I faw the Colefins. The library is an upper gallery, very pleafant, and plentifully furnished with books. This is a very fine convent; with the nobleft Dortoire, having open galleries round: alfo, very large gardens, with alleys and fhady groves; and divers kitchen-gardens, well cultivated. Allo a vineyard of white-wine grapes, well kept; which is the only thing of that kind within the walls of Paris.

Here I alfo faw the clofet or cell of P. Hochereau; who had a very choice collection of original paintings, of very many of the best masters: amongst the reft, I took notice of the originals of Rambrant, excellent pieces. St. Peter and the cock: the nativity of our Saviour: and, the maffacre of the innocents. His colouring is not to be imitated: his invention great and natural, and the design most correct.

I was to vifit Pere Mallebranche of the fathers of the oratory: they live very neatly together in a kind of community, but under no rule: he was very handfomely lodged, in a room well furnished: he is a very tall, lean man, of a ready wit and cheerful converfation.

After an hour's difcourfe, he carried me into the public library of the houfe: a fair gallery well lighted, and well furnished with books; with an apartment at the upper end for manufcripts, where were many Greek and Hebrew. Amongst the reft, the library-keeper fhewed us the Samaritan Pentateuch, of which Morin made ufe. It feemed to me to be much later than that of Sir John Cotton's library with us, because it was of a much fmaller letter, and more broken in the writing, which was all I am capable to judge by.

They were bufy in reforming the difpofition of the library; and making a good catalogue, according to the method of the late archbishop of Rheims; and which I liked well of, they had drawn out fome hundreds of books, and exposed them in the middle of the library, upon a long table, for fale, as being duplicates; and from the fale of them to furnish themselves with what they wanted.

The books which were written by proteftants, I obferved, they were locked up in wire cafes, not to be come at without particular leave.

The freedom and nature of this order puts me in mind of what I heard of a certain rich and learned man, Monfieur Pinet, of the law; who put himself at length into religion, as they fay, amongst the fathers; but firft perfuaded his cook to do fo too; for he was refolved not to quit his good foups, and fuch dishes as he liked, whatever became of his penance and retirement. This compliment the elegant and learned Monfieur Peletier, in Monfieur Colbert's place, Comptroller General of the Finances made his guests at his country-houfe near Choify, having voluntarily quitted all his employments at court: he faid, he reserved his cook, though he retrenched the rest of his retinue; they might therefore expect a flender philofopher's dinner, though well dreft.

It is wonderful to confider how most of the rest of the orders abuse themselves for God's fake, as they call it. Hunger and ill diet not only deftroys a man's health, but maugre all his devotion, put him out of humour, and makes him repine and envy the reft of mankind: and well if it do not make him alfo curfe in his heart his maker: Job is not every man's roll to act. The original and rife of natural philosophy and phyfic was to invent a more wholesome and better food, than the beafts have, and to eat bread and flesh instead of herbs and corn; to drink wine instead of water; thofe and a thoufand other things were the bleffings of phyfick, and ftill the good manage ment of these things, both in health and fickness, are under the directions of the phyficians. Now for a fort of melancholy and wilful men, to renounce these comforts,

and

and destroy ther healths, and all this upon a pretended principle of religion and devotion, seems to me, I confefs, great ingratitude to God the author of it.

Indeed I heartily pitied F. P. an industrious honeft man, after his return from the Indies, who was nothing but skin and bone; and yet by the rules of his order he could not eat any thing that was wholefome and proper for his cure; nothing but a little flimy nafty fifh and herbs: and though he took, as he told me, hypocochoana five times, it had no effect upon him. It is true, I never heard him complain; but what will not blind prejudice do against all the reason of mankind!

I know fome of thefe men have been ufeful to mankind by their ftudies; but the very fame men would have been much more, had they ftaid with their neighbours, and taught the world by their converfation and example; wisdom, and justice, and innocence, and temperance, which they highly pretend to, are not things to be hid in corners, but to be brought forth to inftruct and adorn the age we live in to abandon the world, and all the conveniences of life and health, is (let them fay what they please) the height of chagrin, and not religion.

