52 PROFESSOR OWEN ch. n. 



fire. Notwithstanding these scenes, however, I 

 felt my heart beat quicker and my rheumatism 

 disappear as the revolving light of Calais came 

 into view. At the Hotel Meurice I first saw 

 the painted walls and sanded floors, and deter- 

 mined to quench my Anglicism in a basin of 

 bouillon ; it procured me a good night's rest, I 

 believe. The next morning at half-past nine I 

 entered the coup 4 of the diligence ; my fellow- 

 traveller was a Dr. Sayer, of London, who had 

 been detained by Buonaparte in 1802, as he was 

 returning with his father from a tour which made 

 his visit longer by ten years than he intended. 

 It was a beautiful moonlight night when we 

 entered Abbeville, which gave an air of romance 

 to the antique houses, the Abbey, and walls of 

 this old city. I recollected that this was once the 

 frontier town of the Spanish Netherlands, one ot 

 the thirty possessed by that overgrown state ; and 

 the habits of its various occupants and the muta- 

 bility of empires came crowding on my mind, 

 when the reverie was interrupted by the more 

 important circumstance of supper. The country 

 through which we passed had put on its richest 

 appearance — ripe corn, beans, hemp, and vines in 

 full foliage alternate with each other, and the 

 labourers of the harvest are in full song. Yet, 

 notwithstanding, I am struck with the inferiority 

 of this to our own country in point of all the 

 ordinary consequences of civilisation and pros- 



