before a train of several carriages, which we could see pushing for the point of junction with the same object as ourselves, came up.  No one could pass us, on the same road, unless we stopped, and abandoning all idea of eating, we drove up to the post-house in Dole, and preferred our claim.  At the next moment, four other carriages stopped also.  But five horses were in the stable, and seventeen were needed!  Even these five had just arrived, and were baiting.  Four of them fell to my share, and we drove off with many handsome expressions of regret at being obliged to leave but one for the four other carriages.  Your travelling is an epitome of life, in which the lucky look upon the unlucky with a supercilious compassion.

A league or two beyond Dole, we met two carriages coming the other way, and exchanged horses; and really I had some such generous feelings on the occasion, as those of a rich man who hears that a poor friend has found a bank note.  The carriage with which we exchanged was English, and it had an earl’s coronet.  The pair within were man and wife; and some fine children, with an attendant or two, were in the one that followed.  They were Scotch at a glance:  the master himself wearing, besides the stamp of his nation on his face, a bonnet with the colours of his clan.  There is something highly respectable in this Scotch nationality, and I have no doubt it has greatly contributed towards making the people what they are.  If the Irish were as true to themselves, English injustice would cease in a twelvemonth.  But, as a whole, the Irish nobles are a band of mercenaries, of English origin, and they prefer looking to the flesh-pots of Egypt, to falling back sternly on their rights, and sustaining themselves by the proud recollections of their forefathers.  Indeed half of them would find their forefathers among the English speculators, when they found them at all.  I envied the Scotchman his cap and tartan, though I dare say both he and his pretty wife had all the fine feelings that such an emblem is apt to inspire.  Your earldoms are getting to be paltry things; but it is really something to be the chief of a clan!

You have travelled the road between Dole and Dijon with me once, already, and I shall say no more than that we slept at the latter town.  The next morning, with a view to vary the route, and to get off the train of carriages, we took the road towards Troyes.  Our two objects were effected, for we saw no more of our competitors for post-horses, and we found ourselves in an entirely new country; but, parts of Champagne and the Ardennes excepted, a country that proved to be the most dreary portion of France we had yet been in.  While trotting along a good road, through this naked, stony region, we came to a little valley in which there was a village that was almost as wild in appearance, as one of those on the Great St. Bernard.  A rivulet flowed through the village, and meandered by our side, among the half sterile meadows.  It