The Gentleman's Guide in his tour through France. Wrote by an Officer in the Royal-navy, who lately travelled on a Principle which he most fincerely recommends to his Countrymen, viz. not to spend more Money in the Country of our natural Enemy, than is requifite to fupport with Decency the Character of an Englishman. 8vo. 2s. 6d. Briftol printed, and fold by Kearfly, &c. in London.

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T will be difficult, we apprehend, to afcertain the fum which will be neceffary to fupport the character of an Englishman, as our countrymen, as well abroad as at home, will chufe to live according to their fortunes. The character of an Englishman abroad, is that of a rich, foolish extravagant fellow. The Author of this book, however, must have appeared an exception to this general character. He spent in the course of eighteen months not quite one hundred and fifty pounds; a fum for which many people would have found it difficult to live even without travelling nevertheless he affures us that he learnt the French language, became acquainted with their laws, cuftoms and manners; that he never neglected to examine carefully all the curiofities worth notice; that he kept genteel company, had a fervant when in a town; and in fhort, fupported the character of a gentleman wherever he came. But our traveller would not have his readers fuppofe that he adopted this plan merely from economy: no, patriotifm was his principal motive, being unwilling to furnish our enemies with the finews of a future war. He tells us that he often with concern beheld our young gentry throwing money out of their windows, and thus confirming the French in their opinion of our immenfe riches, and confequently that we can afford to pay double what a Frenchman will pay for the fame article.

Our Author's general advice to travellers may be reduced to the following rules: Leave your chaife on this fide of the water, it being too flight for French roads. Take with you no clothes but thofe on your back. If you are in the fervice, wear your regimentals, and cultivate the acquaintance of the French officers wherefoever you come. Take care not to travel without a knife and fork in your pocket, left you lofe your dinner. Procure letters of recommendation to fome banker at Paris, who will recommend you farther. Make it a rule as foon as you arrive in a town, to vifit the Intendant, to whom, in cafe of ill ufage, you are to appeal, but ultimately, if neceffary, to the English ambaflador. Stay no longer at Calais than to walk round the ramparts, and to purchase les routes des poftes, and le nouveau voyage de France. If you be alone, endeavour to join company with fome perfon going to Paris, by all means avoid

ing the ftage coach. Stop fix months at Amiens, in order to learn a little of the language before you proceed to Paris, and afterwards, in your way to that city, ftop at Chantilly to view the palace and gardens of the Prince of Conti. Being arrived at the metropolis, take up your quarters in the ruë de Tournon, de Bucherie, Dauphine, or de la Harpe. You may lodge in the fourth or fifth ftory without any reflection upon your gentility. Avoid any intimacy with fuch of your countrymen who offer you their fervice, there being many Scotch, Irish and English sharpers in Paris. Dine at an ordinary. Afk your banker to recommend a fervant. Buy la Defcription de Paris par Germain Brice. If you have no acquaintance, apply to the Prior of the English convent for one of the monks to accompany you to fee the curiofities of the town; to whom you may, if you please, prefent a small prefent at parting. Having finished your furvey of Paris, you are to make an excurfion to Verfailles, Marli, St. Germains, St. Cloude, and Belle Vuë. Being now ready to fet out for the south of France, take the rout of Lions to Avignon, that being the cheapest, as you will go chiefly by water. The boats let out three times a week, and land you in two days and a half at Auxerre. In this voyage you ftand a good chance for a tête a tête with fome female paffenger; but you must be careful, for, fays our traveller, "The air of the southern parts of France is warm and impregnating, confequently the women extreamly amorous, and the majority of them have it in their power (and indeed ufe very little ceremony) to confer upon you a certain favour, which, if it does not coft you your life, may flick by you all your days."

From Auxerre you travel in the ftage coach to Dijon, the capital of Burgundy, where the French language is fpoke in greater purity than at Paris. It is an agreeable place, the inhabitants polite to ftrangers, and the price of provifions very reaFrom Dijon you travel in the fame manner to Challon, thence to Lyons in the Diligence par eau, and in like manner from Lyons to Avignon.

fonable.

