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has a somewhat ludicrous effect from the extreme contrast, similar to that produced by observing the usual ornament of a butcher's shop, a vase of gold fish and a china bowl of flowers, or the pretty golden shrub called by the Tourangians orangier des cordonniers, from its being constantly placed on the shoemaker's board.

Once escaped from these tormentors, the road becomes agreeable and improves as you arrive at Sartilly; the church of which is an early Norman structure, pretty, and bearing a remarkable similarity to the charming churchyard of Groombridge in Kent, both as to situation and from having a very aged and majestic yew-tree its immediate companion.

I find throughout my wanderings that I have fallen into a habit of comparing all the rural scenery and picturesque accidents I meet with to something similar which had before charmed me in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells, certainly one of the most beautiful and romantic parts of the rural and pretty county of Kent, and unequalled for home beauty. Perhaps, however, all scenes gain by possessing the power of calling back the memory of favourite spots; and perhaps also the resemblance lies rather in a fanciful idea than in a real existence, and others may not be so impressed; just as like

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nesses of feature or expression are often unrecognized by one, though to another they may be strongly attractive.

As our guide, who must have been a Gascon to judge by his boasting, turned out, like all boasters, to have deceived us, and was profoundly ignorant of the road to the abbey, we found ourselves, after a drive through almost impracticable lanes, in the village of La Luzerne, where we had no business to be, and finding it was necessary to rest the jaded horses, we accepted the offered civility of a cottager, and explored the neighbourhood. Hearing of a château, and being yet novices in the meaning attached to the term, thinking of course only of ruined castles of old renown, we were much disappointed to find, after mounting a steep lane, a remarkably ugly modern house belonging to the Comte de Canisy, and were little less edified by being shown a telegraph, the pride of the district. One cottage, which, with two others, seemed to form the whole of the bourg, was very clean; its inmate, an old woman, was busy winding wool from a wheel, and complained of gaining a very hard livelihood by this monotonous occupation. She had lately lost an aged husband, and seemed lonely and sad, but she spoke with animation of the expected return to her native village of a young girl who

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had long been settled in London in some business, and who every three years came back to see her parents, whom she supported handsomely by her earnings. Her errand this time was to marry her betrothed, a young man who had also succeeded in life, and both were to meet at this secluded spot, and in the presence of their friends and neighbours to be united. It was such a pleasing picture of primitive and simple goodness that we felt much interested in its details, and could not but rejoice that true love and filial goodness could exist in spite of great cities and refinement, and also that such virtue found its reward.

Through a beautiful wood, with banks covered with heath-bells and yellow and purple flowers in exquisite profusion, we continued our way; road it could not be called, for it was a mere hollow scooped apparently by the torrents which in winter probably rush along this rocky bed, and tracked by waggon wheels. Finding it impossible to remain in the carriage, we dismounted and enjoyed the walk for some miles further, when, directed by a little boy whom we had pressed into the service at the village, at length we reached the far-famed abbey. A fine square tower still remains, a beautiful object amongst the surrounding wood; the rest is desecrated,

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converted into barns, work-shops, and wood-houses belonging to the manufacturer on whose land the ruins stand! The chapel is the most perfect, and is a simple and grand specimen of early Norman building; ruined walls and courts appear on all sides encumbered with farming necessaries, hay, straw, and piles of wood, but consequently clean; and the ground being strewed with sawdust prevents the humidity usually attendant on the exploring of vaults and fallen roofs: the massy pillars no longer support the arches which proudly rested on them in the days of grandeur when this abbey was the boast of the country; all the delicate tracery is mutilated, the

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slender shafts broken suddenly off, and a pile of confused ruin, every day becoming larger and higher, strews the halls and chambers. It is the intention of the present proprietor to remove it all by degrees, as it interferes with his commercial pursuits, and the space it occupies can be more advantageously employed. The sketches we took, therefore, will probably be the last of this fine ruin, which stands in a spot fitted for pious meditation, removed from the busy crowd and shut in alone with nature in her simplest and most quiet mood. The principal entrance is still entire, the pillars sharp, supporting the fine circular arches of the door, ornamented with zigzags; some of the windows, now filled up, have indented mouldings very clear and perfect to their circular arch, others have the same but the arch is acutely pointed. A pretty lake now fills up a space in front, beside which a modern house is built, and the remnants of walls and arches and tombs are scattered about amongst the grass and weeds that grow over them. We left this romantic and picturesque retreat, and fortunately found our way through the wood by a nearer and a better road, namely, that by which we ought to have come at first; not sorry, however, for our shaking, as we had, by enduring it, approached the abbey at the most striking point.