character they did not know, or by
reason of a prior engagement, they declined his invitation on pretence
of having an appointment at a certain ordinary, though they expressed
a desire of being further acquainted with him; and Mr. Pallet took the
freedom of asking his name, which he not only declared, but promised,
as they were strangers in Paris, to wait upon them next day in the
forenoon, in order to conduct them to the Hotel de Toulouse, and the
houses of several other noblemen, remarkable for painting or curious
furniture. They thankfully embraced his proposal, and that same day made
inquiry among the English gentlemen about the character of our hero,
which they found so much to their satisfaction, that, upon their second
meeting, they courted his good graces without reserve; and as they had
heard of his intended departure, begged earnestly to have the honour of
accompanying him through the Low Countries. He assured them that
nothing could be more agreeable to him than the prospect of having such
fellow-travellers; and they immediately appointed a day for setting out
on that tour.

CHAPTER XLIII.

He introduces his new Friends to Mr. Jolter, with whom the Doctor enters
into a Dispute upon Government, which had well nigh terminated in open
War.

Meanwhile, he not only made them acquainted with everything worth seeing
in town but attended them in their excursions to all the king's houses
within a day's journey of Paris; and in the course of these parties,
treated them with an elegant dinner at his own apartments, where a
dispute arose between the doctor and Mr. Jolter, which had well nigh
terminated in an irreconcilable animosity. These gentlemen, with an
equal share of pride, pedantry, and saturnine disposition, were, by the
accidents of education and company, diametrically opposite in
political maxims; the one, as we have already observed, being a bigoted
high-churchman, and the other a rank republican. It was an article of
the governor's creed, that the people could not be happy, nor the earth
yield its fruits in abundance, under a restricted clergy and limited
government; whereas, in the doctor's opinion, it was an eternal truth,
that no constitution was so perfect as the democracy, and that no
country could flourish but under the administration of the mob.

These considerations being premised, no wonder that they happened to
disagree in the freedom of an unreserved conversation, especially as
thei