mixes water with his _genuine_ wine; he lives in a fine climate, where
there is not as with us, for six weeks together, easterly winds, which
stop the pores, and obstruct perspiration. A Frenchman eats a great
deal, it is true, but it is not all _hard meat_, and they never sit and
drink after dinner or supper is over.--An Englishman, on the contrary,
drinks much stronger, and a variety of fermented liquors, and often much
worse, and sits _at it_ many hours after dinner, and always after
supper. How then can he expect such health, such spirits, and to enjoy a
long life, free from pain, as most Frenchmen do; When the negro servants
in the West-Indies find their masters call _after_ dinner for a bowl of
punch extraordinary they whisper them, (if company are present) and ask,
"_whether they drink for drunk_, or _drink for dry_?" A Frenchman never
drinks for _drunk_.--While the Englishman is earning disease and misery
at his bottle, the Frenchman is embroidering a gown, or knitting a
handkerchief for his mistress. I have seen a Lady's sacque finely
_tamboured_ by a Captain of horse, and a Lady's white bosom shewn
through mashes netted by the man who made the snare, in which he was
himself entangled; though he made it he did not perhaps know the powers
of it till she _set it_.




LETTER XLV.


I write to you just as things come into my head, having taken very few
notes, and those, as you must perceive, often without much regard to
_unison_ or _time_. It has this minute occurred to me, that I omitted to
tell you on my journey onwards, that I visited a little town in