Germain,
according to the custom of English travellers, he hired a private
lodging on the other side of the river, and associated chiefly
with French officers, who, their youthful sallies being over, are
allowed to be the politest gentlemen of that kingdom. In this scheme
he found his account so much, that he could not but wonder at the
folly of his countrymen, who lose the main scope of their going
abroad, by spending their time and fortune idly with one another.
"During his residence in Holland, he had made himself acquainted
with the best authors in the French language, so that he was able
to share in their conversation; a circumstance from which he found
great benefit; for it not only improved him in his knowledge of that
tongue, but also tended to the enlargement of his acquaintance, in
the course of which he contracted intimacies in some families of
good fashion, especially those of the long robe, which would have
enabled him to pass his time very agreeably, had he been a little
easier in point of fortune. But his finances, notwithstanding the
most rigid economy, being in a few months reduced to a very low
ebb, the prospect of indigence threw a damp upon all his pleasures,
though he never suffered himself to be thereby in any degree
dispirited; being in that respect of so happy a disposition, that
conscious poverty or abundance made very slight impressions upon
his mind.
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