STUDY XIII, 183 



I could «vifh that, our fea-ports excepted, there 

 were no city in France but Paris ; that our pro- 

 vinces were covered only with hamlets, and vil- 

 lages, and fub-divided into fmall farms; and that, 

 as there is but one centre in the kingdom, there 

 might likewife be but one Capital. Would to God 

 it were that of all Europe, nay, of the whole 

 Earth ; and that, as men of all Nations bring thi- 

 ther their ;ni^uftry, their paffions, their wants, and 

 their misfortunes, it (hould give them back, in for- 

 tune, in enjoyment, in virtues, and in fublime 

 confolations, the reward of that afylum which they 

 there refort to feek ! 



Of a truth, our mind, illuminated as it is, at this 

 day, with fuch various knowledge, wants the nobly 

 comprehenlive grafp which didinguifhed our fore- 

 fathers. Amidfl their fimple and Gothic manners, 

 they entertained the idea, I believe, of rendering 

 it the Capital of Europe. The traces of this defign 

 are vifible in the names which mofh of their efta- 

 bliOiments bear : the Scotiilh College, the Irifh, 

 that of the Four Nations ; and in the foreign names 

 of the Royal houfehold- troops. Behold that noble 

 monument of antiquity, the church of Notre- 

 Dame, built more than fix hundred years ago, at 

 a time when Paris did not contain the fourth part 

 of the inhabitants with which it is now peopled ; 

 it is more vaft, and more majeftic than any thing 



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