TRAVELS FOR THE HEART. VOL. II.
TRAVELS FOR THE HEART. WRITTEN IN FRANCE, BY COURTNEY MELMOTH. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR JOHN WALLIS, No. 16, LUDGATE-STREET, 1777.
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
CHAP. XII.
INCONSISTENCIES of the heart— Hypochondriacism of man—The story of a lover's
unhappy Felicity;
with the perplexity occasioned by turning an object on the wrong side. Page 1
CHAP. XIII.
The Roast Beef of Old England, against the Pleasures of Paris. Remarks of the heart on every man's attachment to his native country—The Author is now fully convinced, that it would be utterly wrong not to proceed in his journey—His reasons—The heart sends off the Author's luggage to the packet. P. 36
CHAP. XIV.
A sea-piece—Characteristical contrasts. In this chapter is also a few mistakes, tending to prove, that he who decides of a nation from vague report, may possibly find himself embarrassed. Several instances of the Author's sagacity, out of which the more sagacious reader may extract some useful lessons, to prevent his being ridiculous— First appearance of two English wits, with several of the best things that ever were said—Review of some observations made by former travellers. P. 45
CHAP. XV.
A candid enquiry into the origin of what is termed French Imposition. The two English wits are in all the triumph of travel—More examples of their skill at an excellent joke—Eulogy on the necessary accomplishments of a British stripling who hath fortune enough to see the world— Prejudices combated—Amelia's address to the English wits, on the subject of Charity—Their edification, and the end of the chapter. P. 75
CHAP. XVI.
Observations of the English jesters in a French church—Blasphemy, amongst wits of a certain order, passes for brilliance—The eloquence of a Franciscan, with his sentiments upon the younger part of the English travellers—The friar talks down the courage of the wits, who look about for a joke and cannot find it. P. 107
CHAP. XVII.
Containing a dissertation upon blushes, being one of the shortest, but not the least important, chapter for the heart. P. 130
CHAP. XVIII.
Entertainments of the heart at Calais— Apostrophe to nature—The jesters turn suddenly serious, and retire in disgrace. P. 137
CHAP. XIX.
More prejudices combated—A French Sunday, contrasted with an English Sunday—An old French officer figures in this chapter, as a citizen of the world—National peculiarities reconciled—The remarks of the officer on the customs of different countries— There is room enough in Heaven for all good people, in all climates—A Sunday evening's recreation in France —Felicity's lover again appears. P. 143
CHAP. XX.
Bagatelles, addressed to the heart— Apostrophe to self-love, and other remarks, in which the heart is interested. P. 168
CHAP. XXI.
The exploits of the humorous travellers upon the road to Paris—They leave traces of the heart behind them, at every stage; and, at Amiens, draw a line betwixt England and France— The manners of an Englishman going
to
Paris. P. 181
CHAP. XXII.
The manners and maxims of an Englishman coming
from
Paris—The battle for the bidet, in which the barber's heart came off conqueror. P. 195
CHAP. XXIII.
The manners and maxims of an impartial traveller, on his way to England. P. 215
CHAP. XXIV.
In which the heart concludes the second volume; but not without taking care to promise a continuation at a future opportunity—A very loyal prayer. P. 228
TRAVELS FOR THE HEART.
THE RESOLUTION RESOLVED UPON.
VIVACITY is contagious.
"You are certainly right (said I), Amelia. I once more feel that I have looked at my object in the wrongest point of view. It deserves a fairer situation; and I am now resolved to place it in a lib
ral light. The health which you have prayed for, I anticipate joyfully, and with it I expect the rosy cheek, the sparkling eye, and that chearful alacrity, which runs unfatigued through the amusements or business of the day. In your eulogy on the capital of France, I forget the phlegm of a studious, gloomy, Englishman, and drive in the airy chariot of fancy, over the rugged pavement of a crouded city, pleased at the sight of so many thousand new faces, and not at all disgusted either with the rattle of fashion, or the tumult of trade.
See, my dear Amelia! see, in these sudden alterations, the true nature of the heart!"
There passed over my cheek, at this instant, one of those transient burnings, which makes nature blush for shame at her own inconsistency: but I would not give a sixpence for an author who produces not something for the heart, even in a comment upon its weaknesses.
"Pshaw (said I) what a misfortune is it to be hypochondriacal: or rather what an hypochondriac is man, take him even at the soundest period of his health. Set but his passions afloat; give but the loose rein to his desires, or let him but walk in the way of his system, and the varying wind, the arrant moon, and the shifting cloud, are all stabilities in the comparison: how peevish, how playful, how irresolute, how resolved; without reason disgusted, and with as little cause put again into humour."
"And can all these changes (exclaims the calm stander-by); can all these changes take place in travelling somewhat slower than a foot-pace, only from London to Dover?"
Ah, censurer, have a care! Beware least the accusation be brought home to yourself. How would the story run, if thou wert here, with faithful Biography, to set down the particulars of thy own day? Depend on it the journal of thy heart, in its journey through every six hours of life, is too full of Quixotism, phantasm and vagary; and too well stored either with light or serious innovations, to assert a superior claim to constancy: and, even should there be the meanest son of merchandise, that ever traded hard for the turn of the penny, on thy own side of the scale, still I insist upon it thou canst not have any right to cast the first stone.
The thread of this remonstrance is cut short by almost a page, in order to bring forward a circumstance which it is consonant to the system of these travels, in this very place and in no other, to admit.
Just as I was beginning to wonder how I could find so many arguments pro and con, in regard to this journey to France, and bestowing a smile upon the heart, which, since it beat in the Hotel at Dover, had shifted from one point to another, much often than the streamer, which, at the head of the mast was still inclined the same way, a specimen of France, in the shape of a nimble-footed artist for the modern human face, entered my room, with three skips of courtesy, and (being pre-invited) proceeded to give my chin the smirkness of the present taste.
The mechanical drudgery of shaving, however, was by no means his business, and I soon found the taking off my beard was purely an urbanity, which, being the first I ever received from a French hairdresser, and done with due regard to
the graces,
I, the more readily, entered into conversation.
"You have been in France (said I), young man?"
"I am there at this
instant
Monsieur;" replied he.
"The duce you are! (said I). How long is it, then, since Dover was added to the dominions of Louis? Perhaps you will be pleased to allow too, that I am your prisoner at this instant!"
"Sans doute,
Monsieur, while under my hands: but that hits not off; my meaning the best part of me—
my heart
is certainly at this blessed moment in Paris."
"In what
part
of it, prithee, is this treasure deposited?"
"Ah
mon Dieu
(said the lad), what a question? It beats Monsieur, up five pair of stairs in the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau, in the beautiful bosom of
Felicity.
A very lofty lodging, perhaps, you may think; but I like it the better for that. It is thereby so much the nearer to the Heavens, to which
Felicity
belongs."
Another such an enigma as this, would have occasioned an emotion which might untie the knot of it to some purpose, especially as the Frenchman was now beginning to flourish his razor under my throat.
"Felicity!
(said I, putting back his hand, as if to ward off the razor till my curiosity was satisfied); I am afraid, friend, you are addicted to that contemptible species of wit, which in England, we call the Conundrum."
"What I tell you, Monsieur, is simply and solemnly true: my heart is in the bosom of
my Felicity,
who, in the very quarter I told you, occupies one little cabinet which is to me more decent than the palace of Versailles; and as to
wit,
in good faith Monsieur, the story of Felicity is too tender and too sad to permit any thing like it."
Though the system of some travellers might, at such a time as this, lead them into the bedchamber, to make the most of the two or three hours which remained, before the sailing of the packet-boat, yet was it agreeably to
my
system, to listen attentively to the story of the French Barber's
unhappy Felicity!
To say the truth, there was every thing in the air and manner of this paradox, to keep awake the curiosity both of Amelia and myself; so I desired the supper, which had been ordered, might be kept back a little, that we might have him and his Felicity all to ourselves.
"If you will draw your comb leisurely through my hair, young man (said I), and if there is not, in the relation, something too painful to be repeated, I could wish to know—
"Ah Monsieur (replied the lad interrupting me, and pointing his razor to his own throat, having now done with mine); the pain which
this
could give, by sending me of a sudden, into the grave of my fathers (who were all entitled to wear a ribbon in their button-holes, of no mean or undistinguished order) would be a mere bagatelle to the very
thought
of relating my sufferings! Upon that intolerable subject therefore
vous aurez lá bontè de me pardonner."
Though my
curiosity
was more heightened, my
compassion
got the better of it, and I only asked the
name
of this unfortunate.
He bowed very respectfully, and repeated his last sentence.
This was as much as any man could decently bear, and I think Amelia exerted the utmost fortitude of female philosophy, that she contented herself with a short ejaculation!
"My good and great God!" said the.
The Frenchman was, by this time, putting into order the left side lock, and I felt the comb, as he brought it backwards and forwards, tremble under his hand. In the bended attitude in which he stood to dress me, my eye was, of necessity, confined to the top part of his waistcoat, which being thrown open, I discovered, through the aperture of his shirt-bosom, the cross of a catholic, and a small oval
something,
hanging together.
This something could certainly be made nothing of, while, as was now the case, it remained on the wrong side. My heart was again at the end of my fingers, and I would have given the universe to untwist it. Luckily for Amelia it was out of her sight, and so from pure regard to her quiet, I kept the torment all to myself: twice I made advances towards the inserted oval, and twice I drew back my hand at the check of sighs which were heaved from the heart of a Frenchman. Had the gate of Paradise been closed full in my face, it could not have thrown me into greater perplexity!
"Trifles light as air
Are, to the
curious,
confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ."
"You are very young?" said I.
"Just old enough to be acquainted with misery: (cried the barber); for, till three weeks ago, I danced through every street of Paris, and was at once the merriest and the happiest man in the city—Yes, be my witness,
mon bon Dieu,
I was the happiest of men!"
Blessed be the poor fellow's heart for dictating this asseveration! for, in making it, he pressed his hand, with the warmest veneration, upon the cross, and turned the oval.
It proved to be a little varnished piece of rose-coloured composition, studded with sparkling stones, with the miniature of a female, having the best-natured set of features in the world, in the centre of it.
At this critical moment, guided by my ill stars, which were resolved to teaze me, the youth left my side locks, and withdrew to those which were behind. With what ineffable fervor did I then wish that every villainous hair which had contributed to my disappointment, might instantly fall from the head, upon which they were unworthy to hang.
Be the reader ever so angry, I cannot, in justice to
the heart,
which is fully concerned in every
syllable
of this story, get on with it faster.
When circumstances which engage the heart, are playing at cross-purposes with it, and every faculty of the brain is on the stretch for accommodation of our wishes, how often
that
accommodation is brought about to the hearth's absolute content, by some slight manoeuvre, of all others the least expected!
"A mighty pretty picture that Monsieur!" said Amelia. I turned short about with inconceivable quickness, as if the expedient was hit off by a miracle.
Surely the very Devil himself delayed me in this business. I had scarce turned about, before the Frenchman turned himself round also, and was standing with his back towards me, while he held down his head.
"Was ever man so tormented?" said I."
"Gracious Heaven!" said Amelia.
"Oh Ciell"
(exclaimed the Frenchman. He still kept his attitude: but, soon recovering himself, he again begged my pardon, and addressing Amelia with a hesitating voice—
"Yes, Madam, this picture— this picture — this — this — this — pic—pic—pict—ure (here his heart destroyed his language), this pic— ture—I say, is the picture of my
unfortunate Felicity!"
"A
woman,
after all!" cried Amelia, striking her hands together!
"And
in distress!"
said I, looking at the lad.
"Even so, (said the Frenchman,
pressing
the cross and
kissing
the picture); even so".
Where the heart is affected by sorrows of a soft and social kind, it is next to an impossibility to be long silent. Such sorrows burst of their own accord into language, and are always soothed by being trusted to the sympathy of those about us.
The Frenchman was now touched so thoroughly, that, as he proceeded to finish my hair, he hummed a sort of sonnet under pretence of shewing us that all was well again; by which piece of finesse, his anxiety became, in reality, too big to be contained, and the story ran thus:
"Certainly, Monsieur, this is the picture of my Felicity, and I am banished from the presence of the dear creature, by a couple of accidents which, as I hope to be saved, could not be helped. Felicity, you must know, is cursed with a cruel father who drudges all day in his garret for gold, and so is an enemy to every thing but money. I was, for some time, his apprentice; and it was impossible to see his fair daughter pass backwards and forwards by our work-shop, without despising gold, and admiring her beauty. Our hearts were just of the same sort, as they were of the same age; and we both lost all our French spirits, and grew as melancholy as your English people —you will pardon me Monsieur— about the same time. I had wit enough to know, that so surprising a change in us, could be wrought by nothing but love. We were both convinced of this, when we were mightily delighted by stealing a look, or a touch, or a soft kiss, while the old gold-beater's back was turned: but the bare truth of our mutual passion was, alas! put out of all doubt, when my master suffered us to pass a fine day at Marly; that is, if we were inclined
to treat o
rselves.
