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powers of the shop not resting in the husband, he seldom comes there :-in some dark and dismal room behind, he sits commerceless in his thrum night-cap, the same rough son of Nature that Nature left him.

The genius of a people where nothing but the monarchy is salique having ceded this department, with sundry others, totally to the women

He will be ready, monsieur, said she, in a moment. And in that moment, replied I, most willingly would I say something very civil to you for all these courtesies. Any one may do a casual act of good-nature, but a continuation of them shows it is a part of the temperature; and certainly, added I, if it is the same blood which comes from the heart which descends to the extremes (touching her wrist), I-by a continual higgling with customers of all am sure you must have one of the best pulses of any woman in the world. Feel it, said she, holding out her arm. So laying down my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, and applied the two forefingers of my other to the artery.

Would to Heaven! my dear Eugenius, thou hadst passed by, and beheld me sitting in my black coat, and in my lack-a-daysical manner, counting the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true devotion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or flow of her fever! How wouldst thou have laughed and moralized upon my new profession!-and thou shouldst have laughed and moralized on. -Trust me, my dear Eugenius, I should have said 'there are worse occupations in this world than feeling a woman's pulse.'-But a grisette's, thou wouldst have said, --and in an open shop, Yorick !

-So much the better: for when my views are direct, Eugenius, I care not if all the world saw me feel it.

ranks and sizes from morning to night, like so many rough pebbles shook long together in a bag, by amicable collisions, they have worn down their asperities and sharp angles, and not only become round and smooth, but will receive, some of them, a polish like a brilliant-Monsieur le Marie is little better than the stone under your foot.

-Surely, surely, man! it is not good for thee to sit alone; thou wast made for social intercourse and gentle grectings; and this improvement of our natures from it, I appeal to, as my evidence.

-And how does it beat, monsieur? said she.

With all the benignity, said I, looking quietly in her eyes, that I expected. She was going to say something civil in return, but the lad came into the shop with the gloves.Apropos, said I, I want a couple of pairs myself.

THE HUSBAND.

PARIS.

I HAD counted twenty pulsations, and was going on fast towards the fortieth, when her husband, coming unexpectedly from a back-parlour into the shop, put me a little out in my reckoning. -Twas nobody but her husband, she saidso I began a fresh score. Monsieur is so good, quoth she, as he passed by us, as to give himself the trouble of feeling my pulse.The husband took off his hat, and making me a bow, said I did him too much honour; and having said that, he put on his hat and walked out.

Good God! said I to myself, as he went out, -and can this man be the husband of this woman?

Let it not torment the few who know what must have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I explain it to those who do not.

In London, a shopkeeper and a shopkeeper's wife seem to be one bone and one flesh. In the several endowments of mind and body, sometimes the one and sometimes the other has it, so as in general to be upon a par, and to tally with each other as nearly as a man and wife need to do.

In Paris, there are scarce two orders of beings more different, for the legislative and executive

THE GLOVES.

PARIE

THE beautiful grisette rose up when I said this, and, going behind the counter, reached down a parcel, and untied it. I advanced to the side over against her: they were all too large. The beautiful grisette measured them one by one across my hand,-it would not alter the dimensions.-She begged I would try a single pair, which seemed to be the least. She held it open:

my hand slipped into it at once.-It will not do, said I, shaking my head a little.-No, said she, doing the same thing.

There are certain combined looks of simple subtlety-where whim, and sense, and seriousness, and nonsense, are so blended that all the languages of Babel, set loose together, could not express them--they are communicated and caught so instantaneously that you can scarce say which party is the infector. I leave it to your men of words to swell pages about it,-it is enough in the present to say again, the gloves would not do; so, folding our hands within our arms, we both loll'd upon the counter;-it was narrow, and there was just room for the parcel to lay between us.

The beautiful grisette looked sometimes at the gloves, then sideways to the window, then at the gloves-and then at me. I was not disposed to break silence ;-I followed her example: so I looked at the gloves, then to the window, then

at the gloves, and then at her-and so on alter- all aloud; and if he had, I should in course have nately.

I found I lost considerably in every attack:she had a quick black eye, and shot through two such long and silken eyelashes with such penetration, that she looked into my very heart and reins. It may seem strange; but I could actually feel she did.

