above all, most rare pictures. The gildings, carvings, and paintings of the roofs, are admirable.

"These things are in this city, and the country about, to such a variety and excess, that you can come into no private house of any man of substance, but you see something of them; and they are observed frequently to ruin themselves in these expenses. Every one that has any thing to spare, covets to have some good picture or sculpture of the best artist. The like in the ornaments of their gardens, so that it is incredible what pleasure that vast quantity of fine things gives the curious stranger. Here, as soon as ever a man gets any thing by fortune or inheritance, he lays it out in some such way as now named.

"Yet, after all, many utensils and conveniences of life are wanting here, which we have in England. This makes me remember what Monsieur Instell, a Parisian, formerly told me here, that he had made a catalogue of near threescore things of this nature, which they wanted in Paris.

"The pavement of the streets is all of square stone, of about eight or ten inches thick; that is, as deep in the ground as they are broad at top. The gutters shallow, and laid round without edges, which makes the coaches glide easily over them; every stone costs sixpence before it is laid in the pavement, so that the charge hath been very great to have so vast a city paved with them; and also, all the roads that lead to it for some leagues together.

"However, it must needs be said, the streets are very narrow, and the passengers a-foot no ways secured from the hurry and danger of coaches, which are always passing the streets with an air of haste; and a full trot, upon broad flat stones, betwixt large and resounding houses, makes a sort of music which should seem very agreeable to the Parisians."

Having indulged in some preliminary observations, Dr. Lister descends to a more particular review of this great city," and treats-of the streets and public places-of the "houses of note "-of the men and libraries he met with-of the diet and recreations of the Parisians-of the gardens and their ornaments-and, lastly, of the air and health of Paris. We shall endeavour to present to our readers the most important part of his observations on each of these heads..

In describing the streets of Paris, the Doctor naturally adverts to the vehicles which traverse them. The coaches, he tells us, were numerous, and " very fine in gilding," but do not equal our own in "largeness, beauty, and neatness," though they surpass the English equipages in easiness. The latter quality was, no doubt, of the first importance at the period, when the Doctor wrote before the advent of Mr. M'Adam. After enjoying the luxury of the Paris coaches for four months, the Doctor" rid in the easiest chariot of my lord's, which came from England, but not a jolt but what affected a man, so as to

be tired more in one hour, in that, than in six in these." The hackney coaches and chairs were, we are told," the most nasty and miserable voitures that can be, and yet near as dear again as in London." For quick travelling, there were "great numbers of post-chaises for a single person, and rouillions for two persons."*

"Yet, there is one more in this city which I was willing to omit, as thinking it at first sight scandalous, and a very jest, it being a wretched business in so magnificent a city; and that is the vinegrette, a coach on two wheels, dragged by a man, and pushed behind by a woman or boy, or both."

From the vehicles, our traveller proceeds to the passengers in the streets. Of these, the bishops and abbots, as he terms them, make the most considerable figure, the former having ❝ very splendid equipages, and a variety of fine liveries." The lawyers, however, assisted by their wives, appear to have rivalled the churchmen.

It is

"Amongst the living objects to be seen in the streets of Paris, the counsellors and chief officers of the courts of justice make a great figure. They and their wives have their trains carried up, so there are abundance to be seen walking about the streets in this manner. for this, that places of that nature sell so well. A man that has a right to qualify a wife with this honour, shall command fortune; and, the carrying a great velvet cushion to church is such another business. The place of a lawyer is valued a third part dearer for this."

After noticing the " very little noise in the city of public cries of things to be sold, or any disturbance from pamphlets or hawkers," the Doctor gives us a piece of information, as applicable to Paris at the present day, as at the period of his visit.

"It is difficult and dangerous to vend a libel here. While we were in town, a certain person gave a bundle of them to a blind man, a beggar of the hospital of the Quinzevint, telling he might get fivepence for every penny. He went to Notre-Dame, and cried them up in the service time, La vie, et miracles de l'Evesque de Rheims.' This was a trick that was played the archbishop, as it was thought by the Jesuits, with whom he has had a great contest about Molina's (the Spanish Jesuit,) doctrines. The libel went off at any rate, when the first buyers had read the title further, and found they were against the present archbishop, duke, and first peer of France."

For a curious and correct account of our own public vehicles, at nearly this period, see The Grand Concern of England Explained. (Harleian Miscellany, vol. viii. p. 40.)

Of the lighting of the streets, we have the following ac

count:

"The streets are lighted alike all the winter long, as well when the moon shines, as at other times of the month; which I remember the rather, because of the impertinent usage of our people at London, to take away the lights for half of the month, as though the moon was certain to shine and light the streets; and that there could be no cloudy weather in winter. The lanterns here hang down in the very middle of all the streets, about twenty paces distance, and twenty foot high. They are made of a square of glass about two feet deep, covered with a broad plate of iron, and the rope that lets them down is secured, and locks up in an iron funnel and little truck, fastened into the wall of the house. These lanterns have candles, of four in the pound, in them, which last burning till after midnight.'

The expense of these lights for five months only is said to have amounted to £50,000 sterling per annum. When Dr. Franklin was in Paris, he was kind enough to give the Parisians some advice on this subject, namely, that if they would go to bed earlier, and rise earlier, they might save their tallow. The frolic of lamp-breaking incurred very serious consequences.

"As to these lights, if any man break them, he is forthwith sent to the galleys; and there were three young gentlemen of good families, who were in prison for having done it in a frolic, could not be released thence for some months, and that not without the diligent application of good friends at court."