In this city the Author was furprized to fee, in their publick walks, fo many beautiful women, which, he was told by a lady, must be attributed to the refidence of fo many handfome Englishmen, who were obliged to fly their country with the unfortunate Chevalier in 1745.

Our traveller very juftly admires the police of this city, where in each quarter of the town there is conftantly a civil magiftrate fitting to adminifter juftice in cafe of complaint; where the prices of provifions, as regulated by authority, are written over the door of each vender; where, in the center of the town, there is a magazine for corn provided in time of plenty,

plenty, and retailed to the poor, at a moderate price, in scarcer times; by which means monopolizing is effectually prevented.

From Avignon you are to take a place in a coach or chaife to Aix en Provence, thence to Toulon, thence to Marseilles, thence to Arles, where the cathedral, the town-hall, and feveral Roman antiquities deferve your notice. Your next object is Nifmes; whence, having viewed the well known curiofities, you proceed to Montpellier, the climate of which, according to our Author, is of late years fo much altered for the worse as to be at prefent remarkably unhealthy. He informs us likewise that none of the English of his acquaintance had reason to praise the skill of the phyficians in this city.

From Montpellier you proceed to Beziers, where you are to embark upon the royal canal for Toulouse, which opens a communication between the Western ocean and the Mediterranean, and is doubtlefs one of the moft aftonishing productions of art in the world. You now embark on the Garronne for Bourdeaux. Hence you travel by land to Poitiers, Tours, Blois, Orleans, and fo to Paris. From Paris you go by water to Rouen, and thence to Dieppe; where you are to embark on board the packet which will land you at Brighthelmstone in your native country.

The Author, having thus reconducted his traveller to England, fteps back to give a general description of the kingdom of France, its climate, inhabitants, laws, cuftoms, capital, &c. Taking leave of his Reader with the following juft and seasonable exhortation. "I fhall conclude by moft earnestly recommending to all Proteftant parents to be extreamly cautious to whofe care they intruft their children, when fent early into France for education; as I can with confidence affure them, that the Catholics (ever ftrenuous to make converts) ufe all their fpecious and oftentatious arguments to imprefs their idolatrous and irrational religion into their tender minds."

This, though not an elegant, may be, nevertheless, a useful book to those, who, like the Author, chufe to spend as little money as poffible among our natural enemies; efpecially as he never fails to mention not only the best inns upon the road, but alfo the cheapest method of conveyance from one place to

another.

The Life of John Buncle, Efq. Containing various Obfervations and Reflections made in feveral Parts of the World, and many extraordinary Relations. Vol. II. 8vo. 6 s. Johnfon and Co.

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ANY of our Readers, no doubt, remember the accounts we gave of this most extraordinary Author's forJuly, 1766.

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mer

mer productions; his "Memoirs of learned Ladies," and the firft Volume of his own life: for which fee Review, Vol. XIII. and XV.

Mr. Buncle is ftill the fame extravagant, vifionary, romantic writer; and his adventures, recorded in this new publication, are not in any degree more confiftent with nature and probability, nor a whit lefs abfurd, than thofe which, in his former productions, have fo greatly aftonifhed and, we had almost said, confounded his Readers.

