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 ^^LiBRARYO/, <^V\\
 
 SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THROUGH 
 
 FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 MR. Y O R I C K. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PRINTED FOR J. GOOD, NO. I^g, NEW BOND STREET; AND 
 E. AND S. HARDING, NO. I02, PALL MALL.
 
 
 SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THROUGH 
 FRANCE AND ITALY. 
 
 T 
 
 HEY order, faid I, this matter better 
 in France 
 
 You have been in France ? faid my gentle- 
 man, turning quick upon me with the mod civil 
 triumph in the world. Strange ! quoth I, debating 
 the matter with myfelf. That one and twenty miles 
 failing, for 'tis abfolutely no further from Dover to 
 Calais, fhould give a man thefe rights I'll look 
 into them : fo giving up the argument I went 
 ftraight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen (hirts 
 and a black pair of filk breeches " the coat I have 
 " on," faid I, looking at the fleeve, *' will do" 
 took a place in the Dover ftage ; and the packet 
 failing at nine the next morning by three I had 
 
 B 
 
 

 
 2 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 got fat down to my dinner upon a fricaffee'd 
 chicken, fo inconteftably in France, that had I 
 died that night of an indigeftion, the whole world 
 could not have fufpended the effe<fls of the Droits 
 
 d'aubaine'^ my (hirts, and black pair of filk 
 
 breeches portmanteau and all muft have gone to 
 the King of France even the little pidure which I 
 have fo long worn, and fo often have told thee, 
 Eliza, I would carry with me into my grave, would 
 have been torn from my neck. Ungenerous! to 
 feize upon the wreck of an unwary paffenger, 
 whom your fubjeds had beckon'd to their coaft , 
 by heaven ! Sire, it is not well done; and much 
 does it grieve me, *tis the monarch of a people fo 
 civilized and courteous, and fo renown 'd for fen- 
 timent and fine feelings, that I have to reafon 
 
 with 
 
 But I have fcarce fet foot in your dominions 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 When I had finifhed my dinner, and drank the 
 King of France's health, to fatisfy my mind that I 
 
 * All the efFeds of Grangers (Swifs and Scotch excepted) 
 dying in France, are feized by virtue of this law, though the 
 heir be upon the fpot the profit of thefe contingencies be- 
 ing farmed, there is no redrefs.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 3 
 
 bore him no fpleen, but, on the contrary, high ho- 
 nour for the humanity of his temper I rofe up an 
 inch taller for the accommodation. 
 
 No faid I the Bourbon is by no means a 
 cruel race ; they may be milled like other people ; 
 but there is a mildnefs in their blood. As I ac- 
 knowledged this, I felt a fuffufion of a finer kind 
 upon my cheek more warm and friendly to man, 
 than what Burgundy (at leaft of two livres a bottle, 
 which was fuch as I had been drinking) could have 
 produced. 
 
 Juft God ! faid I, kicking my portmanteau 
 afide, what is there in this world's goods which 
 fhould fharpen our fpirits, and make fo many kind- 
 hearted brethren of us fall out fo cruelly as we do 
 by the way ? 
 
 When man is at peace with man, how much 
 lighter than a feather is the heavieft of metals in his 
 hand ! he pulls out his purfe, and holding it airily 
 and uncomprefs'd, looks round him, as if he fought 
 for an objed to fhare it with In doing this, I 
 felt every veflel in my frame dilate the arteries 
 beat all cheerily together, and every power which 
 fuftained hfe, performed it with fo little fridion, 
 that 'twould have confounded the moft phjfical pre- 
 cieufe in France : with all her materialifm, (he could 
 fcarce have called me a machine 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Tm confident, faid I to myfelf, I fhould have 
 overfet her creed. 
 
 The acceflion of that idea carried nature, at that 
 time, as high as fhe could go I was at peace with 
 the world before, and this finifh'd the treaty with 
 myfelf 
 
 ^Now, was I a King of France, cried I ^what 
 a moment for an orphan to have begg'd his father's 
 portmanteau of me I 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I HAD fcarce uttered the words, when a poor 
 monk of the order of St. Francis came into the room 
 to beg fomething for his convent. No man cares 
 to have his virtues the fport of contingencies or 
 one man may be generous, as another man is puif- 
 fant -Jed notiy quo ad banc or be it as it may 
 for there is no regular reafoning upon the ebbs 
 and flows of our humours ; they may depend upon 
 the fame caufes, for aught I know, which influ- 
 ence the tides themfelves 'twould oft be no dif- 
 credit to us, to fuppofe it was fo: I'm fure at 
 leaft for myfelf, that in many a cafe I fhould 
 be more highly fatisfied, to have it faid by the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 5 
 
 world, " 1 had had an affair with the moon, in 
 " which there was neither fin nor Ihame," than 
 have it pafs altogether as my own aft and deed, 
 wherein there was fo much of both. 
 
 But be this as it may. The moment I caft 
 my eyes upon him, I was predetermined not to 
 give him a fingle fous; and accordingly I put my 
 purfe into my pocket button'd it up fet myfelf a 
 little more upon my centre, and advanced up grave- 
 ly to him : there was fomething, I fear, forbidding 
 in my look : I have his figure this moment before 
 my eyes, and think there was that in it which de- 
 ferved better. 
 
 The monk, as I judged from the break in his 
 tonfure, a few fcattered white hairs upon his tem- 
 ples, being all that remained of it, might be about 
 feventy but from his eyes, and that fort of fire 
 which was in them, which feemcd more tempered 
 by courtefy than years, could be no more than 
 fixty Truth might lie between He was certainly 
 fixty-five ; and the general air of his countenance, 
 notwithftanding fomething feem'd to have been 
 planting wrinkles in it before their time, agreed to 
 the account. 
 
 It was one of thofe heads, which Guido has often 
 painted mild, pale penetrating, free from all 
 common- place ideas of fat contented ignorance 
 looking downwards upon the earth it look'd for* 
 
 B 3
 
 t A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 wards ; but look'd, as if it look'd at fomething 
 beyond this world. How one of his order came by 
 it, heaven above, who let it fall upon a monk's 
 fhoulders, bed knows : but it would have fuited a 
 Bramin, and had I met it upon the plains of Indo- 
 ftan, I had reverenced it. 
 
 The reft of his outline may be given in a few 
 ftrokes; one might put it into the hands of any one 
 to defign, for 'twas neither elegant or otherwife, 
 but as charadler and expreffion made it fo : it was 
 a thin, fpare form, fomething above the common 
 fize, if it loft not the diftinclion by a bend forwards 
 in the figure but it was the attitude of Intreaty ; 
 and as it now ftands prefented to my imagination, it 
 gain'd more than it loft by it. 
 
 When he had enter 'd the room three paces, he 
 flood ftill ; and laying his left hand upon his breaft, 
 (a ilender white ftalF with which he journey'd be- 
 ing in his right) when I had got clofe up to him, 
 he introduced himfelf with the little ftory of the 
 wants of his convent, and the poverty of his order 
 and did it with fo fimple a grace and fuch an 
 air of deprecation was there in the whole caft of his 
 look and figure I was bewitched not to have been 
 ftruck with it 
 
 A better reafon was, 1 had predetermined not 
 to give him a fingle fous.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITA'LY. 
 
 THE MONK, 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 'Tis very true, faid I, replying to a caft up^ 
 wards with his eyes, with which he had concluded 
 his addrefs 'tis very true and heaven be their re- 
 fource who have no other but the charity of the 
 world, the ftock of which, I fear, is no way fuffi- 
 cient for the many great claims which are hourly 
 made upon it. 
 
 As I pronounced the wovdis great tlaimsy he gave 
 a flight glance with his eye downwards upon the 
 lleeve of his tunick I felt the full force of the ap- 
 peal I acknowledge it, faid I a coarfe habit, and 
 that but once in three years, with meagre diet are 
 no great matters; and the true point of pity is, as 
 they can be earn'd in the world with fo little induf- 
 try, that your order (hould wiCh to procure them 
 by preffing upon a fund which is the property of 
 the lame, the blind, the aged, and the infirm 
 the captive who lies down counting over and over 
 again the days of his afflidlions, languifties alfo for 
 his fhare of it ; and had you been of the order of 
 mercy J inftead of the order of St. Francis, poor as I 
 am, continued I, pointing at my portmanteau, 
 
 B 4
 
 8 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 full cheerfully fliould it have been open*d to you, 
 for the ranfom of the unfortunate The monk 
 made me a bow but of all others, refumed I, the 
 unfortunate of our own country, furely, have the 
 firft rights ; and I have left thoufands in diftrefs 
 upon our own (hore The monk gave a cordial 
 wave with his head as much as to fay, No doubt, 
 there is mifery enough in every corner of the 
 world, as well as within our convent ^But we dif- 
 tinguifh, faid I, laying my hand upon the lleeve 
 of his tunick, in return for his appeal we diftin- 
 guifh, my good Father! betwixt thofe who wifli 
 only to eat the bread of their own labour and 
 thofe who eat the bread of other people's, and have 
 no other plan in life, but to get through it in floth 
 and ignorance, for the love of God. 
 
 The poor Francifcan made no reply : a hedic 
 of a moment pafs'd acrofs his check, but could not 
 tarry ^Nature feemed to have had done with her 
 refentments in him ; he fliewed none but letting 
 his ftaff fall within his arm, he prefs'd both his 
 hands with refignation upon his bread, and re- 
 tired.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 9 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 M Y heart fmote me the moment he Ihut the 
 door Pflia ! faid I, with an air of careleffnefs, 
 three feveral times but it would not do: every 
 ungracious fy liable I had utter'd, crowded back 
 into my imagination : I refleded, I had no right 
 over the poor Francifcan, but to deny him; and 
 that the punifhment of that was enough to the dif- 
 appointed without the addition of unkind language 
 I confider'd his grey hairs ^his courteous figure 
 feem'd to re-enter and gently a(k me what injury he 
 had done me ? and why I could ufe him thus I 
 would have given twenty livres for an advocate 
 ^I have behaved very ill, faid I within myfelf; 
 but I have only juft fet out upon my travels ; and 
 fhall learn better manners as I get along. 
 
 THE DESOBLIGEANT. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 W H E N a man is difcontented with himlelf, it 
 has one advantage however, that it puts him int
 
 to A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 an excellent frame of mind for making a bargain. 
 Now there being no travelling through France and 
 Italy without a chaife and nature generally prompt- 
 ing us to the thing we are fitted for, I walk'd out 
 into the coach-yard to buy or hire fomething of 
 that kind to my purpofe : an old Defobligeant* in 
 the furtheft corner of the court, hit my fancy at firft 
 fight, fol inftantly got into it, and finding it in to- 
 lerable harmony with my feelings, I ordered the 
 waiter to call Monfieur Defiein, the mafter of the 
 hotel but Monfieur Deflein being gone to vef- 
 pers, and not caring to face the Francifcan, whom 
 I faw on the oppofite fide of the court, in confer- 
 ence with a lady juft arrived at the inn I drew the 
 taffeta curtain betwixt us, and being determined to 
 write my journey, I took out my pen and ink, and 
 wrote the preface to it in the Defobligeant. 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IN THE DESOBLIGEANT. 
 
 I T muft have been obferved by many a peripa- 
 tetic philofopher. That nature has fet up by her own 
 unqueftionable authority certain boundaries and 
 
 A chaife, fo called in France, from its holding but 
 one perfon.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. II 
 
 fences to circumfcribe the difcontent of man : (he 
 has efFedled her purpofe in the quieteft and eafieft 
 manner, by laying him under almoft infuperable 
 obligations to work out his eafe, and to fuftain his 
 fufferings at home. It is there only that fhe has 
 provided him with the mod; fuitable objects to par- 
 take of his happinefs, and bear a part of that bur- 
 den which in all countries and ages has ever been 
 too heavy for one pair of flioulders. *Tis true, we 
 are endued with an imperfed: power of fpreading 
 our happinefs fometimes beyond her limits, but 'tis 
 fo ordered, that from the want of languages, connec- 
 tions, and dependencies, and from the difference 
 in education, cuftoms, and habits, we lie under fo 
 many impediments in communicating our fenfations 
 out of our own fphere, as often amount to a total 
 impoflibility. 
 
 It will always follow from hence, that the balance 
 of fentimental commerce is always againft the expa- 
 triated adventurer : he muft buy what he has little 
 occafion for, at their own price his converfation will 
 feldom be taken in exchange for theirs without a 
 large difcount and this, by the by, eternally 
 driving him into the hands of more equitable bro- 
 kers, for fuch converfation as he can find, it re- 
 quires no great fpirit of divination to guefs at his 
 party
 
 12 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 This brings me to my point ; and naturally leads 
 me (if the fee-faw of this Defobligeant will but let 
 me get on) into the efficient as well as the final 
 caufes of travelling 
 
 Your idle people that leave their native country, 
 and go abroad for fome reafon or reafons which may 
 be derived from one of thefe general caufes 
 Infirmity of body, 
 Imbecillity of mind, or 
 Inevitable neceffity. 
 The two firft include all thofe who travel by land or 
 by water, labouring with pride, curiofity, vanity, 
 or fpleen, fubdivided and combined in infinitum. 
 
 The third clafs includes the wholearmy of pere- 
 grine martyrs ; more efpecially thofe travellers who 
 fet out upon their travels with the benefit of the 
 clergy, either as delinquents travelling under the 
 diredion of governors recommended by the magif- 
 trate or young gentlemen tranfported by the 
 cruelty of parents and guardians, and travelling 
 under the diredlion of governors recommended by 
 Oxford, Aberdeen, and Glafgow. 
 
 There is a fourth clafs, but their number is fo 
 fmall, that they would not deferve a diftinftion, 
 was it not neceflary in a work of this nature to ob- 
 ferve the greateft precifion and nicety, to avoid a 
 confufion of charafter. And thefe men I fpeak of, 
 are fuch as crofs the feas and fojourn in a land of
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I3 
 
 ftrangers with a view of faving money for various 
 reafons and upon various pretences : but as they 
 might alfo fave themfelves and others a great deal 
 of unneceflary trouble by faving their money at 
 home ^and as their reafons for travelling are the 
 leaft complex of any other fpecies of emigrants, I 
 fliall diftinguifli thefe gentlemen by the name of 
 Simple Travellers. 
 Thus the whole circle of travellers may be re- 
 duced to the following Heads : 
 Idle Travellers, 
 Inquifitive Travellers, 
 Lying Travellers, 
 Proud Travellers, 
 Vain Travellers, 
 Splenetic Travellers. 
 Then follow the Travellers of Neceflity, 
 The delinquent and felonious Traveller, 
 The unfortunate and innocent Traveller, 
 The fimple Traveller, 
 
 And laftofall (if you pleafe) The Sentimental 
 Traveller (meaning thereby myfelf ) who have tra- 
 vell'd, and of which I am now fitting down to give 
 an account as much out of Necefftty and the befoin 
 de Voyager^ as any one in the clafs. 
 
 I am well aware, at the fame time, as both my 
 travels and obfervations will be altogether of a dif- 
 ferent call from any of my fore-runners ; that I
 
 14 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 might have infifted upon a whole nitch entirely to 
 myfelf but I (hould break in upon the confines of 
 the Vain Traveller, in wiOiing to draw attention to- 
 wards me, till I have fome better grounds for it, 
 tlian the mere Novelty of my Vehicle. 
 
 It is fufficient for my reader, if he has been a 
 traveller himfelf, that with ftudy and refledlion 
 hereupon he may be able to determine his own 
 place and rank in the catalogue it will be one ftep 
 towards knowing himfelf; as it is great odds, but 
 he retains fome tinfture and refemblance, of what 
 he imbibed or carried out, to the prefent hour. 
 
 The man who firft tranfplanted the grape of 
 Burgundy to the Cape of Good Hope (obferve he 
 was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the 
 fame wine at the Cape, that the fame grape pro- 
 duced upon the French mountains he was too 
 phlegmatic for that but undoubtedly he expeded 
 to drink fome fort of vinous liquor; but whether 
 good, bad, or indifferent he knew enough of this 
 world to know, that it did not depend upon his 
 choice, but that what is generally called chance, was 
 to decide his fuccefs : however, he hoped for the 
 bed ; and in thefe hopes, by an intemperate con- 
 fidence in the fortitude of his head, and the depth 
 of his difcretion, Mynheer might pofTibly overfet 
 both in his new vineyard ; and by difcovering his 
 nakednefs, become a laughing-flock to his people.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I5 
 
 Even To it fares with the poor Traveller, failing 
 and polling through the politer kingdoms of the 
 globe in purfuit of knowledge and improvements. 
 
 Knowledge and improvements are to be got by 
 failing and polling for that purpofe; but whether 
 ufeful knowledge and real improvements, is all a lot- 
 tery and even where the adventurer is fuccefsful, 
 the acquired ftock muft be ufed with caution and 
 fobriety to turn to any profit but as the chances 
 run prodigioully the other way both as to the acqui- 
 fition and application, I am of opinion, That a 
 man would adl as wifely, if he could prevail upon 
 himfelf, to live contented without foreign knowledge 
 or foreign improvements, efpecially if he lives in a 
 country that has no abfolute want of either and 
 indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a 
 time coft me, when I have obferved how many a 
 foul flep the inquifitive Traveller has meafured to 
 fee fights and look into difcoveries ; all which, as 
 Sancho Pan9a faid to Don Quixote, they might 
 have feen dry-fliod at home. It is an age fo full 
 of light, that there is fcarce a country or corner of 
 Europe whofe beams are not crofTed and inter- 
 changed with others Knowledge in mofl of its 
 
 branches, and in mofl affairs, is like mufic in an 
 Italian flreet, whereof thofe may partake, who pay 
 nothing But there is no nation under heaven 
 and God is my record, (before whofe tribunal I
 
 l6 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 muft one day come and give an account of this 
 work) that I do not fpeak it vauntingly ^But 
 there is no nation under heaven abounding with more 
 variety of learning where the fciences may be more 
 fitly woo'd, or more furely won than here ^where 
 art is encouraged, and will fo foon rife high 
 where Nature (take her altogether) has fo little to 
 anfwer for and, to clofe all, where there is more 
 wit and variety of charafter to feed the mind with 
 ^\Vhere then, my dear countrymen, are you 
 going 
 
 ^We are only looking at this chaife, faid they 
 Your mofl obedient fervant faid I, fkipping out 
 of it, and pulling off my hat ^We were wonder- 
 ing, faid one of them, who, I found, wasan/5'/- 
 jitive traveller, ^what could occafion its motion. 
 *Twas the agitation, faid I coolly, of writing a pre- 
 face. 1 never heard, faid the other, who was a 
 fimple traveller^ of a preface wrote in a Defobligeant. 
 It would have been better, faid I, in a Vis-a-Vis. 
 As an EngUJhman does not travel to fee EngUfimen, 
 I retired to my room. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I PERCEIVED that fomething darken'd the paf- 
 fage more than myfelf, as I flepped along it to my
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I7 
 
 room ; it was effedually Monf. Deflein, the mafter 
 of the hotel, who had jufl returned from vefpers, 
 and, with his hat under his arm, was mod com- 
 plaifantly following me, to put me in mind of my 
 wants. I had wrote myfelf pretty well out of con- 
 ceit with the Defobligeant ; and Monf. Deflein 
 fpeaking of it, with a fhrug, as if it would no way 
 fuit me, it immediately ftruck my fancy that it 
 belonged to fome innocent traveller, who, on his 
 return home, had left it to Monf. Defiein's honour 
 to make the moft of. Four months had elapfed 
 fmce it had finifli'd its career of Europe in the 
 corner of Monf. Deffein's coach-yard and having 
 fallied out from thence but a vampt-up bufmefs at 
 the firft, though it had been twice taken to pieces 
 on Mount Sennis, it had not profited much by its 
 adventures but by none fo little as the (landing 
 fo many months unpitied in the corner of Monf. 
 Deflein's coach-yard. Much indeed was not to 
 be faid for it but fomething might and when a 
 few words will refcue mifery out of her diftrefs, I 
 hate the man who can be a churl of them. 
 
 Now was I the mafter of this hotel, faid I, 
 laying the point of my fore-finger on Monf. Def- 
 fein's breaft, I would inevitably make a point of 
 getting rid of this unfortunate Defobligeant it 
 ftands fwinging reproaches at you every time you 
 pafs by it.
 
 l8 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Mon Dieu ! faid Monf. Deflein I have no in- 
 tereft Except the inteieft, faid I, which men of 
 a certain turn of mind take, Monf. Deflein, in 
 their own fenfations I'm perfuaded, to a man who 
 feels for others as well as for himfelf, every rainy 
 night, difguife it as you will, muft caft a damp 
 upon your fpirits You fufFer, Monf. Deflein, as 
 much as the machine 
 
 I have always obferved, when th^re is as much 
 
 Jour as Jweet in a compliment, that an Englilh- 
 
 man is eternally at a lofs within himfelf, whether 
 
 to take it, or let it alone : a Frenchman never is : 
 
 Monf Deflein made me a bow. 
 
 Ceji bien vrai, faid he But in this cafe I fhould 
 only exchange one difquietude for another, and 
 with lofs : figure to yourfelf, my dear Sir, that in 
 giving you a chaife which would fall to pieces be- 
 fore you had got half way to Paris figure to your- 
 felf how much I ftiould fuffer, in giving an ill im- 
 preflion of myfelf to a man of honour, and lying 
 at the mercy, as I muft do, d'un homme d'efprit. 
 
 The dofe was made up exadly after my own 
 prefcription ; fo I could not help taking it and 
 returning Monf. Deflein his bow, without more 
 cafuiftry we walk'd together towards his Remife, 
 to take a view of his magazine of chaifes.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I9 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 It mud needs be a hoftile kind of a world, when 
 the buyer (if it be but of aforry poft-chaife) cannot 
 go forth with the feller thereof into the ftreet to ter- 
 minate the difference betwixt them, but he inftantly 
 falls into the fame frame of mind, and views his 
 conventionift with the fame fort of eye, as if he 
 was going along with him to Hyde-park corner to 
 fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor 
 fword*s-man, and no way a match for Monfieur 
 .DeJJeinj I felt the rotation of all the movements 
 within me, to which the fituation is incident I 
 look'd at Monfieur Dejfein through and through 
 ey'd him as he walk'd along in profile then, en 
 ^c<? thought he look'd like a Jew then a Turk 
 dilliked his wig curfed him by my gods wiflied- 
 him at the devil 
 
 And is all this to be lighted up in the heart 
 for a beggarly account of three or four louis d'ors, 
 which is the moft I can be over-reach'd in ? Bafe 
 paffion ! faid I, turning myfelf about, as a man 
 naturally does upon afudden reverfe of fentiment - 
 bafe, ungentle paflion ! thy hand is againft every 
 c 2
 
 ao A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY" 
 
 man, and every man's hand againft thee Heaven 
 forbid ! faid fhe, raifing her hand up to her fore- 
 head, for I had turned full in front upon the lady 
 whom I had feen in conference with the monk 
 (he had followed us unperceived Heaven forbid 
 indeed ! faid I, offering her my own fhe had a 
 black pair of filk gloves open only at the thumb 
 and two fore- fingers, fo accepted it without refer ve 
 and I led her up to the door of the Remife. 
 
 Monfieur DeJJ'ein had diabkd the key above fifty 
 times before he found out he had come with a 
 wrong one in his hand : we were as impatient as 
 himfelf to have it open'd ; and fo attentive to the 
 obflacle, that I continued holding her hand almoft 
 without knowing it ; fo that Monfieur Dejfein left 
 us together with her hand in mine, and with our 
 faces turned towards the door of the Remife, and 
 faid he would be back in five minutes. 
 
 Now a colloquy of five minutes, in fuch a fitua- 
 tion, is worth one of as many ages, with your 
 faces turned towards the ftreet : in the latter cafe, 
 *tis drawn from the objeds and occurrences with- 
 out when your eyes are fixed upon a dead blank 
 you draw purely from yourfelves. A filence of 
 a fingle moment upon Monfieur Deffein^s leaving 
 us, had been fatal to the fituation (he had infal- 
 libly turned about fo I begun the converfation 
 infl:antly.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 21 
 
 But what were the temptations, (as I write not 
 to apologize for the weakneffes of my heart in this 
 tour, but to give an account of them) ^ftiall be 
 defcribed with the fame fimplicity with which I felt 
 them. 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 When I told the reader that I did not care to get 
 out of the Defobligeant, becaufe I faw the monk in 
 clofe conference with a lady juft arrived at the inn 
 I told him the truth ; but I did not tell him the 
 whole truth ; for I was full as much reftrained by 
 the appearance and figure of the lady he was talk- 
 ing to. Sufpicion crofled my brain, and faid, he 
 was telling her what had paffed : fomething jarred 
 upon it within me I wifhed him at his convent. 
 
 When the heart flies out before the underftand- 
 ing, it faves the judgment a world of pains I was 
 certain (he was of a better order of beings how- 
 ever, I thought no more of her, but went on and 
 wrote my preface. 
 
 The impreflion returned, upon my encounter 
 with her in the ftreet ; a guarded franknefs with 
 which fhe gave me her hand, (hewed, I thought, 
 her good education and her good fenfe ; and as I 
 
 C3
 
 it A SENTIMEKTAL JOURNEY 
 
 led her on, I felt a plcafurabie duftility about her, 
 which fpread a calmnefs over all my fpirits - 
 
 Good God ! how a man might lead fuch a 
 creature as this round the world with him ! - 
 
 I had not yet feen her face 'twas not material ; 
 for the drawing was inflantly fet about, and long 
 before we had got to the door of the Remife, Fancy 
 had finifh'd the whole head, and pleafed herfelf as 
 much with its fitting her goddefs, as if fhe had 
 dived into the Tiber for it but thou art a feduced, 
 and a feducing flut ; and albeit thou cheated us 
 feven times a day with thy pidtures and images, 
 yet with fo many charms doft thou do it, and thou 
 decked out thy pictures in the fhapes of fo many 
 angels of light, 'tis a (hame to break with thee. 
 
 When we had got to the door of the Remife, fhe 
 withdrew her hand from acrofs her forehead, and 
 let me fee the original it was a face of about fix- 
 and-twenty of a clear tranfparent brown, (imply 
 fet off without rouge or powder it was not criti- 
 cally handfome, but there was that in it, which, 
 in the frame of mind I was in, attached me much 
 more to it it was interefting ; I fancied it wore the 
 charafters of a widow'd look, and in that date of 
 its declenfion, which had pafTed the two fird pa- 
 roxyfms of forrow, and was quietly beginning to 
 reconcile itfelf to its lofs but a thoufand other 
 didreffes might have traced the fame lines ; I widi'd
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 23 
 
 to know what they had been and was ready to 
 enquire, (had the fame hon ton of converfation per- 
 mitted, as in the days of Efdras) " What a'lleth 
 " thee f and why art thou difquieted ? and why is thy 
 '* underftanding trouhledr^ In a word, I felt bene- 
 volence for her; and refolved fome way or other 
 to throw in my mite of court efy if not of fervice. 
 
 Such were my temptations and in this difpofi- 
 tion to give way to them, was I left alone with the 
 lady with her hand in mine, and with our faces 
 both turned clofer to the door of the Remife than 
 what was abfolutely neceflary. 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 This certainly, fair lady ! faid I, raifing her 
 hand up a little lightly as I began, muft be one of 
 Fortune's whimfical doings: to take two utter 
 ftrangers by their hands of different fexes, and 
 perhaps from different corners of the globe, and in 
 one moment place them together in fuch a cordial 
 fituation, as Friendlhip herfelf could fcarce have 
 atchieved for them, had fhe projedled it for a 
 month 
 
 C4
 
 24 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 And your reflecftion upon it, fliews how much, 
 Monfieur, fhe has embarraffed you by the adven- 
 ture 
 
 When the fituation is what we would wifli, no- 
 thing is fo ill-timed as to hint at the circumftances 
 which make it fo : you thank Fortune, continued 
 fhe you had reafon the heart knew it, and was 
 fatisfied; and who but an Englifli philofopher 
 would have fent notices of it to the brain to reverfe 
 the judgment ? 
 
 In faying this, fhe difengaged her hand with a 
 look which I thought a fufficient commentary upon 
 the text. 
 
