Royal. The sight of his real bedchamber, and the consideration of his death, made my reflections serious, but I own that the idea of making a model of it gave a different turn to my thoughts. I recollected, with a certain degree of satisfaction, that Voltaire was not invincible; that my admirable friend Mrs. Montagu had not only shewn, in her elegant Essay on Shakespeare, that Voltaire often criticised our incomparable poet when he really mistook his meaning; but had afterwards defeated him with his own weapons, brilliancy of wit and repartée, in that very academy in which he was not accustomed to encounter a rival. The anecdote is too well known to need being repeated; and I shall only add that all the academicians who were present, (and the academy was crowded,) were struck with the justice of the observation, and were obliged to acknowledge that an English lady had, in one sentence, completely revenged the affront which the French poet had just offered to our immortal Bard. Les rieurs pour cette fois au moins n'étoient pas du coté de Voltaire. Many were pleased at seeing a man who had so often and so severely turned others into ridicule, now defeated on his own ground; and in the next twenty-four hours the impromptu was repeated in all the literary coteries of the French metropolis.

LETTER XVI.

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Dieppe, Oct. 24, 1814.

Believe this letter will contain nothing more

than a few desultory observations, but perhaps you will think it the best of my letters, as it will be the last.

Not chusing to return by the same road which I had travelled in July, I came from Paris by Pontoise and Rouen, to this place, from whence I shall embark for Brighton, as soon as the tide will permit me.

Normandy is one of the finest provinces of France, fertile, well cultivated, and populous. The views are fine and much diversified, and the whole formed a striking contrast with the part of Champagne through which I had lately travelled. Rouen is a town to which great part of what I said of Troyes might be applied, for it is old and ugly; but it is much larger than Troyes, and it

stands in

a beautiful situation. The Seine is here very

different from the river which runs through Paris; it is now become a fine stream, with many beautiful little islands in it, and with fine pasture in the adjoining meadows. The cathedral is a venerable pile, which, like that of Troyes, was built by our ancestors, but being of a more ancient date, it is not in so pleasing a style of architecture. There is another church, which is not so large, but I think is more beautiful. These two noble edifices have escaped the horrors of the French Revolution with less injury than most other churches. I went to the cathedral during the sermon; it was better filled than that at Troyes, but it was chiefly (I might say almost wholly) with persons of the lowest class, and the proportion of women to men was very remarkable, certainly more than ten, I should think nearly as twenty, to one. In the afternoon I looked at different parts of the town, and was surprised at finding myself involved in a crowd of horses and men, in short, in the middle of a great annual horse fair; of which I certainly cannot say as I did respecting the cathedral, that there was any want of attendance on the part of the male population. Here, as at Paris, and I believe in all the towns in France, the greater part of the shops are open, and a great deal of business is carried on, during the Sundays. Some Some regu

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lations in this respect have indeed been attempted to be enforced, since the restoration of the King; but so great a ferment was excited in Paris, that the government has been obliged to proceed with great caution. My impatience to see once more my dear native country prevented me from giving sufficient time to this part of my journey, to allow me to hazard any opinion with respect to the public mind in Normandy. I hope it is better than in some other provinces; and I hope that the general agitation may gradually subside, and this infatuated nation become sensible, that the greatest blessing that can befal them will be to live under a lawful, a pacific, and a wellregulated government.

Adieu, till we meet.

P. S. East-Bourn, Oct. 25, 1814. After a stormy but quick passage, unable to make Brighton, but safely landed at this place.

If a man feeble in his limbs, not possessed of firm health, et jam senescens, performs a journey of above 1600 miles, twice crossing the sea, and twice the Alps, and, after four months, returns to his native country without having met with any accident, or having experienced the smallest misfortune, he certainly ought to feel grateful to the ALMIGHTY for the protection which has been vouchsafed him. I

trust that my breast is not insensible to such feelings; but I can with great truth assert, that the foregoing consideration, important as it is, does not hold the first place in my mind at the present moment.

Returning from France to England, and once more setting my foot in my native country, I feel a debt of gratitude to Him who ordained my existence in this island, which rises still higher than preservation from accident or sickness. I compare my situation as an Englishman with that of the inhabitants of other countries of the globe in general, and of France in particular. If I had been born in that land which I yesterday quitted, I might have received such an education as would have rendered me insensible to the truths of christianity, and to the duties which its doctrines inculcate. Not enjoying the advantages which we derive from our well-constituted government, I might, like the greater part of the neighbouring nation, have fluctuated in opinion from despotism to anarchy. I might then have been taught, as the youth of the French Republic were taught, that death was an eternal sleep; and deriving from that doctrine the natural conclusion, that if I could conceal my crimes from a worldly magistrate, I should never be called to account by an All-seeing

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