52 
PROFESSOR OWEN 
CH. II. I 
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 co^lpd of the diligence ; my fellow- 
traveller was a Dr. Sayer, of London, who had 
been detained by Buonaparte in 1802, as he was j 
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 I 
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 ol 
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- 