 It is a miferable pi(fl:ure which I am going to 
 give of the weaknefs of my heart, by owning, 
 that it fufFered a pain, which worthier occafions 
 could not have infiifled. I was mortified with the 
 lofs of her hand, and the manner in which I had 
 lofl it carried neither oil nor wine to the wound : I 
 never felt the pain of a fheepifh inferiority fo mife- 
 rably in my life. 
 
 The triumphs of a true feminine heart are fliort 
 upon thefe difcomfitures. In a very few feconds 
 fhe laid her hand upon the cuff of my coat, in or- 
 der to finifh her reply ; fo fome way or other, God 
 knows how, I regained my fituation. 
 
 She had nothing to add.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 2$ 
 
 I forthwith began to model a different converfa- 
 tion for the lady, thinking from the fpirit as well 
 as moral of this, that I had been miftaken in her 
 charader ; but upon turning her face towards me, 
 the fpirit which had animated the reply was fled 
 the mufcles relaxed, and I beheld the fame unpro- 
 tedled look of diftrefs which firfl won me to her 
 intereft melancholy ! to fee fuch fprightlinefs the 
 prey of forrow I pitied her from my foul ; and 
 though it may feem ridiculous enough to a torpid 
 heart I could have taken her into my arms, and 
 cheriflied her, though it was in the open flreet, 
 without blufhing. 
 
 The pulfations of the arteries along my fingers 
 preffing acrofs hers, told her what was paffing 
 within me: fhe looked down a lilence of fome 
 moments followed. 
 
 I fear, in this interval, I muft have made fome 
 {light efforts towards a clofer compreffion of her 
 hand, from a fubtle fenfation I felt in the palm of 
 my own not as if fhe was going to withdraw hers 
 but as if flie thought about it and I had infalli- 
 bly loft it a fecond time, had not inftin6t more 
 than reafon dire(5led me to the laft refource in thefe 
 dangers to hold it loofely, and in a manner as if I 
 was every moment going to releafe it, of myfelf; 
 fo (he let it continue, till Monfieur Z)(?//^/k returned 
 with the key ; and in the mean time I fet myfelf to
 
 06 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 confider how I fhould undo the ill impreffions 
 which the poor monk's ftory, in cafe he had told 
 it her, muft have planted in her breaft againft me. 
 
 THE SNUFF-BOX. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 The good old monk was within fix paces of us, 
 as the idea of him crofs'd my mind ; and was ad- 
 vancing towards us a little out of the line, as if 
 uncertain whether he fliould break in upon us or 
 no. He ftopp'd, however, as foon as he came up 
 to us, with a world of franknefs : and having a 
 horn fnuif-box in his hand, he prefented it open 
 to me You (hall tafte mine faid I, pulling out 
 my box (which was a fmall tortoife one) and put- 
 ting it into his hand 'Tis mofl excellent, faid the 
 monk; Then do me the favour, I replied, to ac- 
 cept of the box and all, and when you take a 
 pinch out of it, fometimes recolleft it was the 
 peace-offering of a man who once ufed you un- 
 kindly, but not from his heart. 
 
 The poor monk blufli'd as red as fcarlet. Mon 
 Dieu! faid he, prefling his hands together you 
 never ufed me unkindly. I fliould think, faid the 
 lady, he is not likely. 1 blufli'd in my turn ; but
 
 'rii^j\Z.^l. r^~>.7-/<,^Sy.ic^^fio^\vi.,Z'h-xje-rJ^jfr..i Sh-yt- "->-'-"''^'-"?
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 27 
 
 from what movements, I leave to the few who 
 feel to analyfe Excufe me, Madame, replied I 
 I treated him moft unkindly ; and from no provo- 
 cations 'Tis impoflible, faid the iady My God ! 
 cried the monk, with a warmth of affeveration 
 which feem'd not to belong to him the fault was 
 in me, and in the indifcretion of my zeal The 
 lady oppofed it, and 1 joined with her in maintain- 
 ing it was impoflible, th^t a fpirit fo regulated as 
 his, could give offence to any. 
 
 1 knew not that contention could be rendered fo 
 fweet and pleafurable a thing to the nerves as I then 
 felt it. We remained filent, without any fenfation 
 of that foolifh pain which takes place, when in fuch 
 a circle you look for ten minutes in one another's 
 faces without faying a word. Whilft this laded, 
 the monk rubb'd his horn box upon the fleeve of 
 his tunick; and as foon as it had acquired a little 
 air of brightnefs by the fridion he made a low 
 bow, and faid, 'twas too late to fay whether it was 
 the weaknefs or goodnefs of our tempers which had 
 involved us in this conteft but be it as it would 
 he begged we might exchange boxes In faying 
 this, he prefented his to me with one hand, as he 
 took mine from me in the other; and having 
 kifs'd it with a ftream of good -nature in his eyes 
 he put it into his bofom and took his leave.
 
 98 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I guard this box, as I would the inftrumental 
 parts of my religion, to help my mind on to fome- 
 thing better : in truth, I feldom go abroad without 
 it : and oft and many a time have I called up by it 
 the courteous fpirit of its owner to regulate my 
 own, in the juftlings of the world ; they had found 
 full employment for his, as I learnt from his ftory, 
 till about the forty-fifth year of his age, when upon 
 fome military fervices ill requited, and meeting at 
 the fame time with a difappointment in the tendered 
 of paffions, he abandoned the fword and the fex 
 together, and took fandtuary, not fo much in his 
 convent as in himfelf. 
 
 I feel a damp upon my fpirits, as I am going to 
 add, that in my laft return through Calais, upon 
 inquiring after Father Lorenzo, I heard he had 
 been dead near three months, and was buried, not 
 in his convent, but, according to his defire, in a 
 little cemetery belonging to it, about two leagues 
 off: I had a ftrong defire to fee where they had 
 laid him ^when, upon pulhng out his little horn 
 box, as I fat by his grave, and plucking up a net- 
 tle or two at the head of it, which had no bufinefs 
 to grow there, they all ftruck together fo forcibly 
 upon my affedlions, that I burft into a flood of 
 tears but I am as weak as a woman ; and I beg 
 the world not to fmile, but pity me.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 29 
 
 THE REMISE DOOR. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I HAD never quitted the lady's hand all this 
 time ; and had held it fo long, that it would have 
 been indecent to have let it go, without firft pref- 
 fing it to my lips: the blood and fpirits, which 
 had fufFered a revulfion from her, crowded back to 
 her, as I did it. 
 
 Now the two travellers, who had fpoke to me in 
 the coach-yard, happening at that crifis to be paf- 
 fing by, and obferving our communications, natu- 
 rally took it into their heads that we muft be man 
 and wife at leaft ; fo flopping as foon as they came 
 up to the door of the Remife, the one of them, 
 who was the inquifitive traveller, afk'd us, if we 
 fet out for Paris the next morning ? I could only 
 anfwer for myfelf, I laid ; and the lady added, (he 
 was for Amiens ^We dined there yefterday, faid 
 the fimple traveller You go diredly through the 
 town, added the other, in your road to Paris. I 
 was going to return a thoufand thanks for the intel- 
 ligence, that Amiens was in the road to Paris; but, 
 upon pulling out my poor monk's little horn 
 box to take a pinch of fnufF I made them a quiet
 
 y> A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 bow, and wifhing them a good paflage to Dover 
 they left us alone 
 
 Now where would be the harm, faid I to my- 
 felf, if I was to beg of this diftrefled lady to accept 
 of half of my chaife ? and what mighty mifchief 
 could enfue? 
 
 Every dirty pafllon, and bad propenfity in my 
 nature, took the alarm, as I ftated the proportion 
 ^It will oblige you to have a third l^rfe, faid 
 Avarice, which will put twenty livres out of 
 your pocket You know not who (he is, faid 
 Caution or what fcrapes the affair may draw 
 you into, whifper'd Cowardice 
 
 Depend upon it, Yorick ! faid Discretion^ 
 *twill be faid you went off with a miflrefs, and came 
 by afhgnation to Calais for that purpofe 
 
 ^You can never after, cried Hypocrisy aloud, 
 {hew your face in the world or rife, quoth Mean- 
 ness, in the church or be any thing in it, faid 
 Pride, but aloufy prebendary. 
 
 But 'tis a civil thing, faid 1 and as I generally 
 aft from the firft impulfe, and therefore feldom 
 liften to thefe cabals, which ferve no purpofe, that 
 1 know of, but to encompafs the heart with ada- 
 mant I turned inftantly about to the lady 
 
 But fhe had glided off unperceived, as the 
 caufe was pleading, and had made ten or a dozen 
 paces down the ftreet, by the time I had made the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 3I 
 
 determination ; fo I fet ofFafter her with a long ftride, 
 to make her the propofal with the beft addrefs I 
 was mafter of; but obferving (he walk'd with her 
 cheek half refting upon the palm of her hand 
 with the flow, fhort-meafur'd ftep of thoughtfuU 
 nefs, and with her eyes, as fhe went ftep by ftep, 
 fix'd upon the ground, it ftruck me, (he was try- 
 ing the fame caufe herfelf. God help her! faid I, 
 (he h-as fome mother-in-law, or tartuhfh aunt, or 
 nonfen(ical old woman, to confult upon the occa- 
 fion, as well as myfelf : fo not caring to interrupt 
 the procefTe, and deeming it more gallant to take 
 her at difcretion than by furprife, I faced about, 
 and took a (hort turn or two before the door of the 
 Remife, whilft (he walk'd mufing on one fide. 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 Having, on firft fight of the lady, fettled the 
 affair in my fancy, " that (lie was of the better or- 
 " der of beings" and then laid it down as a fecond 
 axiom, as indifputable as the firft. That fhe was a 
 widow, and wore a character of diftrefs I went no 
 further; I got ground enough for the fituation 
 which pleafed me and had (he remained clofe
 
 32 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 befide my elbow till midnight, I (hould have held 
 true to my fyftem, and confidered her only under 
 that general idea. 
 
 She had fcarce got twenty paces diftant from me, 
 ere fomething within me called out for a more par- 
 ticular inquiry it brought on the idea of a further 
 reparation 1 might poffibly never fee her more ^ 
 the heart is for faving what it can ; and I wanted 
 the traces through which my wifhes might find 
 their way to her, in cafe I fhould never rejoin her 
 myfelf : in a word, I wifh'd to know her name 
 her family's her condition; and as I knew the 
 place to which fhe was going, I wanted to know 
 from whence fhe came : but there was no coming 
 at all this intelligence; a hundred little delicacies 
 flood in the way. I form'd a fcore different plans 
 There was no fuch thing as a man's afking her 
 diredtly the thing was impoffible. 
 
 A little French debonaire captain, who came 
 dancing down the ftreet, fhewed me, it was the 
 eafiefl thing in the world ; for popping in betwixt 
 us, jufl as the lady was returning back to the door 
 of the Remife, he introduced himfelf to my ac- 
 quaintance, and before he had well got announced, 
 begg'd I would do him the honour to prefent him 
 to the lady 1 had not been prefented myfelf fo 
 turning about to her, he did it jufl as well by afk- 
 jng her, if fhe had come from Paris ? No : flie
 
 TiiROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. ^i 
 
 was going that route, Ihe faid. Fgus n^ites pas de 
 Londre^ ^She was not, fhe replied. Then Ma- 
 dame miift have come through Flanders. Appa- 
 remment vous etes Flammande f faid the French cap- 
 tainThe lady anfwered, jfhe w^z-^Peut-etre de 
 LiJJe f added he She faid, fhe was not of Lille. 
 Nor Arras ? nor Cambray ? nor Ghent ? nor 
 BrufTels ? She anfwered, fhe was of Bruilels. 
 
 He had had the honour, he faid, to be at the 
 bombardment of it laft war that it was finely 
 fituatcd, pour cela and full of nobleffe when the 
 Imperialifts were driven out by the French (the 
 lady made a flight curtfy) fo giving her an ac- 
 count of the affair, and of the fhare he had had in 
 it he begg'd the honour to know her name fo 
 made his bow. 
 
 Et Madame a Jon Man P faid he, looking 
 back when he had made two fleps and without 
 flaying for an anfwer danced down the flreet. 
 
 Had I ferved feven years apprenticefhip to good- 
 breeding, I could not have done as much. 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 As the little French captain left us, Monf. Def- 
 fein came up with the key of the Remife in his 
 
 D
 
 34 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEV 
 
 hand, and forthwith let us into his magazine of 
 chaifes. 
 
 The firft objed which caught my eye, as Monf. 
 Deflein open'd the door of the Remife, was another 
 old tatter'd Defobligeant : and notwithftanding it was 
 the exad pidure of that which had hit my fancy fo 
 much in the coach- yard but an hour before the 
 very fight of it flirr'd up a difagreeable fenfation 
 within me now ; and I thought 'twas a churlifh 
 beaft into whofe heart the idea could firft enter, to 
 conftru(5t fuch a machine ; nor had I much more 
 charity for the man who could think of ufing it. 
 
 I obferved the lady was as little taken with it as 
 myfelf : fo Monf. Deflein led us on to a couple of 
 chaifes which ftood abreaft, telling us, as he re- 
 commended them, that they had been purchafed 
 by my Lord A. and B. to go the grand tour, but 
 had gone no further than Paris, fo were in all re- 
 fpe<fts as good as new They were too good fo I 
 pafs'd on to a third, which ftood behind, and 
 forthwith began to chaffer for the price But *twill 
 fcarce hold two, faid I, opening the door and get- 
 ting in Have the goodnefs. Madam, faid Monf. 
 DefTein, offering his arm, to ftep in The lady 
 hefitated half a fecond, and ftepp'd in ; and the 
 waiter that moment beckoning to fpeak to Monf. 
 DefTein, he fhut the door of the chaife upon us, 
 and left us.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 35 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 C AL Al S. 
 
 C'est i'ien comique, 'tis very droll, faid the lady, 
 fmiling, from the refledion that this was the fecond 
 time we had been left together by a parcel of non- 
 fehfical contingencies c*ejl bien comique, faid fhe 
 
 There wants nothing, faid I, to make it fo, 
 but the comic ufe which the gallantry of a French- 
 man would put it to-*-to make love the firft mo- 
 ment, and an offer of his perfon the fecond. 
 
 *Tis their/or/, replied the lady. 
 
 It is fuppofed fo at leaft and how it has come 
 to pafs, continued I, I know not ; but they have 
 certainly got the credit of underftanding more of 
 love, and making it better than any other nation 
 upon earth : but for my own part, I think them 
 errant bunglers, and in truth the worft fet of 
 markfmen that ever tried Cupid's patience. 
 
 To think of making love hy fentiments! 9 
 
 I fliould as foon think of making a genteel fuit 
 of clothes out of remnants : and to do it pop 
 at firft light by declaration is fubmitting the offer 
 and themfelves with it, to be lifted with all their 
 pours and contreSj by an unheated mind. 
 
 D 2
 
 36 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 The lady attended as if (he expeded I lliould 
 go on. 
 
 Confider then, Madam, continued I, laying my 
 hand upon hers 
 
 That grave people hate Love for the name's 
 fake 
 
 That felfifli people hate it for their own- 
 Hypocrites for heaven's 
 
 And that all of us, both old and young, being 
 ten times worfe frighten'd than hurt by the very 
 report, 
 ^What a want of knowledge in this branch of 
 commerce a man betrays, whoever lets the word 
 come out of his lips, till an hour or two at leafl 
 after the time that his filence upon it becomes tor- 
 menting. A courfe of fmall, quiet attentions, not 
 fo pointed as to alarm nor fo vague as to be mif- 
 underftood with now and then a look of kindnefs, 
 and little or nothing faid upon it leaves nature for 
 your miftrefs, and Ihe fafhions it to her mind 
 
 Then I folemnly declare, faid the lady, blufh- 
 ing you have been making love to me all this 
 while.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY, 37 
 
 THE REMISE. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 Monsieur Dejfein came back to let us out of the 
 
 chaife, and acquaint the lady, the Count de L , 
 
 her brother, was juft arrived at the hotel. Though 
 I had infinite good-will for the lady, I cannot fay, 
 that I rejoiced in my heart at the event and could 
 not help telling her fo for it is fatal to a propofal, 
 Madam, faid I, that I was going to make you 
 
 You need not tell me what the propofal 
 was, faid fhe, laying her hand upon both mine, as 
 fhe interrupted me. A man, my good Sir, has 
 feldom an offer of kindnefs to make to a woman, 
 but fhe has a prefentiment of it fome moments be- 
 fore 
 
 Nature arms her with it, faid I, for immediate 
 prefervation ^Biit I think, faid flie, looking in my 
 face, I had no evil to apprehend and to deal 
 frankly with you, had determined to accept it.- 
 If I had (fhe flopped a moment) I believe your 
 good-will would have drawn a ftory from me, 
 which would have made pity the only dangerous 
 thing in the journey. 
 
 ^ 3
 
 38 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEV 
 
 In faying this, (lie fuffered me to kifs her hand 
 twice, and with a look of fenfibility mixed with a 
 concern, fhe got out of the chaife, and bid adieu. 
 
 IN THE STREET. 
 
 CALAIS. 
 
 I NEVER finiflied a twelve- guinea bargain fo ex- 
 peditioufly in my life: my time feemed heavy 
 upon the lofs of the lady, and knowing every mo- 
 ment of it would be as two, till I put myfelf into 
 motion I ordered poft-horfes diredly, and walked 
 towards the hotel. 
 
 Lord ! faid I, hearing the town clock ftrike 
 four, and recolledling that I had been little more 
 than a fingle hour in Calais 
 
 What a large volume of adventures may be 
 grafped within this little fpan of life by him who 
 interefts his heart in every thing, and who, hav- 
 ing eyes to fee, what time and chance are perpe- 
 tually holding out to him as he journeyeth on his 
 way, miffes nothing he can fairly lay his hands 
 on. 
 
 If this won't turn out fomething another will 
 no matter 'tis an affay upon human nature I 
 get my labour for my pains 'tis enough the ple^-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 39 
 
 flire of the experiment has kept my fenfes and the 
 beft part of my blood awake, and laid the grofs to 
 ileep. 
 
 I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beer- 
 Jheba, and cry, 'Tis all barren and fo it is; and 
 fo is all the world to him who will not cultivate the 
 fruits it offers. I declare, faid I, clapping my 
 hands cheerily together, that was I in a defert, I 
 would find out wherewith in it to call forth my af- 
 ffeftions If I could not do better, I would faften 
 them upon fome fweet myrtle, or feek fome me- 
 lancholy cyprefs to conned: myfelf to-^I would 
 court their fhade, and greet them kindly for their 
 protection rl would cut my name upon them, and 
 fwear they were the lovelieft trees throughout the 
 defert : if their leaves wither'd, I would teach my- 
 felf to mourn, and when they rejoiced, I would 
 rejoice along with them. 
 
 The learned Smelfungus travelled from Bou- 
 logne to Paris- from Paris to Rome and fo on 
 but he fet out with the fpleen and jaundice, and 
 every objed: he pafs'd by was difcoloured or diftort- 
 ed He wrote an account of them, but 'twas no-r 
 thing but the account of his miferable feelings, 
 
 I met Smelfungus in the grand portico of the 
 Pantheon he was juft coming out of it "Tis no- 
 thing but a huge cockpit'^, faid he -I wifl^l you had 
 
 * Vide S 's Travels. 
 
 D4
 
 4.0 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 faid nothing worfe of the Venus of Medicis, re- 
 plied I for in paffing through Florence, I had 
 heard he had fallen foul upon the goddefs, and 
 ufed her worfe than a common {trumpet, without 
 the leaft provocation in nature. 
 
 I popp'd upon Smelfungus again at Turin, in 
 his return home ; and a fad tale of forrowful adven- 
 tures had he to tell, " wherein he fpoke of moving 
 " accidents by flood and field, and of the canni- 
 " bals which each other eat : the Anthropophagi" 
 he had been flay'd alive, and bedeviled, and ufed 
 worfe than St. Bartholomew, at every ftage he had 
 come at 
 
 I'll tell it, cried Smelfungus, to the world. 
 You had better tell it, faid I, to your phyfician. 
 
 Mundungus, with an immenfe fortune, made 
 the whole tour ; going on from Rome to Naples 
 from Naples to Venice from Venice to Vienna 
 to Drefden, to Berlin, without one generous con- 
 nexion or pleafurable anecdote to tell of; but he 
 had travell'd ftraight on, looking neither to his 
 right hand or his left, left Love or Pity fhould fe- 
 duce him out of his road. 
 
 Peace be to them 1 if it is to be found ; but hea- 
 ven itfelf, was it pofTible to get there with fuch 
 tempers, would want objeds to give it every gen- 
 tle fpirit would come flying upon the wings of Love 
 to hail their arrival Nothing would the fouls of
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 41 
 
 Smelfungus and Mundungus hear of, but frefh an- 
 thems of joy, frefh raptures of love, and frefh con- 
 gratulations of their common felicity I heartily 
 pity them : they have brought up no faculties for 
 this work ; and was the happieft manfion in heaven 
 to be allotted to Smelfungus and Mundungus, they 
 would be fo far from being happy, that the fouls 
 of Smelfungus and Mundungus would do penance 
 fhere to all eternity. 
 
 M O N T R I U L. 
 
 I HAD once loft my portmanteau from behind 
 my chaife, and twice got out in the rain, and one 
 of the times up to the knees in dirt, to help the 
 poftillion to tie it on, without being able to find 
 out what was wanting Nor was it till I got to 
 Montriul, upon the landlord's afking me if I want- 
 ed not a fervant, that it occurred to me, that that 
 was the very thing. 
 
 A fervant ! That do I moft fadly, quoth I Be- 
 caufe, Monfieur, faid the landlord, there is a cle- 
 ver young fellow, who would be very proud of the 
 honour to ferve an Englilhman But why an Eng- 
 lifli one, more than any other ? ^They are fo ge- 
 nerous, faid the landlord I'll be fhot if this is not 
 a livre out of my pocket, quoth I to myfelf, this 
 very night But they have wherewithal to be fo.
 
 42 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Monfieur, added he Set down one livre more 
 for that, quoth I It was but laft night, faid the 
 landlord, qu*un my LordAnglois prefentoit un ecu a la 
 fille de cbambre--'Tan pis, pour Madamotfelle Jana- 
 tone, faid I. 
 
 Now Janatone being the landlord's daughter, 
 and the landlord fuppoling I was young in French, 
 took the liberty to inform me, I fliould not have 
 faid tant pis but, iant mieux, Tant mieuXt ioupurs, 
 Monfieur, faid he, when there is any thing to be 
 got tant pis, when there is nothing. It comes to 
 the fame thing, faid I. Pardonnez ?noi, faid the 
 landlord. 
 
 I cannot take a fitter opportunity to obferve once 
 for all, that tant pis and tant mieux being two of the 
 great hinges in French converfation, a ftranger 
 would do well to fet himfelf right in the ufe of 
 them, before he gets to Paris. 
 
 A prompt French Marquis at our ambaflador's 
 
 table demanded of Mr. H , if he was H- 
 
 the poet ? No, faid H , mildly Tant pis, 
 
 replied the Marquis. 
 
 It is H the hiftorian, faid another Tant 
 
 mieux, faid the Marquis. And Mr. H , who 
 
 is a man of an excellent heart, returned thanks for 
 both. 
 
 When the landlord had fet me right in this 
 matter, he called in La Fleur, which was the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 43 
 
 name of the young man he had fpoke of faying 
 only firft, That as for his talents, he would pre- 
 fume to fay nothing Monfieur was the beft judge 
 what would fuit him ; but for the fidelity of La 
 Fleur, he would ftand refponlible in all he was 
 worth. 
 
 The landlord deliver'd this in a manner which 
 inftantly fet my mind to the bufinefs I was upon 
 and La Fleur, who ftood waiting without, in that 
 breathlefs expectation which every fon of nature of 
 us have felt in our turns, came in. 
 
 M O N T R I U L. 
 
 I AM apt to be taken with all kinds of people at 
 firft fight ; but never more fo, than when a poor 
 devil comes to offer his fervice to fo poor a devil as 
 myfelf ; and as I know this weaknefs, I always fuf- 
 fer my judgment to draw back fomething on that 
 very account and this more or lefs, according to 
 the mood I am in, and the cafe and I may add the 
 gender too, of the perfon I am to govern. 
 
 When La Fleur entered the room, after every 
 difcount I could make for my foul, the genuine 
 look and air of the fellow determined the matter at 
 once in his favour ; fo I hired him firft and then 
 began to enquire what he could do : But I ftiall find
 
 44 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 out his talents, quoth I, as I want them befides, 
 a Frenchman can do every thing. 
 
 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 fay my weaknefs was ever fo infulted by 
 my wifdom, as in the attempt. 
 
 La Fleur had fet out early in life, as gallantly as 
 mofl Frenchmen do, withy^m^ for a few years ; 
 at the end of which, having fatisfied the fentiment, 
 and found moreover. That the honour of beating a 
 drum was likely to be its own reward, as it open'd 
 no further track of glory to him he retired ajes 
 terres, and lived comtne il plaifoii a Dieu that is to 
 fay, upon nothing. 
 
 And fo, quoth JVifdome, you have hired a 
 drummer to attend you in this tour of your's 
 through France and Italy ! P(ha ! faid I, and do 
 not one half of our gentry go with a humdrum 
 compagnon du voyage the fame round, and have the 
 piper and the devil and all to pay befides ? When 
 man can extricate himfelf with an equivoque in fuch 
 an unequal match he is not ill off But you can 
 do fomething elfe, La Fleur ? faid I qu^oui! 
 he could make fpatterdaflies, and play a little upon 
 the fiddle Bravo ! faid Wifdome Why, I play 
 a bafs myfelf, faid I, we fhall do very well. You 
 can fhave, and drefs a wig a little, La Fleur?
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY* 45 
 
 He had all the difpofitions in the world It is 
 enough for heaven ! faid I, interrupting him 
 and ought to be enough for me So fupper coming 
 in, and having a frilky Englifh fpaniel on one fide 
 of my chair, and a French valet, with as much hila- 
 rity in his countenance as ever nature painted in one, 
 on the other I was fatisfied to my heart's content 
 with my empire ; and if monarchs knew what they 
 would be at, they might be as fatisfied as I was. 
 
 M O N T R I U L. 
 
 As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and 
 Italy with me, and will be often upon the ftage, I 
 muft intereft the reader a little further in his behalf, 
 by faying, that I had never lefs reafon to repent of 
 the impulfes which generally do determine me, than 
 in regard to this fellow he was a faithful, affec- 
 tionate, fimple foul as ever trudged after the heels 
 of a philofopher ; and notwithftanding his talents 
 of drum-beating and fpatterdafh-making, which, 
 though very good in themfelves, happened to be 
 of no great fervice to me, yet was 1 hourly recom- 
 penfed by the feftivity of his temper it fupplied 
 all defedls I had a conftant refource in his looks 
 in all difficulties and diftreffes of my own I was 
 going to have added, of his too; but La Fleur
 
 46 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 was out of the reach of every thing ; for whether 
 'twas hunger or thirft, or cold or nakednefs, or 
 watchings, or whatever ftripes of ill luck La Fleur 
 met with in our journeyings, there was no index 
 in his phyfiognomy to point them out by he was 
 eternally the fame ; fo that if I am a piece of a phi- 
 lofopher, which Satan now and then puts it into 
 my head I am it always mortifies the pride of the 
 conceit, by reflefting how much I owe to the com- 
 plexional philofophy of this poor fellow, for (ham- 
 ing me into one of a better kind. With all this. 
 La Fleur had a fmall caft of the coxcomb but he 
 feemed at firft fight to be more a coxcomb of na- 
 ture than of art ; and before I had been three days 
 in Paris with him he feemed to be no coxcomb at 
 all. 
 
 M O N T R I U L. 
 
 The 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 
 ihirts and filk pair of breeches ; and bid him faften 
 all upon the chaife get the horfes put- to and de- 
 fire the landlord to come in with his bill. 
 
