her fo engaged, I fhould have look'd upon it now as one of the illufions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as foon as the dance ended, faid, that this was their conftant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after fupper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he faid, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best fort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay

faid I.

Or a learned prelate either,

THE

THE CASE OF DELICACY.

WH

HEN you have gained the top of mount Taurira, you

run presently down to Lyons-adieu then to all rapid movements! 'Tis a journey of caution; and it fares better with fentiments, not to be in a hurry with them; fo I contracted with a Voiturin to take his time with a couple of mules, and convey me in my own chaife fafe to Turin through Savoy.

Poor, patient, quiet, honeft people! fear not; your poverty, the treasury of your fimple virtues, will

VOL. II.

Q

not

not be envied you by the world, nor will your vallies be invaded by it. -Nature in the midft of thy dif orders, thou art ftill friendly to the fcantiness thou haft created-with all thy great works about thee, little haft thou left to give, either to the fcithe or to the fickle-but to that little thou granteft fafety and protection; and sweet are the dwellings which stand so shelter'd.

Let the way-worn traveller vent his complaints upon the fudden turns and dangers of your roads-your rocks -your precipices-the difficulties of getting up the horrors of getting down-mountains impracticableand cataracts, which roll down great

5

ftones

tones from their fummits, and block

his road up. The peasants had been

all day at work in removing a fragment of this kind between St. Michael and Madane; and by the time my Voiturin got to the place, it wanted full two hours of completing Before a paffage could any how be gain'd: there was nothing but to wait with patience 'twas a wet and tem peftuous night; fo that by the delay, and that together, the Voiturin found himself obliged to take up five miles fhort of his ftage at a little decent kind of an inn by the road fide.

I forthwith took poffeffion of my bedchamber-got a good fire-or02

der'd

der'd fupper; and was thanking heaven it was no worfe-when a voiture arrived with a lady in it and her fervant maid.

As there was no other bedchamber in the house, the hostess, without much nicety, led them into mine, telling them, as fhe ufher'd them in, that there was no body in it but an English gentleman-that there were two good beds in it, and a clofet within the room which held another -the accent in which the fpoke of this third bed did not fay much for it-however, fhe faid there were three beds, and but three people-and the durft fay, the gentleman would do