MADAME PERNELLE.

Et tout ce qu'il contrôle est fort bien contrôlé.

MADAME PERNELLE, à Elmire.

Voilà les contes bleus qu'il vous faut pour vous plaire,
Ma bru. L'on est chez vous contrainte de se taire :
Car madame, à jaser, tient le dé tout le jour.
Mais enfin je prétends discourir à mon tour:
Je vous dis que mon fils n'a rien fait de plus sage
Qu'en recueillant chez soi ce dévot personnage;
Que le ciel, au besoin, l'a céans envoyé
Pour redresser à tous votre esprit fourvoyé ;
Que, pour votre salut, vous le devez entendre;
Et qu'il ne reprend rien qui ne soit à reprendre.
Ces visites, ces bals, ces conversations,
Sont du malin esprit toutes inventions.
Là, jamais on n'entend de pieuses paroles;
Ce sont propos oisifs, chansons et fariboles :
Bien souvent le prochain en a sa bonne part,
Et l'on y sait médire et du tiers et du quart.
Enfin les gens sensés ont leurs têtes troublées
De la confusion de telles assemblées :

Mille caquets divers s'y font en moins de rien;
Et, comme l'autre jour un docteur dit fort bien,
C'est véritablement la tour de Babylone,

Car chacun y babille, et tout du long de l'aune:
Et, pour conter l'histoire où ce point l'engagea ...
(montrant Cleante.)

Voilà-t-il pas monsieur qui ricane déjà !

Allez chercher vos fous qui vous donnent à rire,

(à Elmire.)

Et sans... Adieu, ma bru; je ne veux plus rien dire.

VOL. II.

K

Sachez que pour céans j'en rabats de moitié, Et qu'il fera beau temps quand j'y mettrai le pié. (donnant un soufflet à Flipote.)

Allons, vous, vous rêvez, et bayez aux corneilles. Jour de Dieu ! je saurai vous frotter les oreilles. Marchons, gaupe, marchons.

Tartufe-Acte I. Scène I.

195

THE YOUNG MARKET-WOMAN.

BELFORD is so populous a place, and the country round so thickly inhabited, that the Saturday's market is almost as well attended as an ordinary fair. So early as three or four o'clock in the morning, the heavy waggons (one with a capital set of hells) begin to pass our house, and increase in number-to say nothing of the admixture of other vehicles, from the humble donkey-cart to the smart gig, and hosts of horsemen and footpeople—until nine or ten, when there is some pause in the affluence of market folk till about one, when the lightened wains, laden, not with corn, but with rosycheeked country lasses, begin to show signs of travelling homeward, and continue passing at no very distant intervals until twilight. There is more traffic on our road in one single Saturday than on all the other days of the week put

together. And if we feel the stirring movement of "market-day" so strongly in the country,* it may be imagined how much it must enliven the town.

Saturday at noon is indeed the very time to see Belford, which in general has the fault, not uncommon in provincial towns, of wanting bustle. The old market-place, always picturesque from its shape (an unequal triangle), its size, the diversified outline and irregular architecture of the houses, and the beautiful Gothic church by which it is terminated, is then all alive with the busy hum of traffic, the agricultural wealth and the agricultural population of the district. From the poor farmer with his load of corn, up to the rich mealman and the great proprietor, all the "landed interest" is there, mixed with jobbers and chapmen of every description, cattle-dealers, millers, brew

*

My dog Dash, who regularly attends his master to the Bench, where he is the only dog admitted, and a great pet, knows Saturday as well as I do ; follows my father as closely as his shadow from the moment that he comes down stairs; and would probably break through the door or jump through a closed window, rather than suffer the phaeton to set off without him.

ers, maltsters, justices going to the Bench, constables and overseers following to be sworn, carriers, carters, errand-boys, tradesmen, shopmen, apprentices, gentlemen's servants, and gentlemen in their own persons, mixed with all the riff-raff of the town, and all the sturdy beggars of the country, and all the noisy urchins of both.

Noise indeed is the prime characteristic of the Belford market-day-noise of every sort, from the heavy rumbling of so many loaded waggons over the paved market-place, to the crash of crockery-ware in the narrow passage of Princes' Street, as the stall is knocked down by the impetus of a cart full of turnips, or the squall of the passengers of the Southton caravan, upset by the irresistible momentum of the Hadley-mill team.

But the noisiest, and perhaps the prettiest places, were the Piazza at the end of Saint Nicholas' church, appropriated by long usage to the female venders of fruit and vegetables, where certain old women, as well known to the habitués of the market as the church-tower, were wont to flyte at each other, and at their