 Cefi ungarcon de bonne fortune, faid the landlord, 
 pointing through the window to half a dozen 
 wenches who had got round about La Fleur, and 
 were mod kindly taking their leave of him, as the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 47 
 
 poftillion was leading out the horfes. La Fleur 
 kiffed all their hands round and round again, and 
 thrice he wiped his eyes, and thrice he promifed 
 he would bring them all pardons from Rome. 
 
 The young fellow, faid the landlord, is beloved 
 by all the town, and there is fcarce 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, faid I 'twill fave me the trouble every night 
 of putting my breeches under my head. In faying 
 this, I was making not fo much La Fleur's eloge, 
 as my own, having been in love with one princefs 
 or another almoft all my life, and I hope I (hall 
 go on fo till I die, being firmly perfuaded, that if 
 ever I do a mean adion, it muft be in fome inter- 
 val betwixt one paffion and another : whilfl this 
 interregnum lafts, I always perceive my heart 
 locked up I can fcarce find in it to give Mifery a 
 fixpence ; and therefore I always get out of it as faft 
 as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all 
 generofity and good-will again ; and would do any 
 thing in the world, either for or with any one, if 
 they will but fatisfy me there is no fin in it. 
 
 But in faying this furely I am commending 
 the paffion not myfelf.
 
 48 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 A FRAGMENT. 
 
 The town of Abdera, notwithftanding 
 
 Democritus lived there, trying all the powers of 
 irony and laughter to reclaim it, was the vileft and 
 moft profligate town in all Thrace. What for poi- 
 fons, confpiracies, and affafTinations libels, paf- 
 quinades, and tumults, there was no going there 
 by day 'twas worfe by night. 
 
 Now, when things were at the word, it came to 
 pafs, that the Andromeda of Euripides being repre-^ 
 fented at Abdera, the whole orcheftra was delight- 
 ed with it : but of all the paffages which delighted 
 them, nothing operated more upon their imagina- 
 tions, than the tender ftrokes of nature which the 
 poet had wrought up in that pathetic fpeech of Per- 
 feus, O Cupid f prince of God and men, &c. Every 
 man almoft fpoke pure iambics the next day, and 
 talk'd of nothing but Perfeus his pathetic ad- 
 drefs " O Cupid ! prince of God and men" in 
 every flreet of Abdera, in every houfe *' O Cu- 
 " pid ! Cupid !" in every mouth, like the natural 
 notes of fome fweet melody which drops from it 
 whether it will or no nothing but *' Cupid ! Cu- 
 " pid ! prince of God and men" ^The fire caught
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 49 
 
 and the whole city, Hke the heart of one man, 
 open'd itfelf to Love. 
 
 No pharmacopohft could fell one grain of helle- 
 bore not a fingle armourer had a heart to forge 
 one inftrument of death Friendfhip and Virtue 
 met together, and kifs'd each other in the fhreet 
 the golden age return'd, and hung over the town 
 of Abdera every Abderite took his oaten pipe, 
 and every Abderitifli woman left her purple web, 
 and chaftely fat her down and liflen'd to the 
 fong 
 
 'Twas only in the power, fays the Fragment, of 
 the God whofe empire extendeth from heaven 
 to earth, and even to the depths of the fea, to have 
 done this. 
 
 M O N T R I U L. 
 
 When all is ready, and every article is difputed 
 and paid for in the inn, unlefs you are a little four'd 
 by the adventure, there is always a matter to com- 
 pound at the door, before you can get into your 
 chaife ; and that is with the fons and daughters of 
 Poverty, who furround you. Let no man fay, 
 " Let them go to the devil" 'tis a cruel journey 
 to fend a few miferables, and they have had fuffer- 
 ings enow without it : I always think it better to 
 

 
 50 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 take a few fous out in my hand ; and I would coun- 
 fel every gentle traveller to do fo likewife ; he need 
 not be fo exa<5t in fetting down his motives for giv- 
 ing them they will be regifter'd elfewhere. 
 
 For my own part, there is no man gives fo little 
 as I do; for few that I know have fo little to give: 
 but as this was the firfl public aft of my charity in 
 France, I took the more notice of it. 
 
 A well-a-way ! faid I. I have but eight fous in 
 the world, fliewing them in my hand, and there 
 are eight poor men and eight poor women for *em. 
 
 A poor tatter'd foul, without afhirt on, inftant- 
 ly withdrew his claim, by retiring two fteps out of 
 the circle, and making a difquahfying bow on his 
 part. Had the whole parterre cried out. Place aux 
 dames f with one voice, it would not have conveyed 
 the fentiment of a deference for the fex with half 
 the effeft. 
 
 Juft heaven ! for what wife reafons haft thou or- 
 der-d it, that beggary and urbanity, which are at 
 fuch variance in other countries, fhould find a 
 way to be at unity in this ? 
 
 1 infifted upon prefenting him with a fmgle 
 fous, merely for his politeJJ'e. 
 
 A poor little dwarfifh brifk fellow, who ftood 
 over-againft me in the circle, putting fomething 
 firft under his arm, which had once been a hat, 
 took his fnuft'-box out of his pocket, and gene-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 5I 
 
 roully ofFer'd a pinch on both fides of him : it was 
 a gift of confequence, and modeftly dechned 
 The poor little fellow prefs'd it upon them with a 
 nod of we\comene{s-^Prenez en prenez, faid he, 
 looking another way ; fo they each took a pinch 
 Pity thy box Ihould ever want one ! faid I to my- 
 felf ; fo I put a couple of fous into it taking a 
 fmall pinch out of his box, to enhance their value, 
 as I did it. He felt the weight of the fecond obli- 
 gation more than that of the firft-^'twas doing him 
 an honour the other was only doing him a cha- 
 rity and he made me a bow down to the ground 
 for it. 
 
 Here ! faid I to an old foldier with one hand, 
 who had been campaign'd and worn-out to death 
 in the fervice here's a couple of fous for thee - 
 Vive le Rot! faid the old foldier. 
 
 I had then but three fous left: fo I gave one, 
 fimply pour ramour de Dieii, which was the footing 
 on which it was begg'd ^The poor woman had a 
 diflocated hip ; fo it could not be well, upon any 
 other motive. 
 
 Mon cher et tres chariiable Monfieur There's no 
 oppofing this, faid I. 
 
 My Lord Anghis the very found was worth the 
 
 money fo I gave my lajl fous for it. But in the 
 
 cagernefs of giving, I had over-look'd a pauvre 
 
 bonteuxy who had no one to afk a fous for him, and 
 
 E 2
 
 ^2 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 who, I believed, would have perifti'd, ere he 
 could have afk'd one for himfelf : he flood by the 
 chaife a little without the circle, and wiped a tear 
 from a face which I thought had feen better days 
 Good God ! faid I and I have not one finglc 
 fous left to give him But you have a thoufand ! 
 cried all the powers of nature, ftirring within me 
 fo I gave him no matter what I am afhamed to 
 fay hrjD much, now -and was afhamed to think, 
 how little, then : fo if the reader can form any con- 
 jedure of my difpofition, as thefe two fixed points 
 are given him, he may judge within a livre or two 
 what was the precife fum. 
 
 I could afford nothing for the refl, but Dieu vous 
 henijfe Et le bon Dieu vous bemjje encore faid the 
 old foldier, the dwarf, &c. The pauvre honteux 
 could fay nothing he puH'd out a little handker- 
 chief, and wiped his face as he turned away and 
 I thought he thanked me more than them all. 
 
 THE BIDET. 
 
 Having fettled all thefe little matters, I got into 
 my poft-chaife with more eafe than ever I got into 
 a pofl-chaife in my life ; and La Fleur having got 
 one large jack-boot on the far fide of a little
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 53 
 
 bidet'-^y and another on this (for I count nothing of 
 his legs) he canter'd away before me as happy 
 and as perpendicular as a prince. 
 
 But what is happinefs ! what is grandeur in 
 this painted fcene of life ! A dead afs, before we 
 had got a league, put a fudden flop to La Fleur's 
 career his bidet would not pafs by it a conten- 
 tion arofe betwixt them, and the poor fellow was 
 kick'd out of his jack boots the very firft kick. 
 
 La Fleur bore his fall like a French chriftian, 
 faying neither more or lefs upon it, than, Diable ! 
 fo prefently got up, and came to the charge again 
 aftride his bidet, beating him up to it as he would 
 have beat his drum. 
 
 The bidet flew from one fide of the road to the 
 other, then back again then this way then that 
 way, and in fhort every way but by the dead afs 
 La Fleur infilled upon the thing and the bidet 
 threw him. 
 
 What's the matter, La Fleur, faid I, with this 
 bidet of thine ? Monfieur, faid he, c'eji un cheval \e 
 plus opiniatre du monde Nay, if he is a conceited 
 beaft, he muft go his own way, replied I fo La 
 Fleur got off him, and giving him a good found 
 lafh, the bidet took me at my word, and away he 
 fcamper'd back to Montriul Pefie! faid La Fleur, 
 
 Poft-horfe. 
 E 3
 
 54 A SENTIM6NTAL JOURNEY 
 
 It is not mal-a-propos to take notice here, that 
 though La Fleur availed himfelf but of two differ- 
 ent terms of exclamation in this encounter name- 
 ly, Diable! and Peftel that there are neverthelefs 
 three, in the French language ; like the pofitive, 
 comparative, and fuperlative, one or the other 
 of which ferve for every unexpefted throw of the 
 dice in life. 
 
 Le Diable! which is the firft, and pofitive de- 
 gree, is generally ufed upon ordinary emotions of 
 the mind, where fmall things only fall out contrary 
 to your expectations fuch as the throwing once 
 doublets La Fleur's being kick'd off his horfe, 
 and fo forth ^cuckoldom, for the fame reafon, is 
 always Le Diable! 
 
 But in cafes where the caft has fomething pro- 
 voking in it, as in that of the bidet's running away 
 after, and leaving La Fleur aground in jack-boots 
 'tis the fecond degree. 
 
 'Tisthen P(?/?^/ 
 
 And for the third 
 
 But here my heart is wrung with pity and fel- 
 low-feeling, when I refleft what miferies muft have 
 been their lot, and how bitterly fo refined a people 
 muft have fmarted, to have forced them upon the 
 ufe of it 
 
 Grant me, O ye powers which touch the tongue 
 with eloquence in diftrefs ! whatever is my cajly
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 55 
 
 grant me but decent words to exclaim in, and I 
 will give my nature way. 
 
 But as thefe were not to be had in France, I 
 refolved to take every evil juft as it befel me, with- 
 out any exclamation at all. 
 
 La Fleur, who had made no fuch covenant with 
 himfelf, followed the bidet with his eyes till it was 
 got out of fight and then, you may imagine, if 
 you pleafe, with what word he clofed the whole 
 affair. 
 
 As there was no hunting down a frightened horfe 
 in jack-boots, there remained no alternative but 
 taking La Fleur either behind the chaife, or into 
 it. 
 
 I preferred the latter, and in half an hour we got 
 to the poft-houfe at Nampont. 
 
 N A M P O N T. 
 
 THE DEAD ASS. 
 
 And this, faid he, putting the remains of a 
 cruft into his wallet and this fliould have been thy 
 portion, faid he, hadft thou been alive to have 
 fliared it with me. I thought by the accent, it had 
 been an apoftrophe to his child ; but 'twas to his 
 afs, and to the very afs we had feen dead in the 
 
 E 4
 
 56 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 road, which had occafioned La Fleur's mifadven- 
 ture. The man feemed to lament it much ; and it 
 inftantly brought into my mind Sancho's lamenta- 
 tion for his ; but he did it with more true touches 
 of nature. 
 
 The mourner was fitting upon a ftone bench at 
 the door, with the afs's pannel and its bridle on 
 one fide, which he took up from time to time 
 then laid them down look'd at them and fhook 
 his head. He then took his cruft of bread out of 
 his wallet again, as if to eat it ; held it fome time 
 in his hand then laid it upon the bit of his afs's 
 bridle looked wiftfully at the little arrangement he 
 had made and then gave a figh. 
 ? The fimplicity of his grief drew numbers about 
 him, and La Fleur amongft the reft, whilft the 
 horfes were getting ready ; as I continued fitting 
 in the poft-chaife, I could fee and hear over their 
 heads. 
 
 He faid he had come laft from Spain, where 
 he had been from the furtheft borders of Franconia; 
 and had got fo far on his return home, when his 
 afs died. Every one feemed defirous to know what 
 bufinefs could have taken fo old and poor a manfo 
 far a journey from his own home. 
 
 It had pleafed heaven, he faid, to blefs him with 
 three fons, the fineft lads in all Germany; but 
 having in one week loft two of the eldeft of them
 
 ^vi/,.'/f i^j .T^Oii. ct/J:(?.M'a!j,,,^^.^,IiSinei. 

 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 57 
 
 by the fmall-pox, and the youngeft falling ill of 
 the fame diftemper, he was afraid of being bereft of 
 them all ; and made a vow, if Heaven would not 
 take him from him alfo, he would go in gratitude 
 to St. lago in Spain, 
 
 When the mourner got thus far on his ftory, he 
 ftopp'd to pay nature her tribute and wept bit- 
 terly. 
 
 He faid. Heaven had accepted the conditions ; 
 and that he had fet out from his cottage with this 
 poor creature, who had been a patient partner of 
 his journey that it had eat the fame bread with 
 him all the way, and was unto him as a friend. 
 
 Every body who flood about, heard the poor 
 fellow with concern La Fleur offered him money 
 The mourner faid, he did not want it it was 
 not the value of the afs but the lofs of him. The 
 afs, he faid, he was affured loved him and upon 
 this told them a long ftory of a mifchance upon 
 their paflage over the Pyrenean mountains, which had 
 feparated them from each other three days ; during 
 which time the afs had fought him as much as he 
 had fought the afs, and that they had neither fcarce 
 eat or drank till they met. 
 
 Thou haft one comfort, friend, faid I, at leaft, 
 in the lofs of thy poor beaft ; I'm fure thou haft 
 been a merciful mafter to him. Alas! faid the 
 mourner, I thought fo, when he was alive but
 
 58 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 now that he is dead, I think otherwife. I fear the 
 weight of myfelf and my afflictions together have 
 been too much for him they have Ihorten'd the 
 poor creature's days, and I fear I have them to 
 anfwer for. Shame on the world ! faid I to myfelf 
 Did we love each other, as this poor foul but 
 loved his afs 'twould be fomething. 
 
 N A M P O N T. 
 
 THE POSTILLION. 
 
 The concern which the poor fellow's ftory threw 
 me into, required fome attention : the poftillion 
 paid not the lead to it, but fet ofi' upon the pave in 
 full gallop. 
 
 The thirftieft foul in the mod fandy defert of 
 Arabia could not have wifhed more for a cup of 
 cold water, than mine did for grave and quiet 
 movements ; and I Ihould have had an high opi- 
 nion of the poftillion, had he but ftolen off with me 
 in fomething Uke a pen five pace On the contrary, 
 as the mourner finifhed his lamentation, the fellow 
 gave an unfeeling lafli to each of his beafts, and fet 
 off clattering like a thoufand devils. 
 
 I called to him as loud as I could, for heaven's 
 fake to go flower and the louder 1 called, the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 59 
 
 more unmercifully he galloped. The deuce take 
 him and his galloping too faid I he'll go on tear- 
 ing my nerves to pieces till he has worked me into 
 a foolifh paffion, and then he'll go flow, that I 
 may enjoy the fweets of it. 
 
 The poftillion managed the point to a miracle ; 
 by the time he had got to the foot of a fteep hill 
 about half a league from Nampont he had put me 
 out of temper with him and then with myfelf, for 
 being fo. 
 
 My cafe then required a different treatment; and 
 a good rattling gallop would have been of real fer- 
 vice to me. 
 
 ^Then, prithee, get on get on, my good lad, 
 faid I. 
 
 The poftillion pointed to the hill I then tried 
 to return back to the ftory of the poor German and 
 his afs but I had broke the clue and could no 
 more get into it again, than the poftillion could into 
 a trot. 
 
 ^The deuce go, faid I, with it all ! Here am 
 I fitting as candidly difpofed to make the beft of the 
 worft, as ever wight was, and all runs counter. 
 
 There is one fweet lenitive at leaft for evils, 
 which Nature holds out to us : fo I took it kindly 
 at her hands, and fell afleep ; and the firft word 
 which roufed me was Amiens,
 
 6o A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Blefs me ! faid I, rubbing my eyes this is the 
 very town where my poor lady is to come. 
 
 AMIENS. 
 
 The words were fcarce our of my mouth, when 
 the Count de JL * * * 's poft-chaife, with his fifter 
 in it, drove haftily by: (lie had juft time to make 
 me a bow of recognition and of that particular 
 kind of it, which told me Ihe had not yet done 
 with me. She was as good as her look ; for, before I 
 had quite finiihed my fupper, her brother's fervant 
 came into the room with a billet, in which fhe faid fhe 
 had taken the liberty to charge me with a letter, which 
 I was to prefent myfelf to Madame R * * * the 
 firft morning I had nothing to do at Paris. There 
 was only added, (he was forry, but from what pen- 
 chant fhe had not confidered, that fhe had been 
 prevented telling me her ftory that fhe flill owed 
 it me ; and if my route (hould ever lay through 
 BrulTels, and I had not by then forgot the name of 
 Madame de L * * * that Madame de L * * * 
 would be glad to difcharge her obligation. 
 
 Then I will meet thee, faid I, fair fpirit ! at 
 BrufTels 'tis only returning from Italy through 
 Germany to Holland, by the route of Flanders, 
 home 'twill fcarce be ten pofts out of my way ; but
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 6l 
 
 were it ten thoufand ! with what a moral dehght 
 will it crown my journey, in fharing in the ficken- 
 ing incidents of a tale of mifery told to me by fuch 
 a fufFerer ? to fee her weep ! and though I cannot 
 dry up the fountain of her tears, what an exquifite 
 fenfation is there ftill left, in wiping them away 
 from off the cheeks of the firft and faireft of women, 
 as I'm fitting with my handkerchief in my hand in 
 filence the whole night befide her? 
 
 There was nothing wrong in the fentiment ; and 
 yet I inftantly reproached my heart with it in the 
 bittereft and mod reprobate of expreffions. 
 
 It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of 
 the lingular bleffings of my life, to be almoft every 
 hour of it miferably in love with fome one; and my 
 laft flame happening to be blown out by a whifFof 
 jealoufy on the fudden turn of a corner, I had light- 
 ed it up afrefh at the pure taper of Eliza but about 
 three months before fwearing as I did it, that it 
 fhould laft me through the whole journey Why 
 fhould I diflemble the matter ? I had fworn to her 
 eternal fidelity (he had a right to my whole heart 
 to divide my affedions was to lefTen them to 
 expofe them, was to rifk them : where there is rifk, 
 t^ere may be lofs : and what wilt thou have, Yo- 
 rick ! to anfwer to a heart fo full of truft and confi- 
 dence fo good, fo gentle, and un reproaching.
 
 62 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I will not go to Bruflels, replied I, interrupt- 
 ing myfelf but my imagination went on I recall- 
 ed her looks at that crifis of our feparation, when 
 neither of us had power to fay Adieu ! I look'd at 
 the picture fhe had tied in a black ribband about my 
 neck and blufli'd as I look'd at it I would have 
 given the world to have kifs'd it but was afliamed 
 And fhall this tender flower, faid I, prefling it 
 between my hand s-fIh all it be fmitten to its very 
 root and fmitten, Yorick ! by thee, who haft 
 promifed to {belter it in thy breaft ? 
 
 Eternal fountain of happinefs ! faid I, kneeling 
 down upon the ground be thou my witnefs and 
 every pure fpirit which taftes it, be my witnefs alfo, 
 That I would not travel to Bruflels, unlefs Eliza 
 went along with me, did the road lead me towards 
 heaven. 
 
 In tranfports of this kind, the heart, in fpite of 
 the underftanding, will always fay too much. 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 A M I E K S. 
 
 Fortune had not fmiled upon La Fleur ; for he 
 had been unfuccefsful in his feats of chivalry and 
 not one thing had offered to fignalize his zeal for
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 63 
 
 my fervice from the time he had entered into it, which 
 was almofl four-and-twenty hours. The poor foul 
 burn'd with impatience ; and the Count de L* * *'s 
 fervant's coming with the letter, being the firft 
 pradicable occafion which offered, La Fleur had 
 laid hold of it ; and in order to do honour to his 
 mafter, had taken him into a back parlour in the 
 Auberge, and treated him with a cup or two of the 
 beft wine in Picardy ; and the Count de L * * * 's 
 fervant in return, and not to be behind-hand in 
 politenefs with La Fleur, had taken him back 
 with him to the Count's hotel. La Fleur's preve- 
 nancy (for there was a paflport in his very looks) 
 foon fet every fervant in the kitchen at eafe with 
 him ; and as a Frenchman, whatever be his talents, 
 has no fort of prudery in (hewing them, La Fleur, 
 in lefs than five minutes, had pulled out his fife, 
 and leading off the dance himfelf with the firft 
 note, fet the jille de chambre^ the maitre d'botel^ the 
 cook, the fcuUion, and all the houfehold, dogs and 
 cats, befides an old monkey, a dancing : I fuppofe 
 there never was a merrier kitchen iince the flood. 
 
 Madame de L * * * , in paffing from her bro- 
 ther's apartments to her own, hearing fo much 
 jollity below ftairs, rung up her jille de chambre to 
 afk about it ; and hearing it was the Englifli gen- 
 tleman's fervant who had fet the whole houfe merry 
 with his pipe, (lie ordered him up.
 
 64 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 As the poor fellow could not prefent himfelf 
 empty, he had loaden'd himfelf in going up flairs 
 with a thoufand compliments to Madame de L * * *, 
 on the part of his mafter added a long apocrypha 
 of inquiries after Madame de L * * * 's health 
 told her, that Monfieur his mafler was audefefpoire 
 for her re-eflablifliment from the fatigues of her 
 journey and, to clofe all, that Monfieur had re- 
 ceived the letter which Madame had done him the 
 
 honour And he has done me the honour, faid 
 
 Madame de L * * *, interrupting La Fleur, to fend 
 a billet in return. 
 
 Madame de L, * * * had faid this with fuch a 
 tone of reliance upon the fa6l, that La Fieur had 
 not power to difappoint her expeftations he trem- 
 bled for my honour and poflibly might not alto- 
 gether be unconcerned for his own, as a man ca- 
 pable of being attached to a mafter who could be 
 wanting en egards vis a vis d'unefemme : (o that when 
 Madame de L * * * afked La Fleur if he had 
 brought a letter qu'oui, faid La Fleur : fo lay- 
 ing down his hat upon the ground, and taking 
 hold of the flap of his right-fide pocket with his 
 left hand, he began to fearch for the letter with his 
 right then contrary-wife Diable! then fought 
 every pocket pocket by pocket, round, not for- 
 getting his fob Pejie ! then La Fleur emptied 
 them upon the floor pulled out a dirty cravat a
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 65 
 
 handkerchief a comb a whip-lalh a night-eap 
 then gave a peep into his hat ^elle ctoiirderie I 
 He had left the letter upon the table in the Auberge 
 he would run for it, and be back with it in three 
 minutes. 
 
 I had juft finiflied my fupper when La Fleuf 
 came in to give me an account of his adventure: 
 he told the whole ftory fimply as it was ; and only 
 added, that if Monfieur had forgot (par hazard) to 
 anfwer Madame's letter, the arrangement gave him 
 an opportunity to recover t]\tfaux pas-^2ind if not, 
 that things were only as they were. 
 
 Now I was not altogether fure of my etiquette, 
 whether I ought to have wrote or no but if I had 
 a devil himfelf could not have been angry : 'twas 
 but the officious zeal of a well-meaning creature 
 for my honour ; and however he might have mif- 
 took the road or embarrafled me in fo doing 
 his heart was in no fault I was under no neceflity 
 to write and what weighed more than all he did 
 not look as if he had done amifs. 
 
 'Tis all very well, LaFleur, faid I *Twas fjffi- 
 cient. La Fleur flew out of the room like light- 
 ning, and return'd with pen, ink, and paper, in 
 his hand ; and coming up to the table, laid them 
 clofe before me, with fuch a delight in his counte- 
 nance, that I could not help taking up the pen. 
 
 F
 
 66 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I begun and begun again ; and though I had 
 nothing to fay, and that nothing might have been 
 exprefled in half a dozen hnes, I made half a dozen 
 different beginnings, and could no way pleafe my- 
 felf. 
 
 In fliort, I was in no mood to write. 
 
 La Fleur ftepp'd out and brought a little water 
 in a glafs to dilute my ink then fetch'd fand and 
 feal-wax It was all one; I wrote, and blotted, 
 and tore off, and burnt, and wrote again Le di- 
 able Vemportel faid I half to myfelf I cannot write 
 this felf-fame letter; throwing the pen down de- 
 fpairingly as I faid it. 
 
 As foon as I had caft down the pen. La Fleur 
 advanced with the moft refpedful carriage up to the 
 table, and making a thoufand apologies for the li- 
 berty he was going to take, told me he had a letter 
 in his pocket wrote by a drummer in his regiment 
 to a corporal's wife, which, he durft fay, would 
 fuitthe occafion. 
 
 I had a mind to let the poor fellow have his hu- 
 mour Then prithee, faid I, let me fee it. 
 
 La Fleur inftanrly puU'd out a little dirty pocket- 
 book cramm'd full of fmall letters and billet-doux 
 in a fad condition, and laying it upon the table, 
 and then untying the firing which held them all 
 together, run them over one by one, till he came 
 to the letter in queftion-^X^ voila ! faid he, clap-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 67 
 
 ping his hands : fo unfolding it firft, he laid it be- 
 fore me, and retired three fteps from the table 
 whilfb I read it. 
 
 THE LETTER. 
 
 MADAME, 
 
 Je fuis penetre de la douleur la plus vive, et re- 
 duit en meme temps au defefpoir par ce retour im- 
 prevCi du Corporal qui rend notre entrevue de ce 
 foir la chofe du monde la plus impoffible. 
 
 Mais vive la joie 1 et toute la mienne fera de 
 penfer a vous. 
 
 L'amour n'eft rien fans fentiment. 
 
 Et le fentiment eft encore moins fans amour. 
 
 On dit qu'on ne doit jamais fe defefperer. 
 
 On dit audi que Monfieur le Corporal monte la 
 garde Merc red i : alors ce fera mon tour. 
 
 Chacun a/on tour. 
 
 En attendant Vive Tamour ! et vive la bagatelle! 
 Je fuis, Madame, 
 Avec toutes les fentiments les plus refpeftueux 
 et les plus tendres, tout a vous, 
 
 Jaqjjes RoQJ7E. 
 F 2
 
 68 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 It was but changing the Corporal into the Count 
 and faying nothing about mounting guard on 
 Wednefday and the letter was neither right or 
 wrong fo to gratify the poor fellow, who flood 
 trembling for my honour, his own, and the ho- 
 nour of his letter I took the cream gently off it, 
 and whipping it up in my own way I feal'd it up 
 and fent him with it to Madame de L * * * and 
 the next morning we purfued our journey to Paris. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When a man can conteft the point by dint of 
 equipage, and carry all on floundering before him 
 with half a dozen lackies and a couple of cooks 
 'tis very well in fuch a place as Paris he may 
 drive in at which end of aftreet he will. 
 
 A poor prince who is weak in cavalry, and whofe 
 whole infantry does not exceed a fingle man, had 
 beft quit the field ; and fignalize himfelf in the ca- 
 binet, if he can get up into it I fay up into it for 
 there is no defcending perpendicular amongft 'em 
 with a " Me void! mes enfans'^ here I am ^what- 
 ever many may think. 
 
 I own my firft fenfations, as foon as I was left 
 folitary and alone in my own chamber in the hotel, 
 were far from being fo flattering as I had prefigured
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 69 
 
 them. I walked up gravely to the window in my 
 dufty black coat, and looking through the glafs faw 
 all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running 
 at the ring of pleafure. The old with broken 
 lances, and in helmets which had loft their vizards 
 the young in armour bright which Ihone like 
 gold, beplumed with each gay feather of the eaft 
 all rrall tilting at it like fafcinated knights in 
 tournaments of yore for fame and love^ 
 
 Alas, poor Yorick ! cried I, what art thou do- 
 ing here ? On the very firft onfet of all this glit- 
 tering clatter thou art reduced to an atom- feek 
 feek fome winding alley, with a tourniquet at the 
 end of it, where chariot never rolled or flambeau 
 fhot its rays there thou may'ft folace thy foul in 
 converfe fvveet with fome kind griffet of a barber's 
 wife, and get into fuch coteries ! 
 
