6-12-40 A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY THROUGH FRANCE AND ITALY. THEY order, faid I, this matter better in France -You have been in France? faid my gentleman, turning quick upon me with the most civil triumph in the world. Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself, that one-and-twenty miles failing, for 'tis abfolutely no farther from Dover to Calais, should give a man these rights.—I'll look into them: fo giving up the argument, I went straight to my lodgings, put up half a dozen fhirts 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 got fat down to my dinner upon a fricaffee'd chicken fo incontestably in France, that, had I died that night of an indigestion, the whole world could not have fufpended the ef fects of the droits d'aubaine-my fhirts, and black pair of filk breeches-portmanteau and all, muft have gone to the King of France-even the little picture 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 fubjects have 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 fentiment and fine feelings, that I have to reafon with minions. But I have scarce fet a foot in your do CALAIS. WHEN I had finish'd my dinner, and drank the King of France's health, to fatisfy my mind that I bore him no fpleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of his temper—I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation. -No-faid I-the Bourbon is by no means a cruel race they may be mifled like other people; but there is a mildnefs in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt a fuffufion of a finer kind upon my cheek-more warm and friendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres a bottle, which * All the effects of trangers (Swifs and Scotch excepted) dying in France, are feized by virtue of this law, though the heir be upon the pot the profit of thefe contingencies being farm'd, there is no redrefs. |