524 My Uncles Diary at Calais. [MAY, 



habits, laws, and prepossessions to a difference of physiognomy, of 

 manners, and of dress. My friend was somewhat ruffled, yet amused, 

 to pass through guarded gateways, over massive drawbridges, and under 

 obsolete and ruined battlements ; through heaps of odious filth and 

 shops of paltry finery. It was market-day, and he was justly struck 

 with the beauty of the female peasantry of Lower Picardy the comeli- 

 ness of their costume at the abundance of supplies the wretched guise 

 of the innumerable beggars at the multitude of those unwieldy, useless 

 dogs which slumber under shambles in the sun, commixed with myriads 

 of yelping mongrel curs all concentrating in their mangy carcases 

 as many lineal combinations as a high Dutch nobleman of ample quar- 

 terings. All had a peculiar character : the sailors, loitering along the 

 port ; the poissardes, ranged in order, in an uniform costume ; the strings 

 of shrimping women, naked to the knees ; the herds of beggars, and the 

 vociferous crowd of pestering commissioners. I took my friend to visit 

 my own favourite sight a kind of mountebank upon the place a crea- 

 ture about sixty years of age. He was holding forth most volubly among 

 the staring rustics. His attire, a pair of patched and faded crimson 

 trowsers, with a military stripe ; a vest in velvet, richly polished with 

 the droppings of his mouth and spoon ; a shirt of chequered filthy cot- 

 ton, on which I have observed a faithful and tenacious patch of egg for 

 fourteen days at least ; a jacket of pea-green, embroidered, and a super- 

 annuated cocked-hat. No lacker could surpass the glossy darkness of 

 his hands, in which he held aloft a rusty nail, as instrumental in the 

 illustration of his recipe. His essay teemed with language by Dr. John- 

 son called i( magniloquence :" every other word was long, and closed in 

 " ation." He suffused the nail with an abundance of saliva, rubbed it 

 with his nostrum, and having wiped it, shewed a surface of decided bril- 

 liance. Having shewn the efficacy of his merchandize, he closed his 

 puffs with praises upon cleanliness while I remarked an undisturbed 

 deposit on his ears, which was nearly a sufficiency in landed property to 

 authorize his voting for a deputy o the department. He relieved the 

 tedium of his audience by a song, and was succeeded in his exhibition 

 by " Madame, ma femme" a congenial specimen of tawdry dirt and 

 eloquent pomposity. 



23d April. Disgusted at the spoliations of the custom-house officers. 



24th April. I gave the following opinion to : : " These ras- 

 cals, Sir, are paid by England for their frauds and incivility to drive us 

 from the country ; and the plan is excellent. You may remain here if 

 you will ; but I shall certainly return. It is insufferable to see such rob- 

 beries committed in opposition to the will of government. The system 

 needs purgation. A competent and strict authority should fix the powers 

 of minor officers, and stop the paltry larcenies that vex all foreigners, 

 and shed disgrace upon the country. A gentleman is treated like a var- 

 letby these presumptuous cavillers ; and nineteen out of twenty men 

 who come to settle in the country, are disgusted with their project at the 

 outset, by the injurious treatment of such harpies. We, at least, should 

 know the fate of what they take from us, and not be bounden to the 

 intercession of a race of beggarly commissioners. Why should we solicit 

 from the favour of a public servant what his duty to his government for- 

 bids him to detain? Is it reasonable to believe that any state would 

 drive away a man about to spend an income of 8,000 francs within its 

 territory, by the seizure of a shaving-pot, a jug, a candlestick, a bit of 



