be confined to the great; the _other_ set of mortals, for there are none
there of _middling_ rank, live, as it should seem, like eunuchs in a
seraglio; feel themselves irrevocably doomed to promote the pleasure of
their superiors, nor ever dream of sighing for enjoyments from which an
irremeable boundary divides them. They see at the beginning of their
lives how that life must necessarily end, and trot with a quiet,
contented, and unaltered pace down their long, straight, and shaded
avenue; while we, with anxious solicitude, and restless hurry, watch the
quick turnings of our serpentine walk; which still presents, either to
sight or expectation, some changes of variety in the ever-shifting
prospect, till the unthought-of, unexpected end comes suddenly upon us,
and finishes at once the fluctuating scene. Reflections must now give
way to facts for a moment, though few English people want to be told
that every hotel here, belonging to people of condition, is shut out
from the street like our Burlington-house, which gives a general gloom
to the look of this city so famed for its gaiety: the streets are narrow
too, and ill-paved; and very noisy, from the echo made by stone
buildings drawn up to a prodigious height, many of the houses having
seven, and some of them even eight stories from the bottom. The
contradictions one meets with every moment likewise strike even a
cursory observer--a countess in a morning, her hair dressed, with
diamonds too perhaps, a dirty black handkerchief about her neck, and a
flat silver ring on her finger, like our ale-wives; a _femme publique_,
dressed avowedly for the purposes of alluring the men, with not a very
small crucifix hanging at her bosom;--and the Virgin Mary's sign at an
alehouse door, with these words,

Je suis la mere de mon Dieu,
Et la gardienne de ce lieu[C].