The immediate environs of this place are beautiful and interesting:  visit them in what direction you please.  But there is nothing which so immediately strikes you as the remains of an ancient Aqueduct; gothicised at the hither end, but with three or four circular arches at the further extremity, where it springs from the opposite banks.  Fine as was yesterday, this day has not been inferior to it.  I was of course glad of an opportunity of visiting the market, and of mingling with the country people.  The boulevards afforded an opportunity of accomplishing both these objects.  Corn is a great article of trade; and they have noble granaries for depositing it.  Apparently there is a great conflux of people, and much business stirring.  I quickly perceived, in the midst of this ever-moving throng, my old friend the vender of rat-destroying powders—­busied in the exercise of his calling, and covered with his usual vestment of white, spotted or painted with black rats.  He found plenty of hearers and plenty of purchasers.  All was animation and bustle.  In the midst of it, a man came forward to the edge of a bank—­below which a great concourse was assembled.  He beat a drum, to announce that a packet boat, would sail to Jersey in the course of the afternoon; but the people seemed too intent upon their occupations and gambols to attend to him.  I sat upon a bench and read one of the little chap books—­Richard sans peur—­which I had purchased the same morning.

While absorbed in reflections upon the heterogeneous scene before me—­and wishing, for some of my dearest friends in England to be also spectators of it—­the notes of an hand-organ more and more distinctly stole upon my ear.  They were soft; and even pleasing notes.  On looking round, I observed that the musician preceded a person, who carried aloft a Virgin, with the infant Jesus, in wax; and who, under such a sign, exhorted the multitude to approach and buy his book-wares.  I trust I was too thorough-bred a Roxburgher to remain quiet on the bench:  and accordingly starting up, and extending two sous, I became the fortunate purchaser of a little chap article—­of which my friend BERNARDO will for ever, I fear, envy me the possession!  The vender of the tome sang through his nose, as the organ warbled the following

  Cantique Spirituelle.

  EN L’HONNEUR DU TRES-SAINT SACREMENT,

  Qui est expose dans la grande Eglise cathedrale de St. Pierre et
  St. Paul de Rome, pour implorer la misericorde de Dieu.

  Air:  du Theodore Francais.

  APPROCHEZ-VOUS, Chretiens fideles,
  Afin d’entendre reciter: 
  Ecoutez tous avec un grand zele,
  Avec ferveur et piete,
  Le voeu que nous avons fait,
  D’aller au grand Saint Jacques;
  Grace a Dieu nous l’avons accompli,
  Pour l’amour de Jesus Christ.

    Dieu crea le ciel et la terre,
  Les astres et le firmament;
  Il fit la brillante lumiere,
  Ainsi que tous les autres elemens,
  Il a tire tout du neant,
  Ce qui respire sur la terre: 
  Rendons hommage a la grandeur
  De notre divin Createur.