execution commission committed on the person of a pullet. My hostess, cruel woman, had cut the throat of it, and without plucking off the feathers, tare it into pieces with her hands, and afterwards took away skin and feathers together, just as we strip rabbits in England. This done, it was clapped into a pan, and fried into a supper. In other places where we could get meat for the spit, it useth to be presently broached, and laid perpendicularly over the fire; three turns at most dispatcheth it, and bringeth it up to the table, rather scorched than roasted. I say, where we could get it; for in these rascally inns you cannot have what you would, but what you may; and that also not at the cheapest. At Pontoise we met with a rabbit, and we thought we had found a great purchase. Larded it was, as all meat is in that country, otherwise it is so lean it would never endure the roasting. In the eating it proved so tough, that I could not be persuaded that it was any more than three removes from that rabbit which was in the ark. The price, half-a-crown English. My companions thought it over dear; to me it seemed very reasonable; for certainly the grass that fed it

1

was worth more than thrice the money; but I return to Tostes. And it is time, you might perchance else have lost the sight of mine hostess and her daughters; you would have sworn at first blush they had been of a blood, and it had been great pity had it been otherwise.

The salutation of Horace, O mater pulchra, filia pulchrior, was never so reasonable as here. Not to honour them with a further character, let this suffice; that their persoas kept so excellent decorum with the house and furniture, that one could not possibly make use of Tully's, Quam dispari dominaris domino! But this is not their luck only. The women, not of Nor-· mandy alone, but generally of all France, are forced to be contented with a little beauty; and she which with us is reckoned among the vulgar, would amongst them be taken for a princess. But of the French women more, when we have taken a view of the dames of Paris; now only somewhat of their habit and condition. Their habit, in which they differ from the rest of France, is the attire of their heads, which hangeth down their backs in fashion of a veil. In Rouen and the greater cities, it is made of linen, pure and decent; here and in the villages it cannot be possibly any thing else than an old dishclout turned out of service, or the corner of a table cloth reserved from washing. Their best condition is not always visible; they shew it only in the mornings, or when you are ready to depart, and that is their begging. You shall have about you such a throng of these ill faces, and every one whining out this ditty, Pour les servantes; that one might with greater ease distribute a dole at a rich man's funeral, than give them a penny: had you a purpose to

give them unasked, their importunity will prevent your speediest bounty. After all this importunate begging, their ambition reacheth no higher than a sol: he that giveth more, outbiddeth their expectation, and shall be counted a spendthrift.

But the principal ornaments of these times are the men-servants, the raggedest regiment that I ever yet looked upon. Such a thing as a chamberlain was never heard of among them, and good clothes are as little known there as he. By the habit of his attendants, a man would think himself in goal, their clothes either full of patches or else open to the skin. Bid one of them wipe your boots, he presently hath recourse to the curtains; with those he will perhaps rub over one side, and leave the other to be made clean by the guest. It is enough for him that he hath written the copy. They wait always with their hats on their heads, and so also do servants before their masters: attending bare-headed is as much out of fashion there as in Turkey. Of all French fashions, in my opinion the most unfitting and unseeming. Time and much use reconciled me to all other things, which were at the first offensive; to this irreverent custom I returned an enemy. Neither can I see how it can choose but stomach the most patient, to see the worthiest sign of liberty usurped and profaned by the basest of slaves. For seeing that the French peasants are such infamous slaves unto their lords

and princes, it cannot be but those which are their

servants must be one degree at the least below the * This French sauciness

lowest condition.

*

had drawn me out of my way.

An impudent familiarity, which I must confess did much offend me, and to which I will still profess myself an open enemy. Though Jack speak French, I cannot endure that Jack should be a gentleman.

The present French, then, is nothing but an old Gaul, moulded into a new name; as rash he is as headstrong, and as hair-brained. A nation whom you shall win with a feather, and lose with a straw; upon the first sight of him you shall have him as familiar as your sleep, or the necessity of breathing; in one hour's conference you may endear him to you; in the second unbutton him; the third pumps him dry of all his secrets, and he gives them you as faithfully as if you were his ghostly father, and bound to conceal them, sub sigillo confessionis; when you have learned this you may lay him aside, for he is no longer serviceable. If you have any humour in holding him in a further acquaintance, (a favour which he confesseth, and I believe him, he is unworthy of) himself will make the first separation. He has said over his lesson now unto you, and now must find out somebody else to whom to repeat it. Fare him. well; he is a garment whom I would be loth to wear above two days together, for in that time he

will be thread-bare. Familiare est hominis omnia sibi remittere, saith Velleius, of all, it holdeth most properly in this people. He is very kind-hearted to himself, and thinketh himself as free from wants, as he is full so much he hath in him the nature of a Chinois, that he thinketh all men blind but himself. In this private self-conceitedness he hateth the Spaniard, loveth not the English, and contemneth the German himself is the only courtier and complete gentleman; but it is his own glass which he seeth in. Out of this conceit of his own excellency, and partly out of shallowness of brain, he is very liable to exceptions; the least distaste that can be draweth his sword, and a minute's pause sheatheth it to your hand afterwards, if you beat him into better manners, he shall take it kindly and cry serviteur. In this one thing they are wonderfully like the devil; meekness or submission makes them insolent, a little resistance putteth them to their heels, or makes them your spaniels. In a word (for I have held him too long) he is a walking vanity in a new fashion.

I will give you now a taste of his table, which you shall find in a measure furnished, (I speak not of the peasant) but not with so full a manner as with us. Their beef they cut out into such chops, that that which goeth there for a laudable dish would be thought here a university commons, new served from the hatch.

A loin of mutton serves amongst