 May I perifh ! if I do, faid I, pulling out the 
 letter which I had to prefent to Madame de R * * *. 
 ril wait upon this lady, the very firft thing I do. 
 So I called La Flcur to go feek me a barber di- 
 redly-r^and come back and brufti my coat. 
 
 F3
 
 7 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 T H E W I G. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When the barber came, he abfolutely refufed 
 to have any thing to do with my wig : *twas either 
 above or below his art : I had nothing to do, but 
 to take one ready made of his own recommenda- 
 tion. 
 
 But I fear, friend ! faid I, this buckle won't 
 ftand. You may immerge it, repUed he, into the 
 ocean, and it will ftand 
 
 What a great fcale is every thing upon in this 
 city ! thought I The utmoft ftretch of an Englifh 
 periwig-maker's ideas could have gone no further 
 than to have " dipped it into a pail of water." 
 What difference ! *tis hke time to eternity. 
 
 I confefs I do hate all cold conceptions, as I do 
 the puny ideas which engender them ; and am ge- 
 nerally fo ftruck with the great works of nature, 
 that for my own part, if I could help it, I never 
 would make a comparifon Icfs than a mountain at 
 leaft. All that can be faid againft the French fub- 
 V. lime in this inftance of it, is this that the gran- 
 deur is more in the word; and le/s in the thing. No 
 doubt, the ocean fills the mind with vaft ideas; but
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. "Jl 
 
 Paris being fo far inland, it was not likely I fhould 
 run poll a hundred miles out of it, to try the ex- 
 periment the Parifian barber meant nothing. 
 
 The pail of water (landing befide the great deep, 
 makes certainly but a forry figure in fpeech but 
 
 'twill be faid it has one advantage 'tis in the 
 next room, and the truth of the buckle may be 
 tried in it without more ado, in a fingle moment. 
 
 In honeft truth, and upon a more candid revifion 
 of the matter. The French exprejfion profejfes more 
 than it performs. 
 
 1 think I can fee the precife and diftinguifhing 
 marks of national charaiflers more in thefe nonfenfi- 
 cal minutite, than in the mod important matters of 
 flate ; where great men of all nations talk and ftalk 
 fo much alike, that I would not give ninepence to 
 chufe amongft them. 
 
 I was fo long in getting from under my barber's 
 hands, that it was too late to think of going with 
 my letter to Madame R * * * that night : but when 
 a man is once dreffed at all points for going out, 
 his refledtions turn to little account; fo taking 
 down the name of the Hotel de Modene, where I 
 lodged, I walked forth without any determination 
 where to go I fhall confider of that, faid I, as I 
 walk along. 
 
 F 4
 
 72 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE PULSE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Hail ye fmall fweet courtefies of life, for fmooth 
 do ye make the road of it ! like grace and beauty 
 which beget inclinations to love at firft light ! 'tis 
 ye who open this door and let the ftranger in. 
 
 Pray, Madame, faid I, have the goodnefs to 
 tell me which way I muft turn to go to the Opera 
 comique: Moft willingly, Monfieur, faid flie, 
 laying afide her work 
 
 I had given a call with my eye into half a dozen 
 fliops as 1 came along in fearch of a face not likely 
 to be difordered by fuch an interruption ; till, at 
 laft, this hitting my fancy, I had walked in. 
 
 She was working a pair of ruffles as Ihe fat in a 
 low chair on the far fide of the fhop facing the 
 door . 
 
 Tres volontiers s moft willingly, faid flie, lay- 
 ing her work down upon a chair next her, and 
 rifing up fiom the low chair Ihe was fitting in, with 
 fo cheerful a movement and fo cheerful a look, that 
 had I been laying out fifty louis d'ors with her, I 
 Ihould have faid " This woman is grateful."
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 73 
 
 You mud turn, Monfieur, faid fhe, going with 
 me to the door of tiie fliop, and pointing the way 
 down the ftreet I was to take you muft turn firft 
 to your left hand mais prenez garde there are two 
 turns; and befo good as to take the fecond then 
 go down a httle way and you'll fee a church, and 
 when you are paft it, give yourfelf the trouble to 
 turn diredly to the right, and that will lead you to 
 the foot of the pont neuf, which you muft crofs 
 and there any one will do himfelf the pleafure to 
 fhew you 
 
 She repeated her inftrudions three times over to 
 me, with the fame good-natur'd patience the third 
 time as the firft ; and if tones and manners have a 
 meaning, which certainly they have, unlefs to hearts 
 which fhut them out Ihe feem'd really interefted, 
 that I fliould not lofe myfelf. 
 
 I will not fuppofe it was the woman's beauty, 
 notwithftanding fhe was the handfomeft Griflet, I 
 think, 1 ever faw, which had much to do with the 
 fenfe I had of her courtefy ; only I remember, 
 when I told her how much 1 was obliged to her, 
 that I looked very full in her eyes, and that I re- 
 peated my thanks as often as (he had done her in- 
 ftruftions. 
 
 I had not got ten paces from the door, before I 
 found I had forgot every tittle of what ftie had faid 
 fo looking back, and feeing her ftill ftanding in
 
 74 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the door of the fhop, as if to look whether 1 went 
 right or not 1 returned back, to afk her whether 
 the firft turn was to my right or left for that I had 
 abfolutely forgot. Is it poflible! faid fhe, half 
 laughing. 'Tis very poflible, replied I, when a 
 man is thinking more of a woman, than of her 
 good advice. 
 
 As this was the real truth fhe took it, as every 
 woman takes a matter of right, with a flight 
 curtfy. 
 
 Aiiendfz! faid flie, laying her hand upon my 
 arm to detain me, whilft flie called a lad out of the 
 back-lhop to get ready a parcel of gloves. I am 
 juft going to fend him, faid fhe, with a packet into 
 that quarter, and if you will have the complaifance 
 to ftep in, it will be ready in a moment, and he 
 fhall attend you to the place. So I walk'd in with 
 her to the far fide of the fhop, and taking up the 
 ruffle in my hand which fhe laid upon the chair, 
 as if I had a mind to fit, fhe fat down herfelf in her 
 low chair, and I inflantly fat myfelf down befidc 
 her. 
 
 He will be ready, Monfieur, faid fhe, in a 
 moment And in that moment, replied I, mofl 
 willingly would I fay fomething very civil to you 
 for all thefe courtefies. Any one may do a cafual 
 aft of good-nature, but a continuation of them 
 fhews it is a part of the temperature ; and certainly,
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 75 
 
 added I, if it is the fame blood which comes from 
 the heart, which defcends to the extremes (touch- 
 ing her wrift) I am fure you muft have one of the 
 bed pulfes of any woman in the world Feel it, 
 faid (he, holding out her arm. So laying down 
 my hat, I took hold of her fingers in one hand, 
 and applied the two fore-fingers of my other to the 
 artery 
 
 Would to heaven ! my dear Eugenius, thou 
 hadft palTed by, and beheld me fitting in my black 
 coat, and in my lack-a-dayfical manner, counting 
 the throbs of it, one by one, with as much true de- 
 votion as if I had been watching the critical ebb or 
 flow of her fever How wouldfl thou have laugh'd 
 and moralized upon my new profeffion ? and 
 thou fhouldll have laugh'd and moralized on Trufl 
 me, my dear Eugenius, I Ihould have faid, " there 
 ** are worfe occupations in this world than feeling a 
 " iioman^s pulfe." But a GrifTet's ! thou wouldfl: 
 have faid and in an open (hop ! Yorick 
 
 So much the better : for when my views are 
 dired, Eugenius, I care not if all the world faw 
 me feel it.
 
 ^6 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEV 
 
 THE HUSBAND, 
 
 PARIS, 
 
 1 HAD counted twenty pulfations, and was going 
 on fad towards the fortieth, when her hufband 
 coming unexpeded from a back-parlour into the 
 fhop, put me a Httle out in my reckoning. 'Twas 
 nobody but her hufband, fhe faid fo I began a 
 frelh fcore Monfieur is fo good, quoth Ihe, as he 
 pafs'd by us, as to give himfelf the trouble of feel- 
 ing my pulfe The hufband took off his hat, and 
 making me a bow, faid I did him too much honour 
 and having faid that, he put on his hat and 
 walk'd out. 
 
 Good God ! faid I to myfelf, as he went out 
 and can this man be the hulband of this woman ! 
 
 Let it not torment the few who know what mufl 
 have been the grounds of this exclamation, if I ex- 
 plain it to thofe who do not. 
 
 In London a fhopkeeper and a fliopkeeper's wife 
 feem to be one bone and one flefh : in the feveral 
 endowments of mind and body, fometimes the one, 
 fometimes the other has it, fo as in general to be 
 upon a par, and to tally with each other as nearly 
 as man and wife need to do.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 'Jf 
 
 In Paris, there are fcarce two orders of beings 
 more different: for the legiflative and executive 
 powers of the fhop not refting in the hufband, he 
 feldom comes there in fome dark and difmal room 
 behind, he fits commercelefs in his thrum night- 
 cap, the fame rough fon of Nature that Nature 
 left him. 
 
 The genius of a people where nothing but the 
 monarchy is/alique, having ceded this department, 
 with fundry others, totally to the women ^by a 
 continual higgling with cuftomers of all ranks and 
 fizes from morning to night, like fo many rough 
 pebbles (hook along together in a bag, by amica- 
 ble coUifions, they have worn down their afperities 
 and fharp angles, and not only become round and 
 fmooth, but will receive, fome of them, a polifh 
 like a brilliant Monfieur le Marl is little better 
 than the (lone under your foot 
 
 Surely furely, man ! it is not good for thee 
 to fit alone thou waft made for focial intercourfe 
 and gentle greetings, and this improvement of 
 our natures from it, I appeal to, as my evidence. 
 
 And how does it beat, Monfieur ? faid fhe. 
 With all the benignity, faid I, looking quietly in 
 her eyes, that I expedled She was going to fay 
 fomething civil in return but the lad came into 
 the (hop with the gloves A propos, faid I ; I want 
 a. couple of pair myfelf.
 
 jS A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE GLOVES. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 The beautiful Griflet rofe up when I faid this, 
 and going behind the counter, reach'd down a 
 parcel and untied it : I advanced to the fide over'- 
 againft her : they were all too large. The beautiful 
 GrifTet meafured them one by one acrofs my hand 
 It would not alter the dimenfions She begg'd I 
 would try a fingle pair, which fecm'd to be the 
 lead She held it open my hand flipp'd into it at 
 once It will not do, faid I, fhaking my head a 
 little No, faid ihe, doing the fame thing. 
 
 There are certain combined looks of fimple fub- 
 tlety where whim, and fenfe, and ferioufnefs, and 
 nonfenfe, are fo blended, that all the languages of 
 Babel fet loofe together could not exprefs them 
 they are communicated and caught fo inftantane^ 
 oufly, that you can fcarce fay which party is the in- 
 fecter. I leave it to your men of words to fwell 
 pages about it it is enough in the prefent to fay 
 again, the gloves would not do; fo folding our 
 hands within our arms, we both loll'd upon the 
 counter it was narrow, and there was juft room 
 for the parcel to lay between us.
 
 THROUGH FRANCfe AND ITALY. 79 
 
 The beautiful Griffet look'd fometimes at the 
 gloveSj then fide ways to the window, then at the 
 gloves and then at me. I was not difpofed to 
 break filence I foUow'd her example : fo I look'd 
 at the gloves, then to the window, then at the 
 gloves, and then at her and fo on alternately. 
 
 I found I loft confiderably in every attack fhe 
 had a quick black eye, and fhot through two fuch 
 long and lilken eye-laflies with fuch penetration, 
 that (he look'd into my very heart and reins- It 
 may feem ftrange, but I could adlually feel Ihe 
 did 
 
 It is no matter, faid I, taking up a couple of the 
 pairs next me, and putting them into my pocket. 
 
 I was fenfible the beautiful Griffet had not afk'd 
 above a fingle livre above the price I wifh'd flie 
 had afk'd a livre more, and was puzzling my 
 brains how to bring the matter about Do you 
 think, my dear Sir, faid fhe, miftaking my em- 
 barraffment, that I could afk a. fous too much of a 
 ftranger and of a ftranger whofe politenefs, more 
 than his want of gloves, has done me the honour to 
 lay himfelf at my mercy ?- M'en croyez capable s* 
 Faith ! not I, faid I; and if you were, you are wel- 
 come So counting the money into her hand, and 
 with a lower bow than one generally makes to a 
 fhopkeeper's wife, I went out, and her lad with his 
 parcel followed me.
 
 8o A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE TRANSLATION. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 There was nobody in the box I was let into but 
 a kindly old French officer. I love the charader, 
 not only becaufe I honour the man whofe manners 
 are foftened by a profeffion which makes bad men 
 worfe ; but that I once knew one for he is no 
 more and why fliould I not refcue one page from 
 violation by writing his name in it, and telling the 
 world it was Captain Tobias Shandy, the dearefl 
 of my flock and friends, whofe philanthropy 1 ne- 
 ver think of at this long diftance from his death 
 but my eyes gufli out with tears. For his fake, I 
 have a predileftion for the whole corps of veterans; 
 and fo I ftrode over the two back rows of benches, 
 and placed myfelf befide him. 
 
 The old officer was reading attentively a fmall 
 pamphlet, it might be the book of the opera, with 
 a large pair of fpedlacles. As foon as I fat down, 
 he took his fpeftacles off, and putting them into a 
 fliagreen cafe, leturn'd them and the book into his 
 pocket together. I half rofe up, and made him a bow. 
 
 Tranllate this into any civilized language in the 
 world the fenfe is this :
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 8l 
 
 '' Here's a poor ftranger come into the box he 
 " feems as if he knew nobody; and is never Hkely, 
 " was he to be feven years in Paris, if every man 
 " he comes near keeps his fpedtacles upon his nofe 
 " 'tis fliutting the door of converfation abfolutely 
 *' in his face and ufing him worfe than a Ger- 
 '' man." 
 
 The French officer might as well have faid it all 
 aloud : and if he had, I fhould in courfe have put 
 the bow I made him into French too, and told him, 
 " I was fenfible of his attention, and return'd him 
 *' a thoufand thanks for it." 
 
 There is not a fecret fo aiding to the progrefs of 
 fociality, as to get mafter of this J^orl hand, and be 
 quick in rendering the feveral turns of looks and 
 limbs, with all their infledions and delineations, 
 into plain words. For my own part, by long ha- 
 bitude, I do it fo mechanically, that when I walk 
 the ftreets of London, 1 go tranflating all the way ; 
 and have more than once ftood behind in the circle, 
 where not three words have been faid, and have 
 brought off twenty different dialogues with me, 
 which I could have fairly wrote down and fworn 
 to. 
 
 I was going one evening to Martini's concert at 
 Milan, and was juft entering the door of the hall, 
 when the Marquifina di F * * * was coming out in 
 a fort of a hurry (he was almoft upon me before I
 
 82 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 faw her; fo I gave a fpring to one fide to let her 
 pafs She had done the fame, and on the fame 
 (ide too; fo we ran our heads together: (he in- 
 ftantly got to the other fide to get out : I was juft 
 as unfortunate as fhe had been ; for I had fprung to 
 that fide, and oppofed her paflage again We both 
 flew together to the other fide, and then back and 
 foon it was ridiculous; we both blufh'd intolerably; 
 fo I did at laft the thing 1 ftiould have done at firft 
 ^I flood flock flill, and the Marquifina had no 
 more difficulty. I had no power to go into the 
 room, till I had made her fo much reparation as 
 to wait and follow her with my eye to the end of 
 the pafTage She look'd back twice, and walk'd 
 along it rather fide-ways, as if flie would make 
 room for any one coming up flairs to pafs her No, 
 faid I that's a vile tranflation : the Marquifina has 
 a right to the befl apology I can make her; and 
 that opening is left for me to do it in fo I ran and 
 begg'd pardon for the cmbarrafTment I had given 
 her, faying it was my intention to have made her 
 way. She anfwered, fhe was guided by the fame 
 intention towards me fo we reciprocally thank'd 
 each other. She was at the top of the flairs ; and 
 feeing no chichejbee near her, 1 begg'd to hand her 
 to her coach fo we went down the flairs, ftopping 
 at every third flep to talk of the concert and the 
 adventure Upon my word, Madame, faid I,
 
 THROUGH FAANCS AKD ITALY. 83 
 
 when I had handed her in, I made fix different ef- 
 forts to let you go out And I made fix efforts, 
 replied (he, to let you enter I \vi(h to heaven you 
 would make a feventh, faid I With all my heart, 
 faid Ihe, making room Life is too (liort to be 
 long about the forms of it fo I inftantly ftepp'd 
 in, and fhe carried me home with her And what 
 became of the concert, St. Cecilia, who, I fuppofe, 
 was at it, knows more than I. 
 
 I will only add, that the connexion which arofe 
 out of the tranflation, gave me more pleafure than 
 any one I had the honour to make in Italy. 
 
 THE DWARF. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 I HAD never heard the remark made by any one 
 in my life, except by one ; and who that was, will 
 probably come out in this chapter ; fo that being 
 pretty much unprepoffeffed, there mud have been 
 grounds for what ftruck me the moment I caft my 
 eyes over the parterre and that was, the unac- 
 countable fport of nature in forming fuch numbers 
 of dwarfs No doubt, fhe fports at certain times 
 in almoft every corner of the world ; but in Paris, 
 
 G 2
 
 84 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 there is no end to her amufements The goddefs 
 feems almoft as merry as (he is wife. 
 
 As I carried my idea out of the opera comique with 
 me, I meafured every body I faw walking in the 
 flreets by it Melancholy application ! efpecially 
 where the fize was extremely little the face ex- 
 tremely dark the eyes quick the nofe long the 
 teeth white the jaw prominent to fee fo many 
 miferables, by force of accidents driven out of their 
 own proper clafs into the very verge of another, 
 which it gives me pain to write down every third 
 man a pigmy ! fome by ricketty heads and hump 
 backs others by bandy legs a third fet arrefted 
 by the hand of Nature in the fixth and feventh 
 years of their growth a fourth, in their perfect 
 and natural ftate, like dwarf apple-trees; from the 
 firft rudiments and ftamina of their exiftence, never 
 meant to grow higher. 
 
 A medical traveller might fay, 'tis owing to un- 
 due bandages a fplenetic one, to want of air 
 and an inquifitive traveller, to fortify the fyftem, 
 may meafure the height of their houfes the nar- 
 rownefs of their flreets, and in how few feet fquare 
 in the fixth and feventh fbories fuch numbers of the 
 Bourgoifie eat and fleep together ; but I remember, 
 Mr. Shandy the elder, who accounted for nothing 
 like any body elfe, in fpeaking one evening of 
 thefe matters, averred, that children, like other
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 85 
 
 animals, might be increafed almoft to any fize, 
 provided they came right into the world ; but the 
 mifery was, the citizens of Paris were fo coop'd up, 
 that they had not adually room enough to get 
 them I do not call it getting any thing, faid he 
 *tis getting nothing Nay, continued he, rifing in 
 his argument, *tis getting worfe than nothing, 
 when all you have got, after twenty or five and 
 twenty years of the tendered care and moft nutriti- 
 ous aliment beftowed upon it, fhall not at laft be as 
 high as my leg. Now, Mr. Shandy being very 
 (hort, there could be nothing more faid upon it. 
 
 As this is not a work of reafoning, I leave the 
 folution as I found it, and content myfelf with the 
 truth only of the remark, which is verified in every 
 lane and by-lane of Paris. I was walking down 
 that which leads from the Caroufal to the Palais 
 Royal, and obferving a little boy in fome diflirefs 
 at the fide of the gutter, which ran down the mid- 
 dle of it, I took hold of his hand, and helped him 
 over. Upon turning up his fice to look at him 
 after, I perceived he was about forty Never mind, 
 faid I ; fome good body will do as much for me 
 "when I am ninety. 
 
 I feel fome little principles within me, which in- 
 cline me to be merciful towards this poor blighted 
 part of my fpecies, who have neither iize or flrength 
 to get on in the world 1 cannot bear to fee one of 
 
 G 3
 
 86 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 them trod upon; and had fcarcc got feated befide 
 my old French officer, ere the difguft was exercifed, 
 by feeing the very thing happen under the box we 
 fat in. 
 
 At the end of the orcheflra, and betwixt that 
 and the firfl fide-box, there is a fmall efplanade 
 left, where, when the houfe is full, numbers of all 
 ranks take fandluary. Though you ftand, as in 
 the parterre, you pay the fame price as in the or- 
 cheftra. A poor defencelefs being of this order had 
 gotthruft fomehow or other into thislucklefs place 
 the night was hot, and he was furrounded by be- 
 ings two feet and a half higher than himfelf. The 
 dwarf fufFered inexpreffibly on all fides ; but the 
 thing which incommoded him moft, was a tall cor- 
 pulent German, near feven feet high, who flood 
 diredlly betwixt him and all poffibility of his feeing 
 either the ftage or the a6tors. The poor dwarf did 
 all he could to get a peep at what was going for- 
 wards, by feeking for fome little opening betwixt 
 the German's arm and his body, trying firft one 
 fide, then the other; but the German flood fquare 
 in the mofl unaccommodating poflure that can be 
 imagined the dwarf might as well have been 
 placed at the bottom of the deepeft draw-well in 
 Paris ; fo he civilly reach*d up his hand to the Ger- 
 man's lleeve, and told him his diflrefs The Ger- 
 man turn'd his head back, look'd down upon him
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 87 
 
 as Goliah did upon David and unfeelingly refum- 
 cd his pofture. 
 
 I was juft then taking a pinch of fnufFout of my 
 monk's little horn box And how would thy meek 
 and courteous fpirit, my dear monk ! fo temper'd 
 to bear and forbear! how fweetly would it have lent 
 an ear to this poor foul's complaint ! 
 
 The old French officer, feeing me lift up my eyes 
 with an emotion, as I made the apoftrophe, took 
 the liberty to afk me what was the matter I told 
 him the flory in three words ; and added, how in- 
 human it was. 
 
 By this time the dwarf was driven to extr-emes, 
 and in his firft tranfports, which^are generally un- 
 reafonable, had told the German- he would cut off 
 his long queue with his knife. The German look'd 
 back coolly, and told him he was welcome, if he 
 could reach it. 
 
 An injury fliarpened by an infult, be it to whom 
 it will, makes every man of fentiment a party: I 
 could have leaped out of the box to have redrefled 
 it. The old French officer did it with much lefs 
 confufion ; for leaning a little over, and nodding 
 to a centinel, and pointing at the fame time with 
 his finger at the diftrefs the centinel made his way 
 to it.- There was no occaficn to tell the grievance 
 the thing told itfelf ; fo thrufling back the Ger- 
 man inftantly with his mufket he took the poor 
 
 G4
 
 88 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 dvvaif by the hand, and placed him before him 
 This is noble! faid I, clapping my hands together 
 And yet you would not permit this, faid the old 
 officer, in England. 
 
 In England, dear Sir, faid I, we ftt all at our 
 eafe. 
 
 The old French officer would have fet me at 
 unity with myfelf, in cafe 1 had been at variance, 
 by faying it was a bon mot and as \ bon mot is al- 
 ways worth fomething at Paris, he offered me a 
 pinch of fnuff. 
 
 T H E R O S E. 
 
 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 It was now my turn to afk the old French offi- 
 cer, " What was the matter ?" for a cry of " Hauf- 
 '^ fe-z les mains, Monf* rAbbe,'' re-echoed from a 
 dozen different parts of the parterre, was as unin- 
 telligible to me, as my apoflrophe to the monk had 
 been to him. 
 
 He told me, it was fome poor Abbe in one of 
 the upper loges, who he fuppofed had got planted 
 perdu behind a couple of GrilTets, in order to fee 
 the opera, and that the parterre efpying him, were 
 infifting upon his holding up both his hands during
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 89 
 
 the reprefentation. And can it be fuppofed, faid I, 
 that an ecclefiaftic would pick the Griflets' pockets ? 
 The old French officer fmiled, and whifpering in 
 my ear, open'd a door of knowledge which 1 had 
 no idea of 
 
 Good God ! faid I, turning pale with aftonifh- 
 ment is it pofTible, that a people fo fmit with fen- 
 timent Ihould at the fame time be fo unclean, and 
 (o unlike themfelves ^lelle grojjierte ! added I. 
 
 The French officer told me it was an illiberal 
 farcafm at the church, which had begun in the 
 theatre about the time the TartufFe was given in it, 
 by Moliere but, like other remains of Gothic 
 manners, was declining Every nation, continued 
 he, have their refinements and groffiertes, in which 
 they take the lead, and lofe it of one another by 
 turns that he had been in mofl countries, but ne- 
 ver in one where he found not fome delicacies, 
 which others feemed to want. Le pour et le con- 
 TREyd' irouvent en chaque nation ^ there is a balance, 
 faid he, of good and bad every where ; and no- 
 thing but the knowing it is fo, can emancipate 
 one-half of the world from the prepoffeffions which 
 it holds againft the other that the advantage of 
 travel, as it regarded xh^fcavoir vivre, was by fee- 
 ing a great deal both of men and manners : it 
 taught us mutual toleration ; and mutual toleration.
 
 QO A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 concluded he, making me a bow, taught us mu- 
 tual love. 
 
 The old French officer delivered this with an air 
 of fuch candour and good fenfe, as coincided with 
 my fii*ft favourable impreflions of his character I 
 thought I loved the man ; but I fear I miftook the 
 objedl *twas my own way of thinking the differ- 
 ence was, I could not have exprefled it half fo well. 
 
 It is alike troublefome to both the rider and his 
 bcaft if the latter goes pricking up his ears, and 
 ftarting all the way at every obje6t which he never 
 faw before I have as little torment of this kind as 
 any creature alive ; and yet I honeftly confefs, that 
 many a thing gave me pain, and that I blufli'd at 
 many a word the firft month which I found incon- 
 fequent and perfe6lly innocent the fecond. 
 
 Madame de Rambouliet, after an acquaintance 
 of about fix weeks with her, had done me the ho- 
 nour to take me in her coach about two leagues out 
 of town Of all women, Madame de Rambouliet is 
 the mod correct ; and I never wifh to fee one of more 
 virtues and purity of heart In our return back, 
 Madame de Rambouliet defired me to pull the 
 cord I afked her if fhe wanted any thing Rien 
 que pijjer, faid Madame de Rambouliet. 
 
 Grieve not, gentle traveller, to let Madame de 
 Rambouliet p-fs on And, ye fair myftic nymphs ! 
 go each one pinck your ro/e, and fcatter them in
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 9I 
 
 your path for Madame de Rambouliet did no 
 more I handed Madame de Rambouhet out of 
 the coach ; and had I been the pricft of the chafte 
 Castaha, I could not have ferved at her foun- 
 tain with a more refpedful decorum. 
 
 THE FILLE DE CHAMBRE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 What the old French officer had delivered up- 
 on travelling, bringing Polonius's advice to his fon 
 upon the fame fubjed: into my head and that 
 bringing in Hamlet; and Hamlet, the reft of 
 Shakefpeare's works, I ftopp'd at the Quai de Conti 
 in my return home, to purchafe the whole fet. 
 
 The bookfeller faid he had not a fet in the world 
 Comment! faid I; taking one up out of a fet 
 
 which lay upon the counter betwixt us. He 
 
 faid, they were fent him only to be got bound, 
 and were to be fent back to Verfailles in the morn- 
 ing to the Count de B * * * *. 
 