It is no matter, said I, taking up a couple of the pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket.

I was sensible the beautiful grisette had not asked a single livre above the price. I wished she had asked a livre more; and was puzzling my brains how to bring the matter about.-Do you think, my dear sir, said she, mistaking my embarrassment, that I could ask a sous too much of a stranger-and of a stranger whose politeness, more than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to lay himself at my mercy?-M'en croyez capable?-Faith! not I, said I; and if you were, you are welcome. So, counting the money into her hand, and with a lower bow than one generally makes to a shopkeeper's wife, I went out; and her lad with his parcel followed me.

THE TRANSLATION,

PARIS.

THERE was nobody in the box I was let into, but
a kindly old French officer. I love the charac-
ter, not only because I honour the man whose
manners are softened by a profession which
makes bad men worse, but that I once knew
one-for he is no more, -and why should I not
rescue one page from violation by writing his
name in it, and telling the world it was Captain
Tobias Shandy, the dearest of my flock and
friends, whose philanthropy I never think of at
this long distance from his death, but my eyes
gush out with tears? For his sake, I have a
predilection for the whole corps of veterans;
and so I strode over the two back rows of
benches, and placed myself beside him.

The old officer was reading attentively a small pamphlet (it might be the book of the opera) with a large pair of spectacles. As soon as I sat down, he took his spectacles off, and, putting them into a shagreen case, returned them and the book into his pocket together. I half rose up, and made him a bow.

Translate this into any civilised language in the world, the sense is this:

'Here's a poor stranger come into the box; he seems as if he knew nobody; and is never likely, was he to be seven years in Paris, if every man he comes near keeps his spectacles upon his nose: 'tis shutting the door of conversation absolutely in his face, and using him worse than a German.'

put the bow I made him into French too, and
told him, I was sensible of his attention, and
returned him a thousand thanks for it.'

There is not a secret so aiding to the progress of sociality as to get master of this short hand, and to be quick in rendering the several turns of looks and limbs, with all their inflections and delineations, into plain words. For my own part, by long habitude, I do it so mechanically, that, when I walk the streets of London, I go translating all the way; and have more than once stood behind the circle, where not three words have been said, and have brought off twenty different dialogues with me, which I could have fairly wrote down and sworn to.

I was going one evening to Martini's concert at was coming out, Milan, and was just entering the door of the hall, when the Marquisina de F*** in a sort of a hurry. She was almost upon me before I saw her: so I gave a spring to one side, to let her pass. She had done the same, and on the same side too: so we ran our heads together. She instantly got to the other side to get out: I was just as unfortunate as she had been; for I had sprung to that side, and opposed her passage again. We both flew together to the other side, and then back,-and so on :-it was ridiculous; we both blushed intolerably. So I did at last the thing I should have done at first ;-I stood stock still, and the Marquisina had no more difficulty. I had no power to go into the room till I had made her so much reparation as to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of the passage. She looked back twice, and walked along it rather sideways, as if she would make room for any one coming up-stairs to pass her.--No, said I, that's a vile translation; the Marquisina has a right to the best apology I can make her, and that opening is left for me to do it in :-so I ran and begged pardon for the embarrassment I had given her, saying it was my intention to have made her way.-She answered, she was guided by the same intention towards me ;-so we reciprocally thanked each other. She was at the top of the stairs; and seeing no cicisbeo near her, I begged to hand her to her coach; so we went down the stairs, stopping at every third step to talk of the concert and the adventure.-Upon my word, madam, said I, when I had handed her in, I made six different efforts to let you go out. And I made six efforts, replied she, to let you enter. I wish to Heaven you would make a seventh, said I.-With all my heart, said she, making room.-Life is too short to be long about the forms of it;-so I instantly stepped in, and she carried me home with her. . . . And what became of the concert? St. Cecilia, who I suppose was at it, knows more than I.

I will only add that the connection, which arose out of the translation, gave me more pleasure than any one I had the honour to make in

The French officer might as well have said it Italy.

THE DWARF.

PARIS.

I HAD never heard the remark made by any one in my life, except by one; and who that was will probably come out in this chapter; so that, being pretty much unprepossessed, there must have been grounds for what struck me the moment I cast my eyes over the parterre,-and that was the unaccountable sport of Nature in forming such numbers of dwarfs.-No doubt, she sports at certain times in almost every corner of the world; but in Paris there is no end to her amusements. The goddess seems almost as merry as she is wise.

