road) which for a considerable distance runs within sight of the Seine,
the country is most highly interesting, passing through Louvier,
Gaillon, Vernon, Mantes and St. Germains.

Calais, as being the nearest point to the English coast, and at which we
so often obtain our first peep at France, merits some notice, and
although it offers but few attractions, and is surrounded by a flat
cheerless country, yet there are connected with it some associations
which are replete with interest; as who that has ever read Sterne's
Sentimental Journey can forget the simple but impressive description he
gives of the poor friar and other objects which he there met, and which
he has engraven on the minds of his readers, in his own peculiar style,
in characters never to be erased; for my part, as I first approached
Calais I thought but of Sterne and his plain, unvarnished tale, of the
trifles he encountered, around which he contrived to weave an interest
which is felt even by the inhabitants of Calais to this day; although
they knew his works but through the spoiling medium of translation,
still they never fail to exhibit to the Englishman the alcove in which
he is said to have written his adventures in Calais. As I entered the
town, instantly the works of Hogarth appeared before me, for who is
there that does not remember his excellent representation of the Gates
of Calais, with the meagre sentinel and still more skinny cook bending
under the weight of a dish crowned with an enormous sirloin of beef, no
doubt intended to regale some newly-arrived John Bull, whilst a fat monk
scans it with a longing eye. Next the bust of Eustache de St. Pierre
awakes the attention, and the surrender of Calais and his devoted
patriotism rises in one's memory. Another souvenir also must not be
forgotten, namely, the print of the foot of Louis the Eighteenth, which
is cut in the stone, and a piece of brass let in where he first stepped
on shore, and undoubtedly represents a very pretty little foot; but when