tinue in the same sentiments;-only I had not then experience enough of its working to add this, that though you do get on at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same time; for which reason, I here quit it entirely, and for ever; and 'tis heartily at any one's service-it has spoiled me the digestion of a good supper, and brought on a bilious diarrhoea, which has brought me back again to my first principle on which I set out;—and with which I shall now scamper it away to the banks of the Ga

ronne.

-No;-I cannot stop a moment to give you the character of the people,-their genius,-their manners, their customs, their laws, their religion,their government, their manufactures, their commerce, their finances, with all the resources and hidden springs which sustain them; qualified as I may be, by spending three days and two nights amongst them, and during all that time making these things the entire subject of my inquiries and reflections.

Still,--still I must away,-the roads are paved,the posts are short, the days are long, 'tis no more than noon, I shall be at Fontainbleau before the king.

-Was he going there? Not that I know.

CHAPTER CCXXI.

Now I hate to hear a person, especially if he be a traveller, complain that we do not get on so fast in France as we do in England; whereas we get on much faster, consideratis considerandis; thereby always meaning, that if you weigh their vehicles with the mountains of baggage which you lay both before and behind upon them, and then consider their puny horses, with the very little they give them,-'tis a

Their suffering is most

wonder they get on at all. unchristian; and 'tis evident thereupon to me, that a French post-horse would not know what in the world to do, was it not for the two words ****** and ****** in which there is as much sustenance as if you gave him a peck of corn. Now as these words cost nothing, I long, from my soul, to tell the reader what they are; but here is the question ;—they must be told him plainly, and with the most distinct articulation, or it will answer no end;—and yet to do it in that plain way, -though their reverences may laugh at it in the bedchamber, full well I wot they will abuse it in the parlour; for which cause, I have been volving and revolving in my fancy some time, but to no purpose, by what clean device, or facette contrivance, I might so modulate them, that whilst I satisfy that ear which the reader chooses to lend me,-I might not dissatisfy the other which he keeps to himself.

My ink burns my finger to try ;-and when I have, -'twill have a worse consequence,—it will burn, F fear, my paper.

-No;-I dare not.

But if you wish to know how the abbess of Andoüillets, and a novice of her convent got over the difficulty, (only first wishing myself all imaginable success)-I'll tell you without the least scruple.

CHAPTER CCXXII.

The abbess of Andoüillets, which, if you look into the large set of provincial maps now publishing at Paris, you will find situated amongst the hills which divide Burgundy from Savoy, being in danger of an anchylosis or stiff joint, (the synovia of her knee be coming hard by long matins) and having tried every remedy;-first, prayers and thanksgivings ;-then in

vocations to all the saints in heaven, promiscuously ;then, particularly to every saint who had ever had a stiff leg before her;-then, touching it with all the relics of the convent, principally with the thigh-bone of the man of Lystra, who had been impotent from his youth;-then, wrapping it up in her veil when she went to bed;-then, cross-wise her rosary;then, bringing in to her aid the secular arm, and anointing it with oils and hot fat of animals ;—then, treating it with emollient and resolving fomentations;-then, with poultices of marsh-mallows, mallows, bonus Henricus, white lilies, and fenugreek ;-then, taking the woods, I mean the smoke of 'em, holding her scapulary across her lap;- then, decoctions of wild chicory, water-cresses, chervil, sweet cecily, and cochlearia; and nothing all this while answering, was prevailed on at last to try the hot baths of Bourbon :so having first obtained leave of the visitor-general to take care of her existence, she ordered all to be got ready for her journey. A novice of the convent, of about seventeen, who had been troubled with a whitloe in her middle finger, by sticking it constantly into the Abbess's cast poultices, &c.—had gained such an interest, that, overlooking a sciatical old nun, who might have been set up for ever by the hot baths of Bourbon, Margarita, the little novice, was elected as the companion of the journey.

An old calash, belonging to the Abbess, lined with green frize, was ordered to be drawn out into the sun. The gardener of the convent being chosen muleteer, led out the two old mules, to clip the hair from the rump ends of their tails; whilst a couple of lay-sisters were busied, the one in darning the linen, and the other in sewing on the shreds of yellow binding, which the teeth of time had unravelled;-the under-gardener dressed the muleteer's hat in hot wine-lees;-and a tailor sat musically at it, in a shed over against the convent, in assorting four dozen of bells for the har

ness, whistling to each bell as he tied it on with a thong.

-The carpenter and the smith of Andoüillets held a council of wheels; and by seven, the morning after, all looked spruce, and was ready at the gate of the convent for the hot baths of Bourbon.-Two rows of the unfortunate stood ready there an hour before.

The abbess of Andoüillets, supported by Margarita the novice, advanced slowly to the calash, both clad in white, with their black rosaries hanging at their breasts.

-There was a simple solemnity in the contrast : they entered the calash: the nuns, in the same uniform, sweet emblem of innocence, each occupied a window; and as the Abbess and Margarita looked up, -each (the sciatical poor nun excepted)-each streamed out the end of her veil in the air,-then kissed the lily hand which let it go. The good Abbess and Margarita laid their hands saint-wise upon their breasts, -looked up to heaven,-then to them, and looked God bless you, dear sisters.'

I declare I am interested in this story, and wish I had been there.

The gardener, whom I shall now call the muleteer; was a little, hearty, broad-set, good-natured, chattering, toping kind of a fellow, who troubled his head very little with the hows and whens of life; so had mortgaged a month of his conventical wages in a borrachio, or leathern cask of wine, which he had disposed behind the calash, with a large russet-coloured riding coat over it, to guard it from the sun; and as the weather was hot, and he not a niggard of his labours, walking ten times more than he rode, he found more occasions than those of nature, to fall back to the rear of his carriage; till, by frequent coming and going, it had so happened, that all his wine had leaked out at the legal vent of the borrachio, before one half of the journey was finished.

Man is a creature born to habitudes.

The day had been sultry, the evening was delicious, the wine was generous, the Burgundian hill on which it grew was steep, a little tempting bush over the door of a cool cottage, at the foot of it, hung vibrating in full harmony with the passions, a gentle air rustled distinctly through the leaves, Come, come,-thirsty muleteer, come in.'

"

-The muleteer was a son of Adam; I need not say a word more. He gave the mules, each of 'em, a sound lash; and looking in the Abbess's and Margarita's faces, (as he did it)-as much as to say, here I am,'-he gave a second good crack,—as much as to say to his mules, get on ;'-so slinking behind, he entered the little inn at the foot of the hill.

The muleteer, as I told you, was a little, joyous, chirping fellow, who thought not of to-morrow, nor of what had gone before, or what was to follow it, provided he got but his scantling of Burgundy, and a little chit-chat along with it; so entering into a long conversation, as how he was chief gardener to the convent of Andoüillets, &c. &c. and out of friendship for the Abbess and Mademoiselle Margarita, who was only in her noviciate, he had come along with them from the confines of Savoy, &c. &c.—and as how she had got a white swelling by her devotions ;-and what a nation of herbs he had procured to mollify her humours, &c. &c.-and that if the waters of Bourbon did not mend that leg, she might as well be lame of both, &c. &c. &c.-he so contrived his story, as absolutely to forget the heroine of it, and with her the little novice; and, what was a more ticklish point to be forgot than both,-the two mules; who, being creatures that take advantage of the world, inasmuch as their parents took it of them, and they not being in a condition to return the obligation downwards, (as men, and women, and beasts are)-they do it sideways, and long-ways, and back-ways,-and up hill,