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ungracious syllable I had uttered crowded back into my imagination. I reflected I had no right over the poor Franciscan but to deny him; and that the punishment of that was enough to the disappointed, without the addition of unkind language. I considered his grey hairs:-his courteous figure seem'd to re-enter, and gently ask me what injury he had done me?-and why I could use him thus ?-I would have given twenty livres for an advocate.—I have behaved very ill, said I, within myself; but I have only just set out upon my travels, and shall learn better manners as I get along.

THE DESOBLIGEANT.

CALAIS.

of languages, connections, dependencies, and from the difference in educations, customs, and habits, we lie under so many impediments in communicating our sensations out of our own sphere, as often amount to a total impossibility. It will always follow hence that the balance of sentimental commerce is always against the expatriated adventurer: he must buy what he has little occasion for, at their own price ;-his conversation will seldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a large discount,—and this, by the bye, eternally driving him into the hands of more equitable brokers, for such conversation as he can find, it requires no great spirit of divination to guess at his party.

This brings me to my point, and naturally leads me (if the see-saw of this desobligeant will but let me get on) into the efficient as well as final causes of travelling.

Your idle people, that leave their native country, and go abroad for some reason or reasons which may be derived from one of these general causes :

Infirmity of body,

Imbecility of mind, or
Inevitable necessity.

The two first include all those who travel by land or by water, labouring with pride, curiosity, vanity, or spleen, subdivided and combined in infinitum.

WHEN a man is discontented with himself, it has one advantage, however, that it puts him into an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. Now, there being no travelling through France and Italy without a chaise, and Nature generally prompting us to the thing we are fittest for, I walked out into the coach-yard to buy or hire something of that kind to my purpose. An old desobligeant,' in the farthest corner of the court, hit my fancy at first sight; so I instantly got into it, and finding it in tolerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the waiter to call Monsieur Dessein, the master of the hotel ;but Monsieur Dessein being gone to vespers, and not caring to face the Franciscan, whom I saw on the opposite side of the court in conference with a lady just arrived at the inn, I drew the taffeta-curtain betwixt us, and, being deter-mended by the magistrate;-or young gentlemen, mined to write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and wrote the preface to it in the desobligeant.

PREFACE

IN THE DESOBLIGEANT.

Ir must have been observed by many a peripatetic philosopher, that Nature has set up, by her own unquestionable authority, certain boundaries and fences to circumscribe the discontent of man; she has effected her purpose in the quietest and easiest manner, by laying him under almost insuperable obligations to work out his ease, and to sustain his sufferings at home. It is there only that she has provided him with the most suitable objects to partake of his happiness, and bear a part of that burden which, in all countries and ages, has ever been too heavy for one pair of shoulders. "Tis true, we are endued with an imperfect power of spreading our happiness sometimes beyond her limits; but 'tis so ordered that, from the want

1 A chaise so called in France, from its holding but one person.

The third class includes the whole army of peregrine martyrs; more especially those travellers who set out upon their travels with the benefit of the clergy, either as delinquents, travelling under the direction of governors recom

transported by the cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling under the direction of governors recommended by Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glasgow.

There is a fourth class, but their number is so small that they would not deserve a distinction, were it not necessary, in a work of this nature, to observe the greatest precision and nicety, to avoid a confusion of character: and these men I speak of are such as cross the seas, and sojourn in a land of strangers, with a view of saving money, for various reasons, and upon various pretences; but, as they might also save others a great deal of unnecessary trouble by saving their money at home, and as their reasons for travelling are the least complex of any other species of emigrants, I shall distinguish these gentlemen by the name of

Simple travellers.
Thus the whole circle of travellers may be
reduced to the following heads :-
Idle Travellers,
Inquisitive Travellers,
Lying Travellers,

Then follow

Proud Travellers,
Vain Travellers,
Splenetic Travellers;

The Travellers of Necessity,

The Delinquent and Felonious Traveller,

The Unfortunate and Innocent Traveller,
The Simple Traveller;

And last of all (if you please), The Sentimental
Traveller (meaning thereby myself), who have
travelled-and of which I am now sitting down
to give an account as much out of Necessity,
and the besoin de Voyager, as any one in the
class.

I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole niche entirely to myself; but I should break in upon the confines of the Vain Traveller, in wishing to draw attention towards me, till I have some better grounds for it than the mere Novelty of my Vehicle. It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself, that, with study and reflection hereupon, he may be able to determine his own place and rank in the catalogue ;it will be one step towards knowing himself, as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and resemblance of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.

they might have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of light, that there is scarce a country or corner of Europe whose beams are not crossed and interchanged with others.— Knowledge, in most of its branches, and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake who pay nothing.But there is no nation under heaven,-and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this work) that I do not speak it vauntingly, but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning-where the sciences may be more fitly wooed, or more surely won, than here

where Art is encouraged, and will soon rise high--where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to answer for-and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind with.-Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going?—

... We are only looking at this chaise, said they.... Your most obedient servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat... We were wondering, said one of them, who, I found, was an Inquisitive Traveller,-what could occasion its motion. . . . 'Twas the agitation, said I, coolly, of writing a preface. . I never heard, said the other, who was a Simple Traveller, of a preface wrote in a desobligeant. . . . It would have been better, said I, in a vis-a-vis.

