not to be forgotten, and one that few English people are aware can be
witnessed so near home.

Here the artist will find plenty of congenial occupation, and
opportunities (so difficult to meet with in these days) of sketching
both architecture and people of a picturesque type--groups in the
market-place, groups down by the river fishing under the trees, groups
at windows of old hostelries, and seated at inn doors; horses in clumsy
wooden harness; calves and pigs, goats and sheep; women at fruit stalls,
under tents and coloured umbrellas; piles upon piles of baskets, a
wealth of green things, and a bright fringe of fruit and flowers,
arranged with all the fanciful grace of "_les dames des halles_," in
Paris.[6]

All this, and much more the artist finds to his hand, and what does the
architect discover? First of all, that if he had only come here before
he might have saved himself an immensity of thought and trouble, for he
would have found such suggestions for ornament in wood carving, for
panels, doorways, and the like, of so good a pattern, and so old, that
they are new to the world of to-day; he would have found houses built
out over the rivers, looking like pieces of old furniture, ranged side
by side--rich in colour and wonderfully preserved, with their wooden
gables, carved in oak of the fifteenth century, supported by massive
timbers, sound and strong, of even older date. He would see many of
these houses with windows full of flowers, and creepers twining round
the old eaves; and long drying-poles stretched out horizontally, with
gay-coloured clothes upon them, flapping in the wind--all contrasting
curiously with the dark buildings.

But he would also find some houses on the verge of ruin. If he explored