t city of the whole world, it
would not have been amiss, if they had been left a thought wider; nay,
were it only so much in every single street, as that a man might know
(was it only for satisfaction) on which side of it he was walking.

One--two--three--four--five--six--seven--eight--nine--ten.--Ten cooks
shops! and twice the number of barbers! and all within three minutes
driving! one would think that all the cooks in the world, on some great
merry-meeting with the barbers, by joint consent had said--Come, let
us all go live at Paris: the French love good eating--they are all
gourmands--we shall rank high; if their god is their belly--their cooks
must be gentlemen: and forasmuch as the periwig maketh the man, and the
periwig-maker maketh the periwig--ergo, would the barbers say, we shall
rank higher still--we shall be above you all--we shall be Capitouls
(Chief Magistrate in Toulouse, &c. &c. &c.) at least--pardi! we shall
all wear swords--

--And so, one would swear, (that is, by candle-light,--but there is no
depending upon it,) they continued to do, to this day.

Chapter 3.CI.

The French are certainly misunderstood:--but whether the fault is
theirs, in not sufficiently explaining themselves; or speaking with that
exact limitation and precision which one would expect on a point of such
importance, and which, moreover, is so likely to be contested by
us--or whether the fault may not be altogether on our side, in not
understanding their language always so critically as to know 'what they
would be at'--I shall not decide; but 'tis evident to me, when they
affirm, 'That they who have seen Paris, have seen every thing,' they
must mean to speak of those who have seen it by day-light.

As for candle-light--I give it up--I have said before, there was no
depending upon it--and I repeat it again; but not because the lights and
shades are too sharp--or the tints confounded--or that there is neither
beauty or keeping, &c....for that's not truth--but it is an uncertain
light in this respect, That in all the five hundred grand Hotels, which
they number up to you in Paris--and the five hundred good things, at a
modest computation (for 'tis only allowing one good thing to a Hotel),
which by candle-light are best to be seen, felt, heard, and understood
(which, by the bye, is a quotation from Lilly)--the devil a one of us
out of fifty, can get our heads fairly thrust in amongst them.

This is no part of the French computa