ere ready at the door
of the inn, before Diego was ready for his second stanza; so without
staying to finish his ode, they both mounted, sallied forth, passed the
Rhine, traversed Alsace, shaped their course towards Lyons, and before
the Strasburgers and the abbess of Quedlingberg had set out on their
cavalcade, had Fernandez, Diego, and his Julia, crossed the Pyrenean
mountains, and got safe to Valadolid.

'Tis needless to inform the geographical reader, that when Diego was
in Spain, it was not possible to meet the courteous stranger in the
Frankfort road; it is enough to say, that of all restless desires,
curiosity being the strongest--the Strasburgers felt the full force of
it; and that for three days and nights they were tossed to and fro in
the Frankfort road, with the tempestuous fury of this passion, before
they could submit to return home.--When alas! an event was prepared for
them, of all other, the most grievous that could befal a free people.

As this revolution of the Strasburgers affairs is often spoken of, and
little understood, I will, in ten words, says Slawkenbergius, give the
world an explanation of it, and with it put an end to my tale.

Every body knows of the grand system of Universal Monarchy, wrote by
order of Mons. Colbert, and put in manuscript into the hands of Lewis
the fourteenth, in the year 1664.

'Tis as well known, that one branch out of many of that system, was the
getting possession of Strasburg, to favour an entrance at all times
into Suabia, in order to disturb the quiet of Germany--and that in
consequence of this plan, Strasburg unhappily fell at length into their
hands.

It is the lot of a few to trace out the true springs of this and such
like revolutions--The vulgar look too high for them--Statesmen look too
low--Truth (for once) lies in the middle.

What a fatal thing is the popular pride of a free city! cries one
historian--The Strasburgers deemed it a diminution of their freedom to
receive an imperial garrison--so fell a prey to a French one.

The fate, says another, of the Strasburgers, may be a warning to
all free people to save their money.--They anticipated their
revenues--brought themselves under taxes, exhausted their strength, and
in the end became so weak a people, they had not strength to keep their
gates shut, and so the French pushed them open.

Alas! alas! cries Slawkenbergius, 'twas not the French,--'twas Curiosity
pushed them open--The French indeed, who