 And does the Count de B * * * *, faid I, read 
 Shakefpeare ? Ceji un Efprit fort, replied the 
 bookfeller. He loves Englifh books ; and what is 
 more to his honour, Monfieur, he loves the Eng- 
 hfh too. You fpeak this fo civilly, faid I, that it
 
 92 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 is enough to oblige aa Englifhman to lay out a 
 Louis d'or or two at your Ihop The bookfeller 
 made a bow, and was going to fay fomething, when 
 a young decent girl about twenty, who by her air 
 and drefs feemed to be jille de chambre to fome de- 
 vout woman of fafhion, came into the fhop and 
 afked for Les Egarements du Ccrur & de VEfprit : the 
 bookfeller gave her the book direftly ; fhe pulled 
 out a little green fattin purfe run round with rib- 
 band of the fame colour, and putting her finger 
 and thumb into it, fhe took out the money, and paid 
 for it. As I had nothing more to (lay me in the 
 fhop, we both walked out at the door together. 
 
 And what have you to do, my dear, faid I, 
 
 with The JVanderings of the Heart , who fcarce know 
 yet you have one ? nor, till Love has firft told you 
 it, or fome faithlefs fhepherd has made it ache, 
 canft thou ever be fure it is fo. Le Dieu m'en garde! 
 faid the girl. With reafon, faid I for if it is a good 
 one, 'tis pity it fhould be ftolen ; 'tis a little trea- 
 fure to thee, and gives a better air to your face, 
 than if it was drefs 'd out with pearls. 
 
 The young girl liftened with a fubmiflive atten- 
 tion, holding her fattin purfe by its ribband in her 
 hand all the time 'Tis a very fmall one, faid I, 
 taking hold of the bottom of it flie held it to- 
 wards me and there is very little in it, my dear, 
 faid I ; but be but as good as thou art handfome.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 93 
 
 and heaven will fill it : I had a parcel of crowns in 
 my hand to pay for Shakefpeare ; and as (he had let 
 go the purfe entirely, I put a fingle one in ; and 
 tying up the ribband in a bow-knot, returned it to 
 her. 
 
 The young girl made me more a humble courtefy 
 than a low one 'twas one of thofe quiet, thankful 
 finkings where the fpirit bows itfelf down the 
 body does no more than tell it. I never gave a girl 
 a crown in my life which gave me half the plea- 
 fure. 
 
 My advice, my dear, would not have been worth 
 a pin to you, faid I, if I had not given this along 
 with it : but now, when you fee the crown, you'll 
 remember it fo don't, my dear, lay it out in rib- 
 bands. 
 
 Upon my word. Sir, faid the girl, earnellly, I 
 am incapable in faying which, as is ufual in little 
 bargains of honour, Ihe gave me her hand Enve- 
 rite, Monfteur, je mettrai cet argent apart, faid fhe. 
 
 When a virtuous convention is made betwixt 
 man and woman, it fanftifies their mofl private 
 walks: fo notwithftanding it was dufky, yet, as 
 both our roads lay the fame way, we made no fcru- 
 plc of walking along the Quai de Conti together. 
 
 She made me a fecond courtefy in fetting off, 
 and before we got twenty yards from the door, as
 
 94 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 if flie had not done enough before, flie made a fort 
 of a little flop to tell me again (he thank'd me. 
 
 It was a fmall tribute, 1 told her, which I could 
 not avoid paying to virtue, and would not be mif- 
 taken in the perfon I had been rendering it to for 
 the world but 1 fee innocence, my dear, in your 
 face and foul befal the man who ever lays a fnare 
 in its way ! 
 
 The girl feem'd affeded fome way or other with 
 what I faid fhe gave a low figh I found I was not 
 im powered to inquire at all after it fo faid nothing 
 more till I got to the corner of the Rue de Nevers, 
 where we were to part. 
 
 But is this the way, my dear, faid I, to the 
 Hotel de Modene ? She told me it was or, that 
 I might go by the Rue de Gueneguault, which was 
 the next turn. Then I'll go, my dear, by the Rue 
 de Gueneguault, faid I, for two reafons; firft I 
 (hall pleafe myfelf, and next I fliall give you the 
 proteftion of my company as far on your way as I 
 can. The girl was fenfible I was civil and faid, 
 (he wifh'd the Hotel de Modene was in the Rue 
 de St. Pierre You live there ? faid I. She told 
 me Ihe was fille de chambre to Madame R * * * * 
 Good God ! faid I, 'tis the very lady for whom I 
 have brought a letter from Amiens The girl told 
 me that Madame R * * * *, fhe believed, expedled 
 a ftranger with a letter, and was impatient to fee
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 95 
 
 him-' fo I defired the girl to prefent my compli- 
 ments to Madame R * * , and fay I would cer- 
 tainly wait upon her in the morning. 
 
 We flood flill at the corner of the Rue de Ne- 
 vers whilft this pafs'd We then flopped a moment 
 whilfl fhe difpofed of her Egaremenis dti Coeur, &c. 
 more commodioufly than carrying them in her 
 hand they were two volumes; fo I held the fecond 
 for her whilfl fhe put the firfl into her pocket ; and 
 then fhe held her pocket, and I put in the other 
 after it. 
 
 'Tis fweet to feel by what fine-fpun threads our 
 afFedlions are drawn together. 
 
 We fet ofFafrefh, and as fhe took her third flep, 
 the girl put her hand within my arm I was jufl 
 bidding her but fhe did it of herfelf with that 
 undeliberating fimplicity, which fhewed it was 
 out of her head that llie had never {ctn me before. 
 For my own part, I felt the convi<5lion of confan- 
 guinity fo ftrongly, that I could not help turning 
 half round to look in her face, and fee if I could 
 trace out any thing in it of a family likenefs Tut ! 
 faid I, are we not all relations ? 
 
 When we arrived at the turning up of the Rue 
 de Gueneguault, I flopp'd to bid her adieu for 
 good and all : the girl would thank me again for 
 my company and kindnefs She bid me adieu 
 twice I repeated it as often ; and fo cordial Was
 
 96 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the parting between us, that had it happened any 
 where elfe, I'm not fure but I fliould have figned it 
 with a kifs of charity, as warm and holy as an 
 apoftle. 
 
 But in Paris, as none kifs each other but the men 
 I did, what amounted to the fame thing 
 
 1 bid God blefs her. 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When I got home to my hotel. La Fleur told 
 me I had been inquired after by the Lieutenant de 
 
 Police The deuce take it ! faid I 1 know the 
 
 reafon. It is time the reader Ihould know it, for 
 in the order of things in which it happened, it was 
 omitted ; not that it was out of my head ; but that, 
 had I told it then, it might have been forgot now 
 and now is the time I want it. 
 
 I had left London with fo much precipitation, 
 that it never entered my mind that we were at war 
 with France ; and had reached Dover, and looked 
 through my glafs at the hills beyond Boulogne, be- 
 fore, the idea prefented itfelf; and with this in its 
 train, that there was no getting there without a 
 paflport. Go but to the end of a ftreet, I have a
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 97 
 
 mortal averfion for returning back no wifer than I 
 fet out ; and as this was one of the greateft efforts 
 I had ever made for knowledge, I could lefs bear 
 the thoughts of it : fo hearing the Count de * * * * 
 had hired the packet, I begg'd he would take me 
 in his/uiie. The Count had fome little knowledge 
 of me, fo made little or no difficulty only faid, 
 his inclination to ferve me could reach no farther 
 than Calais, as he was to return by way of BrufTels 
 to Paris ; however, when I had once pa:fs'd there, 
 I might get to Paris without interruption ; but that 
 in Paris I muft make friends and fhift for myfelf, 
 Let me gee to Paris, Monfieur le Count, faid 
 I and I fhall do very well. So I embark'd, and 
 never thought more of the matter. 
 
 When La Fleur told me the Lieutenant de Po- 
 lice had been inquiring after me the thing in- 
 ftantly recurred and by the time La Fleur had 
 well told me, the mafter of the hotel came into 
 my room to tell me the fame thing, with this addi- 
 tion to it, that my pafTport had been particularly 
 alked after : the mafter of the hotel concluded 
 with faying, He hoped I had one. Not I, faith ! 
 faid L 
 
 The mafter of the hotel retired three fteps from 
 me, as from an infeded perfon, as I declared this 
 and poor La Fleur advanced three fteps towards 
 me, and with that fort of movement which a good 
 
 H
 
 98 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 foul makes to fuccour a diftrefs'd one ^the fellow 
 won my heart by it ; and from that lingle trait, I 
 knew his charader as perfedly, and could rely 
 upon it as firmly, as if he had ferved me with fide- 
 lity for feven years. 
 
 Mon feigneur ! cried the mafter of the hotel 
 but recolleding himfelf as he made the exclama- 
 tion, he inflantly changed the tone of it If Mon- 
 fieur, faid he, has not a paflport (apparemment) in 
 all likelihood he has friends in Paris who can pro- 
 cure him one. Not that I know of, quoth I, with 
 an air of indifference. ^Then, certes, rephed he, 
 you'll be fent to the Baftile or the Chatelet, au 
 mains. Poo ! faid I, the king of France is a good- 
 natur'd foul he'll hurt nobody Cela rCempeche 
 pas, faid he ^you will certainly be fent to the Baf- 
 tile to-morrow morning. But I have taken your 
 lodgings for a month, anfwer'd I, and I'll not 
 quit them a day before the time for all the kings 
 of France in the world. La Fleur whifper'd in 
 my ear. That nobody could oppofe the king of 
 France. 
 
 Pardi! faid my hoft, ces Mejfteurs Anglois font des 
 gens ires extraordinaires ^and having both faid and 
 fworn it he went out.
 
 THROUGH FRANGR AND ITAX^Y. 99 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 THE HOTEL AT PARIS. 
 
 I COULD not find in my heart to torture La 
 Fleur's with a ferious look upon the fubjed of my 
 embarraffment, which was the reafon I had treated 
 it fo cavalierly : and to (hew him how light it lay 
 upon my mind, I dropt the fubje<5t entirely; and 
 whilft he waited upon me at fupper, talk'd to him 
 with more than ufual gaiety about Paris, and of 
 the opera comique. -La Fleur had been there 
 himfelf, and had followed me through the ftreets 
 as far as the bookfeller's (hop; but feeing me come 
 out with the young fille de chambre, and that we 
 walk'd down the Quai de Conti together. La Fleur 
 deem'd it unneceflary to follow me a ftep further 
 fo making his own reflections upon it, he took a 
 (horter cut and got to the hotel in time to be in- 
 form'd of the affair of the Police againft my ar- 
 rival. 
 
 As foon as the honeft creature had taken away, 
 and gone down to fup himfelf, I then began to 
 think a little ferioufly about my fituation. 
 
 And here, I know, Eugenius, thou wilt fmile 
 at the remembrance of a fhort dialogue which pafs'd 
 
 H 2
 
 too A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 betwixt us the moment I was going to fet ou t 
 I muft tell it here. 
 
 Eugenius, knowing that I was as little fubje(5t 
 to be overburthened with money as thought, 
 had drawn me afide to interrogate me how much I 
 had taken care for ; upon telling him the exadt 
 fum, Eugenius fliook his head, and faid it would 
 not do ; fo pull'd out his purfe in order to empty 
 it into mine. Fve enough in confcience, Euge- 
 nius, faid I. Indeed, Yorick, you have not, 
 
 replied Eugenius I know France and Italy better 
 than you. But you don't confider, Eugenius, faid I, 
 refuling his offer, that before I have been three days 
 in Paris, I (hall take care to fay or do fomething 
 or other for which I Ihall get clapp'd up into the 
 Baftile, and that I (hall live there a couple of 
 months entirely at the king of France's expence. 
 I beg pardon, faid Eugenius, drily : really, I had 
 forgot that refource. 
 
 Now the event I treated gaily came ferioufly to 
 my door. 
 
 Is it folly, or nonchalance, or philofophy, or 
 pertinacity or what is it in me, that, after all, 
 when La Fleur had gone down flairs, and I was 
 quite alone, that I could not bring down my mind 
 to think of it otherwife than I had then fpoken of 
 it to Eugenius ?
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. lOI 
 
 And as for the Baftile ! the terror is in the 
 word Make the mod of it you can, faid I to 
 myfelf, the Baftile is but another word for a tower 
 and a tower is but another word for a houfe you 
 can*t get out of Mercy on the gouty ! for they 
 are in it twice a year but with nine Hvres a day, 
 and pen and ink and paper and patience, albeit a 
 man can*t get out, he may do very well within 
 at leaft for a month or fix weeks ; at the end of 
 which, if he is a harmlefs fellow, his innocence 
 appears, and he comes out a better and wifer man 
 than he went in. 
 
 I had fome occafion (I forgot what) to ftep into 
 the court-yard, as I fettled this account ; and re- 
 member I walked down ftairs in no fmall triumph 
 with the conceit of my reafoning Beflirew the 
 Jombre pencil ! faid I vauntingly for I envy not 
 its powers, which paints the evils of life with fo 
 hard and deadly a colouring. The mind fits ter- 
 rified at the objedts ftie has magnified herfelf, and 
 blackened : reduce them to their proper fize and 
 hue, fhe overlooks them 'Tis true, faid I, cor- 
 refting the propofition the Baftile is not an evil 
 to be defpifed but ftrip it of its towers fill up 
 the foffe unbarricade the doors call it fimply a 
 confinement, and fuppofe 'tis fome tyrant of a dif- 
 temper and not of a man which holds you in it 
 H 3
 
 I02 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the evil vanifhcs, and you bear the other half with- 
 out complaint. 
 
 I was interrupted in the hey-day of this foHIo- 
 quy, with a voice which I took to be of a child, 
 which complained " it could not get out.** 4 
 look'd up and down the paflage, and feeing neither 
 man, woman, or child, I went out without further 
 attention. 
 
 In my return back through the paflage, I heard 
 the fame words repeated twice over ; and looking 
 up, I faw it was a ftarling hung in a little cage 
 " I can't get out ^I can't get out," faid the ftar- 
 ling. 
 
 I ftood looking at the bird : and to every pcrfon 
 who came through the paflage it ran fluttering to 
 the fide towards which they approached it, with 
 the fame lamentation of its captivity '* I can't 
 ** get out," faid the ftarling God help thee ! faid 
 I, but I'll let thee out, coft what it will; fo I 
 turned about the cage to get to the door ; it was 
 twifted and double twifted fo faft with wire, there 
 was no getting it open without pulling the cage to 
 pieces I took both hands to it. 
 
 The bird flew to the place where I was attempt- 
 ing his deliverance, and thrufting his head through 
 the trellis, preflTed his breaft againft it, as if im- 
 patient I fear, poor creature ! faid I, I cannot 
 fet thee at liberty " No," faid the ftarling " I
 
 l.Timr 2J.jy()f,. li^ 7,Goc^a.JJ^^vJiin.a^^/r^t,^.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 103 
 
 " can't get out I can't get out," faid the dar- 
 ling. 
 
 I vow I never had my afFedlions more tenderly 
 awakened ; or do I remember an incident in my 
 life, where the diffipated fpirits, to which my rea- 
 fon had been a bubble, were fo fuddenly called 
 home. Mechanical as the notes were, yet fo true 
 in tune to nature were they chaunted, that in one 
 moment they overthrew all my fyflematic reafon- 
 ings upon the Baflile ; and I heavily walk'd up 
 ftairs, unfaying every word I had faid in going 
 down them. 
 
 Difguife thyfelf as thou wilt, flill. Slavery ! faid 
 I ftill thou art a bitter draught ! and though 
 thoufands in all ages have been made to drink of 
 thee, thou art no lefs bitter on that account. 'Tis 
 thou, thrice fweet and gracious goddefs, addrefling 
 myfelf to Liberty, whom all in public or in private 
 woiihip, whofe tafte is grateful, and ever will be 
 fo, till Nature herfelf fhall change no tint of 
 words can fpot thy fnovvy mantle, or chemic power 
 turn thy fceptre into iron with thee to fmile upon 
 him as he eats his cruft, the fwain is happier than 
 his monarch, from whofe court thou art exiled 
 Gracious heaven ! cried I, kneeling down upon 
 the laft ftep but one in my afcent, grant me but 
 health, thou great Beftower of it, and give me 
 but this fair goddefs as my companion and 
 
 H
 
 I04 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 fhower down thy mitres, if it feems good unto thy 
 divine providence, upon thofe heads which arc 
 aching for them. 
 
 THE CAPTIVE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 The bird in his cage purfued me into my room ; 
 I fat down clofe to my table, and leaning my head 
 upon my hand, I began to figure to myfelf the 
 miferies of confinement. I was in a right frame 
 for it, and fo 1 gave full fcope to my imagination. 
 
 I was going to begin with the millions of my 
 fellow-creatures, born to no inheritance but llave- 
 ry : but finding, however affedling the pidlure 
 was, that I could not bring it near me, and that 
 the multitude of fad groups in it did but diftrad 
 me 
 
 I took a fingle captive, and having firft fhut 
 him up in his dungeon, I then look'd through the 
 twilight of his grated door to take his pidlure. 
 
 I beheld his body half wafted away with long 
 expedlation and confinement, and felt what kind 
 of ficknefs of the heart it was which arifes from hope 
 deferr'd. Upon looking nearer I faw him pale 
 and feverilh : in thirty years the weftern breeze
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. X05 
 
 had not once fann*d his blood ^he had feen no fun, 
 no moon, in all that time nor had the voice of 
 friend or kinfman breathed through his lattice : 
 his children 
 
 But here my heart began to bleed and I was 
 forced to go on with another part of the portrait. 
 
 He was fitting upon the ground upon a little 
 ftraw, in the furtheft corner of his dungeon, which 
 was alternately his chair and bed : a little calendar 
 of fmall flicks were laid at the head, notch 'd all 
 over with the difmal days and nights he had pafTed 
 there he had one of thefe little fticks in his hand, 
 and with a rufty nail he was etching another day 
 of mifery to add to the heap. As I darkened the 
 little light he had, he lifted up a hopelefs eye to- 
 wards the door, then caft it down fhook his head, 
 and went on with his work of afflidion. I heard 
 his chains upon his legs, as he turned his body to 
 lay his little flick upon the bundle. He gave a 
 deep figh I faw the iron enter into his foul I 
 burfl into tears I could not fuftain the pidure of 
 confinement which my fancy had drawn I flarted 
 up from my chair, and calling La Fleur, I bid him 
 befpeak me a remife, and have it ready at the door 
 of the hotel by nine in the morning. 
 
 I'll go diredly, faid I, myfelf to Monfieur le 
 Due de Choifeul.
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 La Fleur would have put me to bed ; but not 
 willing he (hould fee any thing upon my cheek which 
 would coft the honeft fellow a heart-ach I told him I 
 would go to bed by myfelf and bid him go do the 
 fame. 
 
 THE STARLING. 
 
 ROAD TO VERSAILLES. 
 
 I GOT into my remije the hour I promifed ; La 
 Fleur got up behind, and I bid the coachman 
 make the beft of his way to Verfailles. 
 
 As there was nothing in this road, or rather no 
 thing which I look for in travelling, I cannot fill 
 up the blank better than with a fhort hiftory of this 
 felf-fame bird, which became the fubjedt of the 
 lad chapter. 
 
 Whilft the Honourable Mr. * * was wait- 
 ing for a wind at Dover, it had been caught upon 
 the cliffs before it could well fly, by an Englifh 
 lad who was his groom ; who not caring to deflroy 
 it, had taken it in his bread into the packet ^and 
 by courfe of feeding it, and taking it once under 
 his protedion, in a day or two grew fond of it, 
 and got it fafe along with him to Paris.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I07 
 
 At Paris the lad had laid out a livre in a little 
 cage for the ftarling, and as he had little to do 
 better the five months his mafter {laid there, he 
 taught it in his mother's tongue the four fimple 
 words (and no more) to which I own'd myfelf 
 fo much its debtor. 
 
 Upon his matter's going on for Italy the lad 
 had given it to the mafter of the hotel But his 
 little fong for liberty being in an unknown language 
 at Paris, the bird had little or no ftore fet by him 
 fo La Fleur bought both him and his cage for 
 me for a bottle of Burgundy. 
 
 In my return from Italy I brought him with me 
 to the country in whofe language he had learn 'd 
 his notes and telling the ftory of him to Lord 
 A , Lord A begg'd the bird of me in a weel^ 
 Lord A gave him to Lord B ; Lord B made a 
 prefent of him to Lord C ; and Lord C's gen- 
 tleman fold him to Lord D's for a fhilling Lord 
 D gave him to Lord E , and fo on half round 
 the alphabet From that rank he pafs'd into the 
 lower houfe, and pafs'd the hands of as many . 
 
 commoners ^But as all thefe wanted loget in 
 
 and my bird wanted to get out he had almoft as 
 little ftore fet by him in London as in Paris. 
 
 It is impoflible but many of my readers muft 
 havq heard of him ; and if any by mere chance 
 have ever feen him, I beg leave to inform them.
 
 Io8 
 
 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 that that bird was my bird or fome vile copy fet 
 up to reprefent him. 
 
 I have nothing farther to add upon him, but 
 that from that time to this, I have borne this poor 
 ftarhng as the creft to my arms. ^Thus :
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I09 
 
 And let the heralds officers twift his neck 
 about if they dare. 
 
 THE ADDRESS. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I SHOULD not like to have my enemy take a view 
 of my mind when I am going to afk protedlion of 
 any man ; for which reafon I generally endeavour 
 to proted myfelf ; but this going to Monfieur le 
 Due de C * * * * was an ad of compulfion had 
 it been an a6t of choice, I fliould have done it, I 
 fuppofe, like other people. 
 
 How many mean plans of dirty addrefs, as I 
 went along, did my fervile heart form ! I deferved 
 the Baftile for every one of them. 
 
 Then nothing would ferve me, when I got with- 
 in fight of Verfailles, but putting words and fen- 
 tences together, and conceiving attitudes and tones 
 to wreath myfelf into Monfieur le Due de C * * * *'s 
 good graces This will do, faid I Juft as well, 
 retorted I again, as a coat carried up to him by 
 an adventurous taylor, without taking his meafure 
 Fool ! continued I fee Monfieur le Due's face 
 firft obferve what character is written in it take 
 notice in what pofture he flands to hear you mark
 
 IO A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 the turns and expreflions of his body and limbs 
 and for the tone the firft: found which comes 
 from his lips will give it you ; and from all thefe 
 together you'll compound an addrefs at once upon 
 the fpot, which cannot difguft the Duke ^the 
 ingredients are his own, and mod likely to go 
 down. 
 
 Well ! faid I, I wifh it well over Coward 
 again ! as if man to man was not equal throughout 
 the whole furface of the globe ; and if in the field 
 why not face to face in the cabinet too ? And 
 truft me, Yorick, whenever it is not fo, man is 
 falfe to himfelf, and betrays his own fuccours ten 
 times where nature does it once. Go to the Due 
 de C * * * * with the Baftile in thy looks My 
 life for it, thou wilt be fent back to Paris in half 
 an hour, with an efcort. 
 
 I believe fo, faid I Then I'll go to the Duke, 
 by heaven ! with all the gaiety and debonairnefs in 
 the world. 
 
 And there you are wrong again, replied I 
 A heart at eafe, Yorick, flies into no extremes 
 'tis ever on its center Well ! well ! cried I, as 
 the coachman turn'd in at the gates, I find I fliall 
 do very well : ^nd by the tiriie he had wheePd 
 round the court, and brought me up to the door, 
 I found myfelf fo much the better for my own lec- 
 ture, that I neither afcended the fteps like a victim
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. Ill 
 
 to juftice, who was to part with life upon the top- 
 maft nor did I mount them with a Ikip and a 
 couple of ftrides, as I do when I fly up, Eliza ! 
 to thee, to meet it. 
 
 As 1 entered the door of the faloon I was met by 
 a perfon who poffibly might be the maitre d'hotel, 
 but had more the air of one of the under-fecreta- 
 ries, who told me the Due de C * * * * was bufy. 
 ^I am utterly ignorant, faid I, of the forms of 
 obtaining an audience, being an abfolute ftranger, 
 and what is worfe in the prefent conjunfture of af- 
 fairs, being an Englilhman too. He replied, 
 
 that did not increafe the difficulty. I made him a 
 flight bow, and told him, 1 had fomething of im- 
 portance to fay to Monfieur le Due. The fecretary 
 look'd towards the ftairs, as if he was about to 
 leave me to carry up this account to fome one 
 But I muft not miflead you, faid I, for what I 
 have to fay is of no manner of importance to Mon- 
 fieur le Due de C * * * * but of great importance 
 to myfelf. Ceji une autre affaire, replied he Not 
 at all, faid I, to a man of gallantry. But pray, 
 good Sir, continued I, when can a ftranger hope 
 to have acceffe f In not lefs than two hours, faid 
 he, looking at his watch. The number of equi- 
 pages in the court-yard feem'd to juftify the calcu- 
 lation, that I could have no nearer a profped 
 and as walking backwards and forwards in the fa-
 
 112 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 loon, without a foul to commune with, was for 
 the time as bad as being in the Baftile itfelf, I 
 inftantly went back to my remife, and bid the 
 coachman drive me to the cordon bleUy which was the 
 neareft hotel. 
 
 I think there is a fatality in it I feldom go to 
 the place I fet out for. 
 
 LE PATISSER. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 Before I had got half-way down the flreet I 
 changed my mind : as I am at Verfailles, thought 
 I, I might as well take a view of the town ; fo I 
 puU'd the cord, and ordered the coachman to drive 
 round fome of the principal ftreets I fuppofe the 
 town is not very large, faid I The coachman 
 begg'd pardon for fetting me right, and told me 
 it was very fuperb, and that numbers of the firft 
 dukes and marquiffes and counts had hotels ^Thc 
 Count de B * * * *, of whom the bookfeller at the 
 Quai de Conti had fpoke fo handfomely the night 
 before, came inftantly into my mind. And why 
 (hould I not go, thought I, to the Count dc 
 g * * * ^ ^vho has fo high an idea of Englifh 
 books, and Englifhmen and tell him my ftory ?
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. II3 
 
 fo I changed my mind a fecond time In truth it 
 was the third ; for I had intended that day for 
 Madame de R * * * * in the Rue St. Pierre, and had 
 devoutly fent her word by her Jiile de chamhre that I 
 would aflfuredly wait upon her but I am governed 
 by circumftances I cannot govern them : fo feeing 
 a man (landing with a bafket on the other fide of 
 the ftreet, as if he had fomething to fell, I bid 
 La Fleur go up to him and enquire for the Count's 
 hotel. 
 
 La Fleur returned a little pale ; and told me it 
 was a Chevalier de St. Louis felling pates It is 
 impoffible. La Fleur, faid I. ^La Fleur could no 
 more account for the phenomenon than myfelf ; 
 but perfifted in his ftory ; he had feen the croix 
 fet in gold, with its red ribband, he faid, tied to 
 his button-hole and had looked into the bafket 
 and feen x}i\t -pates which the Chevalier was felling ; 
 fo could not be miftaken in that. 
 
 Such a reverfe in man's life awakens a better 
 principle than curiofity : I could not help looking 
 for fome time at him as I fat in the remife the 
 more I looked at him, his croix, and his bafket, 
 the ftronger they wove themfelves into my brain 
 I got out of the remife, and went towards him. 
 
 He was begirt with a clean linen apron which 
 fell below his knees, and with a fort of a bib that 
 went half-way up his bread ; upon the top of this.
 
 114 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEV 
 
 but a little below the hem, hung his croix. His 
 balket of little pates was cover'd over with a white 
 damaik napkin ; another of the fame kind was 
 fpread at the bottom ; and there was a look of pro- 
 prete and neatnefs throughout, that one might 
 have bought his pates of him, as much from ap- 
 petite as fentiment. 
 
 He made an offer of them to neither ; but flood 
 ftill with them at the corner of a hotel, for thofe to 
 buy who chofe it, without felicitation. 
 
 He was about forty-eight of a fedate look, 
 fomething approaching to gravity. I did not won- 
 der. I went up rather to the bafket than him, and 
 having lifted up the napkin, and taken one of his 
 pates into my hand 1 begg'd he would explain the 
 appearance which afFedted me. 
 
