486 Aphorisms on Man. MAY, 



with rich heiresses, or the beautiful Pamelas of an humbler stock. 

 Crossing the breed has done much good ; for the actual race of Bond- 

 street loungers would make a very respectable regiment of grenadiers ; 

 and the satire on Beau Didapper, in Fielding's Joseph Andrews, has lost 

 its force. 



LXI. 



The tone of society in Paris is very far from John Bullish. They do 

 not ask what a man is worth, or whether his father is the owner of a 

 tin-mine or a borough but what he has to say, whether he is amiable 

 and spirituel. In that case (unless a marriage is on the tapis) no one 

 inquires whether his account at his banker's is high or low ; or whether 

 he has come in his carriage or on foot. An English soldier of fortune, 

 or a great traveller, is listened to with some attention as a marked charac- 

 ter ; while a booby lord is no more regarded than his own footman in 

 livery. The blank after a man's name is expected to be filled up with 

 talent or adventures, or he passes for what he really is, a cypher. 



LXII. 



Our young Englishmen in Paris do not make much figure in the 

 society of Frenchmen of education and spirit. They stumble at the 

 threshold in point of manners, dress, and conversation. They have not 

 only to learn the language, but to unlearn almost every thing else. Both 

 words and things are different in France ; our raw recruits have to get 

 rid of a host of prejudices, and they do it awkwardly and reluctantly, 

 and if they attempt to make a regular stand, are presently out- voted. 

 The terms got hie and barbarous are talismans to strike them dumb. 

 There is, moreover, a clumsiness in both their wit and advances to fami- 

 liarity, that the spiteful brunettes on the other side of the water do not 

 comprehend, arid that subjects them to constant sneers ; and every false 

 step adds to their confusion and want of confidence. But their lively 

 antagonists are so flushed with victory and victims to their loquacity 

 and charms, that they are not contented to lecture them on morals, 

 metaphysics, sauces, and virtu, but proceed to teach them the true pro- 

 nunciation and idiom of the English tongue. Thus a smart French 

 widow having blundered by saying, " I have never made a child ;" and 

 perceiving that it excited a smile, maintained, for three whole days, 

 against a large company, that it was better than saying, " I never had a 

 child." 



LXIII. 



The Parisian trip (say what they will) is not grace. It is the motion 

 of a puppet, and may be mimicked, which grace cannot. It may be 

 different from the high, heavy-heeled walk of the Englishwoman. Is 

 is not equally remote from the step (if step it may be called) of an Anda- 

 lusian girl ? 



LXIV. 



It has been often made a subject of dispute, What is the distinguishing 

 characteristic of man ? And the answer may, perhaps, be given, that 

 he is the only animal that dresses. He is the only being who is coxcomb 

 enough not to go out of the world naked as he came into it ; that is 

 ashamed of what he really is, and proud of what he is not ; and that tries 



