This disposition, which preserves the tranquillity of the rich, indurates the sense of wretchedness in the poor; it supplies the place of fortitude in the one, and that of patience in the other; and, while it enables both to endure their own particular distresses, it makes them submit quietly to a weight and excess of public evils, which any nation but their own would sink under, or resist.  Amongst shopkeepers, servants, &c. without incurring personal odium, it has the effect of what would be deemed in England impenetrable assurance.  It forces pertinaceously an article not wanted, and preserves the inflexibility of the features at a detected imposition:  it inspires servants with arguments in defence of every misdemeanour in the whole domestic catalogue; it renders them insensible either of their negligences or the consequences of them; and endows them with a happy facility of contradicting with the most obsequious politeness.

A gentleman of our acquaintances dined at a table d’Hote, where the company were annoyed by a very uncommon and offensive smell.  On cutting up a fowl, they discovered the smell to have been occasioned by its being dressed with out any other preparation than that of depluming.  They immediately sent for the host, and told him, that the fowl had been dressed without having been drawn:  but, far from appearing disconcerted, as one might expect, he only replied, "Cela se pourroit bien, Monsieur." ["’Tis very possible, Sir.”] Now an English Boniface, even though he had already made his fortune, would have been mortified at such an incident, and all his eloquence would scarcely have produced an unfaultering apology.

Whether this national indifference originate in a physical or a moral cause, from an obtuseness in their corporeal formation or a perfection in their intellectual one, I do not pretend to decide; but whatever be the cause, the effect is enjoyed with great modesty.  So little do the French pique themselves on this valuable stoicism, that they acknowledge being more subject to that human weakness called feeling, than any other people in the world.  All their writers abound in pathetic exclamations, sentimental phrases, and allusions to “la sensibilite Francaise,” as though they imagined it proverbial.  You can scarcely hold a conversation with a Frenchman without hearing him detail, with an expression of feature not always analogous, many very affecting sentences.  He is desole, desespere, or afflige—­he has le coeur trop sensible, le coeur serre, or le coeur navre; [Afflicted—­in despair—­too feeling a heart—­ his heart is wrung or wounded.] and the well-placing of these dolorous assertions depends rather upon the judgement and eloquence of the speaker, than the seriousness of the case which gives rise to them.  For instance, the despair and desolation of him who has lost his money, and of him whose head is ill drest, are of different degrees, but the expressions are usually the same.  The