 He told me in a few words, that the befl part 
 of his life had pafs'd in the fervice, in which, after 
 fpending a fmall patrimony, he had obtain'd a 
 company and the croix with it ; but that, at the 
 conclufion of the lafl peace, his regiment being 
 reformed, and the whole corps, with thofe offome 
 other regiments, left without any provifion, he 
 found himfelf in a wide world without friends, 
 without a livre and indeed, faid he, without any 
 thing but this (pointing, as he faid it, to his 
 croix) The poor chevalier won my pity, and he 
 finifh'd the fcene with winning my efteem too.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. XI5 
 
 The king, he faid, was the moft generous of 
 princes, but his generofity could neither relieve 
 or reward every one, and it was only his misfor- 
 tune to be amongft the number. He had a little 
 wife, he faid, whom he loved, who did the patif- 
 ferie; and added, he felt no dilhonour in defend- 
 ing her and himfelf from want in this way unlefs 
 Providence had offered him a better. 
 
 It would be wicked to withhold a pleafure from 
 the good, in paffing over what happen'd to this 
 poor Chevaher of St. Louis about nine months 
 after. 
 
 It feems he ufually took his ftand near the iron 
 gates which lead up to the palace, and as his croix 
 had caught the eye of numbers, numbers had 
 made the fame inquiry which I had done He had 
 told them the fame ftory, and always with fo much 
 modefty and good fenfe, that it had reach'd at laft 
 the king's ears who hearing the Chevalier had 
 been a gallant officer, and refpeded by the whole 
 regiment as a man of honour and integrity he 
 broke up his little trade by a penfion of fifteen 
 hundred livres a year. 
 
 As I have told this to pleafe the reader, I beg 
 he will allow me to relate another, out of its order, 
 to pleafe myfelf the two ftories refledl light upon ^ 
 each other and 'tis a pity they fliould be parted. 
 
 I 2
 
 Il6 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE SWORD. 
 
 RENNES. 
 
 When flates and empires have their periods of 
 declenfion, and feel in their turns what diftrefs and 
 poverty is I flop not to tell the caufes which gra- 
 dually brought the houfe d' E * * * * in Britanny 
 into decay. The Marquis d' E * * * * had fought 
 up againft his condition with great firmnefs ; wifh- 
 ing to preferve, and ftill fhew to the world, fome 
 httle fragments of what his anceftors had been 
 their indifcretions had put it out of his power. 
 There was enough left for the little exigencies of 
 ohfcurily But he had two boys who look'd up to 
 him for light he thought they deferved it. He 
 had tried his fword it could not open the way 
 the mounting was too expenlive and limple c3eco- 
 nomy was not a match for it there was no refource 
 but commerce. 
 
 In any other province in France, fave Britanny, 
 this was fmiting the root for ever of the little tree 
 his pride and affedion wiQi'd to fee re-bloffom 
 But in Britanny, there being a provifion for this, 
 he avail'd himfelf of it ; and taking an occafion 
 when the flates were afTembled at Rennes, the
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. II7 
 
 Marquis, attended with his two boys, enter'd 
 the court ; and having pleaded the right of an 
 ancient law of the duchy, which, though feldom 
 claim'd, he faid, was no lefs in force, he took his 
 fword from his fide Here, faid he, take it ; and 
 be trufty guardians of it, till better times put me 
 in condition to reclaim it. 
 
 The prefident accepted the Marquis's fword he 
 ftaid a few minutes to fee it depofited in the ar- 
 chives of his houfe and departed. 
 
 The Marquis and his whole family embarked 
 the next day for Martinico, and in about nineteen 
 or twenty years of fuccefsful application to bufinefs, 
 with fome unlook'd-for bequefts from diftant 
 branches of his houfe, returned home to reclaim 
 his nobility and to fupport it. 
 
 It was an incident of good fortune which will ne- 
 ver happen to any traveller, but a fentimental one, 
 that I Ihould be at Rennes at the very time of this 
 folemn requifition : I call it folemn it was fo to 
 me. 
 
 The Marquis enter'd the court with his whole 
 family : he fupported his lady his eldeft fon fup- 
 ported his filler, and his youngeft was at the other 
 extreme of the line next his mother he put his 
 handkerchief to his face twice 
 
 ^There was a dead filence. When the Mar- 
 quis had approach'd within fix paces of the tribu- 
 
 I 3
 
 Il8 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 nal, he gave the Marchionefs to his youngeft fon, 
 and advancing three fteps before his family he 
 reclaim'd his fvvord. His fword was given him, 
 and the moment he got it into his hand he drew it 
 almoft out of the fcabbard 'twas the Ihining face 
 of a friend he had once given up he look'd at- 
 tentively along .it, beginning at the hilt, as if to 
 fee whether it was the fame when obferving a 
 little ruft which it had contradted near the point, 
 he brought it near his eye, and bending his head 
 down over it I think I faw a tear fall upon the 
 place : I could not be deceived by what followed. 
 
 " I fhall find, faid he, fome other way to get it 
 off." 
 
 When the Marquis had faid this, he return 'd 
 his fword into its fcabbard, made a bow to the 
 guardians of it and with his wife and daughter, 
 and his two fons following him, walk'd out. 
 
 O how I envied him his feeUngs ! 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I FOUND no difficulty in getting admittance to 
 Monfieur le Count de B * * * *. The fet of 
 Shakefpeares was laid upon the table, and he was
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. II9 
 
 tumbling them over. I walk'd up clofe to the 
 table, and giving firfl fuch a look at the books as 
 to make him conceive I knew what they were I 
 told him I had come without any one to prefent 
 me, knowing I (hould meet with a friend in his 
 apartment, who, I trufted, would do it for me ^ 
 it is my countryman the great Shakefpeare, faid I, 
 pointing to his works et ayez la hontt, mon cher 
 iimiy apoftrophizing his fpirit, added I, de mefaire 
 cet honneur-la- 
 
 The Count fmiled at the Angularity of the intro- 
 duftion; and feeing I look'd a little pale and 
 lickly, infilled upon my taking an arm-chair : fo 
 I fat down ; and to fave him conjectures upon a 
 vifit fo out of all rule, I told him (imply of the inci- 
 dent in the bookfeller's (hop, and how that had 
 impell'd me rather to go to him with the ftory of 
 a little embarraflment I was under, than to any 
 other man in France-^ And what is your embarrafl- 
 ment ? let me hear it, faid the Count. So I told 
 him the ftory juft as I have told it the reader 
 
 And the mafter of my hotel, faid I, as I con- 
 cluded it, will needs have it, Monfieur le Count, 
 that I fhall be fent to the Baftile but I have no 
 apprehenfions, continued I for in falling into the 
 hands of the moft polifh'd people in the world, and 
 being confcious I was a true man, and not come 
 to fpy the nakednefs of the land, I fcarce thought 
 
 14
 
 IJJO A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I laid at their mercy. It does not fuit the gallan- 
 try of the French, Monfieur le Count, faid I, to 
 fhew it againft invalids. 
 
 An animated blulh came into the Count dc 
 B * * * *'s cheeks as I fpoke this Ne craignez rien 
 Don't fear, faid he Indeed I don't, replied I 
 again Befides, continued I a little fportingly, I 
 have come laughing all the way from London to 
 Paris, and I do not think Monfieur le Due de 
 Choifeul is fuch an enemy to mirth, as to fend me 
 back crying for my pains. 
 
 My application to you, Monfieur le Count de 
 B * * * * (making him a low bow), is to defire he 
 will not. 
 
 The Count heard me with great good-nature, 
 or I had not faid half as much and once or twice 
 faid, Ceji bien dit. So I refted my caufe there 
 and determined to fay no more about it. 
 
 The Count led the difcourfe : we talk'd of in- 
 different things of books, and politics, and men 
 and then of women God blefs them all ! faid 
 I, after much difcourfe about them there is not a 
 man upon earth who loves them fo much as I do : 
 after all the foibles I have feen, and all the fatires 
 I have read againft them, ftill I love them ; being 
 firmly perfuaded that a man, who has not a fort 
 of an affection for the whole fex, is incapable of 
 ever loving a fingle one as he ought.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I2l 
 
 Heh hienl Monfieur l^Anglois, faid the Count, 
 gaily You are not come to fpy the nakednefs of 
 the land I believe you ni encore, 1 dare fay that 
 of our women But permit me to conjefture if, 
 par hazard, they fell in your way, that the profpe6t 
 would not afFed: you. 
 
 I have fomething within me which cannot bear 
 the fhock of the leaft indecent infinuation : in the 
 fportability of chit-chat I have often endeavoured 
 to conquer it, and with infinite pain have hazarded 
 a thoufand things to a dozen of the fex together 
 the leaft of which I could not venture to a fingle 
 one to gain heaven. 
 
 Excufe me, Monfieur le Count, faid I as for 
 the nakednefs of your land, if I faw it, I fhould 
 caft my eyes over it with tears in them and for 
 that of your women (blufhing at the idea he had 
 excited in me) I am fo evangelical in this, and 
 have fuch a fellow-feeling for whatever is weak 
 about them, that I would cover it with a garment, 
 if I knew how to throw it on But I could wifh, 
 continued I, to fpy the nakednefs of their hearts, 
 and through the different difguifes of cuftoms, 
 climates, and religion, find out what is good in 
 them to fafhion my own by and therefore am I 
 come. 
 
 It is for this reafon, Monfieur le Count, conti- 
 nued I, that 1 have not feen the Palais Royal nor
 
 laa A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEf 
 
 the Luxembourg .nor the Fa9ade of the Louvre 
 nor have attempted to fwell the catalogues we 
 have of piftures, ftatues, and churches I con- 
 ceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather 
 enter in, and fee the original drawings and loofe 
 fketches hung up in it, than the transfiguration of 
 Raphael itfelf. 
 
 The third of this, continued I, as impatient as 
 that which inflames the breaft of the connoifleur, 
 has led me from my own home into France and 
 from France will lead me through Italy 'tis a 
 quiet journey of the heart in purfuit of Nature, 
 and thofe afFedlions which rife out of her, which 
 make us love each other and the world, better 
 than we do. 
 
 The Count faid a great many civil things to me 
 upon the occafion ; and added very politely how 
 much he flood obliged to Shakefpeare for making 
 me known to him But, a-propos, faid he Shake- 
 fpeare is full of great things he forgot a fmall 
 punftilio of announcing your name it puts you 
 under a neceflity of doing it yourfelf.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. li^ 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 There is not a more perplexing affair in life to 
 mc, than to fet about telling any one who I am 
 for there is fcarce any body I cannot give a better 
 account of than of myfelf ; and I have often wifli*d 
 I could do it in a fmgle word and have an end of 
 it. It was the only time and occafion in my life I 
 could accomplifli this to any purpofe for Shake- 
 fpeare lying upon the table, and recolleding I was 
 in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning im- 
 mediately to the grave-diggers fcene in the fifth 
 ad, I laid my finger upon Yorick, and advanc- 
 ing the book to the Count, with my finger all 
 the way over the name Ale, Foici! faid I. 
 
 Now whether the idea of poor Yorick's fkuU 
 was put out of the Count's mind by the reality of 
 my own, or by what magic he could drop a period 
 of feven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in 
 this account 'tis certain the French conceive bet- 
 ter than they combine I wonder at nothing in this 
 world, and the lefs at this ; inafmuch as one of the 
 firft of our own church, for whofe candour and 
 paternal fentiments 1 have the higheft veneration.
 
 124 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEr 
 
 fell into the fame miftake in the very fame cafe. 
 ** He could not bear, he faid, to look into fermons 
 *' wrote by the king of Denmark's jefter." Good, 
 my lord ! faid I ; but there are two Yoricks. The 
 Yorick your lordfhip thinks of has been dead and 
 buried eight hundred years ago ; he flouri{h*d in 
 Horwendillus's court The other Yorick is myfelf, 
 who have flourilh'd, my lord, in no court He 
 ftiook his head Good God ! faid 1, you might as 
 well confound Alexander the Great, with Alexan- 
 der the Copperfmith, my lord 'Twas all one, he 
 replied. 
 
 If Alexander king of Macedon could have 
 tranllated your lordihip, faid I, I'm fure your 
 lordfhip would not have feid fo. 
 
 The poor Count de B * * * * fell but into the 
 fame error 
 
 Et, Monjieur, eft il Torick ? cried the Count. 
 
 7^ /^//V, faid I. Vous ? Moi moi qui at Vhjyi' 
 neur de vous parler, Monfteur le Comte Mon Dteu ! 
 faid he, embracing me Vous etes Torick I 
 
 The Count inftantly put the Shakefpeare into his 
 pocket, and left me alone in his room.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 125 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 I COULD not conceive why the Count de B* * * * 
 had gone fo abruptly out of the room, any more 
 than I could conceive why he had put the Shake- 
 fpeare into his pocket Myjferies which mujf explain 
 themf elves are not worth the lofs of time which a conjee- 
 ture about them takes up : 'twas better to read Shake- 
 fpeare ; fo taking up " Much ado about Nothing" I 
 tranfported myfelf inftantly from the chair I fat in 
 to Medina in Sicily, and got fo bufy with Don 
 Pedro and Benedift and Beatrice, that I thought 
 not of Verfailles, the Count, or the PafTport. 
 
 Sweet pliability of man's fpirit, that can at once 
 furrender itfelf to illufions, which cheat expeda- 
 tion and forrow of their weary moments! Long 
 long fince had ye number'd out my days, had I not 
 trod fo great a part of them upon this enchanted 
 ground ; when my way is too rough for my feet, 
 or too fteep for my ftrength, I get off it, to fome 
 fmooth velvet path which fancy has fcattered over 
 with rofebuds of delights ; and having taken a few 
 turns in it, come back ftrengthen'd and refrefli'd 
 ^When evils prefs fore upon me, and there is no
 
 126 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 retreat from them in this world, then I take a new 
 courfe I leave it and as I have a clearer idea of 
 the elyfian fields than I have of heaven, I force 
 myfelf, like ^neas, into them I fee him meet 
 the penfive fhade of his forfaken Dido, and wifh to 
 recognize it I fee the injured fpirit wave her 
 head, and turn off filent from the author of her 
 miferies and dilhonours I lofe the feelings for my- 
 felf in her's, and in thofe affeftions which were wont 
 to make me mourn for her when I was at fchool. 
 
 Surely this is not walking in a vain Jhadow nor 
 does man difquiet himjelf in vain hy it he oftener 
 does fo in trufting the iffue of his commotions to 
 reafon only I can fafely fay for myfelf, I was ne- 
 ver able to conquer any one (ingle bad fenfation in 
 my heart fo decifively, as by beating up as faft as 
 I could for fome kindly and gentle fenfation to 
 fight it upon its own ground. 
 
 When I had got to the end of the third ad, the 
 Count de B * * * * entered with my Paffport in 
 his hand. Monf. le Due de C * * * *, faid the 
 Count, is as good a prophet, I dare fay, as he 
 is a flatefman Un homme qui rit, faid the duke, ne 
 /era jamais dangereux. Had it been for any one but 
 the king's jefter, added the Count, I could not 
 have got it thefe two hours. Pardonnez moi, Monf. 
 le Count, faid I I am not the king's jefter. But 
 you are Yorick ? Yes. Et vous plaijantez? I an-
 
 4'HROUGH FRANCE AND ITAtY. I27 
 
 fwered, Indeed I did jeft ^but was not paid for i% 
 'twas entirely at my own expence. 
 
 We have no jefter at court, Monf. Ic Count, 
 faid I ; the laft we had was in the hcentious reign 
 of Charles II. fince which time our manners have 
 been fo gradually refining, that our court at pre- 
 fent is fo full of patriots, who wifli for nothing but 
 the honours and wealth of their country and our 
 ladies are all fo chafte, fo fpotlefs, fo good, fo de- 
 vout there is nothing for a jefter to make a jeft 
 of 
 
 Voila un perfiftage ! cried the Count. 
 
 THE PASSPORT. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 As the Paflport was direfled to all lieutenant- 
 governors, governors, and commandants of cities, 
 generals of armies, jufticiaries, and all officers of 
 juftice, to let Mr. Yorick the king's jefter, and 
 his baggage, travel quietly along I own the tri- 
 umph of obtaining the Paflport was not a little 
 tarnilh'd by the figure I cut in it But there is no- 
 thing unmix'd in this world; and fome of the 
 graveft of our divines have carried it fo far as to 
 affirm, that enjoyment itfelf was attended even
 
 128 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 with a figh and that the greateft they knew of ter- 
 minated in a general way, in httle better than a 
 convulfion. 
 
 I remember the grave and learned Bevorifkius, 
 in his Commentary upon the Generations from 
 Adam, very naturally breaks off in the middle of 
 a note to give an account to the world of a couple 
 of fparrows upon the out-edge of his window, 
 which had incommoded him all the time he 
 wrote, and at laft had entirely taken him off from 
 his genealogy. 
 
 *Tis ftrange ! writes Bevorifkius ; but the fafts 
 are certain, for I have had the curiofity to mark 
 them down one by one with my pen but the 
 cock-fparrow, during the little time that I could 
 have finiflied the other half of this note, has ac- 
 tually interrupted me with the reiteration of his 
 carefTes three-and-twenty times and a half. 
 
 How merciful, adds Bevorifkius, is heaven to 
 his creatures ! 
 
 Ill-fated Yorick ! that the graved of thy bre- 
 thren fliould be able to write that to the world, 
 which flains thy face with crimfon, to copy in 
 even thy fludy. 
 
 But this is nothing to my travels So I twice 
 twice beg pardon for it.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I29 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 VERSAILLES. 
 
 And how do you find the French ? faid the 
 Count de B * * * *, after he had given me the 
 Paflport. 
 
 The reader may fuppofe, that after fo obhging 
 a proof of courtefy, I could not be at a lofs to fay 
 fomething handfome to the enquiry. 
 
 Mais pajje, pour cela Speak frankly, faid he ; 
 do you find all the urbanity in the French which 
 the world give us the honour of? I had found 
 every thing, I faid, which confirmed it Vraiment, 
 faid the Count, les Francois font polis ^To an ex- 
 cefs, replied I. 
 
 The Count took notice of the word excejfe ; and 
 would have it I meant more than I faid. I defend- 
 ed myfelf a long time as well as I could againft it 
 ^he infilled I had a referve, and that I would 
 fpeak my opinion frankly. 
 
 I believe, Monf. le Count, faid I, that man has 
 a certain compafs, as well as an inftrument ; and 
 that the focial and other calls have occafion by 
 turns for every key in him; fo that if you begin a 
 note too high or too low, there mud be a want 
 
 K
 
 130 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 either in the upper or under part, to fill up the 
 fyftem of harmony. The Count de B * * * * did 
 not underftand mufic, fo defired me to explain it 
 fome other way. A polifh'd nation, my dear 
 Count, faid I, makes every one its debtor ; and 
 befides, urbanity itfelf, like the fair fex, has fo 
 many charms, it goes againft the heart to fay it 
 can do ill ; and yet, I believe, there is but a cer- 
 tain line of perfeftion, that man, take him altoge- 
 ther, is empower'd to arrive at if he gets beyond, 
 he rather exchanges qualities than gets them. I 
 muft not prefume to fay, how far this has afTedted 
 the French in the fubjed we are fpeaking of but 
 (hould it ever be the cafe of the Englifli, in the 
 progrefs of their refinements, to arrive at the fame 
 polifh which diftinguilhes the French, if we did 
 not lofe the politejfe du cceiir, which inclines men 
 more to humane adlions, than courteous ones we 
 fhould at lead lofe that diftinft variety and origi- 
 nality of charadler, which diftinguifhes them, not 
 only from each other, but from all the world be- 
 fides. 
 
 I had a few of king William's {hillings as fmooth 
 as glafs in my pocket; and forefeeing they would 
 be of ufe in the illuft ration of my hypothefis, I had 
 got them into my hand, when I had proceeded fo 
 far
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I3I 
 
 See, Monf. le Count, faid I, rifing up, and lay- 
 ing them before him upon the table by jingling 
 and rubbing one againft another for feventy years 
 together in one body's pocket or another's, they 
 are become fo much alike, you can fcarce diftin- 
 guifli one {hilling from another. 
 
 The Englifh, like ancient medals, kept more 
 apart, and pafling but few people's hands, pre- 
 ferve the firft (harpnefles which the fine hand of 
 Nature has given them they are not fo pleafant 
 to feel but in return, the legend is fo vifible, 
 that at the firft look you fee whofe image and fu- 
 perfcription they bear. But the French, Monf. le 
 Count, added 1 (vvifhing to foften what I had faid), 
 have fo many excellencies, they can the better 
 fpare this they are a loyal, a gallant, a generous, 
 an ingenious, and good-temper'd people as is un- 
 der heaven if they have a fault they are too 
 ferious. 
 
 Mon Dieu ! cried the Count, rifing out of his 
 chair. 
 
 Mais vous plaifanteZy faid he, correcting his ex- 
 clamation. I laid my hand upon my breaft, and 
 with earneft gravity affured him it was my moft 
 fettled opinion. 
 
 The Count faid he was mortified, he could not 
 ftay to hear my reafons, being engaged to go that 
 moment to dine with the Due de C * * * *. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 But if it is not too far to come to Verfailles to 
 eat your foup with me, I beg, before you leave 
 France, I may have the pleafure of knowing you re- 
 traft your opinion or, in what manner you fupport 
 it. But if you do fupport it, Monf. Anglois, faid he, 
 you muft do it with all your powers, becaufe you 
 have the whole world againft you. I promifed the 
 Count I would do myfelf the honour of dining 
 with him before I fet out for Italy fo took my 
 leave. 
 
 THE TEMPTATION. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When I alighted at the hotel, the porter told 
 me, a young woman with a bandbox had been 
 that moment enquiring for me. I do not know, 
 faid the porter, whether fhe is gone away or no. 
 I took the key of my chamber of him, and went 
 vip ftairs ; and when I had got within ten fteps of 
 the top of the landing before my door, I met her 
 coming eafily down. 
 
 It was the h'lr Jilie dechambre I had walked along 
 the Quai de Conti with : Madame de R * * * * 
 had fent her upon fome commiflion to a merchante 
 de modes within a ftep or two of the hotel de Mo-
 
 THROUGH PRANCE AND ITALY. I33, 
 
 dene ; and as I had fail'd in waiting upon her, had 
 bid her enquire if I had left Paris ; and if fo, whe- 
 ther I had not left a letter addreffed to her. 
 
 As the fa,ir Jil/e de chamhrew^diS fo near my door, 
 fhe returned back, and went into the room with 
 me for a moment or two whilft I wrote a card. 
 
 It was a -fine ftill evening in the latter end of the 
 month of May the crimfon window-curtains 
 (which were of the fame colour of thofe of the bed) 
 were drawn clofe the fun was fetting, and re- 
 fleded through them fo warm a tint into the fair 
 fille de chambre's face I thought fhe blufh'd the 
 idea of it made me blufh myfelf we were quite 
 alone ; and that fuperinduced a fecond blufh be- 
 fore the firfl could get off. 
 
 There is a fort of a pleafmg half- guilty blulli, 
 where the blood is more in fault than the man 'tis 
 fent impetuous from the heart, and virtue flies 
 after it not to call it back, but to make the fenfa- 
 tion of it more delicious to the nerves 'tis afTo- 
 ciated.- 
 
 But I'll not defcribe it I felt fomething at firft 
 within me which was not in ftrid unifon with the 
 lelTon of virtue I had given her the night before 
 I fought five minutes for a card I knew I had not 
 one, I took up a pen I laid it down again my 
 hand trembled the devil was in me. 
 
 K3
 
 134 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 I know as well as any one he is an advcrfary, 
 whom if we refill, he will fly from us but I fel- 
 dom refift him at all ; from a terror, that though 
 I may conquer, I may ftill get a hurt in the com- 
 bat fo I give up the triumph for fecurity ; and 
 inftead of thinking to make him fly, I generally 
 fly myfelf. 
 
 The hir file de chambre came clofe up to the bu- 
 reau where I was looking for a card took up firft 
 the pen I caft down, then offered to hold me the 
 ink : flie offer'd it fo fweetly, I was going to ac- 
 cept it but I durft not I have nothing, my dear, 
 faid I, to write upon. ^Write it, faid ftie, (imply, 
 upon any thing 
 
 I was juft going to cry out, Then I will write it, 
 fair girl ! upon thy lips. 
 
 If I do, faid I, I fliall perilh fo I took her by 
 the hand, and led her to the door, and begg'd (he 
 would not forget the lefTon I had given her She 
 faid, Indeed (he would not and as (he uttered it 
 with fome earneftnefs, (he turn'd about, and gave 
 me both her hands, clofed together, into mine it 
 was impolTible not to comprefs them in that fituation 
 I wilh'd to let them go ; and all the time I held 
 them, I kept arguing within myfelf againft it and 
 ftill I held them on. In two minutes I found I 
 had all the battle to fight over again and I felt
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 135 
 
 my legs and every limb about me tremble at the 
 idea. 
 
 The foot of the bed was within a yard and a 
 half of the place where we were {landing I had 
 Hill hold of her hands and how it happened 1 can 
 give no account, but I neither afk'd her nor 
 drew her nor did I think of the bed but fo it 
 did happen, we both fat down. 
 
 I'll juft fhew you, faid the fair fille de chain- 
 bre, the little purfe I have been making to-day to 
 hold your crown. So (he put her hand into her 
 right pocket, which was next me, and felt for it 
 fome time then into the left " She had loft it." 
 I never bore expedtation more quietly it was 
 in her right pocket at laft fhe puH'd it out ; it 
 was of green taffeta, lined with a little bit of white 
 quilted fatin, and juft big enough to hold the 
 crown ^Ihe put it into my hand ; it was pretty ; 
 and I held it ten minutes with the back of my 
 hand refting upon her lap looking fometimes at 
 the purfe, fometimes on one fide of it. 
 
 A ftitch or two had broke out in the gathers of 
 my ftock the hir fille de chambre, without faying 
 a word, took out her little houfewife, threaded a 
 fmall needle, and few'd it up I forefaw it would 
 hazard the glory of the day ; and as flie pafs'd her 
 -hand in filence acrofs and acrofs my neck in the 
 
 K 4
 
 136 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 mancBuvre, I felt the lauiels fliake which Fancy 
 had wreath'd about my head. 
 
 A ftrap had given way in her walk, and the 
 buckle of her fhoe was juft falling off See, faid 
 the fille de chamhre, holding up her foot 1 could 
 not for my foul but fallen the buckle in return, 
 and putting in the ftrap and lifting up the other 
 foot with it, when I had done, to fee both were 
 right' in doing it too fuddenly it unavoidably 
 threw the fair fille de chambre off her center and 
 then . 
 
 THE CONQUEST. 
 
 Yes and then Ye whofe claycold heads 
 
 and lukewarm hearts can argue down or mafk your 
 pafTions, tell me, what trefpafs is it that man 
 fliould have them ? or how his fpirit ftands anfwer- 
 able to the Father of fpirits but for his conduit 
 under them ? 
 
 If Nature has (o wove her web of kindnefs, that 
 fome threads of love and defire are entangled with 
 the piece muft the whole web be rent in drawing 
 them out ? ^\Vhip me fuch ftoics, great Governor 
 of nature ! faid I to myfeif Wherever thy provi- 
 dence fhall place me for the trials of my virtue 
 whatever is my danger whatever is my fituation
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 137 
 
 let me feel the movements which rife out of it, 
 and which belong to me as a man and if I govern 
 them as a good one, I will truft the iflues to thy 
 juftice ; for thou haft made us, and not we our- 
 felves. 
 
 As I finifh'd my addrefs, I raifed the fair Jille de 
 chamhre up by the hand, and led her out of the 
 room (he ftood by me till I lock'd the door and 
 put the key in my pocket and then the vidory 
 being quite decifive and not till then, I prefs'd 
 my lips to her cheek, and, taking her by the hand 
 again, led her fafe to the gate of the hotel. 
 
 THE MYSTERY. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 If a man knows the heart, he will know it was 
 impoflible to go back inftantly to my chamber 
 it was touching a cold key with a flat third to it, 
 upon the clofe of a piece of mufic, which had 
 caird forth my affedions therefore, when I let 
 go the hand of the fille de chamhre, I remain'd 
 at the gate of the hotel for fome time, looking at 
 every one who pafs'd by, and forming conjedlures 
 upon them, till my attention got fix'd upon a fin-
 
 138 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 gle objed which confounded all kind of reafoning 
 upon him. 
 
