his fare. Compared with the older part of
London, the more ancient division of Paris is infinitely more interesting,
and of a finer architectural construction. The conical roofs every now and
then remind you of the times of Francis I.; and the clustered arabesques,
upon pilasters, or running between the bolder projections of the facades,
confirm you in the chronology of the buildings. But time, caprice, fashion,
or poverty, will, in less than half a century, materially change both the
substance and surfaces of things. It is here, as at Rouen--you bewail the
work of destruction which has oftentimes converted cloisters into
workshops, and consecrated edifices into warehouses of every description.
Human nature and the fate of human works are every where the same. Let two
more centuries revolve, and the THUILERIES and the LOUVRE may possibly be
as the BASTILLE and the TEMPLE.

Such, to my feelings, is Paris--considered only with reference to its
_local_: for I have really done little more than perambulate its streets,
and survey its house-tops--with the important exceptions to be detailed in
the succeeding letters from hence. Of the treasures contained _beneath_
some of those "housetops"--more especially of such as are found in the
shape of a BOOK--whether as a MS. or a Printed Volume--prepare to receive
some particulars in my next.

[1] [Several Notes in this volume having reference to MONS. CRAPELET, a
Printer of very considerable eminence at Paris, it may be proper to
inform the Reader that that portion of this Tour, which may be said to
have a more exclusive reference to France, usually speaking--including
the notice of Strasbourg--was almost entirely translated by Mons.
Crapelet himself. An exception however must be made to those parts
which relate to the _King's Private Library_ at Paris, and to
_Strasbourg_: these having been executed by different pens, evidently
in the hands of individuals of less wrongheadedness and acrimony of
feeling than the Parisian Printer. Mons. Crapelet has prefixed a
Preface to his labours, in which he tells the world, that, using my
more favourite metaphorical style of expression, "a CRUSADE has risen
up against the INFIDEL DIBDIN."

Metaphorical as may be this style, it is yet somewhat alarming: for,
most assuredly, when I entered and quitted the "beau pays" of France,
I had imagined myself to have been a courteous, a grateful