As I carried my idea out of the Opera Comique with me, I measured everybody I saw walking in the streets by it.-Melancholy application! especially where the size was extremely littlethe face extremely dark-the eyes quick-the nose long-the teeth white-the jaw prominent, to see so many miserables, by force of accidents, driven out of their own proper class into the very verge of another, which it gives me pain to write down:-every third man a pigmy; -some by rickety heads and humpbacks; others by bandy legs;- -a third set arrested by the hand of Nature in the sixth and seventh years of their growth;-a fourth, in their perfect and natural state, like dwarf appletrees; from the first rudiments and stamina of their existence, never meant to grow higher.

A Medical Traveller might say 'tis owing to undue bandages ;-a Splenetic one, to want of air; and an Inquisitive Traveller, to fortify the system, may measure the height of their houses, the narrowness of their streets, and in how few feet square, in the sixth and seventh storeys, such numbers of the Bourgeoisie eat and sleep together. But I remember, Mr. Shandy the Elder, who accounted for nothing like anybody else, in speaking one evening of these matters, averred that children, like other animals, might be increased almost to any size, provided they came right into the world; but the misery was, the citizens of Paris were so coop'd up that they had not actually room enough to get them.-I do not call it getting anything, said he ;-'tis getting nothing.-Nay, continued he, rising in his argument, 'tis getting worse than nothing, when all you have got, after twenty or five-andtwenty years of the tenderest care and most nutritious aliment bestowed upon it, shall not at last be as high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy being very short, there could be nothing more said of it.

As this is not a work of reasoning, I leave the solution as I found it, and content myself with the truth only of the remark, which is verified in every lane and bye-lane of Paris. I was walking down that which leads from the Carousal to the Palais Royal, and observing a little boy in

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some distress at the side of the gutter which ran down the middle of it, I took hold of his hand and helped him over. Upon turning up his face to look at him after, I perceived he was about forty. . . . Never mind, said I, some good body will do as much for me when I am ninety.

I feel some little principles within me, which incline me to be merciful towards this poor blighted part of my species, who have neither size nor strength to get on in the world.-I cannot bear to see one of them trod upon; and had scarce got seated beside my old French officer ere the disgust was exercised by seeing the very thing happen under the box we sat in.

At the end of the orchestra, and betwixt that and the first side-box, there is a small esplanade left, where, when the house is full, numbers of all ranks take sanctuary. Though you stand, as in the parterre, you pay the same price as in the orchestra. A poor defenceless being of this order had got thrust, somehow or other, into this luckless place;-the night was hot, and he was surrounded by beings two feet and a half higher than himself. The dwarf suffered inexpressibly on all sides; but the thing which incommoded him most was a tall, corpulent German, near seven feet high, who stood directly betwixt him and all possibility of his seeing either the stage or the actors. The poor dwarf did all he could to get a peep at what was going forwards, by seeking for some little opening betwixt the German's arm and his body, trying first on one side, then on the other; but the German stood square in the most unaccommodating posture that can be imagined :-the dwarf might as well have been placed at the bottom of the deepest draw-well in Paris; so he civilly reached up his hand to the German's sleeve, and told him his distress.-The German turned his head back, looked down upon him as Goliath did upon David,-and unfeelingly resumed his. posture.

I was just then taking a pinch of snuff out of my monk's little horn-box.-And how would thy meek and courteous spirit, my dear monk, so tempered to bear and forbear-how sweetly would it have lent an ear to this poor soul's. complaint!

The old French officer seeing me lift up my eyes with an emotion, as I made the apostrophe, took the liberty to ask me what was the matter?

-I told him the story in three words, and. added, how inhuman it was.

By this time the dwarf was driven to extremes, and in his first transports, which are generally unreasonable, had told the German he would cut off his long queue with his knife.-The German looked back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he could reach it.

