THE FRAGMENT.

PARIS.

Now as the notary's wife difputed the point with the notary with too much heat-I wish, said the notary (throwing down the parchment) that there was another notary here only to fet down and attest all this

-And what would you do then, Monfieur? faid fhe, rifing haftily upthe notary's wife was a little fume of a woman, and the notary thought it well

well to avoid a hurricane by a mild reply-I would go, anfwer'd he, to bed. You may go to the devil, anfwer'd the notary's wife.

Now there happening to be but one bed in the house, the other two rooms being unfurnished, as is the cuftom at Paris, and the notary not caring to lie in the fame bed with a woman who had but that moment fent him pell-mell to the devil, went forth with his hat and cane and short cloak, the night being very windy, and walk'd out ill at eafe towards the Pont Neuf.

Of all the bridges which ever were built, the whole world who have pafs'd

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pafs'd over the Pont Neuf, muft own, that it is the nobleft-the finest-the grandeft—the lightest—the longest— the broadest that ever conjoin'd land and land together upon the face of the terraqueous globe

By this, it feems as if the author of the fragment had not been a French

man.

The worft fault which divines and the doctors of the Sorbonne can allege against it, is, that if there is but a cap-full of wind in or about Paris, 'tis more blafphemously facre Dieu'd there than in any other aperture of the whole city-and with rea

fon,

fon, good and cogent Meffieurs; for it comes against you without crying: garde d'eau, and with fuch unpremeditable puffs, that of the few who crofs it with their hats on, not one in fifty but hazards two livres and a half, which is its full worth.

The poor notary, juft as he was paffing by the fentry, instinctively clapp'd his cane to the fide of it, but in raifing it up, the point of his cane catching hold of the loop of the fentinel's hat, hoifted it over the fpikes of the balluftrade clear into the Seine

'Tis an ill wind, faid a boatman, who catch'd it, which blows no body any good.

The fentry, being a gafcon, incontinently twirl'd up his whifkers, and levell'd his harquebufs.

Harquebuffes in thofe days went off with matches; and an old woman's paper lantern at the end of the bridge happening to be blown out, fhe had borrow'd the fentry's match to light it-it gave a moment's time for the gafcon's blood to run cool, and turn the accident better to his advantage-'Tis an illwind, faid he, catching off the notary's caftor, and