ica. Not a weed is suffered to remain on the ground. The French want
nothing but a more enlarged knowledge and a greater capital, to rival
the English husbandmen. They have the same industry, and take perhaps
more pride in the appearance of their fields. This detailed attention
greatly improves the face of the country; for miles succeeding miles it
has the air of a series of parks and gardens. The English mansion is
alone wanting to complete the beauty of the scenery. From the high
ground in the city nothing can be finer than the prospect over the plain
and surrounding country. The Rhone is there seen rolling its animated
through meadows covered with olive trees, and at the foot of hills
invested with vineyards. The ruined arches of the old bridge carry the
imagination back into the ancient history of the town. On the opposite
side of the Rhone are the sunny plains of Laguedoc, which, when
refreshed by the wind, breathe odours and perfumes from a thousand wild
herbs and flowers. Mont Ventoux, in the province of Dauphiny, closes the
prospect to the North: its high summit covered with snow, whilst its
sides are robed in all the charms of vegetable nature. On the east are
the abrupt rocks and precipices of Vaucluse, distant about five leagues,
and which complete, as it were, the garden wall around Avignon and its
territory.

The climate of Avignon, though so strangely inveighed against by
Petrarch, is at once healthy and salubrious. There are certainly very
rapid transitions from extreme heat to extreme cold, but from this very
circumstance neither the intensity of the heat nor of the cold, is of
sufficient duration to be injurious to health or pleasure. The air,
except in actual rain, is always dry, and the sky is an etherial Italian
blue, scarcely ever obscured by a cloud. When the rains come on they are
very violent, but fall at once. The sun then bursts out, and the face of
Nature appears more gay, animated and splendid than before. I do not
remember, that amongst all the pictures of the great masters, I have
ever seen a landscape in which a southern country was represented after
one of these showers. Homer has described it with equal force and
beauty, in one of his similies: but as the book is not before me, I must
refer to the memory of the classic reader.

There is one heavy detraction, however, from the excellence of the
Avignonese climate. This is the wind denominated the Vent de Bize. The
peculiar situation of A