I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his humour- Then prithee, said I, let me fee it. La Fleur inftantly pull'd out a little. dirty pocket-book cramm'd full of small letters and billet-doux in a fad condition, and laying it upon the table, and then untying the ftring which held them all together, run them over one by one, till he came to the letter in question — La voilà, said he, clapping his hands ; fo unfolding it firft, he laid it before me, and retired three fteps from the table whilft I read it. THE LETTER. MADAME, JE fuis pénétré de la douleur la plus vive, et réduit en même-tems au désespoir par ce retour imprévu du Corporal, qui rend notre entrevue de ce foir la chofe du monde la plus impoffible. Mais vive la joie! et toute la mienne fera de penser à vous. L'amour n'eft rien fans fentiment. Et le fentiment èft encore moins fans amour. On dit qu'on ne doit jamais le désespérer. On dit auffi que Monfieur le Corporal monte la garde mercredi: alors ce fera mon tour. Chacun a fon tour. En attendant - Vive l'amour! et vive la bagatelle! Je fuis, MADAME, avec tous les fentimens les plus refpectueux et les plus tendres, tout à vous, JAQUES ROQUE. It was but changing the Corporal into the Count and faying nothing about - to mounting guard on Wednesday and the letter was neither right or wrong— so, gratify the poor fellow, who flood 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 feal'd it up and sent hìm with it to Madame de L***- and the next morning we purfaed our journey to Paris. PARIS. WHEN a man can conteft the point by dint of equipage, and carry all on floundering before him with half a dozen lackies and a couple of cooks-'tis very well in fuch 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 fingle man, had beft quit the field, and fignalize himself in the cabinet, if he can get up into it-I lay, up into it-for there is no defcending perpendicular amongst 'em with a “Me voici!' mes enfans"”— here I am-whatever many may think. I own, my firft fenfations, as foon as I was left folitary and alone in my own chamber in the hotel, were far from being fo flattering as I had prefigured them. I walked up gravely to the window in my dufty black coat, and, looking through the glass, faw all the world in yellow, blue and green, running at the ring of pleasure. The old with broken lances, and in helmets which had loft their vi zards the young in armour bright which fhone like gold, be-plumed with each gay feather of the eaft all-all tilting at it like fascinated knights in tournaments of yore for fame and love.— Alas, , poor Yorick! cried I, what art thou doing here? On the very firft onset of all this glittering clatter, thou art reduced to an atom -feek-feek fome winding alley, with a tourniquet at the end of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau shot its rays there thou may'ft solace thy foul in converse sweet with some kind griffet of a barber's wife, and get into fuch coteries! -May I perifh! if I do, faid I pulling out a 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 directlyand come back and brush my coat. THE WIG. PARIS. WHEN the barber came, he abfo lutely refused to have any thing 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! faid I, this buckle won't ftand. You may immerge it, replied he, into the ocean, and it will ftand What a great scale is every thing upon in this city! thought I—The utmost stretch of an English periwigmaker's ideas could. have gone no farther than to have “dip"ped 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 fo ftruck with the great works of nature, that, for my own part, if I could help it, I never would make a comparison less than a mountain at leaft. All that can be faid against the Vol. I. K |