There were fome other public libraries I faw, as that of the Grands Auguftins, College Mazarin, College Navarre, and a great many more I did not fee for want of an opportunity; but there is nothing particular I remember about them.

There is fuch a paffion of fetting up for libraries, that books are come to most unreasonable rates.

I paid to Aniffon thirty-fix livres for Nizoleus; twenty livres for the two fmall quartos of the memoirs of the Academie de Sciences, that is, as I may fay, for two years philofophic tranfaction; for they began thofe monthly memoirs in imitation of ours, out of the registers of the academy, but did not think fit to continue them above two years.

As to ftamps, I had a mind to have bought a complete set of Melans, that incomparable master; but I was afked 200 livres, and twelve excepted, which might amount to as much more; for fome of his gravings in octavo done at Rome, they afked me a pistole a-piece; and for the head of Juftinianus a louis; which yet is his mafter-piece.

I was at an auction of books in the Rue St. Jaques, where were about forty or fifty people, most abbots and monks. The books were fold with a great deal of trifling: and delay as with us, and very dear; for Hifpania illuftrata Aud. Sciotti, of the Frankfort edition, from twenty livres, at which it was fet, they bid up by little and little to thirty fix livres; at which it was fold. The next was a catalogue of French books in thin fol. in an old parchment cover by De la Croix de Maine, eight livres. And fo I left them to fhift it amongst themselves.

After having faid fo much of the public libraries, I cannot but congratulate their happiness, to have them fo well fecured from fire; it being one of the perfections of this city to be fo built and furnished, as not to have fuffered by it these many ages; and, indeed, I cannot fee how malice itfelf could deftroy them, for the houses here are all built of stone, walls, floors, ftaircafes and all, fome few rooms excepted; no wainscot; woolen or filk hangings, which cannot be fired without giving notice by the intolerable ftench, and the supply of much fuel. It is well for us in London, that there are very few public libraries, and thofe fmall and inconfiderable, and that the great number of books are distributed into a thoufand hands, (no country in Europe can compare to us for private libraries) for if they were together in fuch vaft quantities as in Paris, learning would run the hazard of daily fuffering. Here with us, methinks, every man, goes to bed, when afleep, lies like a dead Roman upon a funeral pile, dreading

that

fome unexpected apotheofis; for all is combuftible about him, and the paint of the deal boards may ferve for incenfe, the quicker to burn them to afhes.

In the next place I will account for what I faw, that seemed to me fingular and new in the improvement of arts, or wanting in our country.

I faw the pottery of St. Cloud, with which I was marvellously well pleafed, for I confefs I could not diftinguish betwixt the pots made there, and the finest china ware I ever faw. It will, I know, be eafily granted me, that the paintings may be better designed and finished, (as indeed it was) because our men are far better masters in that art than the Chinese; but the glazing came not in the leaft behind theirs, not for whiteness, nor the fmoothness of running without bubbles; again, the inward fubstance and matter of the pots was to me the very fame, hard and firm as marble, and the felf fame grain, on this fide vitrification. Farther, the transparency of the pots the very fame.

I faw them alfo in the mould, undried, and before the painting and glazing was ap plied, they were as white as chalk, and melted upon the tongue like raw tobacco pipe clay, and felt betwixt the teeth foft like that, and very little gritty; fo that I doubt not, but they are made of that very clay.

As to the temper of the clay, the man freely owned to me, it was three or four times. well beaten and wet, before it was put to work on the wheel; but I believe it must first be melted in fair water, and carefully drawn off, that the heaviest part may first fink ; which alfo may be proper for coarfer works.

That it required two, and fometimes three or four fires to bake it, to that height we faw it in the most finished pots; nay fome of them had had 11 fires.