...

The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine at the Cape that the same grape produced upon the French mountains, he was too phlegmatic for that;-but, undoubtedly, he expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor;-but whether good, bad, or indifferent, -he knew As an Englishman does not travel to sce enough of this world to know that it did not | Englishmen, I retired to my room. depend upon his choice, but that what is generally called chance was to decide his success: however, he hoped for the best; and in these hopes, by an intemperate confidence in the fortitude of his head and the depth of his discretion, Mynheer might possibly overset both in his new vineyard, and, by discovering his nakedness, become a laughing-stock to his people.

Even so it fares with the poor traveller, sailing and posting through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.

Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements are all a lottery; and, even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit ;-but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion that a man would act as wisely if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of either;and, indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time cost me when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured, to see sights and look into discoveries, all which, as Sancho Pança said to Don Quixote,

CALAIS.

I PERCEIVED that something darkened the passage more than myself, as I stepped along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and, with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the desobligeant; and Mons. Dessein speaking of it with a shrug, as if it would no way suit me, it immediately struck my fancy that it belonged to some Innocent Traveller, who, on his return home, had left it to Mons. Dessein's honour to make the most of. Four months had elapsed since it had finished its career of Europe in the corner of Mons. Dessein's coach-yard: and having sallied out thence but a vamped-up business at first, though it had been twice taken to pieces on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its adventures, but by none so little as the standing so many months unpitied in the corner of Mons. Dessein's coach-yard. Much, indeed, was not to be said for it, but something might; and, when a few words will rescue Misery out of her distress, I hate the man who can be a churl of them.

-Now, was I the master of this hotel, said I,

laying the point of my forefinger on Mons. Dessein's breast, I would inevitably make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate desobligeant; it stands swinging reproaches at you every time you pass by it.

Mon Dieu! said Mons. Dessein,-I have no interest. . . . Except the interest, said I, which men of a certain turn of mind take, Mons. Dessein, in their own sensations,-I'm persuaded, to a man who feels for others as well as for himself, every rainy night, disguise it as you will, must cast a damp upon your spirits. You suffer, Mons. Dessein, as much as the machine.

I have always observed, when there is as much sour as sweet in a compliment, that an Englishman is eternally at a loss within himself whether to take it or let it alone; a Frenchman never is; Mons. Dessein made me a bow.

C'est bien vrai, said he.-But, in this case, I should only exchange one disquietude for another, and with loss. Figure to yourself, my dear sir, that in giving you a chaise which would fall to pieces before you had got half-way to Paris,-figure to yourself how much I should suffer, in giving an ill impression of myself to a man of honour, and lying at the mercy, as I must do, d'un homme d'esprit.

The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not help taking it,—and returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without more casuistry we walk'd together towards his remise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises.

hand is against every man, and every man's hand against thee.

Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead; for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk :-she had followed us unperceived. Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her my own;-she had a black pair of silk gloves, open only at the thumb and two forefingers,- -so accepted it without reserve,—and I led her up to the door of the remise.

Monsieur Dessein had diabled the key above fifty times, before he found out he had come with a wrong one in his hand: we were as impatient as himself to have it opened; and so attentive to the obstacle, that I continued holding her hand almost without knowing it: so that Mons. Dessein left us together, with her hand in mine, and with our faces turned towards the door of the remise, and said he would be back in five minutes.

Now, a colloquy of five minutes, in such a situation, is worth one of as many ages, with your faces turned toward the street. In the latter case, 'tis drawn from the objects and occurrences without;-when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank, you draw purely from yourselves. A silence of a single moment, upon Mons. Dessein's leaving us, had been fatal to the situation, she had infallibly turned about; so I began the conversation instantly.

-But what were the temptations (as I write not to apologize for the weaknesses of my heart in this tour, but to give an account of them) shall be described with the same simplicity with which I felt them.

IN THE STREET.

CALAIS.

Ir must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry postchaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street, to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same sort of eye as if he was going along with him to Hyde Park Corner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Mons. Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me to which the situation is incident;-I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and through,-eyed him as he walked along in profile, then en face;-thought he looked like a Jew, then a Turk, -disliked his wig,cursed him by my gods,-wished him at the devil!

