CALAIS


Calais will merit to be described by every Englishman who visits it, and to
be read of by every one who does not--so long as Hogarth, and "Oh! the
Roast Beef of Old England!" shall be remembered, and--which will be longer
still--till the French and English become one people, merely by dint of
living, within three hours' journey of each other. Calais has been treated
much too cavalierly by the flocks of English, who owe to it their first,
and consequently most fixed impressions of French manners, and the English
want of them. Calais is, in fact, one of the most agreeable and
characteristic little towns in France. It is "lively, audible, and full of
vent"--as gay as a fair, and as busy as a bee-hive--and its form and
construction as compact.

Calais, unlike any English town you could name, is content to remain where
it is--instead of perpetually trying to stretch away towards Paris, as
our's do towards London, and as London itself does towards them.
Transporting you at once to the "Place" in the centre of the town (an
entirely open square, of about 150 paces by 100,) you can scarcely look
upon a more lively and stirring scene. The houses and their shops (they
have all shops) are like nothing so much as so many scenes in a
pantomime--so fancifully and variously are they filled, so brightly and
fantastically painted, and so abruptly do they seem to have risen out of
the ground! This last appearance is caused by the absence of a foot-path,
and of areas, porticoes, railings, &c.--such as, in all cases, give a kind
of _finish_ to the look of our houses. The houses here seem all to have
grown up _out_ of the ground--not to have been built _upon_ it. This is
what gives to them their most striking effect of novelty at the first view.