to a neighbouring gentleman; assuring us, if we could stay, that he would be heartily glad to see us—­“especially any of his countrymen, when introduced by Monsieur de Larenaudiere.”  It was difficult to say who smiled and bowed with the greater complacency, at this double-shotted compliment.  I now pressed our retreat homewards.  We bade this agreeable lady farewell, and returned down the heights, and through the devious paths by which we had ascended,

  While talk of various kind deceived the road.

A more active and profitable day has not yet been devoted to Norman objects, whether of art or of nature.  Tomorrow I breakfast with my friend and guide, and immediately afterwards push on for FALAISE.  A cabriolet is hired, but doubts are entertained respecting the practicability of the route.  My next epistle will be therefore from Falaise—­where the renowned William the Conqueror was born, whose body we left entombed at Caen.  The day is clearing up; and I yet hope for a stroll upon the site of the castle.

[160] “Les Distiques de Muret, traduits en vers Francais, par Aug. 
    A.  Se vend a Vire, chez Adam imprimeur-lib.  An. 1809.  The reader may
    not be displeased to have a specimen of the manner of rendering these
    distichs into French verse: 

      1. 
      Dum tener es, MURETE, avidis haec auribus hauri: 
      Nec memori modo conde animo, sed et exprime factis.

2.  Imprimis venerare Deum; venerare parentes:  Et quos ipsa loco tibi dat natura parentum. &c.

      1.
      Jeune encore, o mon fils! pour etre homme de bien,
      Ecoute, et dans ton coeur grave cet entretien.

2. Sers, honors le Dieu qui crea tous les etres; Sois fils respectueux, sois docile a tes maitres. &c.

[161] [Smartly and felicitously rendered by my translator Mons. Licquet;
    “Jamais bouche Normande ne m’avait paru plus eloquente que celle de M.
    Adam.” vol. ii. p. 220.]

[162] The present seems to be the proper place to give the reader some
    account of this once famous Bacchanalian poet.  It is not often that
    France rests her pretensions to poetical celebrity upon such claims. 
    Love, romantic adventures, gaiety of heart and of disposition, form
    the chief materials of her minor poems; but we have here before us, in
    the person and productions of OLIVIER BASSELIN, a rival to ANACREON of
    old; to our own RICHARD BRAITHWAIT, VINCENT BOURNE, and THOMAS MOORE. 
    As this volume may not be of general notoriety, the reader may be
    prepared to receive an account of its contents with the greater
    readiness and satisfaction.  First, then, of the life and occupations
    of Olivier Basselin; which, as Goujet has entirely passed over all
    notice of him, we can gather only from the editors of the present