The streets however are nasty.
But it looks, I suppose, better than it smells——crack, crack——crack,
crack——what a fuss thou makest!—as if it concerned the good people to
be informed, that a man with pale face and clad in black, had the
honour to be driven into _Paris_ at nine o’clock at night, by a
postillion in a tawny yellow jerkin, turned up with red
calamanco—crack, crack——crack, crack——crack, crack,——I wish thy whip——
——But ’tis the spirit of thy nation; so crack—crack on.
Ha!——and no one gives the wall!——but in the SCHOOL of URBANITY herself,
if the walls are besh-t—how can you do otherwise?
And prithee when do they light the lamps? What?—never in the summer
months!——Ho! ’tis the time of sallads.——O rare! sallad and soup—soup
and sallad—sallad and soup, _encore_——
——’Tis _too much_ for sinners.
Now I cannot bear the barbarity of it; how can that unconscionable
coachman talk so much bawdy to that lean horse? don’t you see, friend,
the streets are so villanously narrow, that there is not room in all
_Paris_ to turn a wheelbarrow? In the grandest city of the whole world,
it would not have been amiss, if they had been left a thought wider;
nay, were it only so much in every single street, as that a man might
know (was it only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking.
One—two—three—four—five—six—seven—eight—nine—ten.—Ten cooks shops! and
twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes driving! one
would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great
merry-meeting with the barbers, by joint consent had said—Come, let us
all go live at _Paris:_ the _French_ love good eating——they are all
_gourmands_——we shall rank high; if their god is their belly——their
cooks must be gentlemen: and forasmuch as _the periwig maketh the man_,
and the periwig-maker maketh the periwig—_ergo_, would the barbers say,
we shall rank higher still—we shall be above you all—we shall be
_Capitouls_[34] at least—_pardi!_ we shall all wear swords——
—And so, one would swear, (that is, by candle-light,—but there is no
depending upon it,) they continued to do, to this day.
[34] Chief Magistrate in Toulouse, &c. &c. &c.