I did not expect to have found it in this perfection, but imagined this might have arrived at the Gomron ware; which is indeed little elfe but a total vitrification; but I found it far otherwife, and very furprizing, and which I account part of the felicity of the age to equal, if not furpafs, the Chinese in their finest art.

As for the red ware of china, that has been, and is done in England, to a far greater perfection than in China, we having as good materials, viz, the foft hæmatites, and far better artists in pottery. But in this particular we are beholden to two Dutchmen, brothers, who wrought in Staffordshire, (as I have been told) and were not long fince at Hammersmith.

They fold thefe pots at St. Cloud at exceffive rates; and for their ordinary chocolate cups afked crowns a-piece. They had arrived at the burning on Gold in neat chequer works. He had fold fome furnitures of tea tables at 400 livres a fet.

There was no moulding or model of China ware, which they had not imitated; and had added many fancies of their own, which had their good effects, and appeared very beautiful.

Monfieur Morin in converfation told me, that they kept their fand as a fecret to themselves; but this could not be for other purposes than colouring; alfo he faid they ufed falt of kelp in the compofition, and made a thing not unlike frit for glass, to be wrought up with white clay; neither could this be, for I did not taste it in the raw pois.

The ingenuous mafter told me, he had been twenty-five years about the experiment, but had not attained it fully till within this three years. I and other gentlemen brought over of these pots with us.

The glafs-houfe out of the gate of St. Antoine well deferves feeing; but I did lament the foundery, was no longer there, but removed to Cherborne in Normandy for cheapnefs of fuel. It is certainly a moft confiderable addition to the glass-making. For I

faw

faw here one looking-glass foiled and finished, eighty-eight inches long, and forty-eight broad, and yet but one quarter of an inch thick. This I think could never be effected by the blaft of any man; but I fuppofe to be run or caft upon fand, as lead is; which yet, I confefs, the toughness of glafs metal makes very much against.

There they are polished; which employs daily fix hundred men, and they hope in a little time to employ one thoufand in feveral galleries. In the lower they grind the coarse glafs with a fand-ftone, the very fame they pave the streets in Paris; of which broken they have great heaps in the courts of the work-houses: this ftone is beat to powder, and fifted through a fine tamis. In the upper gallery, where they polifh and give the laft hand, they work in three rows, and two men at a plate, with ruddle or powdered hæmatites in water.

The glaffes are fet faft in white putty, upon flat tables of ftone, fawed thin for that purpofe. The grinding of the edges and borders is very troublesome, and odious for the horrid grating noise it makes, and which cannot be endured to one that is not used to it; and yet by long cuftom thefe fellows are fo eafy with it, that they discourse together as though nothing were.. This is done below, and out of the way of the

reft.

This

It is very diverting to fee the joint labour of fo many men upon one subject. has made glafs for coaches very cheap and common; fo that even many of the fiacres or hackneys, and all-the remifes have one large glass before.

Amongst the bioux made at Paris, a great quantity of artificial pearl is to be had, of divers forts; but the beft are thofe which are made of the scales of bleaks. These bleaks they fish in the river Seine at Paris, and fell them to the pearl-makers for that purpose.

Monfieur Favi, at the Pearl d'Angleterre, told me, that he paid for the fish only of the little river Yier of Ville Neuve St. George, four leagues off of Paris, by the year 110 piftoles. This fish in French is called de la Bellette; fometimes in winter he has had thirty hampers of the fifh brought him, for the fcales only, which he uses in pearlmaking. He fells fome ftrings for a piftole; and they have formerly been fold much dearer. This fort is very neat and lasting.

Enquiring of a goldfmith, a great dealer in pearl, about those which were made of the fcales of fishes, he told me that it was fo; that the fcales were beat to powder, and that made into a liquid pafte with ifing-glafs, and caft into the hollow glass beads, and fo gave the colour by way of foil from the infide.