Having sufficiently explored the streets, Dr. Lister "begs leave, in the next place, to visit the palaces and men of letters.' The Palais Mazarin first attracted his attention, where he was much scandalized at "the fond humour" of the Duke de Mazarin, who," in a hot fit of devotion," bestowed garments upon all his statues, in all instances where the sculptor had omitted that act of decency; or, as our traveller expresses himself," frocked them by a sad hand with I know not what plaister of Paris." This subject leads the Doctor to discourse concerning the habits of the ancients, and from thence of the moderns, concluding with the following piece of honest advice.

"But the best rule of health and long life is to do little to ourselves. People are not aware what inconveniences they bring upon themselves by custom, how they will plead for things long used, and make that pleasant which is very destructive to their healths; as in the case of clothing, tobacco, strong-waters, steel remedies, the drinking mineral waters, bathing, tea, coffee, chocolate, &c."

Le Nostre's cabinet is thus described by our traveller.

"Monsieur le Nostre's cabinet, or rooms, wherein he keeps his fine things, the comptroller of the king's gardens at the side of the Tuilleries, was worth seeing. He is a very ingenious old gentleman, and the ordinance and design of most of the royal and great gardens in and about Paris are of his invention, and he has lived to see them in perfection. This gentleman is eighty-nine years old, and quick and lively. He entertained me very civilly. There were in the three apartments, into which it is divided, (the uppermost of which is an octagon room with a dome,) a great collection of choice pictures, porcelains, some of which were jars of a most extraordinary size, some old Roman heads and bustos, and entire statues; a great collection of stamps very richly bound up in books; but he had lately made a draught of his best pictures to the value of 50,000 crowns, and had presented them to the king at Versailles. There was not any thing of natural history in all his cabinet.

"I was several times with him, and once he carried me into an upper closet, where he had a great collection of medals in four cabinets; the most modern amongst them were four large drawers, three of which were the medals of king William. The fourth drawer was of king William's ancestors and family, near 300, as he told me in all; he had been 40 years in making this collection, and had purchased many of them at vast rates. He has certainly the best furniture for an Historia Metallica that I ever saw. The French king has a particular kindness for him, and has greatly enriched him, and no man talks with more freedom with him; he is much delighted with his humour, and will sit to, see his medals; and when he comes at any medal that makes against him, he will say, "sire, voyla une, qu'est bien contre nous:" as though the matter pleased him, and he was glad to find it to show it to the king. Monsieur le Nostre spoke much of the good humour of his master; he affirmed to me he was never seen in passion, and gave me many instances of occasions, that would have caused most men to have raged, which yet he put up with all the temper imaginable.

"In this cabinet I saw many very rare old china vessels, and amongst them a small Roman glass urn, very thick made and ponderous, of a blue sea colour, the two ears were feet divided into four claws, but the very bottom of this vessel was smooth, and very little umbilicate; and for this reason I cannot see whether it might not be cast, and not blown."

The Doctor's next visit was to the palace of the Luxembourg, and the Louvre, the most remarkable features of which he describes at some length. He also details his interviews with Baudelet, Tournefort, and other celebrated men of that day. Amongst others, he called at the apartments of M. Verney, in the royal physic garden,

but missing my visit, went up with a young gentleman of my lord ambassador's retinue to see Mr. Bennis, who was in the dissecting room, working by himself upon a dead body, with its breast

open and belly gutted: there were very odd things to be seen in the room. My companion, it being morning, and his senses very quick and vigorous, was strangely surprised and offended; and retired down the stairs much faster than he came up. And, indeed, a private anatomy room, is to one not accustomed to this kind of manufacture, very irksome if not frightful: here, a basket of dissecting instruments, as knives, saws, &c.; and there, a form with a thigh and leg flayed, and the muscles parted asunder: on another form, an arm served after the same manner: here, a tray full of bits of flesh, for the more minute discovery of the veins and nerves, and every where such discouraging objects. So, as if reason and the good of mankind did not put them upon this study, it could not be endured. For instinct and nature most certainly abhors the employment."

It appears that Paris was as well supplied with subjects at that time, as it is at present.

"He (M. Verney,) had, at least, twenty human bodies from the gallows, the Chatelet, (where they are exposed, who are found murthered in the streets, which is a very common business at Paris,) and from the hospitals."

Of Madame Dacier, Dr. Lister gives a very favourable ac

count.

" I visited Monsieur Dacier and his lady, two very obliging persons, and both of great worth and very learned.

"I think our profession is much beholden to him for his elegant translation of Hippocrates into French, with learned notes upon him. I wish he may live to finish what he hath so happily begun. I read over the two volumes he has printed with great delight. He seems to favour the opinion of those, who think the circulation of the blood was known to him; in which he errs undoubtedly. "Tis manifest his anatomy was rude, dark, and of little extent; but 'tis also as manifest that he knew very well the effect of the circulation. I must needs say this for Madam Dacier, his wife, though I knew her, by her writings, before I saw her the learnedest woman in Europe, and the true daughter and disciple of Fanaquil Faber; yet her great learning did not alter her genteel air in conversation, or in the least appear in her discourse; which was easy, modest, and nothing affected.

"I visited Monsieur Morin, one of the Academie des Sciences, a man very curious in minerals; of which he shewed me some from Siam, as jaspers, onyxes, agates, loadstones, &c. He shewed me also excellent tin ore from Alsace. Also, from France, a great block of a sort of amethyst of two or three hundred weight; some parts of it (for he had several plates sawed and polished) were very fine, and had large spots and veins of a deep coloured violet. It was designed for a pavement in Marchetterie, of which he shewed me a carton drawn in the natural colours. This puts me in mind of a vast amethyst I had seen at London, brought from New Spain, and exposed to sale; it