An injury sharpened by an insult, be it to whom it will, makes every man of sentiment a party: I could have leaped out of the box to

sçavoir vivre, was by seeing a great deal both of men and manners; it taught us mutual toleration; and mutual toleration, concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mutual love. The old French officer delivered this with an

have redressed it.-The old French officer did it with much less confusion; for, leaning a little over, and nodding to a sentinel, and pointing at the same time with his finger at the distress, the sentinel made his way to it.There was no occasion to tell the grievance-air of such candour and good sense as coincided the thing told itself; so, thrusting back the German instantly with his musket, he took the poor dwarf by the hand, and placed him before him. . . . This is noble! said I, clapping my hands together. . . . And yet you would not permit this, said the old officer, in England.

. . . In England, dear sir, said I, we sit all at our ease.

The old French officer would have set me at unity with myself, in case I had been at variance, by saying it was a bon mot;-and, as a bon mot is always worth something in Paris, he offered me a pinch of snuff.

THE ROSE.

PARIS.

Ir was now my turn to ask the old French officer, 'What was the matter?' for a cry of 'Haussez les mains, Monsieur l'Abbé,' re-echoed from a dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unintelligible to me as my apostrophe to the monk had been to him.

He told me it was some poor Abbé in one of the upper loges, who he supposed had got planted perdu behind a couple of grisettes in order to see the opera, and that the parterre, espying him, were insisting, upon his holding up both his hands during the representation. And can it be supposed, said I, that an ecclesiastic would pick the grisettes' pockets?—The old French officer smiled, and, whispering in my ear, opened a door of knowledge which I had no idea of.

Good God said I, turning pale with astonishment,-is it possible that a people so smit with sentiment should at the same time be so unclean, and so unlike themselves? Quelle grossierté! added I.

The French officer told me it was an illiberal sarcasm at the church, which had begun in the theatre about the time the Tartuffe was given in it, by Moliere,-but, like other remains of Gothic manners, was declining. Every nation, continued he, have their refinements and grossiertés, in which they take the lead and lose it of one another by turns ;that he had been in most countries, but never in one where he found some delicacies, which others seemed to want. Le pour et le contre se trouvent en chaque nation; there is a balance, said he, of good and bad everywhere; and nothing but knowing it is so can emancipate one half of the world from the prepossession which it holds against the other :-that the advantage of travel, as it regarded the

with my first favourable impressions of his character :-I thought I loved the man; but I fear I mistook the object :-'twas my own way of thinking, the difference was, I could not have expressed it half so well.

It is alike troublesome to both the rider and his beast-if the latter goes pricking up his ears, and starting all the way at every object which he never saw before.-I have as little torment of this kind as any creature alive; and yet I honestly confess that many a thing gave me pain, and that I blushed at many a word the first month, which I found inconsequent and perfectly innocent the second.

Madame de Rambouliet, after an acquaintance of about six weeks with her, had done me the honour to take me in her coach about two leagues out of town.-Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is the most correct ;-and I never wish to see one of more virtues and purity of heart.-In our return back, Madame de Rambouliet desired me to pull the cord-I asked her if she wanted anything?-Rein que pour pisser, said Madame de Rambouliet.

Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de Rambouliet p-ss on.-And, ye fair mystic nymphs, go each one pluck your rose, and scatter them in your path,-for Madame de Rambouliet did no more.-I handed Madame de Rambouliet out of the coach; and had I been the priest of the chaste Castalia, I could not have served at her fountain with a more respectful decorum.

THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE.

PARIS.

WHAT the old French officer had delivered upon travelling, bringing Polonius' advice to his son upon the same subject into my head,

and that bringing in Hamlet,-and Hamlet the rest of Shakespeare's Works, I stopt at the Quai de Conti, in my return home, to purchase the whole set.

The bookseller said he had not a set in the world. . . . Comment! said I, taking one up out of a set which lay upon the counter betwixt He said, they were sent him only to be got bound; and were to be sent back to Versailles in the morning to the Count de B****.

us....

And does the Count de B****, said I, read Shakespeare? . . . C'est un espirt fort, replied the bookseller.-He loves English books; and, what is more to his honour, monsieur, he loves the English too. . . . You speak this so civilly, said I, that it is enough to oblige an

Englishman to lay out a louis d'or or two at your shop. The bookseller made a bow, and was going to say something, when a young decent girl, about twenty, who by her air and dress seemed to be fille de chambre to some devout woman of fashion, came into the shop and asked for Les Egaremens du Cœur et de❘ l'Esprit. The bookseller gave her the book directly; she pulled out a little green satin purse, run round with a riband of the same colour, and, putting her finger and thumb into it, she took out the money and paid for it. As I had nothing more to stay me in the shop, we both walked out of the door together.

