human imagination,
and consequently human locomotion are influenced, I look upon one of the
most irresistible (if such an epithet be applicable to a weakness) to be
that fractional component part of the cravings of antiquarianism, which
urges some persons in the search after, and rewards their labours on the
discovery of, the locality supposed to be the birthscene of some great
historical event, however insignificant in other respects, or even
however loathsome its actual state may be to the outward senses. Thus,
when, in Normandy, the worthy and probably waggish majordomo of the
crumbling old castle of Falaise, directs your attention to the window
from which Duke Robert caught the first glance of the ankle of William
the Conqueror's mother,--as she pursued her professional labours, and
polluted with her soapsuds the silver brook a quarter of a mile below
him,--and suddenly yielded his soul to its irresistible beauty:
notwithstanding the impossibility of the thing, many, and I confess
myself one, are too delighted with the window, and the rivulet, and the
majordomo, and the--God knows what!--perhaps with the very
impossibility--to allow themselves a moment's sceptical or sarcastic
feeling on the subject.

I should mention that my visit to Falaise happening to take place
shortly after the passage of the King of the French on a tour through
his western provinces, the aforesaid cicerone pointed out a highly
suspicious-looking inscription, being the initials of the monarch,
carefully engraved in the stone; which he informed me had been cut by
Louis Philippe, on the occasion of his visit at midnight to the room of
Duke Robert; but of which I took the liberty of suspecting himself of
being the sculptor, during some idle moment,--fond as he probably was of
contemplating the innocently expressive countenances of his satisfied
visitors.

Actuated by the feeling I have attempted to describe, one of my first
inquiries at Toledo related to the well-known story of Florinda and her
bath, so fatal to the Gothic sway in Spain. I was immediately directed
to the spot, on which is seen a square tower, pierced by arched openings
through its two opposite sides, and on a third side by a similar but
smaller aperture. The four walls alone remain, and the whole is
uncovered. This symmetrical-looking edifice, well built and composed of
large stones, measures about sixteen feet square, and from forty to
fifty in elevation, and stands on the ed