lines.  It has been supposed that this ornament, which is quite peculiar to the church of St. Hildebert, is a kind of hieroglyphical representation of water.—­Perhaps, it is the chamber of Sagittarius; or, perhaps, it is a fess wavy, to which the same signification has been assigned by heralds.—­If this interpretation be correct, the symbol is allusive to the ancient situation of the town, built in the midst of a marsh, intersected by two streams, the Epte and the St. Aubin.

While we were on the point of setting out from Gournay, we had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Cotman, who landed a few days since at Dieppe, and purposes remaining in Normandy, to complete a series of drawings which he began last year, towards the illustration of the architectural antiquities of the duchy.  He has joined our party, and we are likely to have the advantage of his society for some little time.

The village of Neufmarche, about a league from Gournay, on the right bank of the Epte, still retains a small part of its castle, built by Henry Ist, to command the passage of the river, and to serve as a barrier against the incursions of the French.  Its situation is good, upon an artificial hill, surrounded by a fosse; and the principal entrance is still tolerably entire.  But the rest is merely a shapeless heap of ruins:  the interior is wholly under the plough; and the fragments of denudated walls preserve small remains of the coating of large square stones, which formerly embellished and protected them.  Neufmarche, in the days of Norman sovereignty, was one of the strong holds of the duchy.  The chroniclers[24] speak of the village as being defended by a fortress, in the reign of William the Conqueror.  The church, too, with its semi-circular architecture, attests the antiquity of the station.

Long before we reached Gisors, we had a view of the keep of the castle, rising majestically above the town, which is indeed at present “une assez maussade petite ville, qui n’a guere qu’une rue.”  From its position and general outline, the castle, at first view, resembles the remains of Launceston, in Cornwall.  It recalled to my mind the impressions of surprise, mixed with something approaching to awe, which seized me, when the first object that met my eyes in the morning (for it was late and dark when I reached Launceston) was the noble keep, towering immediately above my chamber windows, and so near, that it appeared as if I had only to open them and step into it.  I do not mean to draw a parallel between the castles of Launceston and Gisors, and still less am I about to inquire into the relationship between the Norman and the Cornish fortresses.  The lapse of twenty years has materially weakened my recollection of the latter, nor would this be a seasonable opportunity for such a disquisition:  but the subject deserves investigation, the result of which may tend to establish the common origin of both, and to dissipate the day-dreams of Borlase, who longed to dignify the castellated ruins of the Cornish peninsula, by ascribing them to the Roman conquerors of Britain.