swearing at Highgate. People on their first visit to that village are said to go through the form of a burlesque oath at a tavern bearing the sign of the horns.

I am, &c.

LETTER XX.

TO MADAME DE BIEF.

PERMIT a traveller, who is your countryman, to give you an account of one of his excursions in the vicinity of London. Your graceful manners and charming conversation enable you to give and receive pleasure in the brilliant circles of fashionable society :-yet I know you do not despise the beauties of the country, and that you willingly forsake the splendid drawing-room for the tranquil enjoyment of green fields and shady groves. This encourages me to address to you my recollections of Richmond.

Having determined to pass my Sunday in viewing the picturesque scenery around Richmond Hill, I secured the last vacant place on the top of one of the stage coaches, which as I have before observed, are very different from the humble vehicles of Saint Germain and Saint Cloud. In an hour and a half after starting from town, we alighted at a village, where each of the passengers paid two shillings to the driver. I was obliged to guess

that we were at Richmond, for I had addressed several questions to the person who sat next me on the coach; but John Bull is often more taciturn on Sunday than during the rest of the week. Discouraged by my neighbour's monosyllabic answers, I abandoned all attempts at entering into conversation, and was compelled to content myself with being a silent observer of the surrounding scenery. Our road lay between fertile meadows, the trees on the either side occasionally forming arches of foliage above our heads; and we sometimes passed by rows of houses with flower-plots before them, and with their walls ornamented with festoons of verdure. At intervals we caught glimpses of the peaceful waves of the river, which is only half seen on account of its banks, and which here flows with grace rather than majesty. I repaired to the top of an ascending street, with as much eagerness and curiosity as though I had been on the point of discovering an unknown land. I would not turn my head, until I reached the highest point of the ascent, and at length I found unfolded around me the lovely scenes described by Thomson.

At the depth of three hundred feet beneath me, there extended an ocean of verdure, over which were here and there scattered, like islands, groupes of elm trees and gigantic oaks; the whole forming one vast forest, as elegant and ornamental as a grove. One is at a loss to guess what magic imparts so lovely and varied an effect to a picture whose plan is so simple, and whose chaste unifor

mity is undisturbed by any remarkable object: it can only be the recollection of the poet's strains which carry the eye beyond the boundless landscape, to where " majestic Windsor lifts his princely brow," to " huge Aujusta," or to the enchanting retreat of the Muse who interpreted the sorrows of Heloisa. Poor Jeannie Deans! I recollected what were your sensations on Richmond Hill! The characters of Sir W. Scott seem to belong to every scene in which the most trivial event of their history is described to have taken place.

I am not surprised that a traveller, who, however, is more frequently English than French, should have been smartly reprimanded in the Quarterly Review, for declaring that at Richmond the Thames is merely a little stream which might be easily drained. To drain the Thames! Was ever such an idea conceived? English pride would rather doom all the travellers in the world to perish in its waves! What would the critic have said, had he heard the anecdote of a coxcomb, who came all the way from Paris, for the express purpose of viewing the prospect from Richmond Hill, and after looking about him for a few moments with an air of indifference, he turned on his heel and said "This is pretty enough to be sure; but take away the verdure and the water, and what is it!"

This enchanting spot awakened in the simple heart of Jeannie Deans, the recollections of her native country.

"This is a fine scene," said the Duke of Argyle to his companion, curious, perhaps, to draw out her sentiments; "we have nothing like it in Scotland."

"It's braw rich feeding for the cows, and they have a fine breed o'cattle here," replied Jeannie; “but I like just as weel to look at the craigs of Arthur's seat, and the sea coming in ayont them, as at a'thae muckle trees."

French travellers have frequently compared the view from Richmond Hill, with that of Saint Germain. The latter would doubtless have been more beautiful, but for the cutting down of those great trees, for the absence of which nothing can compensate. In France we seem too soon to have forgotten, that forests for a long time afforded refuge to our ancestors, the Gauls. Jeannie Deans, and her pious recollection of her poor country, carried back my thoughts to our native city;* which though more favoured by climate than the birth-place of Walter Scott's heroine, had, like Caledonia, its period of independence, its royal diadem, and, above all, its Wallaces and Bruces. But, alas! we cannot boast of our poets, and history has sometimes unjustly disputed our right to our almost forgotten honours of antiquity.

However, we still possess glorious ruins, which are the envy of foreigners, and with which privileged towns are proud to adorn their museums and their modern edifices. Like the ravaged soil of Greece, the kingdom of Bozon has been gradually stripped

* Arles.

of its marble gods, the fragments of its temples, and even its tombs!

Though we have perhaps been too indifferent to the loss of these treasures, let us at least cherish a due regard for those of which we cannot be deprived. You, Madam, I am sure, have often, in the course of your walks, stopped to examine those remnants of our ramparts which still retain the poetic name of Laura. Have you not contemplated with enthusiasm the sublime picture which suddenly breaks upon the eye? Almost beneath your feet arise the church of Grecian architecture, and the cypress, which calls to mind the palm-tree of the temple of Theseus. On the left the Durance glides smoothly over the picturesque arches of an aqueduct; on the right are the blooming gardens, tributary to its waves; in front a semi-circular verdant plain, shaded by a curtain of elegant poplars; and in the distance the humid girdle of the Rhone, with its islands of willows, and occasionally a flotilla with white spreading sails, coming from the colony of the Phocians. This prospect is indeed well worth that of Richmond Hill.

In Richmond Church I saw the tomb of Thomson, whose name is engraven on a bronze tablet, together with a quotation from his Winter. This quotation consists of an address to the Supreme Being. It is a pious and moral prayer. Yet I could not refrain from smiling as I read it, for I recollected that when at college, being at a loss for compliments on the New Year, I made a few alterations