“I envy you your French wines, and in a less degree your French cookery also, both indispensable in the alderman’s heaven, where the stomach is infinite, the appetite endless, and the dinner eternal. I should envy also your bathing upon that noble beach, if Derwentwater were not within reach, and still better the rock baths in Newlands, which are the perfection of bathing. What you say of the country about Boulogne is just what I should have supposed it to be from what we saw upon the road, and the place itself is a very interesting one. I slept there, and did not leave it till noon the next day, happening to have an acquaintance there. . . . . I had been told that the road to Paris was uninteresting, but to me it appeared far otherwise; for even if it had not possessed an historical interest of the highest kind to an Englishman, the scenery itself is in many parts very striking.
“You will be better pleased to hear that, if the
carriers do not disappoint me, I may expect tomorrow to receive my three cases
of books, with the Acta Sanctorum, and some fourscore
volumes besides, the gatherings of my last year’s journey from Como to
Brussels. Far better, and far more agreeably, would my time and thoughts be
employed with the saints of old than with the sinners of the present day, with
past events and in other countries than
| 308 | LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE | Ætat. 44. |
“The state of religious feeling appears to differ much in different parts of France. In most places we found that the churches were very ill attended, but at Auxerre they were so full that we literally could not decently walk in to examine them as we wished to have done. In Switzerland the Protestant cantons have suffered more than the Catholic ones. I had good opportunities of inquiring into this in the Pays de Vaud, and the state of religion in Geneva is now notorious. Upon the banks of the Rhine all the inhabitants who were not actually employed in the fields seemed to be busy in performing a pilgrimage. It was a most striking sight to see them; men, women, and children toiling along bareheaded, under a July sun, singing German hymns. I suspect that the progress of irreligion has kept pace with the extent of French books in the Catholic part of Europe, and that where they have not found their way the people remain in the same state as before. But if things remain quiet for one generation the Catholic Church will recover its ascendency; its clergy are wise as serpents, and with all their errors one cannot, considering all things, but heartily wish them success.
| Ætat. 44. | OF ROBERT SOUTHEY. | 309 |
“You should go to St. Omers, if it were only to groan over the ruin of its magnificent cathedral. The country between that place and Lisle is the perfection of cultivated scenery, and the view from Cassel the finest I have ever seen over a flat country.
“God bless you, my dear Wynn! I half hope Parliament may be sitting in December, that I may meet you in town.
