said he, "of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but the knowing it is so, can emancipate one-half of the world from the prepossession which it holds against the other that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the savoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners: it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration," concluded he, making me a bow, "taught us mutual love." The old French officer delivered this with an air of such candour and good sense, as coincided with my first favourable impressions of his character. I thought I loved the man, but I fear I mistook the object; 't was my own way of thinking; the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well. It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast, if the latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every object which he never saw before. I have as little torment of this kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess, that many a thing gave me pain, and that I blushed at many a word the first month, which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second. Madame de Rambouillet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of town. Of all women, Madame de Rambouillet is the most correct; and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart. In our return back, Madame de Rambouillet desired me to pull the asked her if she wanted any thing: "Rien * * * Madame de Rambouillet. cord. I **" said Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouillet ***; and ye, fair mystic nymphs! go each one pluck your rose, and scatter them in your path-for Madame de Rambouillet did no more. I handed Madame de Rambouillet out of the coach, and had I been the priest of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful decorum. WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius's advice to his son upon the same subject into my head, and that bringing in Hamlet, and Hamlet the rest of Shakespere's works, I stopped at the Quai de Conti in my return home, to purchase the whole set. "Comthe The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. ment!" said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon counter betwixt us. He said they were sent him only to be got bound, and were to be sent back to Versailles in the morning, to the Count de B |