"Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life, far smoother do ye make the road of it--like grace and beauty, which beget inclination at first sight, 'tis ye who open the door and let the stranger in." I had the Sentimental Journey in my hand--it was open just at this passage, when I landed not very long ago on the quay of that town which Horace Walpole tells us caused him more astonishment than any other he had met with in his travels. I mean Calais. "Hail, ye small sweet courtesies of life," was I still muttering to myself, as gently pushing by a spruce little man, who had already scratched my nose and nearly poked out my eyes with cards of "Hotel ...," I attempted to pass on towards the inn of Mons. Dessin. "Nom de D...," said the Commissionaire, as I touched his elbow, "Nom de D..., Monsieur, _Je suis Francais_! il ne faut pas me pousser, moi ... _je suis Francais_!"--and this he said, contracting his brow, and touching a moustache that only wanted years and black wax to make it truly formidable. I thought that he was going to offer me his own card instead of Mr. Meurice's. This indeed would have been little more than what happened to a friend of mine not long ago. He was going last year from Dieppe to Paris. He slept at Rouen, and on quitting the house the following morning found fault with some articles in the bill presented to him. "Surely there is some mistake here," said he, pointing to the account. "Mistake, sir," said the _aubergiste_, adjusting his shoulders with the important air of a man who was going to burthen them with a quarrel--"mistake, sir, what do you mean?--a mistake--do you think I charge a sou more than is just? Do you mean to say that? _Je suis officier, Monsieur, officier Francais, et j'insiste sur ce que vous me rendiez raison!!_" Now, it is undoubtedly very pleasant to an Englishman, who has the same idea of a duel that a certain French marquise had of a lover, when, on her death-bed, she said to her grand-daughter, "Je ne vous dis pas, ma chère, de ne point avoir d'amans; je me rappelle ma jeunesse. Il faut seulement n'en prendre jamais qui soient au-dessous de votre état"--it is doubtless very unpleasant to an Englishman, who cares much less about fighting than about the person he fights with, to have his host present him a bill in one hand and a pistol in the other. In one of the islands which we ought to discover, whenever the king sneezes all his courtiers are expected to sneeze also. The country of course imitates the court, and the empire is at once affected with a general cold. Sneezing here then becomes an art and an accomplishment. One person prizes himself on sneezing more gracefully than another, and, by a matter of general consent, all nations who have not an harmonious manner of vibrating their nostrils are justly condemned as savages and barbarians. There is no doubt that the people of this island are right; and there is no doubt that we are right in considering every people with different