Yet, wild and wonderful as are the ftories told by this strange adventurer, and monftrous, and even ridiculous as fome of his narrations are, they are fplendide mendaces; and we cannot help admiring the fingular turn and capacity of the writer :—Who, whenever he foars above the limits of common fenfe, is generally elevated into fo fine a frenzy, that we willingly fuffer him to tranfport us, in his aerial flights, to Thebes, to Athens, or the Lord knows where.'When, like one of the weird fifters on a broomstick, he fcampers away over earth and feas, or defperately plunges into fome horrible and untried gulph, we are nothing loth to mount behind and bear him company, though it were down to the centre, or beyond the vifible diurnal fphere.'- What an amazing mortal is this Buncle! Never, furely, did his equal exift! Nat. Lee is nothing to him; nor even the fiery poet, Lord Flame, who kept the town ftaring, laughing and hollowing, for near a month together, with his Hurlothrumbo. In fine, he is a perfect unique, and, certainly, as much an original, in his way, as Shakespeare or Sam. Richardfon; though, poflibly, with this difference, that their excellencies proceeded merely from native, uncultivated genius; while our Author's peculiar fublimities feem to be the prodice of a genius and imagination over-heated and run to feed in the hot-beds of romance and religious controversy. In all his extravagancies, however, he appears to maintain, with ftricteft uniformity, the character of an honeft man,-earneft in promoting the belt interefts of his fellow creatures, and zealous to the highest degree, for what he apprehends to be the cause of Truth. -Being, moreover, a fcholar, a mathematician, a philofopher, a divine, a phyfician, an hiftorian and a poet, his books may truly be filed a moft entertaining miscelJany, in which Readers of every clafs will find fomething for their amufcament; and no one, we believe, can be wholly dif pleafed with to various a writer, except those who cannot bear to hear the church of Rome cenfured, and the doctrine of the Trinity called in queftion: for, indeed, Mr. Buncle is the warmeft advocate for the Reformation, and for the unity of.

* See Playhouse Dictionary, Vol. II. art. Johnfoo

God, that we ever met with.. But then he introduces thefe controverted fubjects fo often, that, although he frequently tays very ftrong things upon them, yet even those who are in his own fentiments muft naturally be tired out with the eternal repetition.

This volume opens with what the Author calls his apology for the married ftate;' and, verily, according to his account few men have been better qualified to do juftice to the fubject: as he had no less than feven wives-but all in due fucceffion to each other; for you are not to imagine, gentle Reader, that Mr. Buncle was a polygamist.

Happily, indeed, did our Author and his amiable (firft) wifepass their time at Orton-lodge, where we left them at the clofe of our account of his former volume; but fhort as well as fweet was the term of their felicity! The foft tranfporting period' lafted but two years; when in came death, when they leaft expected him, fnatched Mr. Buncle's charming partner from him, and (as he expreffes it) melted all his happiness into air; a fever, fays he, in a few days, fapt the thread of her life, and made me the child of affliction, when I had not a thought of the mourner. Language cannot paint the diftrefs this calamity reduced me to; nor give an idea of what I fuffered, when I faw her eyes fwimming in death, and the throes of her departing fpirit. Bleft as fhe was in every virtue that adorns a woman, how inconfolable muft her husband be !'Not abfolutely inconfolable, however; for in the very next fection we find him in high raptures with a Mifs Statia Henley; a delightful young lady, of whom he gives the following defcription. She was at this time juft turned of twenty, and had fuch diffufive charms as foon new fired my heart, and gave my foul a softness even beyond what it had felt before. She was a little taller than the middle fize, and had a face that was perfeâly beautiful. Her eyes were extremely fine, full, black, sparkling, and her converfation was as charming as her perfon; both eafy, unconstrained and fprightly.'-We give this short description of Mifs Henley, as we shall do that of all his wives; because it may gratify the curiofity of the Reader to compare the feveral pictures with each other, and mark their different and diftinguishing beauties for beauties they all were, and peerless ones too, however extraordinary, fuch a circumftance may feem, and ftill more extraordinary that fo many divine and glorious creatures (to fpeak in our Author's own ftyle) fhould fall to the happy, feven times happy! lot of one man!

He met with this lady at a moft delightful romantic fpot. among the fells of Weftmoreland, the happy retirement of her grand father, Charles Henley, Efq; and here, too, he met with fother wonderful things, particularly a curious moralizing ning on a, reading defk in the midst of a library. riclves rather attracted by the blooming lady, than