prince of Gods and men!" The fire caught, and the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.

No pharmacopolist could sell one grain of hellebore, not a single armorer had a heart to forge one instrument of death; friendship and virtue met together and kiss'd each other in the street; the golden age returned, and hung over the town of Abdera; every Abderite took his oaten pipe; and every Abderitish woman left her purple web, and chastely sat her down, and listened to the song, 'Twas only in the power, says the Fragment, of the God whose empire extendeth from Heaven to earth, and even to the depths of the sea, to have done this.

MONTRIUL.

WHEN all this is ready and every article is disputed and paid for at the inn, unless you are a little soured by the adventure, there is always a matter to compound at the door, before you can get into your chaise, and that is, with the sons and daughters of poverty who surround you. Let no man say, "Let them go to the Devil!" 'tis a cruel journey to send a few miserables; and they have had sufferings enow without it. I always think it better to take a few sous out in my hand; and I would counsel every gentle traveller to do so likewise; he need not be so exact in setting down his motives for giving them; they will be register'd elsewhere.

For my own part, there is no man gives so little as I do; for few, that I know, have so little to give: but as this was the first public act of my charity in France, I took the more notice of it.

A well-a-way! said I-I have but eight sous in the world, showing them in my hand, and there are eight poor men and eight poor women for 'em.

A poor tatter'd soul, without a shirt on, instantly withdrew his claim, by retiring two steps out of the circle, and making a disqualifying bow on his part. Had the whole parterre cried out, Place aux dames, with one voice, it would not have conveyed the sentiment of a deference for the sex with half the effect.

Just Heaven! for what wise reasons hast thou ordered it, that

beggary and urbanity, which are at such variance in other countries, should find a way to be at unity in this?

I insisted upon presenting him with a single sous, merely for his politesse.

A poor little dwarfish brisk fellow, who stood over-against me in the circle, putting something first under his arm, which had once been a hat, took his snuff-box out of his pocket, and generally offer'd a pinch on both sides of him: it was a gift of consequence, and modestly declined. The poor little fellow press'd it upon them with a nod of welcomeness. Prenez-en, prenez, said he, looking another way; so they each took a pinch. Pity thy box should ever want one, said I to myself; so I put a couple of sous into it, taking a small pinch out of his box to enhance their value, as I did it. He felt the weight of the second obligation more than of the first, 'twas doing him an honor, the other was only doing him a charity; and he made me a bow to the ground for it.

Here! said I to an old soldier with one hand, who had been campaign'd and worn out to death in the service, here's a couple of sous for thee. Vive le Roi! said the old soldier.

I had then but three sous left; so I gave one, simply pou: l'amour de Dieu, which was the footing on which it was begg'd. The poor woman had a dislocated hip; so it could not be well upon any other motive.

Mon cher et tres-charitable, Monsieur.

There's no opposing this, said I.

My Lord Anglais; the very sound was worth the money: so I gave my last sous for it. But, in the eagerness of giving, I had overlooked a pauvre honteux, who had no one to ask a sous for him, and who, I believe, would have perish'd ere he could have ask'd one for himself; he stood by the chaise, a little without the circle, and wiped a tear from a face which I thought had seen better days. Good God! said I, and I have not one single sous left to give him. But you have a thousand! cried all the powers of Nature, stirring within me; so gave him-no matter what, I am ashamed to say how much now, and was ashamed to think how little then; so if the reader can form any conjecture of my disposition, as these two fixed points are given him, he may judge within a livre or two what was the precise sum.

I could afford nothing for the rost, but Diew cous bénisse.—Et le bon Dieu vous bénisse encore, said the soldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux could say nothing, he pull'd out a little handkerchief, and wiped his face as he turned away; and I thought he thanked me more than them all.

THE BIDET.

HAVING settled all these little matters, I got into my post-chaise with more ease than ever I got into a post-chaise in my life; and La Fleur having got one large jack-boot on the far side of a little bidet,* and another on this (for I count nothing of his legs) he canter'd before me as happy and as perpendicular as a prince.