The idea was so charming, that I sha
l never, no, never shall I forget it. I had saved up money to the amount of near thirty livres, and so I thought I was laying it out to the heart's best advantage, by hiring a handsome cabriolet for the whole day. I put my hair into order, hung on my sword, and walked forth with Felicity early in the morning, under pretence of having time to amuse her. Certainly, we could have gone by a cheaper conveyance, but then there would, I foresaw, be inconveniences, equal to the cheapness. A common stage is often crouded with disagreeable passengers, and, as Felicity is a fair creature, I thought it best to enjoy her company alone. Better had it been, however, if the cabriolet had been at Paris, and I in my master's shop; for, as I told you before, a couple of accidents happened, which, though they could not be avoided, turned out very fatally.
In the gardens of our beloved monarch at Marly, every body knows, there are lovers walks without number: the trees are so green, the streams are so clear, and there are so many fair figures of both sexes, in so many postures in different places, tempting us in marble, (which scarce seem to want breath) that it is very wrong for two young French people, that love one another, to trust themselves amongst them. We got safe out of them, at the cost only of about a thousand sighs, and one or two tears of confession, which stole down the crimsoned cheek of Felicity, till I kissed it off. Neither was that kiss well timed; for it carried the crimson, which was before confined to the face, quite down to the neck, till its flushing descended even to the bosom. Oh what a summer-night's sun shone upon our prospect, as we were returning. We had no interrupting domestic behind our carriage. The horses were extremely gentle, and I drove them myself. Ah! that a coachman had been seated before us! What misery might have been prevented!
As fortune, however, would have it, I was, by some means, induced to take a sudden turn through a delightful lane (though I confess it was not upon the road to Paris), and, while I left the horses to graze upon the herbage that fertilized the banks, Felicity and I got down, with no other view in the world, than to pick out a bouquet of field-flowers, which grew amongst the corn. Ah fatal excursion! Let no two people, who have hearts, indulge themselves in picking flowers out of a corn-field! 'How
fruitful
is this charming soil!' said I, sighing.
'Yes:' said Felicity, with a blush.
We were walking out, with our bouquet.
'Good God (said Felicity), if this high corn is not enough to throw one down.'
'There is no helping it:' replied I making a couch of the corn. Oh, Monsieur, our hearts were both so cruelly entangled, that we fell to the ground.
'Heavens! (said Felicity) if there is not a hare sitting on yonder hillock: how should I delight to have it in my bosom!'
He who loves, must endeavour to gratify her whom he admires. Not thinking, that, if I struck the animal, I should destroy the pleasure Felicity wished, of nursing it in her bosom, I was fool enough to throw a large stone at my game, and I was unfortunate enough to kill it.
I put it into the box of my cabriolet and set forwards. How little did I supect that either this accident, or any other that might precede it, was overlooked! But alas! our very rout was watched, and we were doged to the door of the gold-beater, who was informed of a circumstance which put his daughter under lock and key, and which subjected me to horrors both of soul and body, for which I have no language. The gold-beater shut me into a dark closet, in charge, while my detector posted away to the police. I now had the fear of slavery and the galleys before my eyes. My heart bled for Felicity, from whom I was separated. What was to be done? Fortune a little befriended! The lattice of the closet opened upon the lead-work of a neighbouring-house. I crept through it like a thief in the night; and, having the presence of mind to put on an old full-trimmed suit of my master's that hung upon a peg in the closet, I escaped along the roof and descended into the street. You will excuse me for declining to reveal the means by which I reached Dover. Suffice it, that here I am one of the most wretched of men. I had always a smart way of managing the hair, and could scrape my own beard decently enough, so I took up the employment of a barber, or else I must have starved. But I am weary of my life, and I resolve very soon to go over the water again, let the consequence be what it will. My king is too good a man, and hath too great a heart, to persecute a poor fellow any longer, for killing a hare, to please a young woman with whom he was in love; and, as to Felicity herself, the last letter, which she found means to send me, intimated a circumstance which tells me that I should be no true Frenchman, and, indeed, not fit to live in
any
country, if I did not try, some way or an other, to make her, forthwith, my lawful wife. How this is to be brought about, I don't know; but my heart is at the contrivance night and day!"
There was a colour in Amelia's cheeks, which appeared, at several periods of this little narrative, in disapprobation of the conduct as well as the conversation of the narrator: but there was a softness in her eyes, at some
other
parts of the relation, which shewed, that her modesty was not so much offended, but that she had virtue enough to forgive the transports of a lover!
THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE.
THE poor barber had no sooner finished a story, which discovered so much of his own heart, and that of his country, than our ears were saluted with the full bold tones of a voice, issuing from the adjoining room, to the tune of,
O the roast Beef of Old England;
and, when that voice had done, up sprung another in a sharper and shriller key, singing forth, in a sort of extasy,
The supreme Pleasures of Paris.
The barber was just about to take his leave as this invisible concert began; but sudden sounds always break the step short, and incline the ear towards them. To
The roast Beef of Old England,
though uttered with a swell of tone which beat an alarm to appetite, the barber paid a very slight attention, and put his razor and combs into their cases with infinite composure; but every turn in the sonnet, which displayed
The Pleasures of Paris,
made a strong impression upon both his looks and limbs.
"Oh charmant!
(said he) How much better does the Frenchman sing than the Englishman! For, you must know Monsieur,
that
Frenchman lived once within view of my Felicity's chamber window; and, as he passes, frequently from Calais to Paris, I now and then slip a billet into his hand, which he always delivers where it is directed: I love him for this; but I should love him better than any other man in Paris, were it only because he was lodged opposite to my Felicity's chamber window."
Here he bowed, respectfully, first to Amelia, then to me; and, after once more assuring me, that he thanked me for my promise to keep his secret, and that if I ever walked into the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau, and would direct my eyes upwards, they might stand the chance of being handsomely rewarded. He now softly chorused one of the lines in praise of Paris; and, betwixt sighing and singing went out of the room.
The house-clock struck eleven, just as he departed; and some travellers would have been two hours in bed, without the least idea of hair-dressing or story-telling, which may not seem necessary preparations for a voyage. But had I been asleep, I had missed many
strokes of the heart,
and I would purchase my knowledge of that, with a night's rest, at any time.
Upon the whole, my temper was now thoroughly sweetened. The picture of the human heart, in various attitudes and positions, had been exhibited before me. I saw plainly the tender attachment which every man had to his native country in general, and to that dear spot in particular, whether up five pair of stairs in the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau, or in the first floor of the royal palace where the treasure of the heart is deposited. I beheld, also, the uniform operations of pain and pleasure, upon every son and daughter of Adam, in every different country. The history of the unfortunate Felicity convinced me, still more fully, of this cardinal truth, namely, that, although customs may throw a different colouring over the character of nations, there is one silent language, universally understood, and universally the same—the language of passion, and of the affections.
In such thoughts as these I passed another half-hour; and I venerate the memory of the poor barber for having led me into the train of them. They expanded, even to the utmost openings of philanthropy, all the better principles within me: they purged the streams of life which issue from the heart, of all the remaining stains of prejudice, and they ran through my veins with a purer purple. No longer did I imagine it wrong to pass the boundaries of my own country, to visit my neighbours on the opposite shore. Amelia adopted the same sentiment upon the same principles. We both reconciled the idea of calmly beholding those ceremonies, which different nations employ, in adoring the
same
God. We exulted at the hope of knowing many amiable characters in a new country; and lastly, instead of thinking upon a ship any longer as a monstrous machine, that moved without any real necessity upon the face of the waters, we contemplated it as a structure equally useful and ingenious, and which owed its origin to God himself.
The conclusion of the matter was this: the heart bade the hand ring the bell with activity, and the porter, who obeyed its summons, was hurried off with the baggage to the packet, for, it was preparing to weigh anchor.
THE PASSAGE.
PASSAGE-BOATS, like stagecoaches, throw a man into societies and situations, equally characteristic and extraordinary. Let it, therefore, be some consolation to those, who are by fortune condemned to travel by such public conveyances, that they will see more of the heart, and all its humours and inclinings, in such situations, than if
hey were perched up alone, in all the uncomfortable dignity of a coach and eight.
There were ample sources of entertainment in the groupes, which were presently crouded into the cabin. Every face carried strongly in it, the lines of a mental peculiarity, in favour of that sort of speculation whose object is—human nature. But, what was better still, every passenger, except ourselves, had been summoned from the sound sleep in which he had been buried, to a sudden resurrection.
Now, they who have made it their business to look inquisitively at nature, under all the appearances which she can possibly assume; they, who have correctly marked the changes she undergoes almost every moment in obedience to circumstances great and small; they, also, who have taken an exact survey of the
human form
at all hours, and upon all occasions, in order to pourtray, with some precision, the
human heart;
these all know that there is not in life a more ludicrous moment of physiognomy than that of strangers gathering together at midnight, when the senses, like their chief instruments, are more than half shut up, and when none of the sensations, even though many of them be new, can either be finished or compleat, It is, however, for the sake of perfect experience in nature, by no means displeasing to survey her thus, as it were, betwixt sleeping and waking.
Save Amelia's and mine, every heart, as well as every body in the packet-boat, was in a dose, and it may be observed, that, when nature hath not had her nap out, she is equally fretful, whimsical and wayward. I defy the gloomiest imagination, under such circumstances, not to have been diverted. We were a mixture of many countries; and, our packet-boat, like the tower of Babel, resounded with the clangor of many tongues.
My eyes and ideas being all wide open, and broad awake, I sat myself down in a corner of the cabin, and made my
heart
also sit down and hear all! but say nothing.
The cabin was stored with characteristical contrasts. Opposite to me, sat one of those fearful and delicate beings, into the breath of whose nostrils seemed, at his birth, to have been poured more of the essence of lavender, than the spirit of vigorous life. It was enshrouded head and ears in coverings of the finest cambric, and its body was defended by a robe de chambre, lined with the spoils of the ermine: the thin texture of its voice might have suited the lungs of a lady in the last languors of a consumption; and the muff of sable, which extended from side to side of him, might have, perhaps, been a necessary companion in Siberia. As the thin texture of its voice discovered itself only by a cough, and as people cough, according to the strength or weakness of constitution, pretty much the same in all countries,
my heart,
which was all the time looking at him, made no scruple to set him down as a
Parisian petit maitre;
when lo! before half a league's sailing, in the course of which happened many faintings and many complaints, of the cursed mistake of providence, in not suffering a man to go smoothly over the water, from one coast to another; this imaginary Parisian, proved to be a downright affected booby of English manufacture, who, having been once before in the capital of France, took a pride in shewing us that he had seen, mixed with, and imitated, only the most contemptible part of it.
About a yard to the right of this fool of quality, another person, of a very different appearance, had taken up his temporal residence. He was dressed in all that decent and undecorated simplicity upon which Englishmen particularly pique themselves. The suit upon his body was all of a colour; there was not a single flourish in the rimming; plain were the buttons on his coat exactly matching the cloth; plain the ruffles at his wrist which admitted not the gaiety of an edging: his hair was in a plain queue; and such was his consistency, and so much was he all of a piece that his very stockings were ornamented only with a small unembellished clock. Imagining this shivering neighbour, the fop, to be really near unto the gate of eternity, he administered to him, but without speaking, in his sickness: he applied the hartshorn, summoned the coxcomb's servants, and held their conceited master by the arm, when he was pleased to be in a fit. Amelia, in the rolling of the ship, slipped from her seat, and, before I could possibly arise from mine to her relief, this stranger with doubly my agility, replaced her in her chair.
Notwithstanding the miss I made, in regard to the native country of the coxcomb, I thought I should hazard nothing by suffering my heart to insist upon the honour of fixing
this
person's birth in Great Britain.
In five seconds after this sagacious conclusion, drawn from those, as I thought them, infallible premises of air, manner, dress, and person, the gentleman addressed Amelia upon the subject of her fall, in a way, which put it beyond all doubt that he was not an
Englishman,
but a
Frenchman.
I next looked at a personage who seemed to have the legs of an Irishman, who proved to be born in Germany. I saw a pair of shoulders set upon the back of another who I made no doubt was—cheifly because he gave them a sort of Scotch shrug —fresh from the Highlands, who turned out to be, on the very first information, of his tongue, a man of Kent.
In short, I had seen enough to convince me that, he who hath one single particle of prejudice, lurking in any one corner of his heart, or who judges of the whole, from a part, should be contented to sit in the smoke of his own chimney corner, and never look farther into the world, than he can see from his window.
Yet it is travel only which can make us citizens of the world: and it is impossible for any thing upon the face of the globe (but a fool of quality) who hath gone far into different nations, to put his trust, either in the colour of a coat, the turn of an ancle, or the shrug of a shoulder. Whoever does this will be deeply mortified, since he will confound all nations; and, instead of judging of their characteristic by strokes of the heart (which in little actions are always palpable), he will go blundering on in headlong preprecipitancy to his own confusion, and to the ridicule of others.
