Anglois font des gens tres extraordinaires -and having both faid and fworn ithe went out.

THE PASSPORT.

The Hotel at Paris. .

I

COULD not find in my heart

to torture La Fleur's with a ferious look upon the subject of my embarraffinent, which was the reafon I had treated it fo cavalierly: and to fhew him how light it lay upon my mind, I dropt the fubject entirely; and whilft he waited upon me at fupper, talked to him with more than ufual gaiety about Paris, and of the opera comique.

La Fleur had been there himself, and had followed me through the ftreet as

far

far as the bookfeller's fhop; but feeing me come out with the young fille de chambre, and that we walked down the Quai de Cont together, La Fleur deemed it unneceffary to follow me a ftep further-fo making his own reflections upon it, he took a shorter cutand got to the hotel in time to be informed of the affair of the Police against my arrival.

As foon as the honest creature had taken away, and gone down to fup himfelf, I then began to think a little feriously about my fituation

-AND here I know, Eugenius, thou wilt fmile at the remembrance of a short dialogue which paffed betwixt us the moment I was going to fet out-I must tell

it here.

EUGENIUS, knowing that I was as

VOL. II.

B

little

little fubject to be overburdened with money as thought, had drawn me afide to interrogate me how much I had taken care for; upon telling him the exact fum, Eugenius fhook his head, and faid it would not do; fo pulled out his purfe in order to empty it into mine.I've enough in confcience, Eugenius, 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, refufing his offer, that before I have been three days in Paris, I fhall take care to say or do fomething or other for which I fhall get clapped up in the Baftile, and that I fhall live there a couple of months entirely at the king of France's expence.I beg pardon, faid Eugenius, dryly really I had forgot that refource.

Now

Now the event I treated gaily came feriously to my door.

Is it folly, or nonchalance, or phifofophy, or pertinacity-or what is it in me, that, after all, when La Fleur had gone down ftairs, 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?

AND as for the Baftile? the terror is in the word-Make the most of it you can, faid I to myself, the Baftile is but another word for a tower-and a tower is but another word for a house you can't get out of Mercy on the gouty! for they are in it twice a year-but with nine livres 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, B 2 his

his innocence appears, and he comes out a better and wiser man than he went in.

I HAD fome occafion (I forgot what) to ftep into the court-yard, as I fettled this account; and remember, I walked down ftairs in no fmall triumph with the conceit of my reasoning Befhrew the fombre 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 terrified at the objects fhe has magnified herself, and blackened: reduce them to their proper fize and hue, fhe overlooks them.-"Tis true, faid I, correcting the proportionthe Baftile is not an evil to be despised -but ftrip it of its towers-fill up all the foffé-unbarricade the doors-call it fimply a confinement, and fuppofe 'tis fome tyrant of a distemper--and not of a man which holds you in it-the evil vanifhes,