Mr. (afterwards Lord) Erskine; and published, as will be easily
    conceived, with more zeal than discretion.  I got out of the scrape by
    selling the copper plate for 50 shillings, after having given 40
    guineas for the engraving of the Analysis.  Some fifty copies of the
    work were sold, and 250 were struck off.  Where the surplus have lain,
    and rotted, I cannot pretend to conjecture:  but I know it to be a VERY
    RARE production!]

[134] [So in the preceding Edition.  He who writes notes on his own
    performances after a lapse of ten years, will generally have something
    to add, and something to correct.  Of the above names, the FIRST was
    afterwards attached to the Master of the Rolls, and to a
    Peerage:  with the intervening honour of having been Chief
    Justice of the Common Pleas.  My admiration of this rapid elevation
    in an honourable profession will not be called singular; for, after an
    acquaintance of twenty years with Lord Gifford, I can honestly say,
    that, while his reputation as a Lawyer, and his advancement in his
    profession, were only what his friends predicted, his character as a
    MAN continued the same:—­kind hearted, unaffected, gentle, and
    generous.  He died, ’ere he had attained his 48th year, in 1826.]

LETTER XIV.

BAYEUX.  CATHEDRAL.  ORDINATION OF PRIESTS AND DEACONS.  CRYPT OF THE
CATHEDRAL.

Bayeux, May 16, 1818.

Two of the most gratifying days of my Tour have been spent at this place.  The Cathedral (one of the most ancient religious places of worship in Normandy)[135] has been paced with a reverential step, and surveyed with a careful eye.  That which scarcely warmed the blood of Ducarel has made my heart beat with an increased action; and although this town be even dreary, as well as thinly peopled, there is that about it which, from associations of ideas, can never fail to afford a lively interest to a British antiquary.

The Diligence brought me here from Caen in about two hours and a half.  The country, during the whole route, is open, well cultivated, occasionally gently undulating, but generally denuded of trees.  Many pretty little churches, with delicate spires, peeped out to the right and left during the journey; but the first view of the CATHEDRAL of BAYEUX put all the others out of my recollection.  I was conveyed to the Hotel de Luxembourg, the best inn in the town, and for a wonder rather pleasantly situated.  Mine hostess is a smart, lively, and shrewd woman; perfectly mistress of the art and craft of innkeeping, and seems to have never known sorrow or disappointment.  Knowing that Mr. Stothard, Jun. had, the preceding year, been occupied in making a fac-simile of the “famous tapestry” for our Society of Antiquaries, I enquired if mine hostess had been acquainted with