Dress and size of body, may however, sometimes lead to a small passage that looks into the heart which is beating beneath them; but one unguarded action, and one sentence, apparently too little to shew much, is worth a thousand such external symptoms.
In the centre of the cabin, lolled, in separate chairs, but with hands generally united, two young Englishmen, whose travelling hats cockaded it in the face of midnight; and who, pouring out bumpers of a cordial (which they brought with them) into very sizeable glasses, threw an arch eye at the moon whom they saw through a hatch-way that opened on the deck, and drank her health: after which, in the same strain of facetiousness, they desired, that she would have the civility to betake herself to bed, and that she would present their compliments to her master the sun, telling him that they should think his worship a very impudent scoundrel, and very ill-mannered, seeing that he slept that night so near Paris, if he did not immediately put on his breeches.
At this sally of wit the different passengers were differently affected. The young gentlemen looked on all sides of them for laugh; but, perceiving the joke did not take, they were obliged, for the
credit
of the thing, to laugh themselves; and this laugh, under the sense of disappointment, produced such a strange mixed sound, that I am sure they could much easier have cried for mortification; for I will venture to lay it down as a maxim of the heart, that, not to laugh
with
me, goes nearer to the quick, and nettles much more than to laugh
at
me. Laugh at my glaring follies, and I have no objection; but if your muscles are ill-natured, and obstinately fixed to the line of gravity when I give you, what I take to be, the pleasantest jest in the world, is an offence, of which my heart shall carry a resenting impression till its traces are all cut away by death.
So it was at present, and our young gentleman
"Grinned horribly
A ghastly smile."
he fop, whom I had taken for a Frenchman, coughed infinite disdain upon the joke, and sent his valet to demand of the captain of the packet-boat, if he conceived there was any joke in having the assurance to suffer a gentleman of his delicacy, to be blown to atoms by the cursed sea-winds which whistled in, at that superdamnable skylight?
The gentleman, whom I pronounced to be an Englishman, forced a courteous simper into his face, in order to soften the sense of our hero's misery; and, with the same activity by which he had assisted Amelia, went upon the deck, and shut the coxcomb's superdamnable skylight.
The German, with the Irish legs, was dropping into an agreeable dose, so that I really believe he was not within ear-shot of the joke; and, as to the man with the Scotch shoulders, who was not the Scotchman, but the man of Kent, he sat kicking his heels, just as he had been kicking them for some time before, without any additional vigour in the strokes, against an empty barrel upon which he was elevated.
And yet I appeal to the reader if this single action of our young jesters', and the different air with which it was received by the company, doth not afford, a more certain clue to the
heart,
than any judgment that could possibly be formed, from a paltry speculation upon legs and shoulders, coats and waistcoats, the clock of a stocking, or the buckling of a shoe. Such conjectures are vague, and indeterminate. The chance of hitting or missing is at least equal. Many men in
all
countries have large legs, and those who do not trust a common liar — such hath always been accounted common fame—and who judge not of a country by the specimen of a few clumsy chairmen; those know that the gentlemen of Ireland are, for the most part, elegantly formed. Many men, likewise, in all countries, shrug the shoulders, though the common liar, above mentioned, would confine the habit to the Scotch and French, neither of whom are more famous for it, in fact, than other people. Nor is dress more ascertaining than figure or size; for the apron and frock which we give to the butcher, may, perchance, belong to the grocer—so of other trades.
These mistakes, however, originate from our dramatic writers, who deceive us in drawing their characters. The Frenchman of the English theatre, and the Englishman upon the stage of Paris, are perfect caracaturas. It is the same with respect to our exhibition of the Irish. The prodigious ruffles which we give — on the stage — to the French peasants and Parisian domestics, is a false trick which no playwrite can possibly put upon a real traveller; for the fact is, that the French footmen, like the English footmen in great families, wear these ornaments of a common length; and, as to the French peasants, they all wear ruffles prodigiously small (if you will allow so large a word to any thing so minute), and so far from the stage-ruffles allotted to valets, being representatives of the truth, I call upon every gentleman, who hath travelled beyond the playhouses of England, to the real parts which are said to contain such preposterous exuberances of linen; I say, I call on them to witness for me, that, the poor Frenchman, who lives by his labour, scarcely suffers his ruffles to peep the third of an inch from his wristband; and I really think it would be doing but a bare justice to the nation if one was to carry over a real ruffle, as a pattern for future poets to cut out by.
I have here allowed a few pages to common observation, without design to interest the heart, but to correct the mistakes which writers have diffused over my native country; and wherever the subject of simple information, with regard to customs, as well as manners, have been misrepresented, I shall certainly write down the actual truth for the reader's instruction.
Before I set out for France, I collected most of the volumes which have been written upon it; and I was so perfectly convinced that, as far as the matter of customs and country went, the subject was wholly pre-occupied, and that all remarks, in a similar track, would be repetition, that I was fully resolved to turn my observations into another channel, and address myself in a method, distinct from Sterne on the one hand, and mere men of brick and mortar, or ordinary describers of building, furniture, and fine sights on the other. In this task, as affording infinitely more entertainment, both to my readers and to myself, I proceed with infinitely more pleasure. But I have still found many ideas, which are popular in England with respect to France, exceedingly fallacious; and those ideas I shall, from time to time, take the liberty of correcting.
By leave of the reader's
heart,
which I will soon again attend to, I will take advantage of this apropos place to observe, that, it is not true with the regard to the notion we conceive of the French being, universally, a gay, giddy-
looking
people. That they may be most of them rakes at
heart,
and that they kindle into instant vivacity, as soon as they begin a conversation, is admitted; but if you meet them in the street, in the way of their business, or even walking in the public gardens in parties, not in the ardours of society, I do not believe there is a sedater, not to say solemner, set of muscles in the whole world. The Abbes are distinguished by a sobriety of features which might become a mitre, nor is there any where less gaity or levity in the
look
than at Paris; I mean, so far at least, as relates to external appearance of both sexes.
It is a conception equally false we entertain, of the necessity an Englishman of taste is under, to equip himself, on his arrival at Paris, with cloaths of a mere fantastical cut and colour, a la Francoise, the plain truth being neither more nor less than this, that there never was any place where all sorts of people enjoyed, in the greatest degrees, all sorts of liberties in dress, and that, if a person would wish to adopt the very pink of the present taste at Paris, he would array himself in the dress he brings with him, as English fashions are, at this period, followed, both by men and women, almost to as great an excess of affectation, as French fashions at London: so that neither country can say one is more ridiculous than the other in that respect.
Amongst young people, the smart jockey-boot, leather-breeches, doe-skin gloves, and round beaver of Newmarket, are, I perceive, entirely the mode of an elegant undress; and to shew our young nobleman that they do not come over the water for nothing, I have the pleasure to assure them that, although it is the taste for most people to ride managed horses, an exercise and an art which fixes every limb erect and graceful, yet there are not wanting some striplings who imitate the lounging lean, and slope their backs into an arch over the shoulders of their steeds, as if they had really been educated in the stud of an English groom of condition.
Having now set the reader's
head
right as to some national particulars, I return to the incidents of
the heart,
which will, doubtless, please him much better. I allow that the above is a digression or at least that the intelligence is somewhat out of its
place;
for, in point of absolute and precise
narration,
I am but just stepping on French ground, after a brisk passage; and here have I been giving observations that belong to Paris; but, methinks, the reader must have very little politeness if he murmurs forth any of his criticisms at this; for I only promised to amuse his
heart
with such incidents as should fall in my way; and, therefore, all which exceeds this promise, and which relates to mere matter of fact sentiment, in regard to other travellers, is absolute favour, and given, out of the free spirit of my courtesy,
into the bargain.
Travelling, really, expands the heart.
CALAIS.
THE two young jokers happened to go to the same hotel that I did. The coxcomb in the wrapping cloaths, was carried gently off in a chair to Monsieur Dessein's, and the
real
French gentleman bowed politely to the whole company, and walked away to a private house.
Without choosing to enter into any more jokes at present, I withdrew to my chamber; and, what perhaps your chimney-corner characters will not give credit to, slept as soundly, as softly, and as much to my heart's content, in the bed and in the land of an enemy, as if my apartment was under the protection of my natural sovereign. The sun too, beamed benignity and brightness into my chamber, in the morning, as if to welcome me, and tempt me to pursue my journey without further interruptions.
I accepted his radiant invitation and arose. Amelia breakfasted with me and the jokers, for whom I am indebted for some admirable hints, touching the origin of what is called the imposition of French innkeepers.
It is common enough for travellers, on the same road, to communicate their business the one to the other. But the twin jesters were remarkably reserved upon this subject, owing, very probably, to the
impossibility
of speaking about it; for where men have really the true no-meaning in setting out for a long journey, it is truly difficult to disclose their motives. The most undesigning nothingness brought our youths from London to Calais, and the same undesigning nothingness will, I doubt not, carry them back again. After looking at them, however, very intently almost half an hour, and turning their hearts on all sides, I discovered that, if they had any ray of plot in this excursion, it was that which might lead foreigners to think very despicably of English prudence, and to do their native country, and all future travellers an injury, by acting like madmen at every stage.
For example:
One of them took a glittering purse from his
waistcoat,
pocket and, with too uncompressed and liberal a hand, shook it at the ear of his companion as much as to say, "Here it is my friend, here it is: the golden key which shall unlock all the curiosities, toys, and cabinets of France. This will we dedicate my lad to pleasure, politeness, and Paris!"
Here Amelia was obliged to hem and gingle her coffee-cup to prevent the risings of a virtuous indignation.
The youth who was in all the glory of his triumph, observed, by this time, some poor aged creatures of both sexes, who pick their scanty livelihood from the bounty of travellers, curtsying and bowing, with petitioning eyes and bending heads, at the windows of the hotel.
The opportunity of joking never escapes the man whose heart lieth in wait for it; and he hath the art of extracting a joke very often from a tale of misery, or an incident that would afflict the tender fools of nature with the agonies of grief. The jester, with the purse, ran to the window, near which was a large table upon which he spread out, in tempting array, several guineas, to the tune, perhaps, of about two hundred. The hearts of every mendicant flew up instantaneously into his face. A soft suffusion of blood coloured, for a moment, the countenance of age; hope sparkled in the eye of Despair, and every hand shook even to palsy with expectation.
I was fool enough to imagine that all this preparation indicated a generous action; and Amelia was so perfectly persuaded of it that she set down her cup, and opened the window, that even so transparent an obstacle as a few panes of glass, might not lie in the way of the young gentleman's liberality.
Alas! this was nothing more than the ceremony which preceded a joke. Our hero set the table at
two
yards distance, and desired them to take what they fairly could by stretching forth their arms from the window.
The poor creatures shook their heads at the impossibility of the thing. A little boy, half naked, declared that he would stand on his head and tumble a whole hour for a single sous.
The jester wittily said, that he would give him neither a
sow
nor a
pig,
unless he could reach it. Finding no one attempted this, he put the money again into the purse, and walked with it to the window.
"Now (said Amelia) I hope you will pay the honest people for the anxiety you have given them."
"Certainly madam (cried the youth); you shall now see that I can do a genteel thing to the honour of England, which is, after all, the only England in the whole world."
Saying this, he opened the purse and bade the little boy put in his head and eat guineas till his belly was full of them; but the joke of this circumstance laid, in an endeavour to pinch the poor child's
nose,
by tightening the strings when he had made an effort to succeed. A second stroke of wit, consisted in offering one, who looked like a Jew, a guinea, if he would suffer our hero to cut off his beard; and one jest of superlative brightness was reserved for an insult upon a woman bent double by age, and whose cheeks were ploughed by the furrow of time into wrinkles. Our generous young gentleman promised to give her an ortolon if she would promise to
chew
it. Here the jest lay in the poor creature's having lost all her teeth. He then proposed that she should have, for her own use, as many livres as he could put into her wrinkles, provided that she hobbled off with them to her own house without letting them drop, in which case they were to be his who should find them. The famine-struck wretch, urged by the pleadings of nature, understood enough of his bad French to comprehend this strange proposal, and said she complied with it, and I do actually believe he would have gone on with the joke till he had lined her face with silver, though he had stuck every livre into her cheek, at the price of her pain and blood. This, I say, he most likely would have done, had not the tenderhearted Amelia run again to the window, while the colour of true shame for her countrymen came into her face, and, out of her own pocket, dispensed to every petitioner a trifle, and advised them to depart in peace.
This action interrupted the course of my countryman's humour, and, by way of polite revenge, he put his hand passionately into his purse and discharged several guineas at the heads of the mendicants as they were departing. Thus, for once, a very excellent circumstance of joy to the unfortunate, arose out of an action in which the heart had no share.
For my own part, I sallied out into the street, and stood guard while the scramble was over; for I did not doubt but when the squanderer cooled, he would be mean enough to cast a longing, lingering look after that money, which he had lavished while he was warm.
Amelia's heart smiled in her face upon this occasion, and the bucks consoled themselves, with observing, that the lady might laugh, but she had been the means of spoiling a good joke for all that.
