BY MR. YORICK.
[THE REV. LAURENCE STERNE,M.A.]
[Firstpublished in 1768.]
They order, said I, this matter better inFrance.—You have been in France? said my gentleman, turningquick upon me, with the most civil triumph in theworld.—Strange! quoth I, debating the matter with myself,That one and twenty miles sailing, for ’tis absolutely nofurther from Dover to Calais, should give a man theserights:—I’ll look into them: so, giving up theargument,—I went straight to my lodgings, put up half adozen shirts and a black pair of silk breeches,—“thecoat I have on,” said I, looking at the sleeve, “willdo;”—took a place in the Dover stage; and the packetsailing at nine the next morning,—by three I had got satdown to my dinner upon a fricaseed chicken, so incontestably inFrance, that had I died that night of an indigestion, the wholeworld could not have suspended the effects of the droitsd’aubaine; [557]—my shirts,and black pair of silk breeches,—portmanteau and all, musthave gone to the King of France;—even the little picturewhich I have so long worn, and so often have told thee, Eliza, Iwould carry with me into my grave, would have been torn from myneck!—Ungenerous! to seize upon the wreck of an unwarypassenger, whom your subjects had beckoned to theircoast!—By heaven! Sire, it is not well done; and much doesit grieve me, ’tis the monarch of a people so civilized andcourteous, and so renowned for sentiment and fine feelings, thatI have to reason with!—
But I have scarce set a foot in your dominions.—
When I had fished my dinner, and drank the King ofFrance’s health, to satisfy my mind that I bore him nospleen, but, on the contrary, high honour for the humanity of histemper,—I rose up an inch taller for the accommodation.
—No—said I—the Bourbon is by no means acruel race: they may be misled, like other people; but there is amildness in their blood. As I acknowledged this, I felt asuffusion of a finer kind upon my cheek—more warm andfriendly to man, than what Burgundy (at least of two livres abottle, which was such as I had been drinking) could haveproduced.
—Just God! said I, kicking my portmanteau aside, what isthere in this world’s goods which should sharpen ourspirits, and make so many kind-hearted brethren of us fall out socruelly as we do by the way?
When man is at peace with man, how much lighter than a featheris the heaviest of metals in his hand! he pulls out his purse,and holding it airily and uncompressed, looks round him, as if hesought for an object to share it with.—In doing this, Ifelt every vessel in my frame dilate,—the arteries beat allcheerily together, and every power which sustained life,performed it with so little friction, that ’twould haveconfounded the most physical précieuse in France;with all her materialism, she could scarce have called me amachine.—
I’m confident, said I to myself, I should have oversether creed.
The accession of that idea carried nature, at that time, ashigh as she could go;—I was at peace with the world before,and this finish’d the treaty with myself.—
—Now, was I King of France, cried I—what amoment for an orphan to have begg’d his father’sportmanteau of me!
I had scarce uttered the words,when a poor monk of the order of St. Francis came into the roomto beg something for his