t notice, than that the
malice of the brigands would have allowed it to stand unhurt; and there
is besides an ingenuity and presence of mind shown in the preservation
of St. Nicholas, quite consistent with the character of M. Menestrier,
as described by the old man. Had the latter felt that inclination to
romance, which is not uncommon among his brethren, he would probably
have adopted the hacknied legend, that both monuments were miraculously
secreted from the eyes of the marauders.

April 28.--To Joigny, where we breakfasted, twenty-one miles. Passed
through Villeneuve, a decayed old town, with two singular gateways. Even
this place emulates Paris in the possession of a Tivoli, which, in the
present instance, consisted of a walled square of court-yard (for garden
it could not be called), measuring about thirty yards by twenty, and
overshadowed by poplars from three to four feet high: a most pleasant
representative, in truth, of the wild olive woods, the sequestered
waterfalls, and the classical ruins of the original Tivoli.

Domus Albunese resonantis,
Et praeceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus.

On leaving Joigny, a neat pleasant town, extending in one wide street
along the Yonne, and crowned by a handsome chateau, left unfinished by
the Due de Villeroi, we reached the heart of the wine district of
Burgundy. The country here assumes the appearance of a garden, both from
the steep and regular form of the hills, which exactly resemble the
Dutch slopes in old-fashioned gardens, and from the high state of
culture to which their thin gravelly soil is brought. The hoe and the
pruning-knife seem never at rest, and not a weed is to be seen; while
the slightest portion of manure dropt on the high road becomes a prize,
if not an object of contention, to the nearest vignerons. The air of
cheerfulness and beauty, however, which we annex to our notions of high
cultivation, is wholly wanting. The appearance of the vines was that of
sapless black stumps, about thirty inches high, and pruned so as to
leave only four or five eyes; and though the subject of poverty is too
serious to joke on, the withered and stunted appearance of the country
people exactly corresponded to that of these dry pollards. I trust that
we were in some degree deceived by their natural ugliness, and that hard
labour and scanty profits are not the only reasons which render their
_tout ensemble_ such a contrast to the healthy robust looks of the
Normans and