Yes, yes, thought I—the reason is plain—it is to such lovers of pleasure and politesse as these we may attribute those impositions, of which sober and sensible travellers complain. Such striplings who are inclined to wander, and cursed with a fortune which allows the means of doing it, having no settled plan either of acting or thinking, come into a foreign country, and distinguish themselves by the splendor of mischief. They can find a ravishing pleasure in taking out a bag full of Louis when they want only a livre. They are pitiful enough to imagine there is a dignity in the display of money, and so let every man look into the bottom of the pocket at once. They have the pleasure also to exert the spirit of an Englishman as they term it, at every inn upon the road, and the still small request would make the waiter tender his services full as well, yet Englishmen of spirit deal their commands vociferously about them, and issue their ridiculous orders at the utmost extent of the voice. These brisk young gentlemen, also, concentre the sublime of their delight, in the clatter of carriage-wheels, the crack of whipcord, and the delicious clatter of a couple of dozen iron shoes, struck forcibly by half a dozen horses against a rugged pavement, and I am in doubt whether the circumstance of the French roads being stoney, hath not, as much as any thing else, contributed to render them popular, in the estimation of the
helter-shelter
race of travellers: for every body, who is acquainted with the ambition of our English youths, can tell, that, it's last master-stroke consist, in passing rapidly, within the breadth of a barley-corn,
by
another carriage; and he who can turn a corner quicker, and shorter, than an hackney-coachman, hath arrived at such an excellence, as entitles him to incontested superiority.
Men of spirit too we have amongst us, in whom shoots up the spirit of travel, who feel the politesse in all its poignancy, from seeing a couple of postillions in their laced jackets, with half a dozen brutes, have the honour to enter a city before the men of spirit themselves, and they take to themselves all that stare and admiration which is paid to the number of horses, and to the ornaments of the equipage. The joy of such too, arises from doing the very action of which a rational traveller would be ashamed; for they admire the politesse of paying so respectable a piece of money as a French crown, because an Englishman, forsooth, ought, for the honour of his country, to despise all connection with such morsels of money, as pass in exchange of a single livre upon the Continent.
The innkeeper sees all these prodigalities, and hath generally enough of the world about him, to make out his bill according to the conduct of his customers. He perceives that every English booby, who is broke from school, or the apron-string of his mother, gets a weak father's consent to make up a purse, with which he is to make himself more extensively ridiculous. Hence it is, that the disgrace of prodigality is marked as the characteristic of our country; from which imputation the honest travellers, who are contented with a pair of horses, and a decent dinner, decently ordered in a quiet articulation, which bespeaks us at peace with all men; hence, I say, it is, that those travellers who are low-thoughted enough, to separate the gold from the silver, and the silver from the copper, can, with difficulty, rescue themselves from ignominy.
Amelia was surveying our heroes with one of those looks, which denote the displeasure of the heart, when the
youngest
started up with that so
t of agility, which is usually the characteristic of people, whose heels and heads are equally light, swearing that it thundered as if Heaven and earth were coming, by mutual consent, together! The waiter appearing, decided a wager of fifty guineas (that were staked on the table by these British disputants) one of whom asserted it was the noise of a waggon, and the other, as hath been observed, that it was thunder. It proved to be neither; for the real cause of the sound shewed itself in a few minutes, and proved to be the stagecoach or diligence from Calais to Paris, which, at that instant, was, as I imagined, about to set off for the city. The appearance of this vehicle was a source of infinite wit to our jokers, one of which insisted that he had won his wager, for that it was, to all intents and purposes, a waggon, and a very ugly, ill-contrived waggon into the bargain: the other wit maintained that he also was willing to abide by his bargain, since he would be judged by me, Amelia, and the whole world, whether the thing, which now darkened the window, and half the street, was not a great deal more like a cloud, out of whose womb issued thunder, than either a stage-coach or a waggon?
"This (said I to Amelia) is the lucky moment! We shall now get rid of our troublesome countrymen. You may be assured they have too much English blood in their veins to be dragged to Paris in this stagecoach, this waggon, or this thunder; while they, therefore, are disputing what to call it, let us go and secure seats in this very machine, however unweildy, and, if possible, pay our quota unnoticed, and be gone.
There is a good degree of hazard in obeying, implicitly, the first impulses; and, except in cases of pity and kindness, where a worthy object is waiting for one's liberality, I scarce know a single instance, in which it is not best to wait, for the suffrage of second thoughts. A man, however, is so plaguely fond of a fresh idea, the moment it is started, that he dances about with it, as a fond mother might be supposed to gad about with the firstborn, for the pride of shewing the little idol to her friends.
I went incontinently into the street, followed by the master of the hotel; and, finding that two places were to be had, and only
two,
I caught at them with the greatest avidity, paid down my money chearfully, without paying any regard to the clumsy construction of the conveyance, and shaped into the parlour again, as having finished the business charmingly.
One trip generally brings on another; and I have observed that, when either man or horse is set in for stumbling, it is well if he does not come to the ground. "I have just hit it Amelia (said I), and, as good luck will have it, there were but two places vacant."
Two words, mal-a-propos, set the heart totally wrong. I betrayed the whole project; for the English wits saw that I wanted to quit their company.
"But two places! (echoed they); then will we ride upon the coach-box." Upon hearing there was no coach-box, to a French stage-coach, "Then (said they) will we ride in the basket; for travel from Calais to Paris, in some part or other of that monstrous machine, we assuredly will, even though we were to mount each of us a miserable steed behind those miserable postilions."
As soon as it was determined upon, that these bundles of British wit were to be part of our luggage, I heartily repented of my hasty engagement; but it was too late, and too awkward a crisis to retract: so I whispered Amelia that I did not doubt, but that, even this inconvenience might have its counterbalance of amusement some way.
"All for the best:" said Amelia.
The English striplings now exhibited another specimen of English prudence, in the
manner
of discharging their bill. They had many jocular strokes to make upon the size, form, figure, and variety of the French coin, none of which had the good fortune to escape a joke and a censure: a Louis, they said was, when compared with a guinea, a mean, pitiful piece that looked French in every line, and mark of the impression. They had the sagacity to find out, that the fulness and plenitude of flesh, represented on the guinea, was perfectly characteristic of King George, and his dominions; while, in the profile of Louis, as well as in the arms of that young monarch, they discovered
something,
they could not exactly tell what, which belonged to the French nation. The French crown, they confessed, was noble-sized, did it not resemble, in some respects, the uncouthness of the diligence, nor had they any objection to the small silver coins, except that they were palpably mere copies of the good, honest English sixpence. As to the copper coins, they wholly renounced and execrated the whole groupe, swearing that they were fit for no earthly thing in the universe, unless to drive into the head of an impertinent waiter, who should have the audacity to shew that he was a man, after he had been treated as a brute.
During this scene of wit, Amelia was dealing forth her charity to a poor Franciscan, who was addressing her heart through the window: turning short, therefore, to the jokers, she pointed with her finger to the friar: "And can you not conceive, gentlemen (said she, in a very tender tone and turn of countenance); can you not conceive some good and amiable use, to which even the smallest of the pieces of money you so much abuse might be put? Behold, gentlemen, how those two windows are surrounded by the sons and daughters of Poverty! Your hearts are there solicited, in every form, and in every attitude! Can you possibly survey those objects, and say the French money is inconvenient? For my part, I can conceive every thing that is excellent of that monarch, or that man, who first divided a single half crown, into so many parts, each of which are so extremely commodious to the purposes of benevolence! Ah, gentlemen, have you not yet travelled far enough in the world, to know that, what is to you a trifle, may, to your neighbours, be a matter of importance? The journey of life, (if you will admit, for a moment, a woman's allegory) is made steep by a thousand hills, dangerous by a thousand declivities, and rugged by as many narrow, or desert passages. What a variety of travellers are wearied, worn, and harrassed upon the road! Is your purse stored with French
small pieces
of money, what a favourable moment to shew the largeness of the heart! Great circumstances shall spring from small beginnings; and half a sous, and even a liard, shall, sometimes, bind up the wounds of the soul, and be, as it were, a crutch to help the enfeeled invalid upon his way."
The jokers, as soon as Amelia had done, thanked her for her very excellent discourse, as they termed it, upon Poverty, French Coin, and Charity; and, when they paid their bill, directed the waiter to carry a few sous to the gentleman with the bald head and bare feet, to go a little way, towards buying him a night cap and slippers.
CALAIS.
THERE was a mistake at the bottom of all this hurry: the machine was not to set out till the next morning early, and it was now but just arrived from Paris; so that we had three parts of a day upon our hands, and it was the contrivance of our hearts, to employ it apart from the men of wit; but this was impossible.
By this time the poor mendicant had come round from the window into the parlour, and made his desires known to our striplings, partly by his patience in teaching them French, and partly by his label of intelligence in English, which hung at his girdle; which, according to the rules of his order, was decorated with a rope.
He invited us to visit his convent; a common courtesy, which is paid indiscriminately to all travellers on their first arrival.
The wits went for a joke, and Amelia, with me, for the heart. Be assured, reader, some admirable specimens of English humour were shewn off at the church of the convent. The Franciscan bent the knee, and pressed the bosom, as he passed the crucifixes, which were in several parts of the church: the wits followed his example in every thing, but the appearance at least of sincerity. The friar unlocked a large range of drawers, out of which he took the robes, roses, and other ornaments, which are made use of at the altar, on days which are set apart for extraordinary ceremonies. The Franciscan held these with a cautious hand: Amelia looked at them with the reverence and discretion which decency requires upon every religious occasion. I considered them, for my own part, as well-intended decorations; but the jokers found out a pleasant simile, and likened every order of the priesthood, to so many different-coloured trappings of a coach-horse on my Lord Mayor's day, attended ludicrously by a retinue of long-robed liverymen. The two large lights, which were burning on each side a silver-lamp, before the principal crucifix in the centre of the altar-piece, our young gentlemen observed, would do most admirably for a pair of torches to trail behind a carriage, if any method could be hit upon to make them flame with a little more spirit; "But fie upon them (cried the jokers), they are not lively enough for any thing but a pack of half-starved mendicant friars, or to shed a sort of darkness, visible, round the vault of our great-grandfather." The Franciscan next took us, by a narow flight of steps, into a long gallery, on each side of which were the humble lodgings of his fraternity. He opened a little door which led into his own, and pointed, with a meek and patient action of the finger, to his couch of straw. The casement of the window (half over which clung slips of ivy) might be about the size of a single pane of a modern sash, and it was defended by bars of iron. It seemed, indeed, to be the very cabinet of mortification and self-denial; but the English jesters declared, it was the worst kennel for those foxes in sheeps' cloathing, the parsons, they ever beheld. This simile bore so hard upon the brotherhood, that our Franciscan (who, by the bye, understood too much English, to be insensible of a downright insult in coarse language), turned round to our companions, and was going to address them, when, happening to turn his eye towards a cross, upon which his God was extended, in the atttitude of suffering the last indignity, after almost every other had been discharged against him, he bowed submissively to the figure, as if he had just caught from it the spirit of acquiescence, and the colour, which indignation had before brought from the heart to the cheek, went off, and put a check to whatever might have happened. Every nerve that I had was shaken; and, leaving Amelia a moment to amuse herself with the prospect of the garden of the convent, through the little lattice in the friar's apartment, I drew the venerable monastic gently aside into the gallery, and there, in a whisper, apologized for the liberties which were taken by our young, inexperienced travellers, who desired to appear more impious than they really were.
The mendicant made no reply; but, as if he had heart enough to forgive all trespasses against him, whether of malice or ignorance, he smiled ineffable benignity, and we again joined the company.
Here, to the increase of my distress, I found Amelia in a warm argument with our young gentlemen, upon the subject of a decent deportment at places of public worship. The contest, it seems, began upon an expedient started by the eldest, to make a covering for the nakedness of the figure upon the cross, in the room of the friar; for, our delicate Englishman insisted, that, unless some such circumstance took place, a crucifix was no fit object for female inspection; he, therefore, humbly made a motion, that the company would unanimously enter into a voluntary subscription, to make up such a sum, as would purchase a compleat suit of cloaths (not forgetting a little sparkle of tinsel in the French style) that the Deity might, in future, appear in the dress of a gentleman.
In support of this vein of ridicule, the youth was just holding his hat to Amelia for her subscription, as we came into the room, and Amelia was parrying off the stroke, partly by blushes and partly by arguments. "Is it not very strange, gentlemen (said she), that a woman cannot be one moment unprotected, in any corner of the globe, however sanctimonious, but she must be insulted by the rudeness of her own countrymen." She had no time to go on: the rage of the Franciscan, at the sight of the crucifix, over which the wit had thrown his pocket-handkerchief, was worked into a pious enthusiasm, and his heart dictated to our striplings a very severe and seasonable lesson.
