lightened my mind with a bottle of Bur-gundy, I at it again—and after two or, three hours poring upon it, with almost as deep attention as ever Gruter or Jacob Spon did upon a nonsensical inscription, I thought I made fenfe of it; but to make fure of it, the best way, I imagined, was to turn it into English, and fee how it would look then---fo I went on leisurely, 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 begun and read it as follows:.

THE FRAGMENT.

PARF S.

-Now as the notary's wife difputed the point with the notary with too much heat-I wish, 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,, anfwered he, to bed-You may go to the devil, answered: the notary's wife..

Now there happening to be but one bed

bed in the house, the other rooms being unfurnished, as is the custom 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 short cloak, the night being very windy, and walked out ill at eafe towards the Pont Neuf.

Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have paffed over the Pont Neuf, must own, that it is the nobleft-the finest-the grandest--the lightest-the longest-the broadest that ever conjoined land and land togethe face of the terraqueous

ther

upon

globe

By this, it feems, as if the author of the fragment had not been a Frenchman.

THE Worft fault which divines and the

G 4

doctors

doctors of the Sorbonne can alledge against it, is, that if there is but a cap full of wind in or about Paris, 'tis more blafphemously facre Dieu'd there than in any other aperture of the whole city and with reafon, good and cogent Meffieurs; for it comes against you without crying garde d'eau, and with fuch unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who crofs it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazard two livres and a half, which is its full worth.

THE poor notary, juft as he was paffing by the fentry, inftinctively clapped his cane to the fide of it; but in raising it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the centinel's hat, hoifted it over the spikes of the balluftrade clear into the Seine

'Tis an ill wind, faid a boat-man who catched it, which blows no body any good.

THE

THE fentry being a Gafcon, incontinently twirled up his whiskers, and level led his harquebufs.

HARQUEBUSSES in those days went. off with matches: and an old woman's paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, fhe had borrowed 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-Tis an ill wind, faid he, catching off the notary's caftor, and legitimating the capture with the boatman's adage.

THE poor notary croffed the bridge, and paffing along the rue de Dauphine. into the fauxbourgs of St. Germain, lamented himfelf as he walked along in this

manner:

LUCKLESS man that I am! faid the

notary,