been so long cooped up at sea: and, like a long-imprisoned bird let loose from its cage, my imagination revelled in the freshness and sunshine of the morning landscape.

On every side, valley and hill were covered with a carpet of soft velvet green. The birds were singing merrily in the trees, and the landscape wore that look of gaiety so well described in the quaint language of an old romance, making the "sad, pensive, and aching heart to rejoice, and to throw off mourning and sadness." Here and there a cluster of chestnut-trees shaded a thatch-roofed cottage, and little patches of vineyard were scattered on the slope of the hills, mingling their delicate green with the deep hues of the early summer grain. The whole landscape had a fresh breezy look. It was not hedged in from the highways, but lay open to the eye of the traveller, and seemed to welcome him with open arms. I felt less a stranger in the land; and as my eye traced the dusty road winding along through a rich cultivated country, and skirted on either side with blossomed fruit-trees, and occasionally caught glimpses of a little farm-house resting in a green hollow, and lapped in the bosom of plenty, I felt that I was in a prosperous, hospitable, and happy land.

I had taken my seat on the top of the diligence, in order to have a better view of the country. It was one of those ponderous vehicles which totter slowly along the paved roads of France, labouring beneath a mountain of trunks and bales of all descriptions; and, like the Trojan horse, bore a groaning multitude within it. It was a curious and cumbersome machine, resembling the bodies of three coaches placed upon one carriage, with a cabriolet on top for outside passengers. On the panels of each door were painted the fleurs-de-lis of France, and upon the side of the coach emblazoned, in golden characters, "Exploitation Générale des Messageries Royales des Diligences pour le Havre, Rouen, et Paris."

It would be useless to describe the motley groups that filled the four quarters of this little world. There was the dusty tradesman, with green coat and cotton umbrella; the sallow invalid, in scull-cap and cloth shoes; the priest in his cassock, the peasant in his frock, and a whole family of squalling children. My fellow-travellers on top were a gay subaltern, with fierce mustache, and a nut-brown village beauty of sweet sixteen. The subaltern wore a military undress, and a little blue cloth cap, in the shape of a cowbell, trimmed smartly with silver lace, and cocked on one side of his head. The brunette was decked out with a staid white Norman cap, nicely starched and plaited, and nearly three feet high, a rosary and cross about her neck, a linseywolsey gown, and wooden shoes.

The personage who seemed to rule this little world with absolute sway was a short pursy man, with a busy, selfsatisfied air, and a sonorous title of Monsieur le Conducteur. As insignia of office, he wore a little round fur cap and furtrimmed jacket, and carried in his hand a small leathern. portfolio, containing his way-bill. He sat with us on the top of the diligence, and with comic gravity issued his mandates to the postillion below, like some petty monarch speaking from his throne. In every dingy village we thundered through, he had a thousand commissions to execute and to receive: a package to throw out on this side, and another to take in on that: a whisper for the landlady at the inn; a love-letter and a kiss for her daughter; and a wink or a snap of his fingers for the chambermaid at the wirdow. Then there were so many questions to be asked and answered while changing horses! Everybody had a word to say. It was Monsieur le Conducteur! here; Monsieur le Conducteur! there. He was in complete bustle; till at length, crying En rouie! he ascended the dizzy. height, and we lumbered away in a cloud of dust.

But what most attracted my attention was the grotesque

appearance of the postillion and the horses. He was a comical-looking little fellow, already past the heyday of life, with a thin, sharp countenance, to which the smoke of tobacco and the fumes of wine had given the dusty look of wrinkled parchment. He was equipped in a short jacket of purple velvet, set off with a red collar, and adorned with silken cord. Tight pantaloons of bright yellow leather arrayed his pipe-stem legs, which were swallowed up in a huge pair of wooden boots, iron-fastened, and armed with long rattling spurs. His shirt collar was of vast dimensions, and between it and the broad brim of his high, bellcrowned, varnished hat projected an eel-skin queue, with a little tuft of frizzled hair, like a powder-puff, at the end, bobbing up and down with the motion of the rider, and scattering a white cloud around him.