"Be covered in the blushes of confusion, gentlemen! (said he). What principle is it by which you are thus directed to disgrace yourselves and your country? We are taught to believe, that, on your side of the sea, the seminaries of education are governed by laws that are wise, prudent, liberal and amiable. We are taught, that the education of an English gentleman, is attended with a very considerable expence: morals, and humanity, it is said, are particularly cultivated in your universities. We gather these things, I say, from the report of those, who would emblazon the institutions of your country; but, if
report
is to be confronted by
experience,
what doth experience tell us on this subject? This town of Calais hath been but too often a witness to your libertinism. Hither you come over with youth, high spirits, and a sum of money, for the most part too large for the feelings of a moderate man. The British empire is so truly respectable, as a nation, that we, who are your neighbours, wish to admire your
politeness
as much as we venerate your
genius.
But how is this possible, when the specimens which are exhibited to us of your manners, are so frequently cruel and unmanly? You enter our country without one generous idea relating to it. You call
our courtesey,
which is said to contrast
your bluntness,
insincerity. You look at the face of our country, and seem to wonder, that the smile of providence is extended from the clift of Dover to that of Calais. You look at our customs, and, because they differ from
your
customs, you turn from them with disgust, or affected disdain. You enter our churches, and turn into the basest ridicule, objects most sacred. You have not even the discretion to keep silence, while we pay our passing obeisance to the shrine of the Omnipotent. God himself is the sport and pastime of your leisure and laughter. Our citizens, artizans, women, children, as well as the bravest of our soldiers, come, at all convenient hours, to their devotion; and, though they come without any compulsion, you call it hypocrisy. We lay before you our curiosities, and you despise them: we take many wrongs patiently; we allow largely to the impressions made by our singularities, and then you ill treat us beyond bearing. Ah, ungenerous travellers! Is it to laugh at your fellow creatures, and scoff at your Creator, that you make such inroads upon us? Is such the motive that urges a young Englishman to migrate? Is such the conduct of those who ought to be the patterns and examples of a free and noble country? You teach our traders to believe, that you value nothing so little as money, and yet you pretend to wonder, that they fix a price upon what you hold in the slightest estimation. If the savage is taught, by the more mechanical European, that the gun can do more execution than the bow-string, and at the same time, shews him how to pull the trigger, can you wonder if he directly puts his first experiment in practice immediately? Fie upon it, gentlemen. It is not doing justice either to one kingdom or to another. It is not doing as you would be done by. Tell me, I beseech you, seriously tell me—"
Here the Franciscan raised his voice, extended his right arm, fixing himself more firmly on his centre.
"At what time did you ever behold one of this country so behave himself in Britain. He comes to your snore with eyes to see, and heart to admire. He beholds large tracts of your land in the highest state of vigorous cultivation, and a he thinks well of your peasantry by the sweat of whose brows, and the diligence of whole hands it is procured. He passes through your towns of business, and is forcibly struck with the spirit of commerce which seems to be the
genius
of your climate. He inspects the various manufactories extended along the banks of your fruitful rivers, and conceives highly of your English ingenuity. He goes into the capital of the kingdom, and, if he draws at all the line of comparison betwixt the two great cities of London and Paris, he draws it in favour of the former. He readily allows to it all that is due to superiority of uniform buildings, admirable accommodation for foot-passengers, and for the convenience of ample streets, in which there is sufficient scope for trade and fashion, for the car and for the coach. Gratified abundantly, he either fixes amongst you, or returns into his native country: if th
former,
it is not always what, it is said, you Englishmen imagine it to be, because he cannot live so
well
in France, but for more amiable reasons. If he returns, and, where is the man to whom such a return is not, sooner or later, desireable? he brings not over with him any base ideas, that are unworthy to travel half a league in the heart of any man breathing, but he speaks of your nation as it were to be wished you would have the equity to speak of ours. What then, gentlemen, are we to suppose? Are we to believe that only the slightest, lightest, and most superficial part of you, addict yourselves to travel? I should be sorry to think that this were the case; nay, my own experience tells me that it is not always so."
Here he took Amelia by the hand, and bowed to me with respect.
"This lady and that gentleman (to go no farther) have given me no reason to believe they crossed the sea to despise the Deity, or any of his poorer ministers, because, perhaps, there is some difference in the exterior ceremonies of a national devotion. Nay, I have seen other exceptions to a deplorable general rule, and those exceptions are the only things which save England from the contempt, into which it would inevitably fall without them. Excuse my wrath, gentlemen. I have spoken as an injured man. I have spoken as a brother of the holy society, to whose use this church is allotted. I have spoken as the faithful servant of a master, whose sacred image you have wantonly offended."
With this noble climax, the offended Franciscan finished his exhortation and remonstrance. Never, surely, was there observed ten minutes (for he spoke with deliberation) of profounder silence.
Saint Paul, at the time of his making Felix tremble, could not possibly have commanded a more perfect attention. There was, indeed, many favourable circumstances to heighten the solemnity of the whole transaction. Pale, as were the features of the Franciscan at his outset, his eyes kindled with his argument, and his heart gave such animation to his face, and such eloquence to his tongue, that he led his hearers into implicit captivity. The little apartment was, in itself, an object of awe, having a sable hanging of dark tapestry, wrought with traits of sacred figures, and a cloud, which suddenly passed the face of the sun, threw a gloom into the place, that put, as it were, into the power of the friar, the attractions of magic. Amelia was bound, as if by enchantment, to the bed of straw, on which she sat; and, as the declaimer ended, she took the hem of his coarse and humiliating tunic, and, in the compleatest sincerity of her heart, pressed it to her bosom. Even the wits forgot their jocularity, and were unusually serious; that is to say, they looked about for a good joke, and could not find it: yet were they
both ashamed,
if I may so express myself, of
their being ashamed.
They blushed at the novelty of a keen sensation, and they wished the friar in Heaven, for having smitten fire from the flint. This awkward kind of consciousness was well illustrated, when the youth, who had thrown the handkerchief over the crucifix, stole it, as it were, imperceptibly away, forcing a sad, half smile into his face, as much as to insinuate, that he did not know what he was about.
THE BLUSHES.
WE all prepared to depart; and, in passing through the body of the church, the heart of Amelia was caught by the appearance of many females distributed in different parts, at their devotions. She paused— stopped short—folded her hands together involuntarily, and went on tiptoe, as if fearful of interrupting their ceremonies. As the Franciscan bowed to the cross in repassing the high altar, I verily believe, if it were not for shame of doing a decent thing, the wits could both have found it in their hearts to have bowed also.
At the great door of the church that led into the street, the friar bowed to the whole company, with a complacence which discovered that he bore no remembrance of what was past, so as to affect his urbanity: nay, to convince us farther that he did not, his bend to the striplings was more deep, more profound, and more respectful even than that to Amelia. He seemed to know the true point of delicacy; and had a
heart
to treat those whom his
tongue,
however justly, had wounded. This was but an aukward crisis for the young men, one of whom, after some irresolute gestures, offered a liberal present to the friar.
The air with which it was
offered,
and with which it was
rejected,
are two of those
important trifles
which neither pen nor pencil can do proper justice to. They both blushed; but the blood appeared in both for an opposite reason. The cheek of the person, who offered the present, was coloured by a reproach which bore its commission from the heart: the face of the Franciscan was tinged by that natural paint of virtue, which always mounts at the offer of a bribe. He had forgiven the whole matter before, but this offer recalled the transaction; and, although a twentieth part of the sum would have been acceptable some time before, there were now many insuperable objections. The noble independency of his late eloquence was not the least of these: instead, therefore, of receiving it, he tarried awhile till the heart beat pacifically, and then declined it with a good grace. The interval, however, betwixt the making of the offer, and the final rejection, was beautifully interesting to lovers of nature. It was a silent transaction, in which the heart looked through the eyes, and the blood spoke in the cheeks for
about two or three minutes. The blush of disgrace is deeper and more durable than the blush of virtue. There is also a like distinction in the colour: disgrace is a full, disordered, fiery kind of flush, not without some touches of the livid hue, that partakes of fear: the cheek of a virtuous man, under a sensation of transient anger, is set off by a bloom more delicate, pure and lively. I stood facing both parties, and beheld the whole process. The colour of the friar softened every moment more and more, like the traits in a rainbow in the summer, till all that was called up from other quarters of the frame, gently retired into the proper vessels, and only left a glow of dignity and congratulation, as the symptom of a recent excellence: while the young man, who had shame upon his cheek, was much longer in getting rid of the tide than ran round his features. It burnt with the destructive rage of the dog-star. It settled in the centre, then mounted to his eye, then crimsoned his neck: nature seemed to have pride in it: it was a matter of ignominy: there actually came, from the lad's eyes, two or three tears. I saw them course along as if to quench the burning suffusion, which, notwithstanding this, verged off, tardily; and I know not how long it would have continued, if, when all was well again with the friar, he had not tenderly taken the youth's hand, and, as he shut the church-door gently, smiled, like the angel of compassion, upon our departure.
CALAIS.
THE affair of the blushes, and the conscious ceremony which they brought about at the door of the church, with the little, nice, discriminations which it was necessary to make in the description, are, what I call fine strokes of the heart, and of character.
For such it was that I always looked about me, and for such the miser, who for very avarice should refuse to shave his beard, though it swept his bosom, would not travel half so far, for the amplest additions to his store.
Thou nature art my goddess: my services are bound to thee: I take every opportunity to profess my adoration: I would trace thee over rocks and mountains that appear inaccessible. As thou sattest at the grate of a dungeon offering the cup of patience to the prisoner, or in the palace of the sovereign, where art endeavours, in vain, wholly to discard thy empire, I would observe thy inimitable operations! I would steal an enraptured glance at thee, oh thou wonder-working power! while thou wert parading it in public triumph through the streets of a city; or I would go with thee into the cave of the sequestered hermit, where thy sway is not less despotic! When, as often is the case, thou art too shy, or too mysterious to be noted at an ordinary survey, I would silently sit me down in some unobserved corner, and watch thy workings: and, when it was denied me to view thee in the fuller manifestation of thy glory, I would be content to look on the radiant
skirts
of thy garment. Every undertaking, wherein it is thy delight to engage, however minute—and for the most part, the minuter the more curious —is precious to thy votaries; and neither watchings, nor feastings, nor fastings, nor sorrows, nor sicknesses, nor stripes, nor whatever else happeneth to the children of men, can prevent
them,
or prevent
me
from yielding up the
whole heart
to the supreme power of
nature!
Disorder still sat, displaying itself in the cheek of the jokers; and, on our arrival at the hotel, they desired to be shewn into a private room. Had the good Franciscan heard this request, the laurel of a compleat victory would have been fitted to his brow; but he was a man who seemed not made for conquests of this kind; and, though it is the way of ordinary mortals to swell out the crest, and lift up the head upon such occasions, I am persuaded the mendicant would have rejected the advantage he had over the heart of the youth, as he rejected the bribe.
The tear of unaffected pity was trembling in the eye of Amelia; as she saw the heroes enter their new and solitary apartment. "I fee
for them: (said she, with a melting accent). The helmet which they, a little while ago, carried so proudly in the air, as a streamer of superiority, is now without a plume!" While she whispered this, one of them softly desired the waiter to take care that they were not disturbed, while the other half closed his conscious eye (as if nature had drawn over the lid in disgrace) and then he gently shut to the door.
"Now (said Amelia), leave the heart to its own contemplations. Such a retired hour of sensible reproach is the best thing in the universe for jokers. Mark the result of it, upon their coming out of the
room of penitence."
THE SCRUPLE.
"AS you have now seen the church, Monsieur (said the master of the hotel to me), suppose you were now to pass an hour at the playhouse."
Old England was still so much about me that I stopped the man abruptly, and very gravely demanded to know the day of the week.
"Which, either we or you, have
mistaken:"
said Amelia.
"This is
Sunday
(replied the Frenchman), for which very reason, I think you cannot amuse a part of the evening better." Here clustered the interrogatories of inexperience.
"What, go to the play on a Sunday? (said Simplicity). Finish a noble sermon, which we have just heard delivered by a Franciscan in his church, upon English inhospitality, with the farce of a theatre? And is not every door of every stage in England shut at this very moment? (said Prejudice). Shall we dare to profane the Sabbath? (said Habit).
"Will you go (said I), Amelia?"
"My God! (said she) what a question!"
"Why not? (demanded the master of the hotel). Whence arises your scruple?"
"From
hence:"
said Amelia, striking her hand somewhat forcibly upon her heart.
"Pardon me fair lady (said a very grave looking old man in the dress of an officer, who stood at her elbow, and overheard the dispute); pardon me, fair lady, if I say that I should suspect the feelings of any heart in such a case, did it beat in a less beautiful bosom."
There was a gallantry in this compliment, which induced us to listen to the arguments of the complimenter, rather than to the master of the hotel; so we took a turn with the stranger along the court-yard of the hotel, and he displayed his heart as he walked backwards and forwards.
"But this is the Lord's day, Sir!" answered Amelia to his first argument.
