Ætat. 66.

sauce; fryed fish; lentils, tasteless in themselves. 1775. In the library; where I found Maffeus's de Historia Indicá: Promontorium flectere, to double the Cape. I parted very tenderly from the Prior and Friar Wilkes.

Maitre des Arts, 2 y.-Bacc. Theol. 3 y.-Licentiate, 2 y.-Doctor Th. 2 y. in all 9 years.--For the Doctorate three disputations, Major, Minor, Sorbonica. Several colleges suppressed, and transferred to that which was the Jesuit's College.

"Nov. 1. Wednesday. We left Paris.--St. Denis, a large town; the church not very large, but the middle isle is very lofty and aweful.-On the left are chapels built beyond the line of the wall, which destroy the symmetry of the sides. The organ is higher above the pavement than any I have ever seen.

The gates are of brass.-On the middle gate is the history of our Lord. The painted windows are historical, and said to be eminently beautiful.-We were at another church belonging to a convent, of which the portal is a dome; we could not enter further, and it was almost dark.

"Nov. 2. Thursday. We came this day to Chantilly, a seat belonging to the Prince of Condé. -This place is eminently beautified by all varieties of waters starting up in fountains, falling in cascades, running in streams, and spread in lakes.-The water seems to be too near the house.-All this water is brought from a source or river three leagues off, by an artificial canal, which for one league is carried under ground. The house is magnificent. The cabinet seems well stocked; what I remember was, the jaws of a hippopotamus, and a young hippopotamus preserved, which, however, is so small, that I doubt its reality.It seems too hairy for an abortion,

1775. and too small for a mature birth.-Nothing was in Atat. 66. spirits; all was dry.-The dog; the deer; the antbear with long snout.-The toucan, long broad beak, -The stables were of very great length.-The kennel had no scents.-There was a mockery of a village. The Menagerie had few animals.'-Two faussans," or Brasilian weasels, spotted, very wild.There is a forest, and, I think, a park.—I walked till I was very weary, and next morning felt my feet battered, and with pains in the toes.

:

"Nov. 3. Friday. We came to Compeigne, a very large town, with a royal palace built round a pentagonal court. The court is raised upon vaults, and has, I suppose, an entry on one side by a gentle rise. -Talk of painting.-The church is not very large, but very elegant and splendid.-I had at first great difficulty to walk, but motion grew continually easier. At night we came to Noyon, an episcopal city. The cathedral is very beautiful, the pillars alternately Gothick and Corinthian.-We entered a very noble parochial church.-Noyon is walled, and is said to be three miles round.

"Nov. 4. Saturday. We rose very early, and

The writing is so bad here, that the names of several of the animals could not be decyphered without much more acquaintance with natural history than I possess.-Dr. Blagden, with his usual politeness, most obligingly examined the MS. To that gentleman, and to Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, who also very readily assisted me, I beg leave to express my best thanks.

"It is thus written by Johnson, from the French pronunciation of fossane. It should be observed, that the person who shewed this Menagerie was mistaken in supposing the fossane and the Brasilian weasel to be the same, the fossane being a different animał, and a native of Madagascar. I find them, however, upon one plate in Pennant's "Synopsis of Quadrupeds,”

Ætat. 66.

came through St. Quintin to Cambray, not long 1775. after three. We went to an English nunnery, to give a letter to Father Welch, the confessor, who came to visit us in the evening.

"Nov. 5. Sunday. We saw the Cathedral.-It is very beautiful, with chapels on each side.-The choir splendid.-The balustrade in one part brass.— The Neff very high and grand. The altar silver as far as it is seen.-The vestments very splendid.-At the Benedictines church.

Here his Journal' ends abruptly. Whether he wrote any more after this time, I know not; but probably not much, as he arrived in England about the 12th of November. These short notes of his tour, though they may seem minute taken singly, make together a considerable mass of information, and exhibit such an ardour of enquiry and acuteness of examination, as, I believe, are found in but few travellers, especially at an advanced age. They completely refute the idle notion which has been propagated, that he could not see; and, if he had taken the trouble to revise and digest them, he undoubtedly could have expanded them into a very entertaining narrative.

When I met him in London the following year, the account which he gave me of his French tour, was, Sir, I have seen all the visibilities of Paris, and around it; but to have formed an acquaintance with the people there, would have required more time than I could stay. I was just beginning to creep into ac

7 My worthy and ingenious friend, Mr. Andrew Lumisden, by his accurate acquaintance with France, enabled me to make out many proper names which Dr. Johnson had written indistinctly, and sometimes spelt erroneously.

1775. quaintance by means of Colonel Drumgold, a very tat. 66.high man, Sir, head of L'Ecole Militaire, a most complete character, for he had first been a professor of rhetorick, and then became a soldier.

And, Sir, I was very kindly treated by the English Benedictines, and have a cell appropriated to me in their convent."

they will spit

He observed, "The great in France live very magnificently, but the rest very miserably. There is no happy middle state as in England. The shops of Paris are mean; the meat in the markets is such as would be sent to a gaol in England; and Mr. Thrale justly observed, that the cookery of the French was forced upon them by necessity; for they could not eat their meat, unless they added some taste to it. The French are an indelicate people; upon any place. At Madame lady of rank, the footman took the fingers, and threw it into my coffee. to put it aside; but hearing it was made on purpose for me, I e'en tasted Tom's fingers. The same lady would needs make tea à l'Angloise. The spout the tea-pot did not pour freely; she bad the footman blow into it. France is worse than Scotland in every thing but climate. Nature has done more for the French; but they have done less for themselves than the Scotch have done."

's a literary sugar in his

I was going

of

It happened that Foote was at Paris at the same time with Dr. Johnson, and his description of my friend while there, was abundantly ludicrous. He told me, that the French were quite astonished at his figure and manner, and at his dress, which he obstinately continued exactly as in London ;-his

[Mr. Foote seems to have embellished a little in saying that Johnson did not alter his dress at Paris; as in his Journal is a memorandum about white stockings, wig, and hat. In another

brown clothes, black stockings, and plain shirt. He 1775. mentioned, that an Irish gentleman said to Johnson, Etat. 66. "Sir, you have not seen the best French players." JOHNSON. "Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint-stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs."—" But, Sir, you will allow that some players are better than others?" JOHNSON. "Yes, Sir, as some dogs dance better than others."

While Johnson was in France, he was generally very resolute in speaking Latin. It was a maxim with him that a man should not let himself down, by speaking a language which he speaks imperfectly. Indeed, we must have often observed how inferiour, how much like a child a man appears, who speaks a broken tongue. When Sir Joshua Reynolds, at one of the dinners of the Royal Academy, presented him to a Frenchman of great distinction, he would not deign to speak French, but talked Latin, though his Excellency did not understand it, owing, perhaps, to Johnson's English pronunciation: yet upon another occasion he was observed to speak French to a Frenchman of high rank, who spoke English; and being asked the reason, with some expression of surprise, he answered, "because I think my French is as good as his English." Though Johnson under

place we are told that " during his travels in France he was furnished with a French-made wig of handsome construction." That Johnson was not inattentive to his appearance is certain, from a circumstance related by Mr. Steevens, and inserted by Mr. Boswell, in vol. iv. between June 15 and June 22, 1784. I. B.]

Mr. Blakeway's observation is further confirmed by a note in Johnson's diary, (quoted by Sir John Hawkins, Life of Johnson, p. 517,) by which it appears, that he laid out thirty pounds in cloaths for his French journey. M.]