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also; being no less troublesome to the English in those times, than Dunkirk has been to us, in ours ; so that it was deservedly looked upon as the key to both kingdoms, which no doubt is the reason that there have arisen so many contentions who should keep it : of these, the siege of Calais, or rather the block- ade (for it was shut up both by land and sea), was the most memorable, as it with- stood the efforts of Edward the third a whole year, and was not terminated at last but by famine and extreme mi- sery ; the gallantry of Eustace de St. Pierre, who first offered himself a vic- tim for his fellow citizens, has rank'd his name with heroes. As it will not take up above fifty pages, it would be injustice to the reader, not to give him a 5 minute |
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minute account of that romantic trans- action, as well as of the siege itself, in Rapin's own words : ----BUT courage! gentle reader! ---- I scorn it ---- 'tis enough to have thee in my power ---- but to make use of the advantage which the for- tune of the pen has now gained over thee, would be too much ---- No ---- ! by that all powerful fire which warms the visionary brain, and lights the spi- rits through unworldly tracts! ere I would force a helpless creature upon this hard service, and make thee pay, poor soul! for fifty pages which I have no right to sell thee, -- naked as C 3 I am |
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I am, I would browse upon the mountains, and smile that the north wind brought me neither my tent or my supper. -- So put on, my brave boy! and make the best of thy way to Bou- logne. C H A P. |
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----BOULOGNE! ---- hah! -- so we are all got together ---- debtors and sinners before heaven ; a jolly set of us -- but I can't stay and quaff it off with you -- I'm pursued my- self like a hundred devils, and shall be overtaken before I can well change horses : ---- for heaven's sake, make haste ---- 'Tis for high treason, quoth a very little man, whispering as low as he could to a very tall man that stood next him ---- Or else for murder ; quoth the tall man ---- Well thrown size-ace! quoth I. No ; quoth a third, the gen- tleman has been committing ---- ----. C 4 Ah! |
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Ah! ma chere fille! said I, as she tripp'd by, from her matins -- you look as rosy as the morning (for the sun was rising, and it made the compliment the more gracious) ---- No ; it can't be that, quoth a fourth ---- (she made a curt'sy to me -- I kiss'd my hand) 'tis debt ; continued he : 'Tis certainly for debt ; quoth a fifth ; I would not pay that gentleman's debts, quoth Ace, for a thousand pounds ; Nor would I, quoth Size, for six times the sum -- Well thrown, Size-Ace, again! quoth I ; -- but I have no debt but the debt of NATURE, and I want but patience of her, and I will pay her every farthing I owe her ---- How can you beso hard-hearted, MA- DAM, to arrest a poor traveller going along without molestation to any one, upon |
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upon his lawful occasions? do stop that death-looking, long-striding scoundrel of a scare-sinner, who is posting after me ---- he never would have followed me but for you ---- if it be but for a stage, or two, just to give me start of him, I beseechyou, madam ---- ---- do, dear lady ----. ----Now, in troth, 'tis a great pity, quoth mine Irish host, that all this good courtship should be lost ; for the young gentlewoman has been after going out of hearing of it all along ----. ---- Simpleton! quoth I. ---- So you have nothing else in Bou- logne worth seeing? -- By |
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-- By Jasus! there is the finest SEMINARY for the HUMANITIES ----. -- There cannot be a finer ; quoth I. WHEN the precipitancy of a man's wishes hurries on his ideas ninety times faster than the vehicle he rides in -- woe be to truth! and woe be to the vehicle and its tackling (let 'em be made of what stuff you will) upon which he breathes forth the disap- pointment of his soul! As I never give general characters either of men or things in choler, ``the most haste, the worst speed,'' was all the re- flection |
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flection I made upon the affair, the first time it happen'd ; -- the second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I confined it re- spectively to those times, and accordingly blamed only the second, third, fourth, and fifth post-boy for it, without car- rying my reflections further ; but the event continuing to befall me from the fifth, to the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth time, and without one exception, I then could not avoid making a national reflection of it, which I do in these words ; That something is always wrong in a French post-chaise upon first setting out. Or the proposition may stand thus. A French postillion has always to alight before |
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before he has got three hundred yards out of town. What's wrong now? ---- Diable! ---- a rope's broke! ---- a knot has slipt! ---- a staple's drawn! ---- a bolt's to whittle! ---- a tag, a rag, a jag, a strap, a buckle, or a buckle's tongue, want altering. ---- Now true as all this is, I never think myself impowered to excommunicate thereupon either the post-chaise, or its driver ---- nor do I take it into my head to swear by the living G--, I would rather go a foot ten thousand times ---- or that I will be damn'd if ever I get into another ---- but I take the matter coolly before me, and consider, that some tag, or rag, |
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rag, or jag, or bolt, or buckle, or buckle's tongue, will ever be a wanting, or want altering, travel where I will ---- so I never chaff, but take the good and the bad as they fall in my road, and get on : ---- Do so, my lad! said I ; he had lost five minutes already, in alighting in order to get at a lunch- eon of black bread which he had cramm'd into the chaise-pocket, and was re- mounted and going leisurely on, to relish it the better ---- Get on, my lad, said I, briskly -- but in the most persua- sive tone imaginable, for I jingled a four and twenty sous piece against the glass, taking care to hold the flat side towards him, as he looked back : the dog grinn'd intelligence from his right ear to his left, and behind his sooty muzzle |
