There is nothing very grand in the scenery of the Rhone from Lyons to this place. The upper portion is very much like the Hudson between New York and the Highlands, but I think scarcely as fine, if you make due allowance for the effect of the old villages, etc. (not half so comfortable as ours surely, but much better adapted to improve the beauty of the landscape), with now and then a gray ruin, which is a vast improvement. But from Tournon quite to Avignon, the scenery quite surpasses the Hudson, and exhibits such variety, moreover, that you are charmed continually: now bold and magnificent even; again, picturesque, particularly where the basaltic rocks, for it is wholly a volcanic country, form parapets like the Palisades, but much more curious and diversified, the more friable material being worn away in places, leaving columns and salient portions in all fantastic shapes. And again, especially in the lower portion, we see the hills widely separated, leaving most beautiful broad valleys between, with high mountains for a distant background. At St. Esprit we passed under the curious old bridge built in the eleventh century, which is still in as perfect a state apparently as if finished but yesterday. It is three thousand feet long, and is said to be the longest bridge in Europe; it consists of twenty-six arches, and each abutment has also a little arch above it. We passed other very pretty or striking views of which I should like vastly to have good prints, but I do not know whether any person has of late been illustrating the Rhone. But I must come to a close, not to fatigue you longer. I arrived at the most excellent Hôtel du Palais Royal (recommended by Bentham) just in time for the table d’hôte at seven o’clock, and after dinner sallied out, with a guide to conduct me to see Requien,[90] to whom Bentham had given me a letter. I found him a prompt man, and in almost ten words we settled my plan for to-morrow, which is to start in a cabriolet for Vaucluse at five o’clock in the morning, arrive at eight, spend two hours, breakfast, and return here by one o’clock; spend the afternoon and evening in seeing the most interesting objects in town, looking at his collections, his pictures, etc., etc. What would you give to see Vaucluse? I have many doubts whether it will equal my expectations, which are raised by the description; according to the account it must be very curious and strange, apart from the associations of the place, which here pass for little with me, as I feel no interest at all in Petrarch or Laura, whoever she may have been. AVIGNON, Friday evening, April 19, half past eight o’clock.