1828.] [ 239 ] 



ST. OMER. 



No. II. 



St. Omer, Feb. 1, 1828. 



WITH the exception of Calais and Boulogne, St. Omer is better 

 known in England (by name) than any other French town. It is for 

 this reason, more than for any intrinsic merits of its own, that I shall 

 describe it to you in detail : for, notwithstanding the sweet Juliet's 

 sweet philosophy, there is much " in a name." That which we have 

 long known by name merely whether among persons, places, or things 

 -is more to us than all else besides that we do not know by name : for 

 the imagination is so essentially a constructive faculty, that nothing but 

 the absolute want of any foundation on which to place its erections, can 

 keep it from performing its pleasing work. It cannot " build castles in 

 the air/' whatever proverbs or poets may say or think to the contrary. 

 But give it the smallest vestige of a spot to build on, be it but a name, 

 and straightway its fairy fabrics " rise like exhalations," that nothing but 

 the absolute presence of realities can or need chase away. Many of those 

 who have left " Yarrow unvisited," are possessed of just as good a Yar- 

 row, if not better, than those who have vented songs and sonnets on its 

 " bonny banks and braes ;" and even Timbuctoo itself has become fami- 

 liar as a " household word," since its name became one. In short, so 

 far from there being little " in a name," there is more in it than in any- 

 thing else, in the proportion of all possibilities to one reality. 



The foregoing philosophy being admitted, you must know my ambi- 

 tion is to make my pen for once useful to you ; and there is no other legi- 

 timate source of the useful but the true. I shall, therefore, describe St. 

 Omer to you, if it be only to guard you against the possible effects -of 

 the rose-coloured descriptions of other people. 



St. Omer is a strongly-fortified town, not ill-placed, on a plot of ground 

 which rises in the form of a low mound the points occupied by the dif- 

 ferent portes being level with the surrounding plain ; so that, at which- 

 ever point you enter, the streets gradually rise towards the centre of the 

 town. On account of this slight elevation of its site, St. Omer presents 

 a much more striking and impressive aspect from without, than a view 

 of its interior would lead you to expect. Indeed, in one feature, there 

 are few cities that can compare with it for picturesque effect. I know of 

 no other which possesses within its walls so noble a pile of gothic ruins- 

 as those of the magnificent abbey of St. Bertin, which, despoiled as it is 

 of much of its antique grandeur, still towers proudly above all the other 

 surrounding buildings, and presents, as viewed from the great road to 

 the interior, through Arras, &c., one of the finest objects of the kind that 

 can any where be seen : and this general effect is greatly heightened by 

 the ruin seeming to rise out of a dense mass of foliage, formed by the 

 lofty trees with which the ramparts and the surrounding roads are 

 planted. 



Leaving this splendid feature of St. Omer to be described more par- 

 ticularly hereafter, we will commence our general view of the city from 

 the Grand Place, as usual that being the spot from whence the various 

 localities of a third or fourth-rate French town may always best be indi- 

 cated, as it may generally be looked upon as the nucleus from which all 

 the rest has taken its rise. The Place Royale of St. Omer occupies the 

 highest point of the site, and is of great extent, and nearly a perfect 