-And what have you to do, my dear, said I, with The Wanderings of the Heart, who scarce know yet you have one? nor, 'till Love has first told you it, or some faithless shepherd has made it ache, canst thou ever be sure it is so. . . . La Dieu m'en garde said the girl. . With reason, said I; for, if it is a good one, 'tis a pity it should be stolen; 'tis a little treasure to thee, and gives a better air to your face than if it was dressed out with pearls.

...

The young girl listened with a submissive attention, holding her satin purse by its riband in her hand all the time.-'Tis a very small one, said I, taking hold of the bottom of it(she held it towards me)-and there is very little in it, my dear, said I;-but be but as good as thou art handsome, and Heaven will fill it. I had a parcel of crowns in my hand to pay for Shakespeare; and, as she had let go the purse entirely, I put a single one in ; and, tying the riband in a bow-knot, returned it to her. The young girl made me more a humble curtsey than a low one-'twas one of those quiet, thankful sinkings; where the spirit bows itself down, the body does no more than tell it. I never gave a girl a crown in my life which gave me half the pleasure.

up

My advice, my dear, would not have been worth a pin to you, said I, if I had not given this along with it: but now, when you see the crown, you'll remember it ;-so don't, my dear, lay it out in ribands.

... Upon my word, sir, said the girl, earnestly, I am incapable; in saying which, as is usual in little bargains of honour, she gave me her hand :—En verité, monsieur, je mettrai cet argent apart, said she.

When a virtuous convention is made betwixt man and woman, it sanctifies their most private walks; so, notwithstanding it was dusky, yet as both our roads lay the same way, we made ao scruple of walking along the Quai de Conti together.

She made me a second curtsey in setting off; and, before we got twenty yards from the door, as if she had not done enough before, she made a sort of a little stop, to tell me again-she thanked me.

It was a small tribute, I told her, which

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I could not avoid paying to virtue, and would not be mistaken in the person I had been rendering it to for the world; but I see innocence, my dear, in your face, and foul befall the man who ever lays a snare in its way!

The girl seemed affected, some way or other, with what I said:—she gave a low sigh:-I found I was not empowered to inquire at all after it,so said nothing more till I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, where we were to part.

-But is this the way, my dear, said I, to the Hotel de Modene? . . . She told me it was, or that I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was the next turn. . . . Then I'll go, my dear, by the Rue de Gueneguault, said I, for two reasons: first, I shall please myself; and next, I shall give you the protection of my company as far on your way as I can. The girl was sensible I was civil,-and said she wished the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue de St. Pierre. . . . You live there? said I. . . . She told me she was fille de chambre to Madame R****. . . . Good God! said I, 'tis the very lady for whom I have brought a letter from Amiens. . . . The girl told me that Madame R****, she believed, expected a stranger with a letter, and was impatient to see him. . . . So I desired the girl to present my compliments to Madame R****, and say I would certainly wait upon her in the morning.

We stood still at the corner of the Rue de Nevers whilst this passed.-We then stopped a moment whilst she disposed of her Egarements du Cœur, etc., more commodiously than carrying them in her hand :-they were two volumes; so I held the second for her whilst she put the first into her pocket;--and then she held her pocket, and I put in the other after it.

'Tis sweet to feel by what fine-spun threads our affections are drawn together.

We set off afresh ;-and as she took her third step, the girl put her hand within my arm. I was just bidding her,—but she did it of herself, with that undeliberating simplicity which showed it was out of her head that she had never seen me before. For my own part, I felt the conviction of consanguinity so strongly that I could not help turning half round to look in her face, and see if I could trace out anything in it of a family likeness.-Tut! said I, are we not all relations?

When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue de Gueneguault, I stopped to bid her adieu for good and all: the girl would thank me again for my company and kindness.-She bid me adieu twice ;-I repeated it as often; and so cordial was the parting between us that, had it happened anywhere else, I'm not sure but I should have signed it with a kiss of charity, as warm and holy as an apostle.

But in Paris, as none kiss each other but the men,-I did what amounted to the same thing,I bid God bless her!

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