 It was a tall figure of a philofophic, ferious, aduft 
 look, which pafs'd and repafs'd fedately along the 
 ftreet, making a turn of about fixty paces on each 
 fide of the gate of the hotel the man was about 
 fifty-two had a fmall cane under his arm was 
 drefs'd in a dark drab-colour'd coat, waiftcoat, 
 and breeches, which feem'd to have feen fome 
 years fervice they were ftill clean, and there was 
 a little air of frugal proprete throughout him. By 
 his pulling oflf his hat, and his attitude of accoft- 
 ing a good many in his way, I faw he was a/king 
 charity ; fo I got a fous or two out of my pocket 
 ready to give him, as he took me in his turn He 
 pafs'd by me without afking any thing and yet 
 did not go five fteps further before he afk'd charity 
 of a little woman I was much more likely to have 
 given of the two He had fcarce done with the 
 woman, when he pulled off his hat to another 
 who was coming the fame way. An ancient gen- 
 tleman came flowly and, after him, a young 
 fmart one He let them both pafs, and afk'd 
 nothing ; I Hood obferving him half an hour, in 
 which time he had made a dozen turns backwards 
 and forwards, and found that he invariably purfued 
 the fame plan.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I39 
 
 There were two things very lingular in this, 
 which fet my brain to work, and to no purpofe 
 the firft was, why the man (hould only tell his ftory 
 to the fex and fecondly what kind of ftory it 
 was, and what fpecies of eloquence it could be, 
 which foften'd the hearts of the women, which 
 he knew 'twas to no purpofe to pradife upon the 
 men. 
 
 There were two other circumftances which en- 
 tangled this myftery the one was, he told every 
 woman what he had to fay in her ear, and in a 
 way which had much more the air of a fecret than 
 a petition the other was, it was always fuccefsful 
 he never ftopp*d a woman, but (he pull'd out 
 her purfe, and immediately gave him fomething. 
 
 I could form no fyftem to' explain the phe- 
 nomenon. 
 
 I had got a riddle to amufe me for the reft of the 
 evening, fo I walk'd up ftairs to my chamber. 
 
 THE CASE OF CONSCIENCE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 I WAS immediately followed up by the mafter 
 of the hotel, who came into my room to tell me I 
 muft provide lodgings elfewhere. How fo, friend?
 
 140 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 faid I.-^He anfwer'd, I had had a young woman 
 lock'd up with me two hours that evening in my 
 bedchamber, and *twas againft the rules of his 
 houfe. Very well, faid I, we'll all part friends 
 then for the girl is no worfe and I am no worfe 
 
 and you will be juft as I found you. It was 
 
 enough, he faid, to overthrow the credit of his 
 hotel Foyez vous, Monfieur, faid he, pointing to 
 the foot of the bed we had been fitting upon. I 
 own it had fomething of the appearance of an evi- 
 dence ; but my pride not fuffering me to enter into 
 any detail of the cafe, I exhorted him to let his foul 
 fleep in peace, as I refolved to let mine do that 
 night, and that I would difcharge what I owed 
 him at breakfaft. 
 
 I fhould not have minded, Moji/teur, faid he, 
 if you had had twenty girls 'Tis a fcore more, 
 replied I, interrupting him, than I ever reckoned 
 upon Provided, added he, it had been but in a 
 morning. And does the difference of the time of 
 the day at Pai'is make a difference in the fin ? It 
 made a difference, he faid, in the fcandal. I like 
 a good diftindtion in my heart ; and cannot fay I 
 was intolerably out of temper with the man. I 
 own it is neceffary, re-affumed the mafter of the 
 hotel, that a ftranger at Paris fhould have the op- 
 portunities prefented to him of buying lace and 
 filk (lockings and ruffles, ei tout cela and 'tis no-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 141 
 
 thing if a woman comes with a bandbox. O* 
 
 my confcience, faid T, (lie had one ; but I never 
 look'd into it. Then, Monfieur, faid he, has bought 
 nothing ? Not one earthly thing, replied I. Be- 
 caufe, faid he, I could recommend one to you 
 who would ufe you en confcience. But I muft fee 
 her this night, faid I. He made me a low bow, 
 and walk'd down. 
 
 Now fhall I triumph over this maitre d'hotel, 
 cried I and what then ? Then I fhall let him fee 
 I know he is a dirty fellow. And what then ? 
 What then ! I was too near myfelf to fay it was 
 for the fake of others. I had no good anfwer left 
 there was more of fpleen than principle in my 
 project, and I was fick of it before the execution. 
 
 In a few minutes the Griflet came in with her 
 box of lace I'll buy nothing, however, faid I, 
 within myfelf. 
 
 The GrifTet would fhew me every thing I was 
 hard to pleafe : flie would not feem to fee it ; fhe 
 open'd her little magazine, and laid all her laces 
 one after another before me unfolded and folded 
 them up again one by one with the moft patient 
 fweetnefs I might buy or not fhe would let me 
 have every thing at my own price the poor crea- 
 ture feem'd anxious to get a penny ; and laid her- 
 felf out to win me, and not fo much in a manner
 
 142 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 which fecm'd artful, as in one I felt fimple and 
 carelling. 
 
 If there is not a fund of honed Gullibility in man, 
 fo much the worfe my heart relented, and I gave 
 up my fecond refolution as quietly as the firft 
 Why Ihould I chaftife one for the trefpafs of an- 
 other ? If thou art tributary to this tyrant of an 
 hoft, thought I, looking up in her face, fo much 
 harder is thy bread. 
 
 If I had not had more than four Louis d^ors in 
 my purfe, there was no fuch thing as rifing up and 
 (hewing her the door, till I had firft laid three of 
 them out in a pair of ruffles. 
 
 ^The mafter of the hotel will (hare the profit 
 with her no matter then I have only paid as 
 many a poor foul has paid before me, for an ad he 
 could not do, or think of. 
 
 THE RIDDLE. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When La Fleur came up to wait upon me at 
 fupper, he told me how forry the mafter of the 
 hotel was for his affront to me in bidding me change 
 my lodgings.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I43 
 
 A man who values a good night's reft will not 
 lie down with enmity in his heart, if he can help it 
 So I bid La Fleur tell the mafter of the hotel, 
 that I was forry on my fide for the occafion 1 had 
 given him and you may tell him, if you will, La 
 Fleur, added I, that if the young woman fliould 
 call again, I Ihall not fee her. 
 
 This was a facrifice not to him, but myfelf, 
 having refolved, after fo narrow an efcape, to run 
 no more rifks, but to leave Paris, if it was poffible, 
 with all the virtue I enter'd it. 
 
 Cefi deroger a noblejje, Monfieur, faid La Fleur, 
 making me a bow down to the ground as he faid 
 it Et encore, Monfieur, faid he, may change his 
 fentiments and if (par hazard) he fhould like to 
 amufe himfelf I find no amufement in it, faid 
 I, interrupting him 
 
 Mon Dieu ! faid La Fleur and took away. 
 
 In an hour's time he came to put me to bed, 
 and was more than commonly officious fomething 
 hung upon his lips to fay to me, or aik me, which 
 he could not get off: I could not conceive what it 
 was, and indeed gave myfelf little trouble to find 
 it out, as I had another riddle fo much more inte- 
 refting upon my mind, which was that of the 
 man's afking charity before the door of the hotel 
 I would have given any thing to have got to the 
 bottom of it ; and that, not out of curiofity 'tis
 
 144- A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 fo low a principle of enquiry, in general, I would 
 not purchafe the gratification of it with a two-fous 
 piece but a fecret, I thought, which fo foon and 
 fo certainly foften'd the heart of every woman you 
 came near, was a fecret at leaft equal to the philo- 
 fopher's flone : had I had both the Indies, I would 
 have given up one to have been mafter of it. 
 
 I tofs^d and turn'd it almoft all night long in my 
 brains to no manner of purpofe; and when I awoke 
 in the morning, I found my fpirit as much troubled 
 with my dreams, as ever the king of Babylon had 
 been with his ; and I will not hefitate to affirm, it 
 would have puzzled all the wife men of Paris as 
 much as thofe of Chaldea, to have given its inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 LE DIMANCHE. 
 
 PARI S. 
 
 It was Sunday ; and when La Fleur came in, 
 in the morning, with my coffee and roll and butter, 
 he had got himfelf fo gallantly array'd, I fcarce 
 knew him. 
 
 I had covenanted at Montriul to give him a new 
 hat with a filver button and loop, and four Louis 
 d*ors, pour s'adonijer, when we got to Paris ; and
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I45 
 
 the poor fellow, to do him juftice, had done won- 
 ders with it. 
 
 He had bought a, bright, clean, good fcarlet 
 coat, and a pair of breeches of the fame They were 
 not a crown worfe, he faid, for the wearing 1 
 wilh'd him hang'd for telling me They looked fo 
 frelh, that though I knew the thing could not be 
 (Jone, yet I would rather have impofed upon my 
 fancy with thinking I had bought them new for 
 the fellow, than that they had come out of the Rue 
 de Friperie. 
 
 This is a nicety which makes not the heart fore 
 at Paris. 
 
 He had purchafed moreover a handfome blue 
 fattin waiftcoat, fancifully enough embroidered 
 This was indeed fomething the worfe for the fervice 
 it had done, but 'twas clean fcour'd the gold had 
 been touch'd up, and upon the whole was rather 
 fhowy than otherwife and as the blue was not vio- 
 lent, it fuited with the coat and breeches very well : 
 he had fqueez'd out of the money, moreover, a 
 new bag and a folitaire ; and had infifted with the 
 fripier upon a gold pair of garters to his breeches 
 knees He had purchafed muflin ruffles, bien hro- 
 dees, with four livres of his own money and a 
 pair of white filk {lockings for five more and, to 
 top all, nature had given him a handfome figure, 
 without coiling him a fous.
 
 146 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 He entered the room thus fet off, with his hair 
 dreft in the firft ftyle, and with a handfome bouquet 
 in his bread in a word, there was that look of 
 feftivity in every thing about him, which at once 
 put me in mind it was Sunday and by combining 
 both together, it inftantly ftruck me, that the fa- 
 vour he wifli'd to afk of me the night before, was 
 to fpend the day as every body in Paris fpent it 
 befides. I had fcarce made the conjedture, when 
 La Fleur, with infinite humihty, but with a look 
 of truft, as if I fhould not refufe him, begg'd I 
 would grant him the day, pourfaire le galant vis-a^ 
 vis defe maitrejfe. 
 
 Now it was the very thing I intended to do my- 
 felf vis-a vis Madame de R * * * * I had retain'd 
 the remi/e on purpofe for it, and it would not have 
 mortified my vanity to have had a fervant fo well 
 drefs*d as La Fleur was, to'have got up behind it : 
 I never could have worfe fpared him. 
 
 But we m\i?tfeel, not argue in thefe embarrall- 
 ments the fons and daughters of fervice part with 
 liberty, but not with nature in their contracts; 
 they are flefli and blood, and have their little va- 
 nities and wifhes in the midft of the houfe of bond- 
 age, as well as their tafk-mafters no doubt, they 
 have fet their felf-denials at a price and their 
 expectations are fo unreafonable, that I would of-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 147 
 
 ten difappoint them, but that their condition puts 
 it fo much in my power to do it. 
 
 Behold! Behold f I am thy fervant difarms me 
 at once of the powers of a mafter 
 
 Thou Ihalt go, La Fleur ! faid I. 
 
 And what miftrefs. La Fleur, faid I, canft 
 thou have pick'd up in fo Httle a time at Paris ? 
 La Fleur laid his hand upon his breaft, and faid 
 'twas a petite demoifelle, at Monfieur le Count de 
 B * * * *'s La Fleur had a heart made for fo- 
 ciety ; and, to fpeak the truth of him, let as few 
 occafions flip him as his mafter fo that fome-how 
 or other but how heaven knows he had con- 
 neded himfelf with the demoifelle upon the landing 
 of the ftaircafe, during the time I was taken up 
 with my PalTport ; and as there was time enough 
 for me to win the Count to my intereft, La Fleur 
 had contrived to make it do to win the maid to 
 his. The family, it feems, was to be at Paris 
 that day, and he had made a party with her, and 
 two or three more of the Count's houfhold, upon 
 the boulevards. 
 
 Happy people ! that once a week at leaft are 
 fure to lay down all your caies together, and dance 
 and fing and fport away the weights of grievance, 
 which bow down the fpirit of other nations to the 
 earth. 
 
 L 2
 
 14$ A SENTIIVIENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE FRAGMENT. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 La Fleur had left me fomething to amufe my- 
 felf with for the day more than I had bargained 
 for, or could have enter'd either into his head or 
 mine. 
 
 He had brought the little print of butter upon a 
 currant-leaf; and as the morning was warm, and 
 he had a good ftep to bring it, he had begg'd a 
 flieet of wafte paper to put betwixt the currant- 
 leaf and his hand As that was plate fufficient, I 
 bade him lay it upon the table as it was, and as I 
 refolved to ftay within all day, I ordered him to 
 call upon the traiteur^ to befpeak my dinner, and 
 leave me to breakfaft by myfelf. 
 
 When I had finifh'd the butter, I threw the cur- 
 rant-leaf out of the window, and was going to do 
 the fame by the wafte paper but ftopping to read 
 a line firft, and that drawing me on to a fecond 
 and third I thought it better worth ; fo I ftiut the 
 wrndow, and drawing a chair up to it, I fat down 
 to read it. 
 
 It was in the old French of Rabelais's time, and 
 for aught I know might have been wrote by him
 
 THROUGH JRANCE AND ITALY. 149 
 
 it was moreover in a Gothic letter, and that fo 
 faded and gone off by damps and length of time, 
 it coft me infinite trouble to make any thing of it 
 ^I threw it down ; and then wrote a letter to Eu- 
 genius then I took it up again, and embroiled 
 my patience with it afrefh and then to cure that, 
 I wrote a letter to Eliza Still it kept hold of me ; 
 and the difficulty of underftanding it increafed but 
 the defire. 
 
 I got my dinner ; and after I had enlightened 
 my mind with a bottle of Burgundy, I at it again 
 and after two or three hours poring upon it, 
 with almoft as deep attention as ever Gruter or 
 Jacob Spon did upon a nonfenfical infcription, I 
 thought I made fenfe of it ; but to make fure of it, 
 the beft way, I imagined, was to turn it into Eng- 
 lifh, and fee how it would look then -fo I went on 
 leifurely, as a trifling man does, fometimes writing 
 a fentence then taking a turn or two and then 
 looking how the world went, out of the window ; 
 fo that it was nine o'clock at night before I had 
 done it I then began and read it as follows. 
 
 L3
 
 150 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE FRAGMENT. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 Now as the notary's wifedifputed the point 
 
 with the notary with too much heat I wifti, faid 
 the notary, (throwing down the parchment) that 
 there was another notary here only to fet down and 
 atteft all this 
 
 And what would you do then, Monfieur ? 
 faid fhe, rifing haftily up the notary's wife was a 
 little fume of a woman, and the notary thought it 
 well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply I would 
 
 go, anfwer'd he, to bed. You may go to the 
 
 devil, anfwer'd the notary's wife. 
 
 Now there happening to be but one bed in the 
 houfe, the other two rooms being unfurnifh'd, as 
 is the cuftom at Paris, and- the notary not caring 
 to lie in the fame bed with a woman who had but 
 that moment fent him pell-mell to the devil, went 
 forth with his hat and cane and fhort cloak, the 
 night being very windy, and walk'd out ill at eafe 
 towards the Pont Neuf. 
 
 Of all the bridges which ever were built, the 
 whole world who have pafs'd over the Pont Neuf 
 muft own, that it is the nobleft the fined the 
 grandeft the lighted the longed the broad-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 15! 
 
 eft that ever conjoined land and land together 
 upon the face of the terraqueous globe 
 
 By this it feems as if the Author of the fragment 
 had not been a Frenchman. 
 
 The worft fault which divines and the dodlors of 
 the Sorbonne can allege againft it is, that if there 
 is but a cap-full of wind in or about Paris, 'tis 
 more blafphemouflyy^fr<? Dieu*d there than in any 
 other aperture of the whole city and with reafon, 
 good and cogent, Meffieurs ; for it comes againft 
 you without crying garde d'eau, and with fuch un- 
 premeditable puffs, that of the few who crofs it 
 with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards 
 two hvres and a half, which is its full worth. 
 
 The poor notary, juft as he was pafling by the 
 fentry, inftinftively clapp'd his cane to the fide of 
 it, but in raifing it up, the point of his cane 
 catching hold of the loop of the fentinel's hat, 
 hoifted it over the fpikes of the balluftrade clear 
 into the Seine 
 
 "Tis an ill wind, faid a boatman, who catch*d it, 
 which blows nobody any good. 
 
 The fentry, being a Gafcon, incontinently 
 twirl'd up his whiikers, and levell'd his harque- 
 bufs. 
 
 Harquebufles in thofe days went off with match- 
 es; and an old woman's paper lantern at 
 L 4
 
 152 A SENTIMENTAL JOURMET 
 
 the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, 
 (he had borrow 'd the fentry's match to light it 
 it gave a moment's time for the Gafcon's blood 
 to run cool, and turn the accident better to his 
 advantage 'T'/j an ill windy faid he, catching off 
 the notary's caftor, and legitimating the capture 
 with the boatman's adage. 
 
 The poor notary croffed the bridge, and paff- 
 ing along the rue de Dauphine into the fauxbourg 
 of St. Germain, lamented himfelf as he walked 
 along in this manner : 
 
 Lucklefs man, that I am ! faid the notary, to 
 be the fport of hurricanes all my days- to be 
 born to have the florm of ill language levelled 
 againft me and my profeflion wherever I go to 
 be forced into marriage by the thunder of the 
 church to a tempeft of a woman to be driven 
 forth out of my houfe by domeftic winds, and 
 defpoilcd of my caftor by pontific ones to be 
 here, bare-headed, in a windy night at the mercy 
 of the ebbs and flows of accidents where am I 
 to lay my head ? miferable man ! what wind in 
 the two-and-thirty points of the whole compafs 
 can blow unto thee, as it does to the reft of thy 
 fellow-creatures, good ! 
 
 As the notary was pafling on by a dark paflage, 
 complaining in this fort, a voice call'd out to a
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I53 
 
 girl, to bid her run for the next notary now the 
 notary being the next, and availing himfelf of his 
 lituation, walked up the paflage to the door, and 
 pafling through an old fort of a faloon, was ufher'd 
 into a large chamber, difmantled of every thing 
 but a long military pike a breaft-plate a rufty 
 old fword, and bandoleer, hung up equidiflant in 
 four different places againft the wall. 
 
 An old perfonage, who had heretofore been a 
 gentleman, and unlefs decay of fortune taints the 
 blood along with it, was a gentleman at that time, 
 lay fupporting his head upon his hand in his bed ; 
 a little table with a taper burning was fet clofe be- 
 fide it, and clofe by the table was placed a chair 
 the notary fat him down in it ; and pulling out 
 his inkhorn and a fheet or two of paper which 
 he had in his pocket, he placed them before him, 
 and dipping his pen in his ink, and leaning his 
 breaft over the table, he difpofed every thing to 
 make the gentleman's laft will and teftament. 
 
 Alas ! Monfieur le Notaire, faid the gentleman, 
 raifing himfelf up a little, 1 have nothing to be- 
 queath, which will pay the expence of bequeath- 
 ing, except the hiftory of myfelf, which I could 
 not die in peace unlefs I left it as a legacy to the 
 world ; the profits arifing out of it I bequeath to 
 you for the pains of taking it from me it is a ftory 
 fo uncommon, it muft be read by all mankind
 
 154- A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 it will make the fortunes of your houfe the no- 
 tary dipp'd his pen into his inkhorn Almighty 
 Director of every event in my life ! faid the old 
 gentleman, looking up earneftly, and raifing his 
 hands towards heaven Thou, whofe hand has led 
 me on through fuch a labyrinth of ftrange paflages 
 down into this fcene of defolation, aflill the decay- 
 ing memory of an old, infirm, and broken-hearted 
 man dired my tongue by the fpirit of thy eternal 
 truth, that this ftranger may fet down nought but 
 what is written in that Book, from whofe records, 
 faid he, clafping his hands together, I am to be 
 condemned or acquitted ! the notary held up the 
 point of his pen betwixt the taper and his eye 
 
 It is a ftory, Monfieur le Notaire, faid the 
 gentleman, which will roufe up every afFedion in 
 nature it will kill the humane, and touch the 
 heart of cruelty herfelf with pity 
 
 The notary was inflamed with a defire to be- 
 gin, and put his pen a third time into his inkhorn 
 and the old gentleman turning a little more to- 
 wards the notary, began to didate his ftory in 
 thefe words 
 
 And where is the reft of it, La Fleur ? faid I, 
 as he juft then entered the room.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I55 
 
 THE FRAGMENT 
 AND THE BOUQJUET*. 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 When La Fieur came up clofe to the table, 
 and was made to comprehend what I wanted, he 
 told me there were only two other fheets of it, 
 which he had wrapt round the flalks of a bouquet to 
 keep it together, which he had prefented to the demoi- 
 Jelle upon the boulevards Then, prithee. La Fleur, 
 faid I, ftep back to her to the Count de B * * * * *s * 
 hotel, and fee if thou, can' ft get it There is no doubt 
 of it, faid La Fleur and away he flew. 
 
 In a very little time the poor fellow came back 
 quite out of breath, with deeper marks of difap- 
 pointment in his looks than could arife from the 
 fimple irreparability of the fragment Jufte del I in 
 lefs than two minutes that the poor fellow had taken 
 his laft tender farewel of her his faith lefs miftrefs 
 had given his^^^<? d'amour to one of theCount's foot- 
 men the footman to a young fempftrefs and the 
 fempftrefs to a fiddler, with my fragment at the 
 
 * Nofegay,
 
 156 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 end of it Our misfortunes were involved together 
 I gave a figh and La Fleur echo'd it back 
 again to my ear. 
 
 How perfidious ! cried La Fleur How un- 
 lucky ! faid L 
 
 I fhould not have been mortified, Monfieur, 
 quoth La Fleur, if fhe had loft it Nor I, La 
 Fleur, faid I, had I found it. 
 
 Whether I did or no, will be feen hereafter. 
 
 THE ACT OF CHARITY. 
 
 PARI S. 
 
 1 
 
 The man who either difdains or fears to walk 
 up a dark entry, may be an excellent good man, 
 and fit for a hundred things ; but he will not do 
 to make a good fentimental traveller. I count 
 little of the many things I fee pafs at broad noon- 
 day, in large and open ftreets. Nature is fhy, 
 and hates to ad before fpeftators ; but in fuch an 
 unobferved corner you fometimes fee a fingle fhort 
 fcene of her's worth all the fentiments of a dozen 
 French plays compounded together and yet they 
 are ahjolutely fine ; and whenever I have a more 
 brilliant affair upon my hands than common, as 
 they fuit a preacher juft as well as a hero, I gene-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I57 
 
 rally make my fermon out of 'em and for the 
 text " Cappadocia, Pontus and Alia, Phrygia 
 *^ and Pamphylia" is as good as any one in the 
 Bible. 
 
 There is a long dark paflage ifluing out from the 
 opera comique into a narrow flreet ; 'tis trod by a 
 few who humbly wait for a fiacre*, or wifli to get 
 off quietly o'foot when the opera is done. At the 
 end of it, towards the theatre, 'tis lighted by a 
 fmall candle, the light of which is almoft loft be- 
 fore you get half-way down, but near the door 
 'tis more for ornament than ufe : you fee it as a 
 fixed ftar of the leaft magnitude ; it burns but 
 does little good to the world, that we know of. 
 
 In returning along this paflage, I difcern'd, as 
 I approach 'd within five or fix paces of the door, 
 two ladies ftanding arm in arm with their backs 
 againft the wall, waiting, as I imagined, for a 
 fiacre as they were next the'door, I thought they 
 had a prior right ; fo edged myfelf up within a 
 yard or little more of them, and quietly took my 
 ftand I was in black, and fcarce feen. 
 
 The lady next me was a tall lean figure of a wo- 
 man, of about thirty-fix ; the other of the fame 
 fize and make, of about forty ; there was no mark 
 of wife or widow in any one part of either of them 
 
 * Hackney-coach,
 
 158 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 they fcem'd to be two upright veftal fillers, un- 
 fapp'd by carefles, unbroke in upon by tender 
 falutations : I could have wifh'd to have made 
 them happy ^their happinefs was deftin'd, that 
 night, to come from another quarter. 
 
 A low voice, with a good turn of expreflion, 
 and fweet cadence at the end of it, begg'd for a 
 twelve-fous piece betwixt them, for the love of 
 heaven. I thought it fmgular that a beggar Ihould 
 fix the quota of an alms and that the fum Ihould 
 be twelve times as much as what is ufually given in 
 the dark. They both feem'd aftonifh'd at it as 
 much as myfelf. Twelve fous ! faid one A 
 twelve-fous piece ! faid the other and made no 
 reply. 
 
 The poor man faid, he knew not how to aflc lefs 
 of ladies of their rank ; and bow'd down his head 
 to the ground. 
 
 Poo ! faid they we have no money. 
 
 The beggar remained filent for a moment or two, 
 and renew'd his fupplication. 
 
 Do not, my fair young ladies, faid he, flop 
 your good ears againfl me Upon my word, ho- 
 ned man ! faid the younger, we have no change 
 ^Then God blefs you, faid the poor man, and 
 multiply thofe joys which you can give to others 
 without change ! I obferved the elder filler put 
 her hand into her pocket V\\ fee, faid fhe, if I
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 159 
 
 have a fous. A fous ! give twelve, faid the fup- 
 plicant; Nature has been bountiful to you, be 
 bountiful to a poor man. 
 
 I would, friend, with all my heart, faid the 
 younger, if I had it. 
 
 My fair charitable ! faid he, addreffing himfelf 
 to the elder ^What is it but your goodnefs and 
 humanity which makes your bright eyes fo fweet, 
 that they outfhine the morning even in this dark 
 paflage ? and what was it which made the Mar- 
 quis de Santerre and his brother fay fo much of 
 you both as they juft pafs'd by ? 
 
 The two ladies feemed much affefted ; and im- 
 pulfively at the fame time they both put their hands 
 into their pocket, and each took out a twelve-fous 
 piece. 
 
 The contefl betwixt them and the poor fuppli- 
 cant was n"o more it was continued betwixt them- 
 felves, which of the two {hould give the twelve- 
 fous piece in charity and to end the difpute, they 
 both gave it together, and the man went away.
 
 l6o A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 THE RIDDLE EXPLAINED. 
 
 PARI S. 
 
 I stepp'd haftily after him : it was the very 
 man whofe fuccefs in afking charity of the women 
 before the door of the hotel had fo puzzled me 
 and I found at once his fecret, or at leaft the bafis 
 of it *twas flattery. 
 
 DeHcious eflence ! how refrefliing art thou to 
 nature ! how ftrongly are all its powers and all its 
 weaknefles on thy fide ! how fweetly doft thou mix 
 with the blood, and help it through the moft dif- 
 ficult and torturous paflages to the heart ! 
 
 The poor man, as he was not ftraiten'd for time, 
 had given it here in a larger dofc : *tis certain he 
 had a way of bringing it into lefs form, for the 
 many fudden cafes he had to do with in the flreets ; 
 but how he contrived to corred, fweeten, concen- 
 tre, and qualify it I vex not my fpirit with the 
 enquiry it is enough, the beggar gained two 
 twelve-fous pieces and they can beft tell the reft, 
 who have gained much greater matters by it.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. l6l 
 
 PARIS. 
 
 We get forwards in the world not fo much by 
 doing fervices, as receiving them ; you take a wi- 
 thering twig, and put it in the ground ; and then 
 you water it becaufe you have planted it. 
 
 Monf. le Count de B * * * *, merely becaufe he 
 had done me one kindnefs in the affair of my paff- 
 port, would go on and do me another, the few 
 days he was at Paris, in making me known to a 
 few people of rank ; and they were to prefent me 
 to others, and fo on. 
 
