Chapter 14

POST-HOUSE, ST GEORGE, six leagues from LYONS.

I am particular in dating this letter, in hopes that every English traveller may avoid the place I write from, by either stopping short, or going beyond it, as it is the only house of reception for travellers in the village, and the worst I have met with in my whole journey. We had been scurvily treated here as we went; but having arrived at it after dark, and leaving it early, I did not recollect it again, till the mistress by her sour face and sorry fare betrayed it; for she well remembered _us_. As a specimen of French auberge cookery, I cannot help serving up a dish of spinnage to you as it was served to me at this house. We came in early in the afternoon, and while I was in the court-yard, I saw a flat basket stand upon the ground, the bottom of which was covered with boiled spinnage; and as my dog, and several others in the yard, had often put their noses into it, I concluded it was put down for _their_ food, not _mine_, till I saw a dirty girl patting it up into round balls, and two children, the eldest of them not above three years old, slavering in and playing with it, one of whom, _to lose no time_, was performing _an office_ that none could _do for her_. I asked the maid what she was about, and what it was she was so preparing? for I began to think I had been mistaken, till she told me it was spinnage;--not for me, I hope, said I,--'_oui, pour vous et le monde_.' I then forbad her bringing any to my table, and putting the little girl _off her center_, by an angry push, made her almost as dirty as the spinnage; and I could perceive her mother, the hostess, and some French travellers who were near, looked upon me as a brute, for _disturbing la pauvre enfant_; nevertheless, with my _entree_ came up a dish of this _delicate spinnage_, with which I made the girl a very pretty _Chapeau Anglois_, for I turned it, dish and all, upon her head; this set the house in such an uproar, that, if there had not come in an old gentleman like _Bourgeois_ of _Paris_, at that instant, I verily believe I should have been turned out; but he engaged warmly in my defence, and insisted upon it that I had treated the girl just as he would have done, had she brought such a dirty dish to him after being cautioned not to do so; nor should I have got any supper, had I not prevailed on this good-natured man, who never eat any, to order a supper for himself, and transfer it to me. He was a native of _Lyons_, and had been, for the first time after thirty years absence, to visit his relations there. My entertainment at this house, _outward-bound_, was half a second-hand roasted turkey, or, what the sailors call a _twice-laid_ dish, i.e. one which is _done over_ a second time.

I know the French in general will not like to see this dirty charge, brought even against an _aubergiste_, and much less to hear it said, that this disregard to cleanliness is almost general in the public inns; but truth justifies it, and I hope the publication may amend it.

A modern French anonymous traveller, who I conclude by the company he kept in England, is a man of fashion, gives in general a just account of the English nation, their customs and manners; and acknowledges, in handsome terms, the manner he was received by some of the first families in England. He owns, however, he does not understand English, yet he has the temerity to say, that _Gulliver's_ travels are the _chef d'oeuvre_ of _Dean Swift_; but observes, that those travels are greatly improved by passing through the hands of _Desfontaines_.--This gentleman must excuse me in saying, that _Desfontaines_ neither understood English, nor _Dean Swift_, better than he does. He also concludes his first volume, by observing, that what a French Ambassador to England said of that nation, in the year 1523, constitutes their character at this day! 'Alas! poor England! thou _be'st_ so closely situated, and in such daily conversation with the polite and polished nation of France, thou hast gained nothing of their ease, breeding, and compliments, in the space of two hundred and fifty years!'--What this gentleman alludes to, is the Ambassador's letter to the _Conetable Montmorency_, previous to the meeting of _Henry_ the Eighth and _Francis_ the First, near _Ardres_; for, (says the Ambassador) _sur-tout je vous prie, que vous ostiez de la Cour, ceux qui unt la reputation d'etre joyeux & gaudisseur, car c'est bien en ce monde, la chose la plus haie de cette nation_. And in a few lines after, he foists in an extract from a Scotchman, one _Barclay_, who, in his _Examen of Nations_, says, _Jenenc connoit point de plus aimable creature, qui un François chez qui l'enjoument est tempore par le judgment, & par discretion_; to all which I subscribe: but such men are seldom to be met with in any kingdom.

This gentleman says, the most remarkable, or rather the only act of gaiety he met with in _London_, was an harangue made for an hour in the House of Lords, previous to the trial of Lord _Byron_; and that, as he afterwards understood, it was made by a drunken member of parliament. He says it made him and every body laugh exceedingly; but he laughed only (I presume) because every body else did, and relates the story, I fear, merely to make it a national laugh; for the harangue was certainly very ill placed, and the mirth it produced, very indecent, at a time a Peer of the realm was to be brought forth, accused of murder; and the untimely death of a valuable and virtuous young man, revived in every body's memory.

This is the unfavourable side of what the gentleman says of the first people in England. Of the peasants and lower order, he observes, that, though they are well fed, well cloathed, and well lodged, yet they are all of a melancholy turn.--The French have no idea of what we call _dry humour_; and this gentleman, perhaps, thought the English clown melancholy, while he was laughing in his sleeve at the foppery of his _laquais_.

These observations put me in mind of another modern traveller, a man of sense and letters too, who observes, that the ballustrades at _Westminster_ bridge are fixed very close together, to prevent the English getting through to drown themselves: and of a Gentleman at _Cambridge_, who, having cut a large pigeon-hole under his closet door, on being asked the use of it, said, he had it cut for an old cat which had kittens, to go in and out; but added, _that he must send for the carpenter, to cut little holes for the young ones_. His _acute visitor_ instantly set up a _horse_ laugh, and asked him whether the little cats could not come out at the same hole the big one did? The other laughing in his turn, said, he did not _think of that_.

Though I have spoken with freedom of this French traveller's remarks, yet I must own that, in general, he writes and thinks liberally, and speaks highly of the English nation, and very gratefully of many individuals to whom he was known; and, I dare say, a Frenchman will find many more mistakes of mine, which I shall be happy to see pointed out, or rectified: but were I to pick out the particular objects of laughter, pity, and contempt, which have fallen in my way, in twice crossing this great continent, I could make a second _Joe Miller_ of one, and a _Jane Shore_ of the other. If this traveller could have understood the _Beggars' Opera_, the _humour_ of _Sam. Foote_, or the pleasantry among English sailors, watermen, and the lower order of the people, he would have known, that, though the English nation have not so much vivacity as the French, they are behind-hand with no nation whatever, where true wit and genuine humour are to be displayed. What would he have said, could he have seen and entered into the spirit of the procession of the _miserable Scalds_, or Mr. _Garrick_ in _Scrub_; _Shuter_, _Woodward_, Mrs. _Clive_, or even our little _Edwin_ at _Bath_? Had he seen any of these things, he must have laughed with the multitude, as he did in the House of Lords, though he had not understood it, and must have seen how inimitably the talents of these men were formed, to excite so much mirth and delight, even to a heavy _unpolished_ English audience.