There is no ship-building at this moment going on:  the ribs of about half a dozen, half rotted, small merchant-craft, being all that is discernible.  But much is projected, and much is hoped from such projects.  Dieppe has questionless many local advantages both by land and by sea; yet it will require a long course of years to infuse confidence and beget a love of enterprise.  In spite of all the naval zeal, it is here exhibited chiefly as affording means of subsistence from the fisheries.  I must not however conclude my Dieppe journal without telling you that I hunted far and near for a good bookseller and for some old books—­but found nothing worth the search, except a well-printed early Rouen Missal, and Terence by Badius Ascensius.  The booksellers are supplied with books chiefly from Rouen; the local press being too insignificant to mention.

[29] The French Antiquaries have pushed the antiquity of this castle to the
    11th century, supposing it to have been built by William d’Arques,
    Count of Tallon, son of the second marriage of Richard Duke of
    Normandy.  I make no doubt, that, whenever built, the sea almost washed
    its base:  for it is known to have occupied the whole of what is called
    the Valley of Arques, running as far as Bouteilles.  Its position,
    in reference to the art of war, must have been almost impregnable. 
    Other hypotheses assign its origin to the ninth or tenth century. 
    Whenever built, its history has been fertile in sieges.  In 1144, it
    was commanded by a Flemish Monk, who preferred the spear to the
    crosier, but who perished by an arrow in the contest.  Of its history,
    up to the sixteenth century, I am not able to give any details; but in
    the wars of Henry IV. with the League, in 1589, it was taken by
    surprise by soldiers in the disguise of sailors:  who, killing the
    centinels, quickly made themselves masters of the place.  Henry caused
    it afterwards to be dismantled.  In the first half of the eighteenth
    century it received very severe treatment from pillage, for the
    purpose of erecting public and private buildings at Dieppe.  At present
    (in the language of the author of the Rouen Itinerary) “it is the
    abode of silence—­save when that silence is interrupted by owls and
    other nocturnal birds.”  The view of it in Mr. Cotman’s work is very
    faithful.

[30] The Itineraire de Rouen, 1816, p. 202, says, absurdly, that
    this church is of the XIth century.  It is perhaps with more truth of
    the beginning of the XIVth century.  A pleasing view of it is in Mr.
    Dawson Turner’s elegant Tour in Normandy, 1818, 8vo. 2 vol.  It
    possessed formerly a bust of Henry IV., which is supposed to have been
    placed there after the famous battle of Arques gained by Henry over
    the Duke of Mayenne in 1589.