I asked him if he had any fresh-water and muscle pearl; and he forthwith fhewed me one of twenty-three grains, of a blufh colour or faint carnation, perfectly globular; he told me, he valued it at 400l. for that it would mix or match better with the oriental fea pearl, than the bluish ones. Further, he affured me, he had feen pearl of fixty odd grains of frefh-water muscles; and fome pear-fashioned. That in Lorrain, and at Sedan, they fifhed many pearls in the rivers thereabout.

The formerly fo famous a work-house, the Goblins, is miferably fallen to decay; perhaps because the king, having furnished all his palaces, has little more to do for them.

Here I faw the making marble tables, inlaid with all forts of coloured ftones.

Alfo the Atteliers or work-houfes of two of the famous fculptors Tuby; in which was a Lacoon copied in white marble admirably; alfo that other of Quoifivox, in which was, amongst other rare pieces, Caftor and Pollux, in white marble, exceedingly beauti ful and large; a copy alfo after the antique.

At

At Hubin's, the eye-maker, I faw drawers full of all forts of eyes, admirable for the contrivance, to match with great exactness any Iris whatsoever; this being a case where mif-matching is intolerable.

He himself alfo formerly wrought in falfe pearl, and affirmed, that the glass pearls were painted within with a paste made of the fcales of the bleak only; which he faid was a good trade here to the fishermen, who fold the fcales for fo much the ounce. Thefe necklaces were formerly fold at great prices, two or three piftoles a-piece.

I faw the platrerie, or plafter quarries near Montmartre, and the manner of burning of it. It is burnt with open fire fet up againft it; the hardest stone is burnt enough in two or three hours' time.

The top band or bed is very hard like a free-ftone: they diftinguish the beds by feveral names, i. e. 1. Mutton, 2. Lane, 3. Buzier, 4. Clikar, 5. Groban, 6. Pilliernoir, &c.

That which they call Lane is like Talk, or Selenites tranfparent, and splits in thin flakes; but there is but little of it, and the beds are finall; this feems to be but a fluor to the greater beds of grey-ftone. This rock is covered with a kind of grey fand to a great depth; which is not of the nature of plaister.

Though this plaifter burnt is never ufed (that I could learn) to fertilize either cornground or pafture, as our lime-ftone is; yet I fee no reafon why it may not, it being full of nitre, if it has lain long in damp caves.

This is not peculiar to Paris only: for I have feen quarries of it near Clifford-Moore in Yorkshire; where it is called hall-plaifter.

I cannot omit the mill-ftones, which they grind their wheat with at Paris, as upon the river of the Gobelins, out of the gate St. Bernard, where it falls into the Seine, and all throughout Picardy down to Calais, where I have seen great numbers of them.

Thefe mill-ftones are very useful, and so sweet, that not the least grit is ever found in their bread: they are moftly made up of pieces, two, three, or more fet together by a cement, and hooped round with iron to keep the pieces faft together. They are made of a kind of honey-comb ftone, wrought by the petrifaction of water, or ftalactites. The very felf-fame ftone I have feen rocks of on the river banks at Knaresborough, at the dropping-well in Yorkshire; therefore I advise my countrymen to put thefe excellent ftones in practice; for certainly no place ftands in more need of it; for the bread in the north of England is intolerably gritty, by reason of those sand or moor flones with which they grind their corn.

These ftones are fold at 500 livres a pair; whence they come I forgot to be informed.

In the next place, we will fee how the Parifians eat, drink, and divert themselves.

Of the Food of the Parifians.

The diet of the Parifians confifts chiefly of bread and herbs; it is here as with us, finer and coarfer. But the common bread, or pain de goneffe, which is brought twice a week into Paris from a village fo called, is purely white, and firm, and light, and made altogether with leaven; moftly in three pound loaves, and 3d. a pound. That which is baked in Paris is coarfer and much worse.

As for the fine manchet, or French bread, as we call it, I cannot much commend

it; it is of late, fince the quantity of beer that is brewed in Paris, often fo bitter, that

it is not to be eaten, and we far exceed them now in this particular in London.