"It is so (replied the officer); and ought, therefore, to be more particularly distinguished by additional marks of joy! What good purpose is affected by that gloom, which hangs over this day in your country. It is permitted in England to rest from toil every seventh day; so it is in France. It is ordained that all churches in England shall celebrate the great God, to whom they are devoted with prayer and supplication at stated periods; so it is in France. It is allowed, in most parts of England, that, after divine service, the peasants may betake themselves to the brothel, or the beer-house, the consequence of which is, that Sunday, more than any other day of the week, is closed in drunkenness. In France we have provided against an inclination to such beastly excesses. We worship God not with a frowning face, nor yet with a dull silence, nor yet with needless austerities; but we distinguish the day which he hallowed by the most agreeable, innocent, and healthy exercises or entertainments. We conceive nothing suitable to the genius of true piety, in imposing upon ourselves unchearful customs.
The morning we usher in with songs of gratitude, and the evening is passed in sports which neither hurt the constitution of man, nor contradict the mandates of God. Where my good friends is it forbidden, or rather where is it not encouraged to celebrate the day of the Deity with songs, and with dances, with the tabor, and with the timbrel, with the lute and with every other instrument of festivity? 'Keep holy the Sabbath-day;' saith the commandment. We do keep it holy. There is nothing sacred in a wrinkle. There is nothing holy in a dull habit of solemnity, which hath no foundation in reason. We have in France no inebriety, no oaths, no blasphemies, no public quarrels; or, if they are ever seen, the police hath provided rigours, which make the offender a terrible example to his countrymen. I formerly passed some time in England, and am not unacquainted with your customs, or your legislature. You stipulate the price of an oath; and every man may swear till he is hoarse, if he is in a situation to pay a shilling for a blasphemy. You have fightings in your cities on a Sunday evening, and the mob is collected and dispersed without the intervention of a magistrate, unless one of the parties fighting should receive his death-wound, and, even in that case, the murderer is suffered to escape under the cover of accidental slaughter. Whoever walks through your villages on the evening of the Sabbath, may hear them resound with the oaths of drunken men in the adjacent ale-houses; and, if on their return home to their families, who dread their coming, you should meet them on the way, it behoves you well, either to turn aside, or else have the fortitude to bear, unrevenged, the insults of a man when he is in the state of a brute.
"The French on the contrary—"
"Pray, Sir (said Amelia, interrupting him) will you have the goodness to tell me, what it is o'clock; for I am afraid, if we don't make haste, we shall be too late for the play?"
The officer smiled at the manner in which she discovered her acquiescence, in the custom of being merry on a Sunday afternoon; and insisted upon shewing his fair proselyte the way to the comedy. Several little peculiarities struck us there, during the representation. The people, instead of sitting down in the pit upon benches, as in England, stood up the whole time. "This is strangely aukward, and incommodious (said Prejudice."
"Hush (answered Liberality); it is
the custom of the country."
"Good God (said Prejudice, noting a second objection), the prompter sits like an ascending ghost, with his head and shoulders appearing to the audience, through a trapdoor, upon the stage, instead of concealing himself, for the sake of dramatic probability, behind the side wings of the scene."
"Hold your tongue (cried Liberality); it is
the custom of the country."
"The audience absolutely stuns one (said Amelia) with their violent conversation between the acts, although, during the exhibition, I confess their attention surpasses ours in England."
"Hush, hush (replied I); seem to take no notice; it is
the custom of the country."
The old French officer who had a quick ear, and amazing volubility, caught up the sense of the last sentence, and harangued like a Cicero upon it.
"The observation, my good Sir (said he, addressing himself to me), should reconcile every peculiarity that you might meet with in a voyage round the globe.
The custom of a country
should sanctify every thing that is singular, either in religion or in manners. Though vice and virtue are invariably the same, modes and maxims differ in almost every place. He who confines himself to one country, will, generally, be confined to one set of ideas, while he who travels will think more largely, and will allow for contrariety of opinion, and diversity of manners. You have just landed on this border of France, and you are surprized at some small differences in
our
customs, from those which are popular with you: but, were you to pass from hence into other realms, you would observe, in many of them, several singularities still more unfamiliarized and unaccountable. The Turk, the Chinese, the Swiss, the Tartar, will alternately deal forth their surprises upon you. If you have no heart to conceive that every nation may be allowed to pursue its own maxims, you will have nothing to do but to stare, and sit down with your perplexity. You have already seen, that what is thought to be a pious observance of religion in one country, is, twenty-one miles of, not imagined to be even proper or suitable to the Deity. What then would you say to the modes of remote climes, where, perhaps, almost every idea which you have imbibed in your own country, is inverted. Thus, characters in different quarters of the globe, receive a different colouring, purely from the customs of the country; and yet, though manners vary, the heart may
every where
make an acceptable offering to the Creator. He who gave to every class of people a country, gave to them a proper constitution both of mind and body, and you have just as much reason for disputing against the customs of any country, because they dissent from yours, as you have for objecting to a dissimilitude in their forms and features. In France, we neither eat like you, nor think like you, in several respects. In China, they neither adopt the food nor the opinions of the French The natives of the southern hemisphere assimilate themselves not to the Chinese, and yet they are very excellent people who inhabit all those countries. Learn, therefore, to believe, that every thing which is decent, wise and innocent, may be practised from the same principle, but by different manners."
"I desire to know then, Sir, if you do not think us heretics?" said Amelia.
"Heretics! (said the officer, a little incomposed) settle that matter with your own heart. I have seen the world, and should suppose there is Heaven enough for all good men, in all countries."
"No doubt:" replied Amelia.
"Then Madam (rejoined the officer, as he handed her out of the box, the play being now over); then may I hope to give you another meeting, when the journey of this life is over, be our religions, in this world, of what sect they will."
There was so much
of heart
in this expression, that I took hold of his hand, as soon as I had got into the street, and thanked him for having made me wiser, and more like a man, who bore the form of a million other men, in regions, whose manners bore no trace of resemblance to mine.
"The citizen of the world is the best character you can aspire to:" said the soldier; and so ended the argument.
"It is scarce eight o'clock, (continued the old officer, looking at his watch), and if you do not choose to bury the remains of so charming an evening, in your apartments, at the hotel, I will take a ramble with you into the fields."
A quarter of an hour's walking, brought us to a spot, in the centre of which was an ancient and ample tree, round which the peasants of Calais were dancing, to the scrapings of a fiddle.
"Gracious God (exclaimed I), if they are not—"
"Hush (said Amelia, pulling me gently by the sleeve),
it is the custom of the country."
We passed quietly on through the croud, in the very heyday of its merriment, and sat ourselves down on a distant bench that was made round an oak, on purpose for the convenience of the wearied couples, or the unfatigued spectators. There was an avenue of spacious elms to the right, and, a little way off, leaning against these, we beheld a man, wholly apart from the rest of the company. My curiosity led me to leave Amelia with the officer, and walk towards him. His handkerchief remained up to his eyes, as I passed by him, three times; but when, in going by him, the fourth time, I discovered, in his woe-wan features, the lover of the
unfortunate Felicity,
how was I astonished! He recognized me in a moment, and very pensively told me that he came to look at the dances to divert his chagrin; "But, it hath not answered, Monsieur, (said he). I am disgusted with the festivity, of which it is impossible for me to partake: a healthy-looking blythe girl, offered just now to dance with me, but I had no pleasure in the touch of her hand; and, as I could not conceive it to be the hand of Felicity, I declined the offer. When the young men and women meet, or go arm in arm, with smiles upon their faces, I can feel the tears coming into my eye, because I am not able to shew the same tender courtesy to Felicity. But I see the dancers are going to separate, and every man will retire with his partner.
I am not accountable, I hope, if Nature hath mixed up in me a little envy, and so I will betake myself away in good time. Adieu Monsieur, adieu; but, do not forget that the fairest of women resides up five pair of stairs, in the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau."
The last and deepest shade of the evening was now overshadowing us, and Amelia waved her hand to beckon me back.
"And how came you here so soon my good lad?" said I to the barber.
"The discourse (replied he), which passed between us at Dover, about Felicity, had such an effect on me, that, as I passed by the quay, in my way home, I happened to see the captain of the packet, who assured me that he should sail next tide. So I gave him the money, your bounty, Monsieur, bestowed on me; fully resolved to take a walk to Paris, for which place I design to set off to-morrow."
"Where are your travelling expences? (said I).
"Here (cried the youth, with great confidence). My expences will be defrayed by these hands: I make no doubt but I shall dress my way up to town: besides, a lad of my principles, who is to steal a glance at Felicity, at the end of his journey, makes nothing of a couple of hundred miles."
"Let me see you at the
Table Royale
(said I) within an hour."
"I will be at the door of your apartment, Monsieur (said he), to the moment."
When the officer had escorted us to our inn, he informed us of a little engagement that he had to fulfill, and wished us a good repose.
BAGATELLES.
"CERTAINLY (said I, telling Amelia the circumstance of having met the love-sick barber); certainly
I
have been the means of drawing this poor lad from his employment, since it is evident he followed the dictates of his heart in leaving Dover. He is in search of his Felicity, and he designs to comb and shave his way up to her: but this is a tiresome method of journeying, and, as it is necessary for him to be private, to what perils will his passion expose him! Now, I have been thinking, that—"
I was interrupted by the master of the hotel, who appeared to acquaint me, that the young gentlemen in the private room had altered their mind, as to going by the diligence; and, very soon after we departed for the comedy, set out post, with a design of travelling night and day till they got to Paris.
There was a mixture of good and bad in this intelligence; though Amelia, by her smile, seemed to say, it was a good without any alloy. Their taking advantage of our absence, to save the pride of the heart any farther mortification at our return, was a symptom of sensibility, and might, in time, bring about desireable improvements; but their resolution to travel night and day, till they got to Paris, denoted a violent relapse.
Few events, however, are there in life, which, though in the one hand they bring evil, always carry, in the other, some portion of pleasure or convenience.
As to the matter of convenience, nothing ever happened half so apropos to any mortal breathing, as this sudden exit of the jokers, to the poor barber. It facilitated also my scheme of getting him to the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau without the drudgery, inconsistent with the delicacy of his passion, of sticking his comb into any locks but his own.
"You shall travel snug in the basket of the diligence, my good fellow (said I to the barber, who was now tripping up to the door of the hotel where I stood); there may thou and thy tender secrets be as secure as thou wouldst desire them."
He put his hand into his pouch, and pulling out the lining of his breeches pocket, looked as he were looking at a dead blank: but the French soon recover themselves, and he is no true lover in any country, who is without some expedient, however retrogade, to visit his mistress; especially, if there was a proper share of danger or of difficulty to quicken him. Luckily for the barber, he had some ounces of romance wrought up with him, and these, with the prompting spirit of love to set them at work, will send a man upon the full run, from one end of the earth to the other, in defiance of fatigue: the sustaining idea of an imaginary goddess, to soothe him when the journey is over, will carry him through it.
The barber, I say, had romance enough in his constitution, to dress up his deity in the Fauxbourgs St. Marceau in the best manner. His wanton fancy pillaged the heathen heaven for fair possessions; and his own story of Felicity, was, that she had more beauty than Venus, more sense than Minerva, more dignity than Juno, and more grace than the Graces. Judge then how his heart must have throbbed with extasy at the proposal of the basket, till he felt into his forlorn pouch, and drew out the lining in despair. But, as was noted above, the French soon recover themselves.
"Before I saw the face of Felicity, (said the lad, pointing to a narrow spangled edging which was run round his coat and wainscot); before I saw the face of Felicity, I had a passion for
this;
but since I have had a passion for
her,
and she will, I know, like me full as well without any finery upon my coat, as with it, I know how I shall be able to accomplish the matter. You must know, Monsieur, I brushed by a little dapper Gascon at the dance, who was so taken with my spangles, that he left his partner, on purpose to ask me where I bought them.
I stopped him in this conversation, which, I could plainly see, tended towards downright stripping, so, putting a Louis into his hand, I desired him not to miss the opportunity of the morning, and to remember, that I should expect to be paid again, by a look at his Felicity, up five pair of stairs."
The Louis, the basket, the treasure, up five pair of stairs, and the rescued spangled edging, which, notwithstanding his affected disregard, was not wholly indifferent to him, all conjoined to touch upon the nerves of the barber, till nature (who can neither bear one extreme nor the other, nor yet a mixture of both, without playing the baby) carried him from the hotel, betwixt crying and laughing.
It would be heresy to omit telling the reader, that, when the barber hit upon the expedient of the spangled edging, I threw out a lure to catch the character of his heart, by proposing a better resource, in the sale of the little picture at his bosom.
Sensibility threw him into an admirable situation; and, if I could properly describe it, would do me as much honour as it did him.
"Sacre Dieu!
(exclaimed he, laying his right hand hastily on his sword, and then as hastily drawing it away again, without drawing the sword, as if checked by the recollection of my former civility);
sacre Dieu
(repeated he), what a thought! Part with thee, thou dear image of my Felicity! Part with thee! Even though it be to visit Felicity herself! Did she not, on the day in which I parted from her, tie it, with trembling fingers, round my neck? Did she not place it upon my bosom as a pledge of my fidelity in all my wanderings?—"
Here he broke off addressing the picture, in order to conceal it from my view; which, after fervently kissing it all over, he did, by putting it first within his shirt, and then buttoning up his waistcoat.
