strut, I ascertained their sex sufficiently for a traveller.

I may say truly, I did not see a being this day between the age of fifteen and fifty. I own I was therefore surprised to find that there were children, for such I found to be a parcel of strange little figures; the female ones with velvet hoods, and the males with their little curled heads covered with woollen nightcaps, regardless of the example of their hardy old fathers, if they were not their grandsires, who carried about heads without a hair or a hat to protect them.

In truth, I am at a loss to reconcile so many contradictions as I have met with here even in a few hours. Even though I should not mention the height of their beds, nor the unwieldiness of their carriages, as if the benefit of rest was reserved for vaulters and rope-dancers, and the indolent and helpless only were intended to change their place; but perhaps these impressions are only the first and the mistaken views of a traveller, that ought to see more and reflect more before he forms his opinions. I believe so too, and, if I change or correct them, the French nation shall have the benefit of my change of opinion. If not, I hope my mistake will not do much injury to the power, or riches, or vanity of his most Christian Majesty. Yours ever,

J. P. C.

MR. CURRAN TO

Helvoetsluys, August 1, 1788.

JUST landed after a voyage of forty-two hours, having left Harwich, Wednesday, at six in the evening. We are just setting out in a treckscuit for Rotterdam.

I can say little, even if I had time, of the first impression that Holland makes on a traveller. The country seems as if it were swimming for its life, so miserably low does it appear; and from the little I have seen of its inhabitants, I should not feel myself interested in the event of the struggle. We were obliged to put up an orange cockade on our entrance. We have just dined, and I am so disturbed by the settling of the bill, and the disputes about guilders and stivers, &c. that I must conclude. Yours ever,

J. P. C.

MR. CURRAN TO

Amsterdam, August 5, 1788.

You can't expect to find much entertainment in any letter from Holland. The subject must naturally be as flat as the country, in which, literally, there is not a single eminence three inches above the level of the water, the greater part lying much below it. We met Mr. Hannay, a Scotchman, on the passage, who had set out on a similar errand. We joined accordingly. A few moments after my letter from Helvoetsluys

was written, we set out in a treckscuit for Rotterdam, where, after a voyage of twenty-four hours easy sail, we arrived without any accident, notwithstanding some struggle between an adverse wind and the horse that drew us. We stayed there only one day, and next day set out for the Hague, a most beautiful village, the seat of the prince of Orange, and the residence of most of the principal Dutch. Yesterday we left it, and on going aboard found four inhabitants of Rouen, and acquaintances of my old friend Du Pont. We were extremely amused with one of them, a little thing about four feet long, and for the first time in his life a traveller. He admired the abundance of the waters, the beauty of the windmills, and the great opulence of Holland, which he thought easy to be accounted for, considering that strangers paid a penny a mile for travelling, which was double what a French gentleman was obliged to pay at home; nor could it otherwise be possible for so many individuals to indulge in the splendour of so many country villas as we saw ranged along the banks of the canals, almost every one of which had a garden and a menagerie annexed to it. The idea of the menagerie he caught at the instant from a large poultry coop, which he espied at the front of one of those little boxes, and which contained half a dozen of turkeys and as many hens.

The evening, yesterday, brought us to Amsterdam. We had an interpreter who spoke no language. We knew not, under Heaven, where to go; spoke in vain to every fellow passenger, but got nothing in return but Dutch; among the rest

to a person in whom, notwithstanding the smoke, I thought I saw something of English. At length he came up to me, and said he could hold out no longer. He directed us to an inn; said he sometimes amused himself with concealing his country, and that once at Rotterdam he carried on the joke for five days, to the great annoyance of some unfortunate Englishmen, who knew nobody, and dined every day at the table d'hôte he frequented. Last night we saw a French comedy and opera tolerably performed. This day we spent in viewing the port, stadt-house, &c. and shall depart to-morrow for Rotterdam or Utrecht, on our way to Antwerp.

You cannot expect much observation from a visiter of a day: the impression however, of a stranger cannot be favourable to the people.They have a strange appearance of the cleanliness for which they are famous, and of the dirt that makes it necessary: their outsides only have I seen, and I am satisfied abundantly with that. Never shall I wish to return to a country, that is at best dreary and unhealthy, and is no longer the seat of freedom; yet of its arbitrariness I have felt nothing more than the necessity of wearing an orange riband in my hat. My next will be from Spa, where I shall hope to be in six or seven days: till then farewell, Yours ever,

J. P. C.

VOL. VI.

TT

MR. CURRAN TO HIS SON, RICHARD CURRAN.

Paris, October 5, 1802.

DEAR RICHARD, HERE I am, after having lingered six or seven days very unnecessarily in London. I don't know that even the few days that I can spend here will not be enough-sickness, long and gloomy - convalescence, disturbed by various paroxysms-relapse confirmed the last a spectacle soon seen and painfully dwelt upon. I shall stay here yet a few days. There are some to whom I have introductions that I have not seen. I don't suppose I shall get myself presented to the consul. Not having been privately baptized at St. James's would be a difficulty; to get over it a favour; and then the trouble of getting one's self costumed for the show; and then the small value of being driven, like the beasts of the field before Adam when he named them;-I think I sha'n't mind it. The character of this place is wonderfully different from that of London. think I can say, without affectation, that I miss the frivolous elegance of the old times before the revolution, and that in the place of it I see a squalid beard-grown, vulgar vivacity; but still it is vivacity, infinitely preferable to the frozen and awkward sulk that I have left. Here they certainly wish to be happy, and think that by being merry they are so. I dined yesterday with Mr. Fox, and went in the evening to Tivoli, a great, planted, illuminated garden, where all the bourgeoisie of Paris, and some of a better description, went to see a balloon go up. The aeronaut

I