his eye-sight, and almost
his senses, and is now led about with his hair in a bag, and a piece of
green silk hanging like a screen before his face. Count Saxe, and other
military writers have demonstrated the absurdity of a soldier's wearing
a long head of hair; nevertheless, every soldier in this country wears
a long queue, which makes a delicate mark on his white cloathing; and
this ridiculous foppery has descended even to the lowest class of
people. The decrotteur, who cleans your shoes at the corner of the Pont
Neuf, has a tail of this kind hanging down to his rump, and even the
peasant who drives an ass loaded with dung, wears his hair en queue,
though, perhaps, he has neither shirt nor breeches. This is the
ornament upon which he bestows much time and pains, and in the
exhibition of which he finds full gratification for his vanity.
Considering the harsh features of the common people in this country,
their diminutive stature, their grimaces, and that long appendage, they
have no small resemblance to large baboons walking upright; and perhaps
this similitude has helped to entail upon them the ridicule of their
neighbours.

A French friend tires out your patience with long visits; and, far from
taking the most palpable hints to withdraw, when he perceives you
uneasy he observes you are low-spirited, and therefore he will keep you
company. This perseverance shews that he must either be void of
penetration, or that his disposition must be truly diabolical. Rather
than be tormented with such a fiend, a man had better turn him out of
doors, even though at the hazard of being run thro' the body.

The French are generally counted insincere, and taxed with want of
generosity. But I think these reproaches are not well founded.
High-flown professions of friendship and attachment constitute the
language of common compliment in this country, and are never supposed
to be understood in the literal acceptation of the words; and, if their
acts of generosity are but very rare, we ought to ascribe that rarity,
not so much to a deficiency of generous sentiments, as to their vanity
and ostentation, which engrossing all their funds, utterly disable them
from exerting the virtues of beneficence. Vanity, indeed, predominates
among all ranks, to such a degree, that they are the greatest egotists
in the world; and the most insignificant individual talks in company
with the same conceit and arrogance, as a person of the greatest
importanc