[Illustration]

[157] The reader will find the fullest particulars relating to this
    once-distinguished family, in Halstead’s Genealogical Memoirs of
    Noble Families, &c.:  a book it is true, of extreme scarcity.  In lieu
    of it let him consult Collin’s Noble Families.

[158] [Mons. Licquet tells us, that in 1439, a Seigneur of Gratot, ceded
    the rock of Granville to an English Nobleman, on the day of St. John
    the Baptist, on receiving the homage of a hat of red roses.  The
    Nobleman intended to build a town there; but Henry VI. dispossessed
    him of it, and built fortifications in 1440.  Charles VII. in turn,
    dispossessed Henry; but the additional fortifications which he built
    were demolished by order of Louis XIV. &c.]

[159] An epitomised account of these civil commotions will be found in the
    Histoire Militaire des Bocains, par M. RICHARD SEGUIN; a
    Vire, 1816; 12mo. of which work, and of its author, some notice
    will be taken in the following pages.

LETTER XVIII.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.  MONSIEUR ADAM.  MONSIEUR DE LARENAUDIERE.  OLIVIER BASSELIN.  M.
SEGUIN.  THE PUBLIC LIBRARY.

It is a sad rainy day; and having no temptation to stir abroad, I have shut myself up by the side of a huge wood fire—­(surrounded by the dingy tapestry, of which my last letter did not make very honourable mention) in a thoroughly communicative mood—­to make you acquainted with all that has passed since my previous despatch.  Books and the Bibliomania be the chief “burden of my present song!” You may remember, in my account of the public library at Caen, that some mention was made of a certain OLIVIER BASSELIN—­whom I designated as the DRUNKEN BARNABY of Normandy.  Well, my friend—­I have been at length made happy, and comforted in the extreme, by the possession of a copy of the Vaudevires of that said Olivier Basselin—­and from the hands, too, of one of his principal editors ...  Monsieur Lanon de Larenaudiere, Avocat, et Maire, de Tallevende-le-Petit.  This copy I intend (as indeed I told the donor) for the beloved library at Althorp.  But let me tell my tale my own way.

Hard by the hotel of the Cheval Blanc, (the best, bad as it is—­and indeed the only one in the town) lives a printer of the name of ADAM.  He is the principal, and the most respectable of his brethren in the same craft.  After discoursing upon sundry desultory topics—­and particularly examining the books of Education, among which I was both surprised and pleased to find the Distichs of Muretus[160]—­I expressed my regret at having travelled through so many towns of Normandy without meeting with one single copy of the Vaudevires of Olivier Basselin for sale.  “It is not very surprising, Sir, since it is a privately printed book, and was never intended for sale.