I found the road improve much as I advanced; the country became more enclosed, and bore a strong resemblance to the most cultivated parts of England. The cherry trees standing in the midst of the corn had a very pretty effect; the fields had the appearance of gardens, and some of the gardens had the wildness of the field. The season was evidently more advanced than in England; there were more fruits and flowers, and the bloom was more bossy and luxuriant. Several smaller roads led from the main road, and the spires of the village churches, as seen in the side landscape, rising above the tops of the trees, invited the fancy to combine some rural images, and weave itself at least an imaginary Arcadia. The persons I met or overtook upon the road were not altogether in unison with what I must call the romance of the scene. Every carter drove his vehicle in a cocked-hat, and the women had all wooden shoes. Boys and girls of twelve years old were in rags, which very ill covered them. Nor was there any of the briskness visible on a high road in England. A single cart, and a waggon, were all the vehicles that I saw between Boulogne and Abbeville. In England, in the same space, I should have seen a dozen, or score. Not being pressed for time, the beauty of a scene at some little distance from the road-side tempted me to enter into a bye-lane, and take a nearer view of it. A village church, embosomed in a chesnut wood, just rose above the trees on the top of a hill; the setting sun was on its casements, and the foliage of the wood was burnished by the golden reflection. The distant hum of the village green was just audible; but not so the French horn, which echoed in full melody through the groves. Having rode about half a mile through a narrow sequestered lane, which strongly reminded me of the half-green and half-trodden bye-roads in Warwickshire, I came to the bottom of the hill, on the brow and summit of which the village and church were situated. I now saw whence the sound of the horn proceeded. On the left of the road was an ancient chateau situated in a park, or very extensive meadow, and ornamented as well by some venerable trees, as by a circular fence of flowering shrubs, guarded on the outside by a paling on a raised mound. The park or meadow having been newly mown, had an air at once ornamented and natural. A party of ladies were collected under a patch of trees situated in the middle of the lawn. I stopt at the gate to look at them, thinking myself unperceived: but in the same moment the gate was opened to me by a gentleman and two ladies, who were walking the round. An explanation was now necessary, and was accordingly given. The gentleman informed me upon his part, that the chateau belonged to Mons. St. Quentin, a Member of the French Senate, and a Judge of the District; that he had a party of friends with him upon the occasion of his lady's birth-day, and that they were about to begin dancing; that Mons. St.