

better in France

-You have been in France? faid my gentleman, turning quick upon me with the moft civil triumph in the world.Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, That one-and-twenty miles. failing, for 'is abfolutely no farther from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights. I'll look into them: fo giving up the argument, I went ftraight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen fhirts and a black pair of filk breeches—“the coat I have Caid I, looking at the fleeve,

on,

will do"-took a place in the Dover ftage; and the packet failing at nine the next morning-by three I had got sat down to my dinner upon a fricaffee'd chicken, fo inconteftibly in France, that, had I died that night of an indigeftion, the whole world could not have suspended the effects of the *) Droits d'aubaine - my shirts, and black pair of filk breeches portmanteau and all, must have gone to the King of Franceeven the little picture

which I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from my neck. Ungenerous! — to

feize

upon

the wreck of an unwary pasfenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to their coaft-by Heaven! SIRE, it is not well done; and much does it grieve me, 'tis the monarch of a people so civilized and courteous, and fo renowned for fen

*) All the effects of strangers (Swifs and Scotch excepted) dying in France, are feized by virtue of this law, though the heir be upon the spot→→→ the profit of these contingencies being farmed, there is no redress.

timent and fine feelings, that I have to reafon with

But I have scarce fet a foot in your dominions

CALAIS.

WHEN I had finished 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 rofe 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 such as I had been drinking) could have produced.

-Juft God! said I, kicking my portmanteau afide, what is there in this world's goods which should sharpen our spirits, and make so many kind-hearted brethren

of us, fall out fo eruelly as we do by

the way?

When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a feather is the heavieft of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse, and holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if he fought for an object to share it with. — In doing this, I felt every vessel in my frame dilate-the arteries beat all cheerily together, and every power which sustained life, performed it with fo little friction, that it would have confounded the most phyfical precieufe in France with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me a machine

I'm confident, said I to myself, I should have overfet her creed.

The acceffion of that idea, carried Nature, at that time, as high as she could go-I was at peace with the world before, and this finished the treaty with myself

---Now, was I a King of France, cried I-what a moment for an orphan to have begged his father's portmanteau of me!

THE MONK.

CALAIS.

I Had fcarce uttered the words, when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the room to beg something for his convent. No man cares to have his virtues the sport of contingencies-or one man may be generous, as another man is puissant-fed non quoad hanc-or be it as it may-for there is no regular reasoning upon the ebbs and flows of our humours; they may depend upon the fame causes, for aught I know, which influence the tides themselves-'twould be of no difcredit to us, to fuppose it was fo: I'm fure, at leaft for myself, that in many a case I should be more highly satisfied, to have it said by the world, "I had had an affair with the moon, in which there was neither fin nor fhame," than have it pass altogether as my own act and deed, wherein there was fo much of both.

-But be this as it may. The moment I caft my eyes upon him, I was predeter