A Years Journey through France and Part of Spain | Page 2

wine, vinegar, sallad, milk, and, in short, every thing we
wanted, at a very unreasonable price. At length, my servant, who by
agreement made my soup in their kitchen, said something rude to my
landlord, who complained to me, and seemed satisfied with the
reprimand I had given the man; but upon a repetition of his rudeness,
_Mons. Saigny_ so far forgot himself as to speak equally rude to me:
this occasioned some warm words, and so much ungovernable passion
in him, that I was obliged to tell him I must fetch down my pistols; this
he construed into a direct challenge, and therefore retired to his
apartments, wrote a card, and sent it to me while I was walking before
the door with a priest, his friend and visitor, and in sight of the little
female captain his second, and all the servants of the house; on this
card was wrote, "_Sir, I accept your proposition_;" and before I could
even read it, he followed his man, who brought it in the true stile of a
butler, rather than a butcher, with a white napkin under his arm. You
may be sure, I was no more disposed to fight than _Mons. Saigny_;
indeed, I told him I would not; but if any man attacked me on my way
to or from the town, where I went every day, I would certainly defend
myself: and fortunately I never met _Mons. Saigny_ in the fortnight I
staid after in his house; for I could not bear to leave a town where I had
two or three very agreeable acquaintance, and one (_Mons. Seguier_)
whose house was filled as full of natural and artificial curiosities, as his
head is with learning and knowledge. Here too I had an opportunity of
often visiting the Amphitheatre, the Maison Carree, (so Mons. Seguier
writes it) and the many remains of Roman monuments so common in
and about Nismes. I measured some of the stones under which I passed

to make the tout au tour of the Amphitheatre, they were seventeen feet
in length, and two in thickness; and most of the stones on which the
spectators sat within the area, were twelve feet long, two feet ten inches
wide, and one foot five inches deep; except only those of the sixth row
of seats from the top, and they alone are one foot ten inches deep;
probably it was on that range the people of the highest rank took their
seats, not only for the elevation, but the best situation for sight and
security; yet one of these great stones cannot be considered more, in
comparison to the whole building, than a single brick would be in the
construction of Hampton-Court Palace. When I had the sole possession
(and I had it often) of this vast range of seats, where emperors,
empresses, Roman knights, and matrons, have been so often seated, to
see men die wantonly by the hands of other men, as well as beasts for
their amusement, I could not but with pleasure reflect, how much
human nature is softened since that time; for notwithstanding the
powerful prevalency of custom and fashion, I do not think the ladies of
the present age would plume their towering heads, and curl their
borrowed hair, with that glee, to see men murdered by missive
weapons, as to die at their feet by deeper, tho' less visible wounds. If,
however, we have not those cruel sports, we seem to be up with them in
prodigality, and to exceed them in luxury and licentiousness; for in
Rome, not long before the final dissolution of the state, the candidates
for public employments, in spite of the penal laws to restrain it, bribed
openly, and were chosen sometimes by arms as well as money. In the
senate, things were conducted no better; decrees of great consequence
were made when very few senators were present; the laws were
violated by private knaves, under the colour of public necessity; till at
length, _Cæsar_ seized the sovereign power, and tho' he was slain, they
omitted to recover their liberty, forgetting that
"A day, an hour, of virtuous Liberty Is worth a whole eternity of
bondage." _Addison's_ CATO.
I can almost think I read in the parallel, which I fear will soon be drawn
between the rise and fall of the British and Roman empire, something
like this;--"Rome had her CICERO; Britain her CAMDEN: Cicero,
who had preserved Rome from the conspiracy of Catiline, was

banished: CAMDEN, who would have preserved Britain from a bloody
civil war, removed." The historian will add, probably, that "those who
brought desolation upon their land, did not mean that there should be
no commonwealth, but that right or wrong, they should continue to
controul it: they did not mean to