[Footnote 23:  Extract from the unpublished manuscript of these letters:  “You have lately been at Richmond Hill,” said Mr. ——­; “did you admire the view, as much as is the fashion?” “To be frank with you, I did not.  The Park struck me as being an indifferent specimen of your parks; and the view, though containing an exquisite bit in the fore-ground, I think, as a whole, is both tame and confused.”  “You are not alone in your opinion, though I think otherwise.  Canova walked with me on the terrace, without seeming to be conscious there was anything unusual to be seen.  He scarcely regarded the celebrated view a second time.  Did you know him?” “He was dead before I came to Europe.”  “Poor Canova!—­I met him in Paris, in 1815, in a ludicrous dilemma.  It rained, and I was crossing the Carrousel in a fiacre, when I saw Canova stealing along near the walls, covered in a cloak, and apparently uncertain how to proceed. I drove near him, and offered him a seat.  He was agitated, and appeared like a man who had stolen goods about him.  The amount of it was, that they were distributing the pictures to their former owners, and having an order to receive “la Madonna della Seggiola,” he had laid hands on the prize, and, in his eagerness to make sure of it, was carrying it off, under his cloak.  He was afraid of being discovered and mobbed, and so I drove home with him to his hotel.”  I think Mr. ——­ named this particular picture, though I have somewhere heard it was never brought to Paris, having been sent to Sicily for security:  it might, therefore, have been another painting.]

The cathedral is said to be rich in relics, and, among other things, it has some of the manna from the desert, and a bit of Aaron’s rod!  It has a window or two, in a retired chapel, which have a few panes of exquisitely painted glass that are much more precious than either.

At noon I sent my passport to the post-house for horses, and, in return, I had a visit from the postmaster in compliment to the republic of letters.  We said a few flattering things to each other, much to the amusement of A——­, when we took our departure.

The country, after quitting the valley of Aix,[24] became flat and monotonous, and it was in the midst of a vast level district that we found the town of Juliers, the capital of the ancient duchy, buried behind grassy ramparts, that were scarcely visible until we were actually passing them.  It is a tame and insignificant place, at present.  At Berghem, a post or two further, I had another visit from the postmaster and his clerk, who made no scruple in asking me if I was the man who wrote books!  We talk a great deal of our national intelligence in America, and certainly with truth, when we compare ourselves with these people in many important particulars; but blocks are not colder, or can have less real reverence for letters, arts, or indeed cultivation of any kind, than the great bulk of the American people.  There