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muzzle discover'd such a pearly row of teeth, that Sovereignty would have pawn'd her jewels for them. ----
and so, as he finish'd the last mouth- ful of it, we enter'd the town of Mon- treuil. C H A P. |
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THERE is not a town in all France, which in my opinion, looks better in the map, than MONTREUIL ; ---- I own, it does not look so well in the book of post roads ; but when you come to see it -- to be sure it looks most pitifully. There is one thing however in it at present very handsome ; and that is the inn-keeper's daughter : She has been eighteen months at Amiens, and six at Paris, in going through her classes ; so knits, and sews, and dances, and does the little coquetries very well. ---- --A slut! in running them over with- in these five minutes that I have stood looking at her, she has let fall at least a dozen 6 |
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dozen loops in a white thread stocking ---- Yes, yes -- I see, you cunning gipsy! -- 'tis long, and taper -- you need not pin it to your knee -- and that 'tis your own -- and fits you exactly.---- ---- That Nature should have told this creature a word about a statue's thumb! ---- -- But as this sample is worth all their thumbs ---- besides I have her thumbs and fingers in at the bargain if they can be any guide to me, -- and as Janatone withal (for that is her name) stands so well for a drawing ---- may I never draw more, or rather may I draw like a draught-horse, by main strength all the days of my life, -- if I do not draw her in all her proportions, and with |
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with as determin'd a pencil, as if I had her in the wettest drapery.---- -- But your worships choose rather that I give you the length, breadth, and per- pendicular height of the great parish church, or a drawing of the fascade of the abbey of St. Austreberte which has been transported from Artois hither -- every thing is just I suppose as the ma- sons and carpenters left them, -- and if the belief in Christ continues so long, will be so these fifty years to come -- so your worships and reverences, may all measure them at your leisures ---- but he who measures thee, Janatone, must do it now -- thou carriest the principles of change within thy frame ; and considering the chances of a transitory life, I would not answer for thee a moment ; e'er VOL. VII. D twice |
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twice twelve months are pass'd and gone, thou mayest grow out like a pumpkin, and lose thy shapes ---- or, thou mayest go off like a flower, and lose thy beauty ---- nay, thou mayest go off like a hussy -- and lose thyself. ---- I would not answer for my aunt Dinah, was she alive ---- 'faith, scarce for her picture ---- were it but painted by Reynolds -- -- But if I go on with my drawing, after naming that son of Apollo, I'll be shot ------ So you must e'en be content with the original ; which if the evening is fine in passing thro' Montreuil, you will see at your chaise door, as you change horses : but unless you have as bad a reason for haste as I have -- you had better stop: -- -- She |
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-- She has a little of the devote : but that, sir, is a terce to a nine in your favour ---- -- L-- help me! I could not count a single point : so had been piqued, and repiqued, and capotted to the devil. ALL which being considered, and that Death moreover might be much nearer me than I imagined ---- I wish I was at Abbeville, quoth I, were it only to see how they card and spin ---- so off we set. *de Montreuil a Nampont - poste et demi de Nampont a Bernay - - - poste * Vid. Book of French post-roads, page 36. edition of 1762. D 2 de |
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de Bernay a Nouvion - - - poste de Nouvion a ABBEVILLE poste ---- but the carders and spinners were all gone to bed. WHAT a vast advantage is travel- ling! only it heats one ; but there is a remedy for that, which you may pick out of the next chapter. C H A P. |
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WAS I in a condition to stipulate with death, as I am this moment with my apothecary, how and where I will take his glister ---- I should certainly declare against submitting to it before my friends ; and therefore, I never seriously think upon the mode and manner of this great catastrophe, which generally takes up and torments my thoughts as much as the catastrophe itself, but I constantly draw the curtain across it with this wish, that the Disposer of all things may so order it, that it happen not to me in my own house ---- but rather in some decent inn ---- at home, I know it, ---- the con cern of my friends, and the last services of wiping my brows and smoothing my D 3 pillow, |
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pillow, which the quivering hand of pale affection shall pay me, will so crucify my soul, that I shall die of a distemper which my physician is not aware of : but in an inn, the few cold offices I wanted, would be purchased with a few guineas, and paid me with an undisturbed, but punc- tual attention ---- but mark. This inn, should not be the inn at Abbeville ---- if there was not another inn in the universe, I would strike that inn out of the capitulation : so Let the horses be in the chaise exactly by four in the morning ---- Yes, by four, Sir, ---- or by Genevieve! I'll raise a clatter in the house, shall wake the dead. C H A P. |
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``MAKE them like unto a wheel,'' is a bitter sarcasm, as all the learned know, against the grand tour, and that restless spirit for making it, which David prophetically foresaw would haunt the children of men in the latter days ; and therefore, as thinketh the great bishop Hall, 'tis one of the se- verest imprecations which David ever utter'd against the enemies of the Lord -- and, as if he had said, ``I wish them no ``worse luck than always to be rolling ``about'' -- So much motion, continues he, (for he was very corpulent) -- is so much unquietness ; and so much of D 4 rest, |