And last of all (if you please) The Sentimental Traveller, (meaning thereby myself) who have travell’d, and of which I am now sitting down to give an account, - as much out of
I am well aware, at the same time, as both my travels and observations will be altogether of a different cast from any of my forerunners, that I might have insisted upon a whole nitch entirely to myself; - but I should break in upon the confines of the
It is sufficient for my reader, if he has been a traveller himself, that with study and reflection hereupon he may be able to determine his own place and rank in the catalogue; - it will be one step towards knowing himself; as it is great odds but he retains some tincture and resemblance, of what he imbibed or carried out, to the present hour.
The man who first transplanted the grape of Burgundy to the Cape of Good Hope (observe he was a Dutchman) never dreamt of drinking the same wine at the Cape, that the same grape produced upon the French mountains, - he was too phlegmatic for that - but undoubtedly he expected to drink some sort of vinous liquor; but whether good or bad, or indifferent, - he knew enough of this world to know, that it did not depend upon his choice, but that what is generally called
Even so it fares with the Poor Traveller, sailing and posting through the politer kingdoms of the globe, in pursuit of knowledge and improvements.
Knowledge and improvements are to be got by sailing and posting for that purpose; but whether useful knowledge and real improvements is all a lottery; - and even where the adventurer is successful, the acquired stock must be used with caution and sobriety, to turn to any profit: - but, as the chances run prodigiously the other way, both as to the acquisition and application, I am of opinion, That a man would act as wisely, if he could prevail upon himself to live contented without foreign knowledge or foreign improvements, especially if he lives in a country that has no absolute want of either; - and indeed, much grief of heart has it oft and many a time cost me, when I have observed how many a foul step the Inquisitive Traveller has measured to see sights and look into discoveries; all which, as Sancho Panza said to Don Quixote, they might have seen dry-shod at home. It is an age so full of light, that there is scarce a country or corner in Europe whose beams are not crossed and interchanged with others. - Knowledge in most of its branches, and in most affairs, is like music in an Italian street, whereof those may partake who pay nothing. - But there is no nation under heaven - and God is my record (before whose tribunal I must one day come and give an account of this work) - that I do not speak it vauntingly, - but there is no nation under heaven abounding with more variety of learning, - where the sciences may be more fitly woo’d, or more surely won, than here, - where art is encouraged, and will so soon rise high, - where Nature (take her altogether) has so little to answer for, - and, to close all, where there is more wit and variety of character to feed the mind with: - Where then, my dear countrymen, are you going? -
We are only looking at this chaise, said they. - Your most obedient servant, said I, skipping out of it, and pulling off my hat. - We were wondering, said one of them, who, I found was an
CALAIS.
I perceived that something darken’d the passage more than myself, as I stepp’d along it to my room; it was effectually Mons. Dessein, the master of the hotel, who had just returned from vespers, and with his hat under his arm, was most complaisantly following me, to put me in mind of my wants. I had wrote myself pretty well out of conceit with the
- Now was I the master of this hotel, said I, laying the point of my fore-finger on Mons. Dessein’s breast, I would inevitably make a point of getting rid of this unfortunate
I have always observed, when there is as much
The dose was made up exactly after my own prescription; so I could not help tasting it, - and, returning Mons. Dessein his bow, without more casuistry we walk’d together towards his Remise, to take a view of his magazine of chaises.
IN THE STREET. CALAIS.
It must needs be a hostile kind of a world, when the buyer (if it be but of a sorry post-chaise) cannot go forth with the seller thereof into the street to terminate the difference betwixt them, but he instantly falls into the same frame of mind, and views his conventionist with the same sort of eye, as if he was going along with him to Hyde-park corner to fight a duel. For my own part, being but a poor swordsman, and no way a match for Monsieur Dessein, I felt the rotation of all the movements within me, to which the situation is incident; - I looked at Monsieur Dessein through and through - eyed him as he walk’d along in profile, - then,
- And is all this to be lighted up in the heart for a beggarly account of three or four louis d’ors, which is the most I can be overreached in? - Base passion! said I, turning myself about, as a man naturally does upon a sudden reverse of sentiment, - base, ungentle passion! thy hand is against every man, and every man’s hand against thee. - Heaven forbid! said she, raising her hand up to her forehead, for I had turned full in front upon the lady whom I had seen in conference with the monk: - she had followed us unperceived. - Heaven forbid, indeed! said I, offering her