The good old man acquitted himself with all the gallantry of the good old court, and took his seat with due respect and ceremony beside the lady. When he had adjusted the tyes of his perriwig and the flaps of his coat, having drawn off his high-topped gloves to give a due display to his ruffles, Mrs. Rachel Owen began the conversation by telling him how much she admired his equipage, which she complimented by saying it was exactly upon the model of the coaches of the Spanish nobles: the English carriages, she observed, were generally very ill constructed and in a bad taste, particularly those she travelled in, drawn by only two beggarly horses, unmercifully whipped by a brat of a postillion; whereas in her country no man of distinction could pass from place to place without his six mules, guided by the voice, unincumbered by either reins or harness, and ornamented with bells, which in her opinion gave a cheerful sound, and had a very dignified effect. Why yes, madam, said De Lancaster, every country is attached to its own customs. The Spaniard prefers his mule, the Laplander his rein-deer, the inhabitant of the desart his camel, and some tribes bordering upon Abyssinia ride their cows. The animals no doubt are adapted to their several climates: in England we are contented with horses, and as our vehicles are apt to have a great deal of iron-work about them, we are satisfied with the jingling they make, and readily dispense with the amusement of bells. He then proceeded to pass some high encomiums on the beauty and majesty of the Castilian language, which he said he could read and understand, when spoken, though he was not able to keep up a conversation in it. He remarked upon the excellence of their proverbs, which he said was a proof both of the fecundity and antiquity of a language. She acknowledged the justness of his remark, and instanced the romance of Cervantes as abounding in proverbs. She believed they were frequent in the Hebrew language, and asked him if they were also common in the Greek. Very much so, madam, replied De Lancaster, in the writings of the Greeks. As to the Hebrews, the wise sayings of Solomon alone furnish a very copious collection, and are by us specifically called his _Proverbs_, or as the Greeks would term them his _Paræmiæ_, which some express by the word proverb, following Cicero’s interpretation; others by the word adage, preferring the authority of Varro, the most learned of all the Roman philologists. The lady, who had drawn this conversation upon herself by an affectation of talking about what she did not understand, now perceiving the eyes of the company directed towards her, and a general silence kept whilst De Lancaster was speaking, felt her vanity so much flattered by having this learned harangue addressed to her, that, in order to hold it on, she ventured to ask which of the Greek authors were most famous for their proverbs.