470 Travelling Particularities. [Nov. 



friends, and a sharper thorn in their sides, than any thing he can do by 

 tus promised (or threatened) history of his " Life and Times." But to 

 leave this prince of petits-maitres to that " illustrious obscurity" which he 

 has so richly earned, by cutting the world, in revenge for being cut by one 

 of its chief rulers; let me proceed soberly with my description of the place 

 which he has chosen as his Corioli. The interior of Calais I need not 

 describe further, except to say that round three-fourths of it are elevated 

 ramparts, overlooking the surrounding country to a great extent, and in 

 several parts planted with trees, which afford most pleasant and refreshing 

 walks, after pacing the somewhat perplexing pavement of the streets, and 

 being dazzled by the brilliant whiteness which reflects from that, and from 

 the houses. The port, which occupies the other fourth, and is gained by 

 three streets parallel to each other, and leading from the " Place," is small, 

 but in excellent order, and always alive with shipping, and the amusing 

 operations appertaining thereto; and the pier is a most striking object, 

 especially at high water, when it runs out, in a straight line, for near 

 three quarters of a mile, into the open sea. It is true our English engineers 

 who ruin hundreds of their fellow citizens by spending millions upon a 

 bridge that nobody will take the trouble to pass over, and cutting tunnels 

 under rivers, only to let the water into them when they have got all the 

 money they can by the job would treat this pier with infinite contempt, 

 as a thing that merely answers all the purposes for which it was erected ! 

 as if that were a merit of any but the very lowest degree. " Look at 

 Waterloo Bridge!" they say ; " we flatter ourselves that was not a thing 

 built (like the pier of Calais) merely for use. Nobody will say that any 

 such thing was wanted ! But, what a noble monument of British art, and 

 what a fine commemoration of the greatest of modern victories I" True : 

 but it would have been all this if you had built it on Salisbury Plain ; and 

 in that case it would have cost only half the money. The pier of Calais 

 is, in fact, every thing that it need be, and what perhaps no other pier is; 

 and yet it is nothing more than a piece of serviceable carpentery, that must 

 have cost about as much, perhaps, as to print the prospectuses of some of 

 the late undertakings, and pay the advertisements and the lawyer's bill. 



At the opposite side of the town from the port, are the gates leading to 

 the suburbs and the open country, over three separate lines of fortification. 

 Though the uninitiated in the " noble art of war" must look upon the 

 fortifications of an almost impregnable town, like Calais, with very different 

 eyes from those who can read them as scholars do Greek, yet (unlike the 

 latter) they cannot fail to be almost as interesting to the one as the other 

 class of observers. We can all of us make something out from them ; or 

 at least conjure up something, which answers all the purpose. We can 

 invest, or rather we cannot help investing, the surrounding plain with a 

 besieging army, and lining the walls with cannon, and placing sentinels on 

 every " coin and vantage ground" within view, and lifting up the draw- 

 bridges, and sluicing the fosses, and converting every crack in the walls 

 into an " imminent deadly breach." The fine fortifications of Calais 

 afford ample scope for speculations of this nature. Passing through their 

 three solid gates, and over the drawbridges that adjoin them, you imme- 

 diately reach a long wide street, paved in the centre, and lined on either 

 side by houses, chiefly of a very inferior kind. Indeed, the Basse Ville is 

 by no means a handsome appendage to Calais; but it has the merit of 

 drawing off from the town itself most of those of the very lowest class, who 

 are necessarily employed in it occasionally, and thus acts the part of the 