And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of three or four louis d'ors, which is the most I can be overreached in?-Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment, base, ungentle passion! thy

THE REMISE DOOR.

CALAIS.

WHEN I told the reader that I did not care to get out of the desobligeant, because I saw the monk in close conference with the lady just arrived at the inn, I told him the truth; but I did not tell him the whole truth; for I was full as much restrained by the appearance and figure of the lady he was talking to. Suspicion crossed my brain, and said, he was telling her what had passed: something jarred upon it within me,-I wished him at his convent.

When the heart flies out before the understanding, it saves the judgment a world of pains.-I was certain she was of a better order of beings :-however, I thought no more of her, but went on and wrote my preface.

The impression returned, upon my encounter with her in the street; a guarded frankness, with which she gave me her hand, showed, I thought, her good education and her good sense; and, as I led her on, I felt a pleasurable ductility about her, which spread a calmness over all my spirits.

-Good God! how a man might lead such a creature as this round the world with him! I had not yet seen her face,-'twas not material; for the drawing was instantly set about, and long before we had got to the door of the remise, Fancy had finished the whole head, and pleased herself as much with its fitting her goddess as if she had dived into the Tiber for it ;-but thou art seduced, and a seducing slut; and albeit thou cheatest us seven times a day with thy pictures and images, yet with so many charms dost thou do it, and thou deckest out thy pictures in the shapes of so many angels of light, 'tis a shame to break with thee.

heart knew it, and was satisfied; and who but an English philosopher would have sent notice of it to the brain to reverse the judgment?

In saying this, she disengaged her hand, with a look which I thought a sufficient commentary upon the text.

It is a miserable picture which I am going to give of the weakness of my heart, by owning that it suffered a pain, which worthier occasions could not have inflicted.-I was mortified with the loss of her hand; and the manner in which I had lost it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound: I never felt the pain of a peevish inferiority so miserably in my life.

coat, in order to finish her reply; so some way or other, God knows how, I regained my situation. -She had nothing to add.

The triumphs of a true feminine heart are When we had got to the door of the remise, short upon these discomfitures. In a very few she withdrew her hand from across her fore-seconds she laid her hand upon the cuff of my head, and let me see the original. It was a face of about six-and-twenty,-of a clear transparent brown, simply set off without rouge or powder; it was not critically handsome, but there was that in it which, in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much more to it,-it was interesting; I fancied it wore the characters of a widow'd look, and in that state of its declension which had passed the two first paroxysms of sorrow, and was quietly beginning to reconcile itself to its loss;-but a thousand other distresses might have traced the same lines; I wish'd to know what they had been,-and was ready to inquire (had the same bon ton of conversation permitted as in the days of Esdras), 'What aileth thee? and why art thou disquieted? and why is thy understanding troubled?' In a word, I felt benevolence for her, and resolved, some way or other, to throw in my mite of courtesy-if not of service.

Such were my temptations;--and in this disposition to give way to them, was I left alone with the lady, with her hand in mine, and with our faces both turned closer to the door of the remise than was absolutely necessary.

THE REMISE DOOR.

CALAIS.

THIS certainly, fair lady, said I, raising her hand up a little lightly as I began, must be one of Fortune's whimsical doings; to take two utter strangers by their hands,-of different sexes, and perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in one moment place them to gether in such a cordial situation as Friendship herself could scarce have achieved for them, had she projected it for a month.

... And your reflection upon it shows how much, Monsieur, she has embarrassed you by the adventure.

When the situation is what we would wish, nothing is so ill-timed as to hint at the circumstances which make it so. -You thank Fortune, continued she;-you had reason,-the

I forthwith began to model a different conversation for the lady, thinking, from the spirit as well as moral of this, that I had been mistaken in her character; but, upon turning her face towards me, the muscles relaxed, and I saw the same unprotected look of distress which first won me to her interest :-melancholy! to sce such sprightliness the prey of sorrow,-I pitied her from my soul; and, though it may seem ridiculous enough to a torpid heart, I could have taken her into my arms, and cherished her, though it was in the open street, without blushing.

The pulsation of the arteries along my fingers pressing across hers, told her what was passing within me. She looked down :-a silence of some moments followed.

I fear, in this interval, I must have made some slight efforts towards a closer compression of her hand, from a subtle sensation I felt in the palm of my own,-not as if she was going to withdraw hers, but as if she thought about it; and I had infallibly lost it a second time, had not instinct, more than reason, directed me to the last resource in these dangers, to hold it loosely, and in a manner as if I was every moment going to release it of myself: so she let it continue till Mons. Dessein returned with the key; and in the meantime I set myself to consider how I should undo the ill impressions which the poor monk's story, in case he had told it her, must have planted in her breast against me.

THE SNUFF-BOX.

