s low and dark, and this too in a country where the Loire rolls its
beautiful stream through meadows and plains, and where ground is
plentiful and cheap. I can readily account for the narrow streets in
capital cities, where locality has an artificial value, and where the
competition is necessarily great. But whence are the streets thus
huddled together, and the air thus carefully excluded, where there is no
such want of ground or value of building lots? It must here originate
purely in that execrable taste which characterized the early ages.

The environs of the town, the fields, the meadows, the gently rising
hills, and the recluse vallies, compensate for the vile interior: Nature
here reigns in all her loveliness, and a poet, a painter, even any one
of ordinary feeling, could not see her without delight and admiration.
There are innumerable nightingales in the woods at a small distance from
the town. If the French noblesse had the taste of the English, the
vicinity of La Charite would be covered with villas.

We took our coffee on a kind of raised mound, at the extremity of a
garden, which overhung the Loire. A lofty and spreading tree
overshadowed us, and stretched its branches over the river. In the fork,
formed where the trunk first divides into the greater branches, was a
railed seat and table. The view from hence over the meadow on the
opposite bank, was gay and picturesque. The peasant girls were milking
their cows and singing with their usual merriment. Parties of the
townsmen were playing at golf; others were romping, running, walking,
with all the thoughtless erility of the French character. I never
enjoyed an hour more sensibly. The evening was delightful, and all
around seemed gay and happy.

Our journey to Nevers was partly by moon-light. The road exceeds all
powers of description. It was frequently bordered by hedges of flowering
shrubs, and such cottages as we passed seemed sufficient for the
climate. Why might not Marmontel have lived in such a cottage? thought
I, as I rode by more than one of them. This spot of France certainly
excells every part of the world. Even the clay and chalk-pits are
verdant: the sides are covered with shrubs which are raised with
difficulty even in the hot-houses of England.

Our inn at Nevers, the Grand Napoleon, had nothing to correspond with
its sounding title; our bed-chambers, however, were pleasantly situated,
and for once since we had left Orleans, we had each of us