I observe, in walking the streets here, that the common people still retain much of the Spanish cast of features:  the women are remarkably plain, and appear still more so by wearing faals.  The faal is about two ells of black silk or stuff, which is hung, without taste or form, on the head, and is extremely unbecoming:  but it is worn only by the lower class, or by the aged and devotees.

I am a very voluminous correspondent, but if I tire you, it is a proper punishment for your insincerity in desiring me to continue so.  I have heard of a governor of one of our West India islands who was universally detested by its inhabitants, but who, on going to England, found no difficulty in procuring addresses expressive of approbation and esteem.  The consequence was, he came back and continued governor for life.—­Do you make the application of my anecdote, and I shall persevere in scribbling.—­Every Yours.

Arras.

It is not fashionable at present to frequent any public place; but as we are strangers, and of no party, we often pass our evenings at the theatre.  I am fond of it—­not so much on account of the representation, as of the opportunity which it affords for observing the dispositions of the people, and the bias intended to be given them.  The stage is now become a kind of political school, where the people are taught hatred to Kings, Nobility, and Clergy, according as the persecution of the moment requires; and, I think, one may often judge from new pieces the meditated sacrifice.  A year ago, all the sad catalogue of human errors were personified in Counts and Marquisses; they were not represented as individuals whom wealth and power had made something too proud, and much too luxurious, but as an order of monsters, whose existence, independently of their characters, was a crime, and whose hereditary possessions alone implied a guilt, not to be expiated but by the forfeiture of them.  This, you will say, was not very judicious; and that by establishing a sort of incompatibility of virtue with titular distinctions, the odium was transferred from the living to the dead—­from those who possessed these distinctions to those who instituted them.  But, unfortunately, the French were disposed to find their noblesse culpable, and to reject every thing which tended to excuse or favour them.  The hauteur of the noblesse acted as a fatal equivalent to every other crime; and many, who did not credit other imputations, rejoiced in the humiliation of their pride.  The people, the rich merchants, and even the lesser gentry, all eagerly concurred in the destruction of an order that had disdained or excluded them; and, perhaps, of all the innovations which have taken place, the abolition of rank has excited the least interest.