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di ^ ad their old tyrants task-masters , and their cry would be as lu the days of Pbaraoh . The palace of their king croaked with priests worse than frogs : the Hugo nots , like bond-slaves , were to make brick without straw ; and the
dragoons , like taskmasters , insulted and cudgelled them to their drudgery : the tax-gatherers &ad gabellers > like locusts , covered the earth . Their temples too
were filled with idols ; like those of Memphis . England aud -Holland were the Goshen for the poar refugees to retire to ; and who knows but their Pharaoh and his host may one day be-overwhelmed in that red sea of blood , which by their
means hath overflown those parts of Europe ? " ( Pp . 84 , 85 . ) After a description , not very flattering , of the houses , streets , and especially the shops of Paris , this true-born Englishman gratifies bis nationality by adding , " you shall see here the finer sort of people flaunting it in
tawdery gauze , or colbertine with a parcel of coarse , staring ribbons 3 but ten of their holiday habits shall not amount to what a citizen ' s wife of London wears on her head every day- " ( P- && •) Though " there are several great piles
of building about the city , which look noble and ornamental - , as the gates of St . Anthony , St . Michael , St . Jaques , aud others ; " vet " there is too an old castelet , said to be built by Julian the Apostate , which presents no more like the tower of London , than a toothdrawer to Alexander the Great . " ( P .
* W . ) Also * ' their great church of Notre Dame , said to be the finest in all France , falls short of many of ours . " ( P . 89 . ) Here our traveller might have paid a deserved respect to the enlightened liberality of " M . Joli , Chanter , " and one of the canons of this church , of wliom it is mentioned in
A New ( J Description of Paris / ' ( 1687 , fj- * 5 , ) that ** he ha . d a numerous library \ vhich he gave away " in H > 8 , 5 ' on condition .. lutij it be public , j ^ d t ^ at aj l sorjt s of people may have liber ty to come anc ^ kudy . in it freely . "
A " the Towu-Hause , or Guildhall , " <> ur travej ler found " inscribed over tl g ^ e S . P . Q . JP ., " which reminded , n ° f " the gapl at Newgate , where «* emblem of liberty is set over the jj rch , and the poor wretches are in inters within . " ( P . 90 . ) Of " the , yniver 81 ty , founded by Charlemaine , " Aue JVew Description , which I lately
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quoted , says , ( II . 4 , ) that there " thg sciences flourish more than in any other part of Europe , and are taught with much success and profit . " On the contrary , our English censor of France makes the following unfavourable comparison :
" You have a confusion of colleges and grammar schools , writing-boys and mathematicians , doctors and pedagogues , all sorts of literature shuffled together , from the Primmer to the Talmud ; from the whipping school to the
Convocationhouse . You see not here those regular buildings and oeconomies as in Oxford or Cambridge ; no Bodley ' s Libraries , no Sheldon ' s Theatres : not that pomp and order , not that discipline and uniformity , uot that neatness mid convenience as in
the universities of England , which , for nobleness and beauty of foundation , besides the foregoing excellencies , justly claim the precedence of all other academies of the world" ( Pp . 88 , 89 . ) On mentioning € < Pont N . Dame , or Our Lady ' Bridge , " the traveller ,
as if ignorant that vice in the great loses * ' half its grossness , " complains , in uncourtly phrase , that " a whore hath lately got the upper hand of our Lady : for that , to the perpetual infamy of Charles II ., lie loaded his Jade
Portsmouth with English treasure enough to build the best street in Paris , which is called by her name . " ( P . 92 . ) On " a triumphal statue " of " great Louis , " designed * to insinuate the notion of victory into the heads of his poor deluded subjects , " it is observed ,
" rhc Roman Emperors used' -to set up the marks of their conquests in the country , or city conquered , a ** the many remaining monuments and inscriptions in ( raul , Spain , Britain and Flanders witness . They had not their trophies confined to the wall of their oWrr city , but the mighty Louis hath a more modern way of publishing his victories in the streets of his
own Parish— 'Fhesc are pietty artifices to set the credulous ahd admiring vulgar at gaze , and to raise in tfacin an opinion of the great prowess of tli ^ ir dating monarch , who valiitutly keeps himself entrenched within the iwalls of his Versailles . " ( Pp 101 , 102 . )
Our traveller < had the curiosity to go to one of their churches upon a very solemn occasion . " It was the day sacred to St . Anthony , to whom the church was dedicated . There
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Book-Worm . No . XXVII . 203
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1822, page 203, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2511/page/11/
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