"Now you talk of pictures (said Amelia, a little hesitatingly), where have you put the cabinet?"
The question brought home to my own heart the anguish I had inflicted upon the barber's, whom I left in a hurry to look after my cabinet.
Ah, self, self, how dost thou cling about us! While the trifle of thy own heart is secure, and circumstances are all smiling about thee; how dost thou sport with the playthings of all the rest of the world; but, if once thy
own
toy is in danger, farewell the moments of composure; every affection is in arms to defend thine atoms of property; and, till thou hast recovered those, all the acres of the earth besides are set at nought!
Had I not found my cabinet, and in the centre drawer of it, the picture in the velvet case (where I had again deposited it), I should have laid down upon my pillow, and arose from it in the morning, in the sorrow of my heart.
MY LORDS ANGLOIS.
MY fears in relation to the English jesters, were but too prophetic. The marks of their wit and genius, were visible all along the road. If Providence had put it into my mind to have informed myself of
their
route, I should certainly have avoided making it
mine
also. Thy went by the way of Abbeville; consequently, it would have been for my interest to take the post road through Lisle; instead of which I ran into their track, and smarted for it; for, as I found the stagecoach a greater evil than the forfeiture of the price of the places, I took post horses, and was, at every stage, a witness to the folly and indiscretion of my young countrymen, who have contributed largely to inspire every inn-keeper with unfavourable ideas of the English, from Calais to Paris. The
stripling's
left a trace of a
stripling's
heart wherever I stopped. At Hautbuisson they clapped another pair of horses to their carriage, and bade the drivers consider that they were going upon business, more important than life and death: the consequence of this was, that the master of the post, expecting I was upon life and death also, was much chagrined that I did not travel with an equal force of cattle; and therefore gave me the most sorry steeds in his stable, alledging in excuse, that my Lords Anglois, had hired all the best horses, which must, on their account, have a day's rest. At Boulogne, I heard of an accident which might have proved to any moderate man, that, the most haste occasioned the least speed; for, in the very middle of the town, and pretty near in the middle of the night, the post-boy, in clattering along, came upon the stones, and put out his ancle; when lo! to the utter astonishment of two or three spectators (whom oaths in an unknown language had summoned to their chamber windows), one of our hereos (for the honour of England) mounted the saddled-horse, and drove to the New Inn at the farther end of Boulogne, as if he had been bred to the whip and spur from his cradle.
This piece of coachmanship gave the master of the New Inn, so spirited an opinion of the jockey blood, that galloped through the veins of the English nobility, that, upon my arrival at his house the day after this memorable action, with a quiet pace, and with only half the number of horses, Amelia sitting soberly by my side, and the barber who was not behind in the basket, as at first proposed, but sometimes behind, sometimes before, and sometimes at the side of my carriage, riding upon a bidet; when the matter saw us come into his court-yard in such state and steadiness I say, he certainly took us for a Dutch family upon the travel, and I thought, upon his handing me out, he looked at my mouth as if he wondered what I had done with my pipe. He consulted what he took to be our constitution, and imagined that he should fit us to the heart, when he ordered for us some horses that appeared ten times more like Hollanders than ourselves.
At Montreuil I discovered another mark of our English travellers, for they had, with great ingenuity, cut several very indecent expressions in bread English, or bad French, on the windows, with a diamond; the consequence of which is, that those who come after them, are frequently shewn into the worst rooms in the house, the more especially at hotels of credit.
I was informed at Amiens where (notwithstanding their resolution of going to Paris without resting) they stopped to take refreshment, that, although the capital of Picardie was absolutely pillaged to furnish them, they had some objection to every thing which the landlord could possibly set upon the table. He seriously told me that even the large quantities of money which they lavished about them, was not, in his idea, sufficient recompence for the trouble of attending to their caprices. They walked for five minutes, while the cloth was laying, into the town of Amiens, which is, in the spring-months, truly pleasing: here, they took every opportunity to tell the person who attended them, that, although Amiens was certainly the best town betwixt Amiens and Calais, yet Amiens was a worse town than they ever had the misfortune to see, before they came to France. They were conducted along the beautiful banks of the Somme, on which this town is situated; and, though the plains before them are luxuriantly cultivated, so as to present a chequer-work of all that is either useful or ornamental, and the river meanders as romantically as Poesy herself could desire, in the midst of the prospect, set off, too as it seems their prospect then was, by the lustre of the sun, yet our prejudiced travellers, told their guide, with an air of superiority and indifference, that, to be sure, the corn and verdure was well enough, as was also the river Somme, for
France;
but that by a comparison with the corn, verdure, and rivers of
England,
they dwindled into shadows. In this complaining key they went on even to the gates of Paris; setting up that part of their own country with which they happened to be most acquainted, as the standard for every other: thus the very wines and food which they affected while in England, to speak of, at second hand, with such appetite and admiration, now that they were really to be had and at a very small expence, they set up as proper objects of ridicule and contempt.
"Our Burgundy and Champaigne, Sir, (said the landlord to me) though I present to my customers the most excellent and unadulterate, the English gentlemen who were here last, assured me was wretched stuff, unfit to be drank by those who had still upon the tongue, the ravishing relish of good old Port, such as they (said they) had drank to the tune of three bottles a man, at the London Tavern, the day before their departure from the king of kingdoms. In their opinion too Sir, (continued the landlord) my cook, who hath served the royal family, and lived last with a prince of the blood, had utterly ruined every thing upon which he had laid his hands. Our sauces, our sallads, our ragouts, our fricasses, and our fricandos, were all wrong; and, notwithstanding the reputation which I imagined was given us for spreading the table, I found myself to totally deficient in every particular, even from the soup to the desert, that all I shall, for the future, say upon the matter is, either the French are very conceited, or the English are very hard to please. Amongst other things (resumed the landlord, after a pause) which distinguished the gentlemen, whom you have enquired after, at Amiens, was, their singular obstinacy at the light of the holy host, which made its appearance while they were walking. They met the procession at the short turn of a corner, so that common decency required their compliance, so far, at least, with the custom, as to make way for its going by. The guide, whom I sent with them, whispered, very respectfully, the absolute necessity of this. But they said they were honest Protestants, all the world over, and should give none of the Catholics the least reason to suppose, they were converts to an absurd and mistaken religion, Firm in this resolution, they rudely opposed; the passage of the priests, and she sacred cross, for near a minute, and I know not what would have been the consequence, if a party of soldiers, from the detachment of the king's body-guards, which are stationed here, had not, half by force, and half by persuasion, convinced them of their personal danger. After the priests were gone by, one of the travellers muttered to the other, that those fellows in their white robes, and formal faces, ought to come under the vagabond act, and be punished accordingly,"
While the French landlord was yet speaking, he was interrupted, in his narrative of English wit and humour, by the arrival of a servant, as he came forward as the panting messenger of a gentleman, for whose life, it seems, all the horses in the stable would be immediately wanted.
MY LORD ANGLOIS RETURNING TO ENGLAND.
THIS alarming intelligence made that part of human nature which cators for individual enjoyment, without considering the enjoyments of society, bestir itself. Self-interest represented the immediate necessity there was for me to secure such a number of horses, as would answer my private purpose, seeing that the mighty man, upon the road, would sweep all before him.
"What your heart is now suggesting, is very well worth attending to; and unless you set off this very hour, you may stand a fair chance of performing the rest of your journey on foot:" said Amelia.
Short as was this debate, it was a little too long; for the landlord came bowing a million pardons for the rudeness of the English nobleman's servant, who had, it seems, laid his unmerciful hands upon all the best cattle. "Ah wretch without a conscience! (said mine host): he hath seized upon the flower of my fields, and the pride of my pastures: nay, even thee, my beloved Silver-locks, thou most beautiful of bidets, who wert wont to carry upon thy back the pleasing burden of
thy
mistress and of
mine,
and who is, alas gone down into the grave, he hath thrown an unhallowed saddle even upon thee!"
"He shall sooner saddle me than Silver-locks, by the sacred God (said the barber who stood near me); for sooner than suffer such an outrage, I will die in the cause."
This asseveration, which was uttered with the most violent exertions of the heart, put the lad's legs in such motion that he was at the stable-door, which stood across a large court-yard, in a moment, and his sword was drawn.
"Heaven, defend the heart of so good a creature (prayed Amelia); I would not have any harm come to him for the world!"
"The bidet shall neither serve thee, nor thy master (exclaimed a voice issuing from the stable). He is too slight, too slim, and too delicate to bear the hard blows of such a rider, as the blood upon thy spur shews thee to be. This soft creature was made for gentler journeys. I have heard his history: he hath been accustomed to pace quietly along at the pleasure of a woman. Thy very saddle is too much for him, and, therefore, I say again, and again, that though thou wert to carry off all the other horses in Amiens, this same Silver-locks must remain at his stall, which friendship hath, you see, seperated from the rest."
This romantic harangue was answered first by a crack of the whip, which whether directed to the sides of the barber, or to those of Silver-locks, gave a good report: immediately after which, Silver-locks himself came running into the court-yard with the girths loose, and the bridle unbuckled, as if he had stolen off in the struggle, that he had, very innocently, occasioned. The barber and his antagonist, who had disarmed him, soon appeared, and both ran to Silver-locks.
"Silver-locks shall stay:" said one.
"Silver-locks shall go:" said other.
"Ah, poor Silver-locks, what a devil of a dust thou kicked up in the court-yard!" said the cook, peeping his night-cap out of the kitchen.
"Oh that thy poor mistress were here Silver-locks!" cried a fille de chamber passing along a gallery with certain conveniencies in her hand.
"Oh that an English gentleman would suffer a French landlord to be master of his own property!" exclaimed the landlord.
"Ah, Silver-locks how art thou pulled about!" said Amelia.
"Silver-locks shall go."
"Silver-locks shall stay." re echoed the combatants—stay, go, go, stay, Silver-locks, Silver-locks answered every empty tub in the yard, till the response was carried to a neighbouring copse, which sent off the sound with still more vigorous vibrations.
By this time, the barber was tugging to loosen the crupper, and the messenger was labouring to maintain the point of
his
resolution, by an attempt to mount. His foot was just fixed in the stirrup; when lo! the victorious barber, who had dexterously slipped the girths to see the saddle turn compleatly round, and lay his enemy level with the dust, directly under the belly of Silver-locks, who, as if conscious of the equity of the thing, lifted up one of his fair fore-legs, and gave the prostrate foe such a recriminating crack upon his skull, that, had it not been of entire lead, the business would have been done for ever.
This is the picturesque attitude in which my Lord Anglois, who now wheeled into the court-yard, found them. But he had been too long accustomed to these slight accidents, and indeed, to all horse-casualties, which happen hourly in Paris, to be discomposed; so he calmly enquired into the matter, and then desired the fellow either to get up or to lie still, as he thought proper; "As to the brute in dispute, he may stay in his stable till he is summoned hence by the last trump, for I brought much such an animal over with me, and nothing like that I ever brought over with me am I ever disposed to take back again."
This was the hearth's content of the barber, who led off Silver-locks in high triumph, all the way complimenting himself and Silver-locks upon the issue of the victory. Silver-locks, to shew that he was not ingrateful, whinneyed forth his satisfaction, while, in return for that token of sensibility, the humane barber passed the palm of his hand gently over his forehead, slapped Silver-locks softly upon the neck, and then requested I would keep my Lord Anglois in talk, while he went round to the landlord, and insisted upon first comers being first; served put of his stable.
This same Lord Anglois was, in the appearance of his own dress, his equipage, his servants,
their
manners and
his
manners, exactly the reverse of the English wits, whom we have lately celebrated; that is, exactly what a French gentleman of real taste and fashion would despise, as the utter reverse of themselves. He made his appearance in the yard of the post-house, in a vast blue travelling cloak, ornamented by a abroad border of gold tape; a pair of scarlet stuff breeches covered his thighs, and a pair of enormous boots concealed a couple of legs, which, if they bore any analogy to the meagre flesh that just skinned over his face, might have been lodged in apartments by no means so spacious. A thing which was made of light brown felt, whose brims were prodigious, was substituted in the place of a black British hat; and its form, instead of being angular, was conical like a sugar-loaf; twisted likewise into numberless ridges, all of which glittered in the gaudiness of edging; a couteau de chase of dreadful size, well studded with silver, glittered at his side; and his hair, though nature had not allowed him any redundance of it, was, by the art of the frisseur, supplied by a weight of powder and pomatum, which gloriously contrasted the lightness of the head on which the hair grew: add to which, his locks were tortured into ten curls on a side, rising, tier above tier, over his ears. He exhibited himself in a French cabriolet, glaringly gilt, the
inside
of which was crouded with flashes of cordials curiously sorted; while the
outside
was, no doubt, loaded with that part of French frippery which polite Frenchmen hold in utter contempt.