 I had got mafter of myfecreijuii in time to turn 
 thefe honours to fome little account ; otherwife, as is 
 commonly the cafe, I fhould have din'd or fupp'd 
 a (ingle time or two round, and then by tranjlating 
 French looks and attitudes into plain Englifh, I 
 fhould prefently have feen, that I had got hold of 
 the couvert* of fome more entertaining gueft ; and 
 in courfe fhould have refigned all my places one 
 after another, merely upon the principle that I 
 could not keep them. As it was, things did not 
 go much amifs. 
 
 I had the honour of being introduced to the old 
 Marquis de B * * * * : in days of yore he had fig- 
 
 * Plate, napkin, knife, fork, and fpoon. 
 M
 
 l62 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 jialized himfelf by fome fmall feats of chivalry in 
 the Cour d'amour, and had drefs'd himfelf out to 
 the idea of tilts and tournaments ever fmce the 
 Marquis de B * * * * wifh'd to have it thought the 
 affair was fomewhere elfethan in his brain. " He 
 *' could like to take a trip to England,'* and aik'd 
 much of the EngliQi ladies. Stay where you are, 
 I befeech you, Monf. le Marquis, faid I -Les 
 MeflVs. Anglois can fcarce get a kind look from 
 them as it is. The Marquis invited me to fupper. 
 
 Monf. p * * * the farmer- general was juft ai 
 inquifitive about our taxes. They were very con- 
 fiderable, he heard If we knew but how to colle<ft 
 them, faid I, making him a low bow, 
 
 I could never have been invited to Monf. 
 P * * * *'s concerts upon any other terms. 
 
 I had been mifreprefented to Madame de 
 Qj* * * as an e/prit Madame de Qj*^ * * was 
 an e/prit herfelf : fhe burnt with impatience to fee 
 me, and hear me talk. I had not taken my feat, 
 before I faw fhe did not care a fous whether I had 
 any wit or no I was let in, to be convinced fhe 
 had. I call heaven to witnefs I never once opened 
 the door of my lips. 
 
 Madame de V * * * vow'd to every creature 
 fhe met, " She had never had a more improving 
 " converfation with a man in her life."
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 163 
 
 There are three epochas in the empire of a 
 French-woman She is coquette then deift 
 then devote: the empire during thefe is never loft 
 {he only changes her fubje(5ls : when thirty-five 
 years and more have unpeopled her dominions of 
 the ilaves of love, {he repeoples it with Haves of 
 infidelity and then with the flaves of the church. 
 
 Madame de V * * * was vibrafing betwixt the 
 firft of thefe epochas : the colour of the rofe was 
 fading faft away {he ought to have been a deift 
 five years before the time I had the honour to pay 
 my firft vifit. 
 
 She placed me upon the fame fopha with her, 
 for the fake of difputing the point of religion more 
 clofely In fhort, Madame de V * * * told me 
 fhe believed nothing. 
 
 I told Madame de V * * * it might be her 
 principle ; but I was fure it could not be her inte- 
 reft to level the out-works, without which I could 
 not conceive how fuch a citadel as her's could be 
 defended ^that there was not a more dangerous 
 thing in the world than for a beauty to be a deift 
 that it was a debt I owed my creed, not to con- 
 ceal it from her that I had not been five minutes 
 fat upon the fopha befide her, but I had begun to 
 form defigns and what is it, but the fentiments 
 of religion, and the perfuafion they had exifted in 
 
 M 2
 
 164 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 her breaft, which could have check'd them as 
 they rofe up ? 
 
 We are not adamant, faid I, taking hold of her 
 hand and there is need of all reftraints, till Age 
 in her own time fteals in and lays them on us 
 but, my dear lady, faid I, killing her hand 'tis 
 too too foon 
 
 I declare I had the credit all over Paris of unper- 
 verting Madame de V * * *. She affirmed to 
 Monf. D * * * and the Abbe M * * *, that in one 
 half hour I had faid more for revealed religion, 
 than all their Encyclopedia had faid againft it I 
 was lifted diredly into Madame de V * * **s Coterie 
 -and (he put ofFthe epocha of deifm for two years. 
 
 I remember it was in this Coterie^ in the middle 
 of a difcourfe, in which I was fhewing the neceffity 
 oi a.firjf caufe, that the young Count de Faineant 
 took me by the hand to the fartheft corner of the 
 room, to tell me my Jolitaire was pinn*d too ftrait 
 about my neck It fhould be plus badinant, faid 
 the Count, looking down upon his own but a 
 word, Monf. Yorick, to the wife 
 
 Kndfrom the wife, Monf. le Count, replied I, 
 making him a bow is enough. 
 
 The Count de Faineant embraced me with more 
 ardour than ever I was embraced by mortal man. 
 
 For three weeks together, I was of every man's 
 opinion I met Pardi! ce Monf. Torick a autant d*ef-
 
 / / , } ijr)<> /,,K!rt,:.' i:,/ r, ,
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 165 
 
 prit que nos autres, // raifonne bien, faid another 
 
 Ceft un bon enfant^ faid a third. And at this 
 
 price I could have eaten and drank and been mer- 
 ry all the days of my life at Paris ; but 'twas a dif- 
 honeft reckoning I grew alhamed of it it was the 
 gain of a flave every fentiment of honour revolted 
 againft it the higher I got, the more was I forced 
 iipon my beggarly Jyftem the better the Coterie 
 the more children of Art I languiflied for thofe 
 of Nature : and one night, aftera moft vile profti- 
 tution of myfelf to half a dozen different people, I 
 grew fick went to bed order'd La Fleur to get 
 me horfes in the morning to fet out for Italy. 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 MOULINES. 
 
 I NEVER felt what the diftrefs of plenty was in any 
 one Ihape till now to travel it through the Bour- 
 bonnois, the fweeteft part of France in the hey- 
 day of the vintage, when Nature is pouring her 
 abundance into every one's lap, and every eye is 
 lifted up a journey through each ftep of which 
 Mufic beats time to labour, and all her children 
 are rejoicing as they carry in their clufters to pafs 
 through this with my affedions flying our, and 
 
 M3
 
 l66 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 kindling at every group before me ^and every one 
 of *em was pregnant with adventures. 
 
 Juft heaven ! it would fill up twenty volumes 
 and alas ! I have but a few fmall pages left of 
 this to crowd it into and half of thefe muft be 
 taken up with the poor Maria my friend Mr. 
 Shandy met with near Moulines. 
 
 The ftory he had told of that diforder'd maid 
 afFedted me not a little in the reading ; but when 
 I got within the neighbourhood where (he hved, 
 it returned fo ftrong into my mind, that I could 
 not refift an impulfe which prompted me to go half 
 a league out of the road, to the village where her 
 parents dwelt, to enquire after her. 
 
 *Tis going, I own, like the Knight of the Woe- 
 ful Countenance, in queft of melancholy adven- 
 tures but 1 know not how it is, but I am never 
 fo perfedly confcious of the exiftence of a foul 
 within me, as when I am entangled in them. 
 
 The old mother came to the door, her looks 
 told me the ftory before (he open'd her mouth 
 She had loft her huft)and ; he had died, llie faid, 
 of anguifh, for the lofs of Maria's fenfes, about 
 a month before. She had feared at firft, Ihe add- 
 ed, that it would have plunder'd her poor girl of 
 what little underftanding was left but, on the 
 contrary, it had brought her more to herfelf ftill 
 (he could not reft her poor daughter, (he faid.
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 167 
 
 Gfying, was wandering fomewhere about the 
 road 
 
 Why does my pulfe beat languid as I write 
 this ? and what made La Fleur, whofe heart feem*d 
 only to be tuned to joy, to pafs the back of his 
 hand twice acrofs his eyes, as the woman flood an<i 
 told it ? I beckon 'd to the poftillion to turn back 
 into the road. 
 
 When we had got within half a league of Mou- 
 lines, at a little opening in the road leading to a 
 thicket, I difcovered poor Maria fitting under 
 a poplar fhe was fitting with her elbow in her 
 lap, and her head leaning on one fide within her 
 hand a fmall brook ran at the foot of the tree. 
 
 I bid the poftillion go on with the chaife to 
 Moulines and La Fleur to befpeak my fupper 
 and that I would walk after him. 
 
 She was drefs'd in white, and much as my 
 friend defcribed her, except that her hair hung 
 loofe, which before was t willed within a filk net. 
 She had, fuperadded likewife to her jacket, a 
 pale green ribband, which fell acrofs her flioulder 
 to the waift; at the end of which hung her pipe. 
 Her goat had been as faithlefs as her lover ; and 
 (he had got a little dog in lieu of him, which flic 
 had kept tied by a firing to her girdle : as I look'd 
 at her dog, Ihe drew him towards her with the 
 firing. " Thou fhalt not leave me, Sylvio," faid 
 
 M 4
 
 l68 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 fhe. I look'd in Maria's eyes, and faw fhe was 
 thinking more of her father than of her lover or 
 her httle goat ; for as fhe utter*d them, the tears 
 trickled down her cheeks. 
 
 I fat down clofe by her ; and Maria let me wipe 
 them away as they fell, with my handkerchief. 
 I then fteep'd it in my own and then in her's 
 and then in mine and then I wip'd her's again 
 and as I did it, I felt fuch undefcribable emotions 
 within me, as I am fure could not be accounted 
 for from any combinations of matter and motion. 
 ^ I am pofitive I have a foul; nor can all the 
 books with which materialifts have peftered the 
 world ever convince me to the contrary. 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 When Maria had come a little to herfelf, I 
 afk'd her if (he remembered a pale thin perfon of 
 a man, who had fat down betwixt her and her 
 goat about two years before ? She faid, fhe was 
 unfettled much at that time, but remember'd it 
 upon two accounts that ill as flie was, fhe faw 
 the perfon pitied her ; and next, that her goat 
 had flolen his handkerchief, and flie had beat him 
 for the theft fhe had wafh'd it, fhe faid, in the 
 brook, and kept it ever fince in her pocket to re-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 169 
 
 (lore it to him in cafe fhe fhould ever fee . him 
 again, which, fhe added, he had half promifed 
 her. As (he told me this, fhe took the handker- 
 chief out of her pocket to let me fee it ; fhe had 
 folded it up neatly in a couple of vine-leaves, tied 
 round with a tendril on opening it, 1 faw an S 
 marked in one of the corners. 
 
 She had fince that, fhe told me, flrayed as far 
 as Rome, and walk'd round St. Peter's once and 
 returned back that fhe found her way alone acrofs 
 the Apennines had travell'd over all Lombardy 
 without money and through the flinty roads of 
 Savoy without fhoes ^how flie had borne it, and 
 how fhe had got fupported, fhe could not tell 
 but God tempers the wind, faid Maria, to the fhorn 
 lamb. 
 
 Shorn indeed! and to the quick, faid 1; and 
 wafl thou in my own land, where I have a cottage, 
 I would take thee to it and fhelter thee : thou 
 fhouldft eat of my own bread, and drink of my 
 own cup I would be kind to thy Sylvio in all 
 thy weaknefTes and wanderings I would feek after 
 thee and bring thee back when the fun went down 
 I would fay my prayers, and when I had done 
 thou fhouldft play thy evening fong upon thy pipe, 
 nor would the incenfe of my facrifice be worfe ac- 
 cepted for entering heaven along with that of a 
 broken heart.
 
 lyO A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Nature melted within me, as I uttered this; and 
 Maria obferving, as I took out my handkerchief, 
 that it was fteep'd too much already to be of ufe, 
 would needs go wafh it in the ft ream. And where 
 will you dry it, Maria ? faid I. I'll dry it in my 
 bofom, faid (he 'twill do me good. 
 
 And is your heart ftill fo warm, Maria ? faid I. 
 
 I touch'd upon the ftring on which hung all her 
 forrows fhe look'd with wiftful diforder for fome 
 time in my face ; and then, without faying any 
 thing, took her pipe, and play'd her fervice to 
 the Virgin ^The ftring I had touch'd ceafed to 
 vibrate in a moment or two Maria returned to 
 herfelf let her pipe fall and rofe up. 
 
 And where are you going, Maria ? faid I. She 
 faid, to Moulines. Let us go, faid I, together. 
 Maria put her arm within mine, and lengthening 
 the ftring, to let the dog follow ^in that order we 
 enter'd Moulines. 
 
 MARIA. 
 
 MOULINES. 
 
 Tho' I hate falutations and greetings in the 
 market-place, yet when we got into the middle of
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I7I 
 
 this, I flopped to take my lafl look and laft fare- 
 well of Maria. 
 
 Maria, though not tall, was neverthelefs of the 
 firft order of fine forms afflidion had touch'd her 
 looks with fomething that was fcarce earthly ftill 
 (he was feminine and fo much was there about 
 her of all that the heart wifhes, or the eye looks for 
 in woman, that could the traces be ever worn out 
 of her brain, and thofe of Eliza's out of mine, (he 
 fhould not only eat of my bread and drink of my own 
 cup, but Maria fhould lie in my bofom, and be 
 unto me as a daughter. 
 
 Adieu, poor lucklefs maiden ! Imbibe the oil 
 and wine which the compaffion of a ftranger, as 
 he journeyeth on his way, now pours into thy 
 wounds the Being who has twice bruifed thee 
 can only bind them up for ever. 
 
 THE BOURBONNOIS. 
 
 There was nothing from which I had painted 
 out for myfelf fo joyous a riot of the afFedlions, as 
 in this journey in the vintage, through this part of 
 France ; but prefling through this gate of forrow 
 to it, my fufFerings have totally unfitted me : in 
 every fcene of feftivity I faw Maria in the back- 
 ground of the piece, fitting penfive under her
 
 172 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 poplar ; and I had got almoft to Lyons before I 
 was able to caft a (hade acrofs her. 
 -Si*: Dear fenfibility ! fource inexhaufted of all 
 that's precious in our joys, or coftly in our for- 
 rows ! thou chaineft thy martyr down upon his 
 bed of ftraw and 'tis thou who lifts him up to 
 Heaven Eternal fountain of our feelings ! *tis 
 here I trace thee and this is thy " divinity which 
 ** Jiirs within me'* not, that in fome fad and fick- 
 ening moments, " my foul Jhrinks back upon herjelf^ 
 *' andjiartles at deJirulion'* mere pomp of words ! 
 but that I feel fome generous joys and generous 
 cares beyond myfelf all comes from thee, great 
 great Sensorium of the world ! which vibrates, 
 if a hair of our heads but falls upon the ground, in 
 the remoteft defert of thy creation. Touch'd with 
 thee, Eugenius draws my curtain when 1 languifh 
 hears my tale of fymptoms, and blames the wea- 
 ther for the diforder of his nerves. Thou giv'fb a 
 portion of it fometimes to the roughed peafant 
 who traverfes the bleakeft mountains he finds the 
 lacerated lamb of another's flock This moment I 
 beheld him leaning with his head againft his 
 crook, with piteous inclination looking down upon 
 it ! ^Oh ! had I come one moment fooner ! it 
 bleeds to death his gentle heart bleeds with it 
 Peace to thee, generous fwain ! I fee thou 
 walkeft off with anguilh but thy joys Ihall ba-
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 173 
 
 lance it for happy is thy cottage and happy is 
 the (harer of it ^and happy are the lambs which 
 fport about you. 
 
 THE SUPPER. 
 
 A SHOE coming loofe from the fore- foot of the 
 thill-horfe, at the beginning of the afcent of 
 mount Taurira, the poftilHon difmounted, twifted 
 the fhoe off, and put it in his pocket ; as the afcent 
 was of five or fix miles, and that horfe our main 
 dependence, I made a point of having the fhoe 
 faften'd on again, as well as we could; but the 
 poftillion had thrown away the nails, and the 
 hammer in the chaife-box being of no great ufe 
 without them, I fubmitted to go on. 
 
 He had not mounted half a mile higher, when 
 coming to a flinty piece of road, the poor devil 
 loft a fecond (hoe, and from off his other fore- 
 foot ; I then got out of the chaife in good earneft ; 
 and feeing a houfe about a quarter of a mile to the 
 left-hand, with a great deal to do I prevailed upon 
 the poftillion to turn up to it. The look of the 
 houfe, and of every thing about it, as we drew 
 nearer, foon reconciled me to the difafter. It was 
 a little farm- houfe, furrounded with about twenty 
 acres of vineyard, about as much corn and clofe
 
 J74 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 to the houfc, on one fide, was a potagerie of an 
 acre and a half, full of every thing which could 
 make plenty in a French peafant's houfe and on 
 the other fide was a little wood which furnifhed 
 wherewithal to drefs it. It was about eight in the 
 evening when I got to the houfe fo I left the 
 poftillion to manage his point as he could and 
 for mine, I walk'd diredly into the houfe. 
 
 The family confided of an old grey-headed man 
 and his wife, with five or fix fons and fons-in-law 
 and their feveral wives, and a joyous genealogy 
 out of them. 
 
 They were all fitting down together to their len- 
 til-foup ; a large wheaten loaf was m the middle 
 of the table ; and a flaggon of wine at each end of 
 it, promifed joy through the ftages of the repaft 
 'twas a feaft of love. 
 
 The old man rofe up to meet me, and with a 
 refpedful cordiality would have me fit down at 
 the table ; my heart was fet down the moment I 
 cnter'd the room ; fo I fat down at once like a fon 
 of the family; and to inveft myfelf in the charac- 
 ter as fpeedily as I could, I inftantly borrowed the 
 old man's knife, and taking up the loaf, cut my- 
 felf a hearty luncheon ; and as I did it, I faw a 
 teftimony in every eye, not only of an honeft wel- 
 come, but of a welcome mix'd with thanks that I 
 had not feem'd to doubt it.

 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 175 
 
 Was it this; or tell me, Nature, what elfe it 
 was which made this morfel fo fweet and to what 
 magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their 
 flaggon was fo delicious with it, that they remain 
 upon my palate to this hour. 
 
 If the fupper was to my tafte the grace whidi 
 foUow'd it was much more fo. 
 
 THE GRACE. 
 
 When fupper was over, the old man gave a 
 knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to 
 bid them prepare for the dance : the moment the 
 fignal was given, the women and girls ran all to- 
 gether into a back apartment to tie up their hair 
 and the young men to the door to wafh their faces, 
 and change their fabots; and in three minutes 
 every foul was ready upon a little efplanade before 
 the houfe to begin ^The old man and his wife 
 came out laft, and placing me betwixt them, fat 
 down upon a fopha of turf by the door. 
 
 The old man had fome fifty years ago been no 
 mean performer upon the vielle and, at the age 
 he was then of, touch'd it well enough for the 
 purpofe. His wife fung now-and-then a little to 
 the tune then intermitted and joined her old
 
 176 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 man again as their children and grand-children 
 danced before them. 
 
 It was not till the middle of the fecond dance, 
 when, for fome paufes in the movement wherein 
 they all feem'd to look up, I fancied I could diftin- 
 guifli an elevation of fpirit different from that which 
 is the caufe or the effed of fimple jollity. In a 
 word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the 
 dance but as I had never feen her fo engaged, I 
 fhould have look'd upon it now as one of the illu- 
 fions of an imagination which is eternally millead- 
 ing 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 beft fort of thanks to 
 heaven that an illiterate peafant could pay 
 
 Or a learned prelate either, faid I. 
 
 THE CASE OF DELICACY. 
 
 When you have gained the top of mount Tau- 
 rira, you run prefently 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
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I77 
 
 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 treafury of your fimple virtues, 
 will not be envied you by the world, nor will your 
 vallies be invaded by it. Nature ! in the midft of 
 thy diforders, thou art ftill friendly to the fcanti- 
 nefs thou haft created with all thy great works 
 about thee, httle haft thou left to give, either to 
 the fcithe or to the fickle but to that little thou 
 granteft fafety and protedion ; and fweet are the 
 dwellings which ftand fo (helter'd. 
 
 Let the way-worn traveller vent his com- 
 plaints upon the fudden turns and dangers of 
 your roads your rocks your precipices the 
 difficulties of getting up the horrors of getting 
 down mountains impra(5licable and catarads, 
 which roll down great ftones from their fummirs, 
 and block his road up. The peafants 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 tempeftuous night; 
 fo that by the delay, and that together, the Voi- 
 turin found himfelf obliged to take up five miles 
 
 N
 
 1^8 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Ihort of his ftage at a little decent kind of an inn 
 by the road fide. 
 
 I forthwith took poffeflion of my bed-chamber 
 got a good fire order'd fupper; and was thank- 
 ing heaven it was no worfe ^when a voiture arrived 
 with a lady in it and her fervant-maid. 
 
 As there was no other bed-chamber in the houfe, 
 the hoftefs, without much nicety, led them in- 
 to mine, telling them, as (lie ulher'd them in, 
 that there was nobody in it but an Englilh gentle- 
 man that there were two good beds in it, and a 
 clofet within the room which held another. The 
 accent in which fhe fpoke of this third bed did not 
 fay much for it however, (he faid there were three 
 beds and but three people and fhe durft fay, the 
 gentleman would do any thing to accommodate 
 matters.-^-I left not the lady a moment to make a 
 conjedure about it fo inftantly made a declara- 
 tion I would do any thing in my power. 
 
 As this did not amount to an abfolute furrender 
 of my bed-chamber, I flill felt myfelf fo much the 
 proprietor, as to have a right to do the honours of 
 it fo I defir'd the lady to fit down prefled her 
 into the warmeft feat call'd for more wood de- 
 fired the hoftefs to enlarge the plan of the fupper, 
 and to favour us with the very beft wine. 
 
 The lady had fcarce warm'd herfelf five minutes 
 at the fire, before fhe began to turn her head back,
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. I79 
 
 and give a look at the beds ; and the oftener fhe 
 caft her eyes that way, the more they return'd 
 perplex'd I felt for her and for myfelf ; for in 
 a few minutes, what by her looks, and the cafe it- 
 felf, I found myfelf as much embarrafled as it was 
 poffible the lady could be herfelf. 
 
 That the beds we were to lie in were in one and 
 the fame room, was enough fimply by itfelf to 
 have excited all this but the pofition of them, 
 for they flood parallel, and fo very clofe to each 
 other as only to allow fpace for a fmall wicker chair 
 betwixt them, rendered the affair ftill more op- 
 preffive to us they were fixed up moreover near 
 the fire, and the proje<flion of the chimney on one 
 fide, and a large beam which crofs'd the room on 
 the other, form'd a kind of recefs for them that 
 was no way favourable to the nicety of our fenfa- 
 tions if any thing could have added to it, it was 
 that the two beds were both of 'em fo very fmall, as 
 to cut us off from every idea of the lady and the maid 
 lying together ; which in either of them, could it 
 have been feafible, my lying befide them, though 
 a thing not to be wifh'd, yet there was nothing in 
 it fo terrible which the imagination might not have 
 pafs'd over without torment. 
 
 As for the little room within, it offer'd little or 
 no confolation to us ; 'twas a damp cold clofet, 
 with a half difmantled window-fhutter, and with a 
 
 N 2
 
 l8o A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 window which had neither glafs or oil paper in it 
 to keep out the tempeft of the night. I did not 
 endeavour to ftifle my cough when the lady gave 
 a peep into it; Co it reduced the cafe in courfe to 
 this alternative that the lady fhould facrifice her 
 health to her feelings, and take up with the clofet 
 herfelf, and abandon the bed next mine to her 
 maid or that the girl fliould take the clofet, 
 &c. &c. 
 
 The lady was a Piedmontefe of about thirty, 
 with a glow of health in her cheeks The maid 
 was a Lyonoife of twenty, and as brifk and lively 
 a French girl as ever moved. There were difficul- 
 ties every way and the obftacle of the flone in 
 the road, which brought us into the diftrefs, great 
 as it appeared whilft the peafants were removing 
 it, was but a pebble to what lay in our ways now 
 I have only to add, that it did not leflen the weight 
 which hung upon our fpirits, that we were both 
 too delicate to communicate what we felt to each 
 other upon the occafion. 
 
 We fat down to fupper ; and had we not had 
 more generous wine to it than a little inn in Savoy 
 could have furnifh'd, our tongues had been tied 
 up, till Neceflity herfelf had fet them at liberty 
 but the lady having a few bottles of Burgundy in 
 her voiture, fent down her fille de chambre for a 
 couple of them ; fo that by the time fupper was
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. l8l 
 
 over, and we were left alone, we felt ourfelves in- 
 fpired with a ftrength of mind fufEcient to talk, 
 at leaft, without referve upon our fituation. We 
 turn'd it every way, and debated and confidered it 
 in all kind of lights in the courfe of a two hours 
 negociation ; at the end of which the articles were 
 fettled finally betwixt us, and ftipulated for in form 
 and manner of a treaty of peace and I believe 
 with as much religion and good faith on both fides, 
 as in any treaty which has yet had the honour of 
 being handed down to pofterity. 
 
 They were as follow : 
 
 Firft. As the right of the bed-chamber is in 
 Monfieur and he thinking the bed next to the fire 
 to be the warmeft, he infifts upon the conceffion on 
 the lady's fide of taking up with it. 
 
 Granted, on the part of Madame; with a pro- 
 vifo, That as the curtains of that bed are of a flim- 
 fey tranfparent cotton, and appear likewife too 
 fcanty to draw clofe, that the fille de chambre 
 ihall fallen up the opening, either by corking 
 pins, or needle and thread, in fuch manner as 
 ihall be deem'd a fufficient barrier on the fide of 
 Monfieur. 
 
 2dly. It is required on the part of Madame, 
 that Monfieur fhall lie the whole night through in 
 his robe de chambre.
 
 l82 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY 
 
 Rejefted : inafmuch as Monfieur is not worth 
 a robe de chambre ; he having nothing in his port- 
 manteau but fix (hirts and a black filk pair of 
 breeches. 
 
 The mentioning the filk pair of breeches made 
 an entire change of the article for the breeches 
 were accepted as an equivalent for the robe de 
 chambre; and fo it was ftipulated and agreed 
 upon, that I fhould lie in my black filk breeches all 
 night. 
 
 3dly. It was infifted upon, and ftipulated for 
 by the lady, that after Monfieur was got to bed, 
 and the candle and fire extinguilhed, that Mon- 
 fieur (hould not fpeak one fingle word the whole 
 night. 
 
 Granted ; provided Monfieur's faying his pray- 
 ers might not be deem'd an infradion of the 
 treaty. 
 
 There was but one point forgot in this treaty, 
 and that was the manner in which the lady and my- 
 felf fhould be obliged to undrefs and get to bed 
 there was but one way of doing it, and that I leave 
 to the reader to devife ; protefting as I do, that if 
 it is not the moft delicate in nature, 'tis the fault of 
 his own imagination againft which this is not my 
 firft complaint. 
 
 Now when we were got to bed, whether it was 
 the novelty of the fituation, or what it was, I
 
 THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. 183 
 
 know not ; but fo it was, I could not fhut my 
 eyes : I tried this fide and that, and turn'd and 
 turn'd again, till a full hour after midnight ; when 
 Nature and patience both wearing out O my 
 God ! faid I 
 
 You have broke the treaty, Monfieur, faid 
 the lady, who had no more llept than myfelf. I 
 begg'd a thoufand pardons but infifted it was no 
 more than an ejaculation (he maintain'd it was an 
 entire infradlion of the treaty I maintain'd it was 
 provided for in the claufe of the third article. 
 
 The lady would by no means give up her point, 
 though Ihe weaken'd her barrier by it ; for in the 
 warmth of the difpute, I could hear two or three 
 corking pins fall out of the curtain to the ground. 
 
 Upon my word and honour, Madame, faid I 
 ftretching my arm out of bed by way of afleve- 
 ration 
 
 (I was going to have added, that I would not 
 have trefpafs'd againft the remoteft idea of deco- 
 rum for the world) 
 
 ^But the fille de chambre hearing there were 
 words between us, and fearing that hoftilities \vouId 
 cnfue in courfe, had crept filently out of her clofet, 
 and it being totally dark, had ftolen fo clofe to 
 our beds, thatfhe had got herfelf into the narrow 
 paflage which feparated them, and had advanced
 
 184. A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY, &C. 
 
 fo far up as to be in a line betwixt her miflrefs and 
 me 
 
 So that when I ftretch'd out my hand, I caught 
 hold of the fille de chambre's 
 
 THE END.
 
 \ 
 
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 JflN 1 R 1950 
 
 
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