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Now true as all this is, I never think myself impower’d 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, 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 luncheon of black bread which he had cramm’d into the chaise-pocket, and was remounted and going leisurely on, to relish it the better——Get on, my lad, said I, briskly—but in the most persuasive 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 look’d back: the dog grinn’d intelligence from his right ear to his left, and behind his sooty muzzle discover’d such a pearly row of teeth, that Sovereignty would have pawn’d her jewels for them.——

Just heaven!

What masticators!——

What bread!——

and so, as he finish’d the last mouthful of it, we enter’d the town of Montreuil.

CHAP. IX

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:1 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!2 in running them over within these five minutes that I have stood looking at her, she has let fall at least a 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!3——

—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 as determin’d a pencil, as if I had her in the wettest drapery.4——

—But your worships chuse rather that I give you the length, breadth, and perpendicular height of the great parish church, or a drawing of the fascade of the abbey of Saint Austreberte5 which has been transported from Artois hither—every thing is just I suppose as the masons 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 twice twelve months are pass’d and gone, thou mayest grow out like a pumkin, 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 Reynolds6—

—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 has a little of the devote:7 but that,