This precious fellow begun, at his first
abroad,
to shew off. He said, he must just swallow a morsel a la Francoise, and then set out towards the detestable dale, London, where, upon account of the mal a propos exit of a cursed dropsical uncle, he should be obliged to put on a funeral face till the fellow was under ground; "And during the course of this dismal week (the drudgery of which is worth all the fortune he hath bequeathed me), I shall be condemned (said he) to pass my time in abominable England, where there is not one single thing to eat or to drink, but what is most exceedingly gothic.
Prithee, landlord (continued our man of travel), get me some frogs, or snails, or a
fricassee
of any
other
delicacy, in thy house. I have met with every thing charming all the way from Montpelier, except that, at one stage, a fellow was fool enough to insult me with an idea of my being a vulgar Englishman, and so, upon that infamous presumption, had the impudence to suffocate the more delicate organs, with the sight and smell of filthy solids: and I verily believe, had I not instantly waved my white handkerchief in utter horror, that the vile roast beef might be removed, I must have sunk to earth under the immensity of the joint!"
The good fare at Canterbury came across me, and I lifted up my hands, in silent astonishment!
"Here's a hero for you:" whispered Amelia.
"Hush (said I);
it is the custom of our countrymen,
upon their return from travel."
The vanity of the landlord, however, was so much tickled at our hero's compliments upon France, that he quite forgot the insult offered to the favourite bidet, and pranced away, with a scrape and a bow, to shew my Lord Anglois the best room in the hotel.
"I shall match thee for this (cried the indefatigable barber, as he returned disappointed from the stable, out of which he could only get two miserably-meagre steeds, whose society would have been renounced by Quixote's Rosinante); I'll match thee for this;" said the barber, and skipped out of the court-yard, into which, in a very little time, he came again, with able-bodied horses, ready harnessed, and which he himself helped to put to our carriage, as if disdaining to be served by the landlord, who was full in deep discourse with our Anglo-Frenchman; and, after we were gone, I do not doubt, but the conversation ended so totally to the honour of France, that we had not in England, either a church or a tower, or a town, or a street, a hill or a valley, a hat or a wig; a cat or a dog, a monkey or a man, fit to be looked at.
"I perceive (said Amelia, as we were running smoothly upon the level of a green sward, that invited us to enjoy a moment's serenity from the concussions of the pavement); I perceive that there is a very material difference in the sentiments of comers and goers. When an Englishman first
comes
into this country, he is prejudiced so egregiously by his old habits, that nothing French can get a good word out of him; and when the same traveller is upon his return, after a week's or a month's staring at the worst part of France, he hath imbibed so thorough a detestation for every thing English, that it is impossible for any thing in Britain to please him: so that if a man would choose to contrast his own character without being indebted to any second person, he ought, by all means to make, a tour to Paris; for very soon after he gets there, he will be the reverse of what he was at the time he left London."
THE IMPARTIAL TRAVELLER.
THESE remarks were a source of entertaining consideration till we got even to Chantilly, and at the hotel in that town we were repeating the last sentence, within ear-shot of a person, who was sitting at the window of the room into which we were conducted, while the fresh horses were putting to, under the inspection of the barber, who was, by this time, my faithful and affectionate attendant; though, in consideration that he was a lover, and upon a journey to his mistress, I treated him with more deference than is thought generally due to a domestic.
"I see no reason for that madam: (said the stranger, bowing very courteously to Amelia); I do not conceive it is at all necessary for a man to be inconsistent with himself, or to make himself absurd by ridiculous innovations, though he were to make the tour of Europe instead of that of France; and I think you bear a little too hard upon your countrymen in the supposition. With respect to the
girls and boys
who, for mere fashion's sake export and import themselves to and from the Continent, those I reckon as a set of unestablished characters which have neither weight, or influence in any country. They go abroad with the same design that they go to church —merely
to be seen:
and they come home again, after having looked at the world, not orderly, nor correctly, but wildly and, as a miscellany, in miserable confusion. But, from the conduct or the sentiments of children, most of which are sent off to be out of harm's way, though by the bye, they are in fact, the more
in it,
who will presume to draw any certain characteristics of the nation from which they came? Depend on it madam, such vagrants, such wanderers over the face of the earth, are as contemptible in foreign climes, as they are in their own. The credit of shooting with a long bow, follows them closely. They tell tales of England, and its customs, to foreigners, which are believed just as much as their tales of France and Italy are believed by those whom they would delude in England. Such frippery, however, determines nothing; but I presume it is not very unusual for an Englishman to travel to a wiser and more rational purpose. For my own part, madam, if in the instance of an individual, you will allow a defence of my countymen, I am now about to return to the place of my nativity, after having traversed the greater parts of the Continent twice over. I went once for health, and once for observation: both my wishes have been gratified. I entered France without prejudice, and without prejudice or a single with to continue here longer, I am preparing to cross the water. I have made it part of my amusement to state as it were the ballance, of the
two nations;
and, by assistance of notes and memorandums, which I have been at the pains to set down, on most occasions, I find matters exceedingly upon a level. We have circumstance of beauty and benefit in particular parts of France; which are not to be found in England: on the other hand we have in England many things which appear to us, more delightful than they are to be seen in France. Advantage is poised by advantage, amusement by amusement, elegance by elegance.
It is worth while, however, to visit
both
countries, since, if we carry in our bosoms a liberal heart, we cannot fail to be richly rewarded for the excursion and it is impossible for a candid man to be a single month in
either,
without seeing and feeling positive proofs, that the stories which vulgarly prevail, have no foundation but in fancy and falshood. I was told at my leaving London, madam, that a brave Englishman could, at any time, beat three Frenchmen; that the French were as notorious for insincerity, as the English for plain-dealing that, the King of France, having all his subjects and their property at command, tugged at the tight cord of authority, till subject and property were both insecure; that in France, we should look around us in vain for that voluptuous verdure which covers the meads of Britain; that the French were, in general, meagre of visage, and miserably low of stature; that their very soldiers, when compared to ours, were Lilliputians in regimentals; that the noblesse of France shut out the peasants from the comforts of society, and that the peasants themselves, though condemned all the day to cultivate an ungrateful soil, had too little flesh upon their bones to enjoy the evening like an English labourer: all these vulgar errors, I say, madam, were infused into me. I never gave them credit, for I always believed them to be what I found them—misrepresentations. I have seen one brave Frenchman soundly thrash one brave Englishman, who fought upon the presumption of his subduing three; and the plain truth is, that man opposed to man, in both countries, are nearly equal. True it is, that, the sovereign of this country hath almost unlimited power; but, on the stricted enquiry, you will find that, although he is in the prime of his youth, when power is apt to be most wanton, there is not yet upon record one single cruelty, or severity, or inequity, to stain the present purity of the royal ermine: and, what adds not a little to his lustre, his throne hath not been spotted by one drop of hostile blood; for he is at peace with all men. With respect to verdure, I presume you have been a delighted witness that the vegetation of France presents a prospect of luxury, not inferior to the most fertile parts of England. With respect to bodily endowments, the farther you travel into the kingdom, the more readily will you allow that the French are by no means undersized; but a grateful, well-formed set of people; rather inclining (contrary to the common opinion) to height and bulkiness, than to diminutiveness, and to thinness. Upon the whole the inhabitants of both countries have equal reason to imagine that the providence under which they are governed, is just and equal. With such an idea I hope, you, Madam, will now set off for the capital of France, where you will meet with a thousand things to entertain you; and I hope you will likewise pardon the freedom of these sentiments, which your own observations brought upon you. I admire France, Madam, but I love England. To the one I pay only a visit, but the other, as the song says, is my home."
The sensible stranger bowed, and a smile, full of acknowledgment from Amelia, shewed him that all was as it ought to be in her heart.
If, therefore, one improper sensation lurked behind, in despite of former efforts, it was now done away.
The gallant Garhon of the fair Felicity (whose history, will, hereafter, become more interesting) announced to us that the horses were ready: we jointly wished the
impartial and unprejudiced traveller
a happy journey; and, after an agreeable ride through the villages of Luzarche, Ecouen, and Saint Dennis, we paid our extra livres for the post royal, and entered, without prejudice, the gates of the city.
THE HEART CONCLUDES THE SECOND VOLUME.
THE heart has now travelled, at its leisure, from London to Paris, and here it is beating at the pleasing recollection of a delightful journey, in the hotel de York, which is situated in the Rue Jacob. It is the business of memory to represent, faithfully, the images which are past; and I was preparing to
retrace
every thing I had seen in the course of my journey, step by step, in order to draw from the whole survey, the concluding sentiments of the heart, when the cherub philanthropy, who spoke from the lips of Amelia, perceived my design; and, laying her finger upon my bosom to command attention, spoke as follows:
"We have now left behind us the capital of England, more than two hundred miles: we have traversed a fruitful and excellent country: we have met hospitality on the way. Sometimes we have met imposition; but for
that,
we are indebted to the folly of our own countrymen. We have brought our excursion to a temporary period: we are in the capital of France. Here, we shall pause, at least till we have gratified our curiosity by a view of all that is fair and captivating in a new city. In the mean time, surely, the heart may be allowed to yield to the sentiments, which it adduces from a recapitulation of the whole matter. Having reached the metropolis, it seems to be the proper crisis for us to setttle
our opinions upon
the nation, so far as we are able. Will you permit, for once, a woman's heart to speak upon this subject? Will you permit her to wish, that two countries, which are such near
neighbours,
might very long continue tender
friends?
From such an alliance, maintained on both sides with reciprocated integrity, every thing that is useful, and beautiful, must be inevitable! Ah, what a delightful assemblage of blessings have I now kindled in my fancy upon this occasion! Methinks I see the fair form of
Peace
breathing her wishes in the most animating eloquence of language!
Too long, she says, infinitely too long, hath the demon of Battle inspired rival kings, with an avarice of conquest; and, in the din of war, there is no leisure to reflect that every conquest must be procured at the price of general devastation. If, on one side, the victor returns loaded with spoils and laurels, into the arms of an expecting wife; the other side presents a picture of anguish, from which, victory itself might turn weeping away. A train of little children are without a father; and she who was yesterday exulting in the hope that she is still a wife, finds, to day, that she is a defenceless widow; a widow too, over whose wounds the opposite party are rejoicing! How richly cultivated are the lands of Britain and of France! but how soon might the ambition of victory dispoil them of every beauty, and of every fertility. The smiling robe of verdure with which spring covers the earth, the blossom which sheds perfume over every valley, and the forests, which afford a shade to the shepherd and to the philosopher, with every other scene that is now waving in the voluptuousness of summer plenty, might, ere they were gilded by the beams of to-morrow's sun, be utterly extirpated. The rapacious genius of battle, attended by his horrid instruments of human carnage, inverts every joy, and every elegance of nature. Cast an eye over the foodful earth: observe what large tracts of pregnant territory are ripening for the sickle: alas! they might all yield suddenly to the sword of an insatiate conqueror. Admit into the sweet scene which you are contemplating, the various streams that take their silver circuit through the vallies; a thousand flocks, the property of a thousand swains, are cropping the living herbs that embroider the sides of them: the harvest is expected, and all is holiday in the heart of the husbandman, whether he is master of his acres in the country of England, or in that of France. Methinks I see, east of these, just mounted upon the summit of two hills, situated, the one on
this,
the other on
that
side the water, in order to gladden their hopes of the coming plenty! The affections of nature are not circumscribed: her operations are unif
rm and universal. These labourious servants of the soil have both the same wishes: their cheeks are flushed with equal expectation: their hearts pant with equal ardour. The golden prospect on either hand, enters into the very soul. Trusting in the mercy of one common Father whose blessed beam of maturating favour, is proportioned to the necessities of universal vegetation, they have neither of them the weight of a single fear upon their bosoms. The one, protected by a generous young king, and by the laws of his country, not less protective, rejoices that he was born a Briton! The other protected by a young monarch (whose heart is humanized to every virtue that can add lustre to his dignity, though all the laws, even to the law of life are in his hand) rejoices that he is a native of France!
Both are happy, and philanthropy breathes forth a fervent prayer, that
they,
as well as all the millions,
on either side of the shore,
who are now happy upon the
same principle,
may long continue so!"
And were I as powerful as one of those monarchs, I should join in this supplication Amelia (said I, interrupting her): you have made Philanthropy talk like herself. Never was there drawn more delightful pictures from the prospects we have seen in our journey. Here stop my dear traveller.
We are here in one of the most bustling hotels in Paris! Though we are three stories from the street, the clatter of the city, and the confusion of the busy and merry world is heard plainly! Go not a single sentence farther: for if you were to cast but a single glance either above, below, or on any side, the tide of your eloquence, which hath hitherto run clear as your own complexion, would be, in some measure, or stained, or mixed, or obstructed. It is the place, the page, the leaf, the line, the letter in the world, to bring the Travels of the Heart (so far as they relate to a journey from Westminster Bridge, to the Pont Neuf) to a
conclusion.
We will leave the sentiments of Amelia's philanthropy, to operate kindly upon the generous reader, and, when the pen is taken up again, upon this subject, his heart shall be invited to scenes which will be drawn from human nature, as she exhibits herself in Paris.
FINIS.