The horses which drew the diligence were harnessed to it with ropes and leather, and in the most uncouth manner imaginable. They were five in number; black, white, and gray-as various in size as in colour. Their tails were braided and tied up with wisps of straw; and when the postillion mounted and cracked his heavy whip, off they started; one pulling this way, another that-one on the gallop, another trotting, and the rest dragging along at a scrambling pace, between a trot and a walk. No sooner did the vehicle get comfortably in motion, than the postillion, throwing the reins upon his horse's neck, and drawing a flint and steel from one pocket and a short-stemmed pipe from another, leisurely struck fire, and began to smoke. Ever and anon some part of the rope harness would give way; Monsieur le Conducteur from on high would thunder forth an oath or two; a head would be popped out at every window; half-a-dozen voices exclaim at once, "What's the matter?" and the postillion, apostrophising the diable as usual, thrust his long whip into the leg of his boot, leisurely dismount, and drawing a handful of packthread from his

pocket, quietly set himself to mend matters in the best way possible.

In this manner we toiled slowly along the dusty highway. Occasionally the scene was enlivened by a group of peasants, driving before them a little ass, laden with vegetables for a neighbouring market. Then we would pass a solitary shepherd, sitting by the roadside, with a shaggy dog at his feet, guarding his flock, and making his scanty meal on the contents of his wallet; or perchance a little peasant girl, in wooden shoes, leading a cow by a cord attached to her horns, to browse along the side of the ditch. Then we would all alight to ascend some formidable hill on foot, and be escorted up by a clamorous group of sturdy mendicants -annoyed by the ceaseless importunity of worthless beggary, or moved to pity by the palsied limbs of the aged, and the sightless eyeballs of the blind.

Occasionally, too, the postillion drew up in front of a dingy little cabaret, completely overshadowed by widespreading trees. A lusty grape-vine clambered up beside the door; and a pine bough was thrust out from a hole in the wall, by way of tavern bush. Upon the front of the house was generally inscribed in large black letters, "Ici ON DONNE À BOIRE ET À MANGER; ON LOGE À PIED ET À CHEVAL;" a sign which may be thus paraphrased-"Good entertainment for man and beast;" but which was once translated by a foreigner, "Here they give to eat and drink ; they lodge on foot and on horseback!"

Thus one object of curiosity succeeded another; hill, valley, stream, and woodland flitted by me like the shifting scenes of a magic lantern, and one train of thought gave place to another, till at length, in the after part of the day, we entered the broad and shady avenue of fine old trees which leads to the western gate of Rouen, and a few moments afterward were lost in the crowds and confusion of its narrow streets.

THE GOLDEN LION INN AT ROUEN.

Monsieur Vinot. Je veux absolument un Lion d'Or; parce qu'on dit, O allez vous? Au Lion d'Or!-D'où venez-vous? Du Lion d'Or !--Où irons-nous? Au Lion d'Or !—Où y a-t-il de bon vin? Au Lion d'Or ! LA ROSE ROUGE.

THE

HIS answer of Monsieur Vinot must have been running in my head as the diligence stopped at the Messagerie ; for, when the porter who took my luggage said

"Où allez-vous, monsieur ?"

I answered, without reflection (for be it said with all the veracity of a traveller, at that time I did not know there was a golden lion in the city),

"Au Lion d'Or."

And so to the Lion d'Or we went.

The hostess of the Golden Lion received me with a courtesy and a smile, rang the house-bell for a servant, and told him to take the gentleman's things to number thirty-five. I followed him up stairs. One-two-three-four-fivesix-seven! Seven stories high-by our Lady!-I counted them every one; and when I went down to remonstrate, I counted them again, so that there was no possibility of a mistake. When I asked for a lower room, the hostess told me the house was full; and when I spoke of going to another hotel, she said she should be so very sorry, so désolée, to have monsieur leave her, that I marched up again to number thirty-five.

After finding all the fault I could with the chamber, I ended, as is generally the case with most men on such occasions, by being very well pleased with it. The only thing I could possibly complain of was my being lodged in the seventh story, and in the immediate neighbourhood of a gentleman who was learning to play the French horn. But, to remunerate me for these disadvantages, my window