But what is happiness? what is grandeur in this painted scene of life? A dead ass, before we got a league, put a sudden stop to La Fleur's career; his bidet would not pass by it, a contention arose betwixt them, and the poor fellow was kick'd out of his jack-boots the very first kick.

La Fleur bore his fall like a French Christian, saying neither more nor less upon it than Diable! so presently got up, and came to the charge again astride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would have beat his drum.

The bidet flew from one side of the road to the other, then back, again, then this way, then that way, and, in short, every way but by the dead ass: La Fleur insisted upon the thing, and the bidet threw him.

What's the matter, La Fleur, said I, with this bidet of thine? Monsieur, said he, c'est un cheval le plus opiniâtre du monde. Nay, if he is a conceited beast, he must go his own way, replied I. So La Fleur got off him, and giving him a good sound lash, the bidet took me at my word, and away he scampered back to the Montriul.-Peste said La Fleur.

It is not mal-à-propos to take notice here, that though La Fleur availed himself but of two different terms of exclamation in this

* Post-horse.

encounter, namely, Diable! and Peste! that there are, nevertheless, three it the French language, like the positive, comparative, and superlative, one or the other of which serve for every unex. ...peeted throw of the dice in life.

Le Diable! which is the first and positive degree, is generally used in ordinary emotions of the mind, where small things only fall out contrary to your expectations, such as the throwing one's doublets, La Fleur's being kick'd of his horse, and so forth. Cuckoldom, for the same reason, is always Le Diable!

But in cases where the cast has something provoking in it, as in that of the Bidet's running away after, and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots, 'tis the second degree.

'Tis then Peste!

And for the third

But here my heart is wrung with pity and fellow-feeling, when I reflect what miseries must have been their lot, and how bitterly so refined a people must have smarted, to have forced them upon the use of it.

Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue with eloquence in distress! whatever is my cast, grant me but decent words to exclaim in, and I will give my nature way.

But as these were not to be had in France, I resolved to take every evil just as it befell me, without any exclamation at all.

La Fleur, who had made no such covenant with himself, followed the bidet with his eyes till it was out of sight, and then, you may imagine, if you please, with what word he closed the whole affair.

As there was no hunting down a frighten'd horse in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but taking La Fleur either behind the chaise or in it.

I preferred the latter, and, in half an hour, we got to the post. house at Nampont.

NAMPONT.

THE DEAD ASS.

AND this, said he, putting the remains of a crust into his wallet, and this should have been thy portion, said he, hadst thou been alive to have shared it with me. I thought, by the accent, it had been an apostrophe to his child; but 'twas to his ass, and to the very ass we had seen dead in the road, which had occasioned La Fleur's misadventure. The man seemed to lament it much; and it instantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamentation for his; but he did it with more true touches of nature.

The mourner was sitting upon a stone bench at the door, with the ass's pannel and its bridle on one side, which he took up from time to time, then laid them down, look'd at them, and shook his head. He then took his crust of bread out of his wallet again, as if to eat it, held it some time in his hand, then laid it upon the bit of his ass's bridle, look'd wistfully at the little arrangement he had made, and then gave a sigh.

The simplicity of his grief drew numbers about him, and La Fleur among the rest, whilst the horses were getting ready; as I continued sitting in the post-chaise, I could see and hear over their heads.

He said he had come last from Spain, where he had been from the furthest borders of Franconia; and had got so far on his return home when his ass died. Every one seemed desirous to know what business could have taken so old and poor a man so far a journey from his own home.

It had pleased Heaven, he said, to bless him with three sons, the finest lads in all Germany; but having, in one week, lost two of the eldest of them by the small-pox, and the youngest falling ill of the same distemper, he was afraid of being bereft of them all; and made a vow, if Heaven would not take him from him also, he would go, in gratitude, to St. Iago in Spain.

When the mourner got this far on his story, he stopp'd to pay Nature his tribute, and wept bitterly.

He said, Heaven had accepted the conditions, and that he had set out from his cottage with this poor creature, who had been a patient