So I told him the story just as I have told it
the reader.
- And the master of my hotel, said I, as I concluded it, will needs
have it, Monsieur le Count, that I shall be sent to the Bastile; -
but I have no apprehensions, continued I; - for, in falling into the
hands of the most polish'd people in the world, and being conscious
I was a true man, and not come to spy the nakedness of the land, I
scarce thought I lay at their mercy. - It does not suit the
gallantry of the French, Monsieur le Count, said I, to show it
against invalids.
An animated blush came into the Count de B-'s cheeks as I spoke
this. - Ne craignez rien - Don't fear, said he. - Indeed, I don't,
replied I again. - Besides, continued I, a little sportingly, I have
come laughing all the way from London to Paris, and I do not think
Monsieur le Duc de Choiseul is such an enemy to mirth as to send me
back crying for my pains.
- My application to you, Monsieur le Count de B- (making him a low
bow), is to desire he will not.
The Count heard me with great good nature, or I had not said half
as much, - and once or twice said, - C'est bien dit. So I rested my
cause there - and determined to say no more about it.
The Count led the discourse: we talk'd of indifferent things, - of
books, and politics, and men; - and then of women. - God bless them
all! said I, after much discourse about them - there is not a man
upon earth who loves them so much as I do: after all the foibles I
have seen, and all the satires I have read against them, still I
love them; being firmly persuaded that a man, who has not a sort of
affection for the whole sex, is incapable of ever loving a single
one as he ought.
Eh bien! Monsieur l'Anglois, said the Count, gaily; - you are not
come to spy the nakedness of the land; - I believe you; - ni encore,
I dare say, THAT of our women! - But permit me to conjecture, - if,
par hazard, they fell into your way, that the prospect would not
affect you.
I have something within me which cannot bear the shock of the least
indecent insinuation: in the sportability of chit-chat I have
often endeavoured to conquer it, and with infinite pain have
hazarded a thousand things to a dozen of the sex together, - the
least of which I could not venture to a single one to gain heaven.
Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I; - as for the nakedness of your
land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in
them; - and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had
excited in me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-
feeling for whatever is weak about them, that I would cover it with
a garment if I knew how to throw it on: - But I could wish,
continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the
different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out
what is good in them to fashion my own by: - and therefore am I
come.
It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have
not seen the Palais Royal, - nor the Luxembourg, - nor the Facade of
the Louvre, - nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of
pictures, statues, and churches. - I conceive every fair being as a
temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings
and loose sketches hung up in it, than the Transfiguration of
Raphael itself.
The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which
inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home
into France, - and from France will lead me through Italy; - 'tis a
quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those
affections which arise out of her, which make us love each other, -
and the world, better than we do.
The Count said a great many civil things to me upon the occasion;
and added very politely, how much he stood obliged to Shakespeare
for making me known to him. - But a propos, said he; - Shakespeare is
full of great things; - he forgot a small punctilio of announcing
your name: - it puts you under a necessity of doing it yourself.
THE PASSPORT. VERSAILLES.
There is not a more perplexing affair in life to me, than to set
about telling any one who I am, - for there is scarce any body I
cannot give a better account of than myself; and I have often
wished I could do it in a single word, - and have an end of it. It
was the only time and occasion in my life I could accomplish this
to any purpose; - for Shakespeare lying upon the table, and
recollecting I was in his books, I took up Hamlet, and turning
immediately to the grave-diggers' scene in the fifth act, I laid my
finger upon Yorick, and advancing the book to the Count, with my
finger all the way over the name, - Me voici! said I.
Now, whether the idea of poor Yorick's skull was put out of the
Count's mind by the reality of my own, or by what magic he could
drop a period of seven or eight hundred years, makes nothing in
this account; - 'tis certain the French conceive better than they
combine; - I wonder at nothing in this world, and the less at this;
inasmuch as one of the first of our own Church, for whose candour
and paternal sentiments I have the highest veneration, fell into
the same mistake in the very same case: - "He could not bear," he
said, "to look into the sermons wrote by the King of Denmark's
jester." Good, my Lord said I; but there are two Yoricks.