CALAIS.

THE good old monk was within six paces of us as the idea of him cross'd my mind; and was advancing towards us, a little out of the line, as if uncertain whether he should break in upon us or no. He stopped, however, as soon as he

...

came up to us, with a world of frankness, and,
having a horn snuff-box in his hand, he pre-
sented it open to me. . . . You shall taste mine,
said I, pulling out my box (which was a small
tortoise one), and putting it into his hand. .
"Tis most excellent, said the monk. . . . Then
do me the favour, I replied, to accept of the
box and all; when you take a pinch out of it,
sometimes recollect it was the peace-offering of
a man who once used you unkindly, but not
from his heart.

buried, not in his convent, but, according to his desire, in a little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues off. I had a strong desire to see where they had laid him,-when, upon pulling out his little horn-box, as I sat by his grave, and plucking up a nettle or two at the head of it, which had no business to grow there, they all struck together so forcibly upon my affections that I burst into a flood of tears;but I am as weak as a woman; and I beg the world not to smile, but pity me.

THE REMISE DOOR.

CALAIS.

The poor monk blush'd as red as scarlet. Mon Dieu! said he, pressing his hands together, -you never used me unkindly. . . . I should think, said the lady, he is not likely. . . . I blush'd in my turn; but from what movements, I leave to the few who feel to analyse. Ex-I HAD never quitted the lady's hand all this cuse me, madam, replied I,-I treated him most unkindly; and from no provocations. . . "Tis impossible, said the lady. . . . My God! cried the monk, with a warmth of asseveration which seemed not to belong to him,-the fault was in me, and in the indiscretion of my zeal.

The lady opposed it; and I joined with her in maintaining that it was impossible that a spirit so regulated as his could give offence to any.

time; and had held it so long, that it would have been indecent to have let it go without | first pressing it to my lips : the blood and spirits, which had suffered a revulsion from her, crowded back to her as I did it.

Now the two travellers, who had spoke to me in the coach-yard, happened at that crisis to be passing by, and, observing our communication, naturally took it into their heads that we must I knew not that contention could be rendered be man and wife at least; so, stopping as soon so sweet and pleasurable a thing to the nerves as they came up to the door of the remise, the as I then felt it. We remained silent, without one of them, who was the Inquisitive Traveller, any sensation of that foolish pain which takes asked us if we set out for Paris the next mornplace when, in such a circle, you look for tening?... I could only answer for myself, I said; minutes in one another's faces without saying a word. Whilst this lasted, the monk rubbed his horn-box upon the sleeve of his tunic; and as soon as it had acquired a little air of brightness by the friction, he made a low bow, and said, 'Twas too late to say whether it was the weakness or goodness of our tempers which had involved us in this contest;-but, be as it would, he begged we might exchange boxes.In saying this, he presented his to me with one hand, as he took mine from me in the other; and having kissed it, with a stream of good-myself, if I was to beg of this distressed lady to nature in his eyes, he put it into his bosomand took his leave.

I guard this box as I would the instrumental parts of my religion, to help my mind on to something better. In truth, I seldom go abroad without it; and oft and many a time have I called up by it the courteous spirit of its owner to regulate my own, in the jostlings of the world: they had found full employment for his, as I learned from his story, till about the fortyfifth year of his age, when, upon some military services ill requited, and meeting at the same time with a disappointment in the tenderest of passions, he abandoned the sword and the sex together, and took sanctuary, not so much in his convent as in himself.

I feel a damp upon my spirits as I am going to add that, in my last return through Calais, upon inquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he had been dead near three months; and was

and the lady added, she was for Amiens. ... We dined there yesterday, said the Simplo Traveller. . . . You go directly through the town, added the other, in your road to Paris.I was going to return a thousand thanks for the intelligence that Amiens was in the road to Paris; but, upon pulling out my poor monk's little horn-box to take a pinch of snuff, I made them a quiet bow, and wished them a good passage to Dover.-They left us alone.

Now where would be the harm, said I to

accept of half of my chaise ?-and what mighty mischief could ensue?

Every dirty passion and bad propensity in my nature took the alarm as I stated the proposition:-It will oblige you have a third horse, said Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of your pocket. You know not what she is, said Caution; or what scrapes the affair may draw you into, whisper'd Cowardice.

-Depend upon it, Yorick, said Discretion, 'twill be said you went off with a mistress; and came, by assignation, to Calais for that purpose.

-You can never after, cried Hypocrisy, aloud, show your face in the world;-nor rise, quoth Meanness, in the church;-nor be anything in it, said Pride, but a lousy prebendary.

But 'tis a civil thing, said I;-and as I generally act from the first impulse, and therefore seldom listen to these cabals, which serve no purpose that I know of but to encompass the

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