I

MONTRIUL

AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at first sight; but never more so, than when a poor devil comes

to offer his service to so poor a devil as myself; and as I know this weakness, I always suffer my judgment to draw back something on that very account-and this more or less, according to the mood I am in, and the case—and I may add the gender too of the person I am to govern.

When La Fleur enter'd the room, after every discount I could make for my soul, the genuine look and air of the fellow determined the matter at once in his favor; so I hired him first-and then began to inquire what he could do: but I shall find out his talents, quoth I, as I want them—besides, a Frenchman can do everything.

Now poor La Fleur could do nothing in the world but beat a drum, and play a march or two upon the fife. I was determined to make his talents do: and can't say my weakness was ever so insulted by my wisdom, as in the attempt.

La Fleur had set out early in life, as gallantly as most Frenchmen do, with serving for a few years: at the end of which, having satisfied the sentiment, and found moreover, that the honor of beating a drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open'd no further track of glory to him-he retir'd à ses terres, and lived comme il plaisoit à Dieu—that is to say, upon nothing.

-And so, quoth Wisdom, you have hired a drummer to attend you in this tour of yours thro' France and Italy! Psha! said I, and do not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum compagnon du voyage the same round, and have the piper and the devil and all to pay besides? When man can extricate himself with an équivoque in such an unequal match-he is not ill off.-But you can do something else, La Fleur? said I.-O qu'oui!—he could make spatterdashes, and play a little upon the fiddle.-Bravo! said Wisdom.-Why I play a bass myself, said I—we shall do very well. You can

shave, and dress a wig a little, La Fleur?-He had all the dispositions in the world.-It is enough for heaven! said I, interrupting him-and ought to be enough for me. So supper coming in, and having a frisky English spaniel on one side of my chair, and a French valet, with as much hilarity in his countenance as ever nature painted in one, on the other-I was satisfied to my heart's content with my empire; and if monarchs knew what they would be at, they might be as satisfied as I was.

A

MONTRIUL

S La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses which generally do determine me, than in regard to this fellow he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and notwithstanding his talents of drum-beating and spatterdash-making, which, tho' very good in themselves, happen'd to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper—it supplied all defects-I had a constant resource in his looks, in all difficulties and distresses of my own-I was going to have added, of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of everything; for whether it was hunger or thirst, or cold or nakedness, or watchings, or whatever stripes of ill luck La Fleur met with in our journeyings, there was no index in his physiognomy to point them out by -he was eternally the same; so that if I am a piece of a philosopher, which Satan now and then puts into my head I am-it always mortifies the pride of the conceit, by reflecting how much I owe to the complexional philosophy of this poor fellow, for shaming me into one of a better kind. With all this, La Fleur had a small cast of the coxcomb-but he seemed at first sight to be more a coxcomb of nature than of art; and before I had been three days in Paris with himhe seemed to be no coxcomb at all.

T

MONTRIUL

HE next morning, La Fleur entering upon his employment, I delivered to him the key of my portmanteau,

with an inventory of my half a dozen shirts and silk pair of breeches; and bid him fasten all upon the chaise-get the horses put to-and desire the landlord to come in with his bill.

C'est un garçon de bonne fortune, said the landlord, pointing through the window to half a dozen wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and were most kindly taking their leave of him, as the postilion was leading out the horses. La Fleur kissed all their hands round and round again, and thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promised he would bring them all pardons from Rome.

The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montriul, where the want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, "He is always in love."-I am heartily glad of it, said I-'t will save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head. In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love, with one princess or other, almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up I can scarce find in it to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again; and would do anything in the world, either for or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.

-But in saying this-surely I am commending the passion -not myself.

T

A FRAGMENT

HE town of Abdera, notwithstanding Democritus lived there, trying all the powers of irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vilest and most profligate town in all Thrace. What for poisons, conspiracies, and assassinations-libels, pasquinades, and tumults, there was no going there by day-'t was worse by night.

Now, when things were at the worst, it came to pass, that the Andromeda of Euripides being represented at Abdera, the whole orchestra was delighted with it: but of all the passages which delighted them, nothing operated more upon their imaginations, than the tender strokes of nature, which the poet had wrought up in that pathetic speech of Perseus, O Cupid, prince of Gods and men, &c. Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and talk'd of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address-"O Cupid, prince of Gods and men"-in every street of Abdera, in every house-"O Cupid! Cupid!"-in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet melody which drops from it whether it will or nonothing but "Cupid! Cupid! 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 return'd, 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 listen'd to the song

'T was 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.