silence. A rich horizon of amber, violet, and vermilion streaks reposed on those islands of dusky green embroidery, uniting as with an enchanted belt the shores of Languedoc and Provence. Calm in its glittering swiftness, delighted to exchange its daylight azure for the gorgeous hues of evening,-the Sea of the South vanished from our eyes amidst a retinue of woods in the far-gleaming pavilions of the ambrosial firmament.

A star, the worship of astrologers, or a constellation, the immortality of paganism, began gradually to tell us their stories of the glorious Past, or to anticipate our dreams of the uncertain Future.

All that the noon had emblazoned, the evening had veiled. All that the busy occupations of day had deemed trivial, the approach of night rendered profound; all that the sun had insulted or exposed, the twilight soothed and almost sanctified. The poplar Valley of the Sorgues, the purple Mountains of Vaucluse, reposed in the clear distance: while the Dúrance, the choleric, the tyrannical, the terrible Durance, that scourge of the adjacent vales, whose dangerous lunes, incalculable as they are tremendous, originated the old proverb,

"Le Gouvernement, le Parlement et la Durance,
Ces trois ont gasté la Provence,"

glided beyond the intricate streets and dusky ramparts of the city, pallid and submissive, as if

overawed by the presence of his august lord paramount, into whose majestic channel he was about to precipitate his wasteful waters.

In despite of the monstrous crimes of which it has been the theatre, and the overpowering spell of gravity and gloom, which the aspect and character of Avignon conspire to produce, I could not forbear smiling, as I recalled the classical tirade of Petrarch against this renowned sanctuary of the Popedom: "L'empia Babilonia," as he calls it, in allusion to its exile from Rome.

"All that they say of Assyrian and Egyptian Babylon, of the four Labyrinths, of the Avernian and Tartarian lakes, are nothing in comparison with this hell. We have here a Nimrod, powerful on the earth, and a mighty hunter before the Lord, who attempts to scale heaven with raising his superb towers; a Semiramis with her quiver; a Cambyses, more extravagant than the Cambyses of old. You may here behold the inflexible Minos; Rhadamanthus; the greedy Cerberus ; Pasiphae, and the Minotaur. All that is vile and execrable is assembled in this place."

Here was an earthquake of anathema for this aged abode of the Papal plague! strong enough to shake to their foundation its three hundred towers, and to stir all the clappers of Rabelais "Ville Sonante" into one beflustered jangle of indignation and dismay!

Bell, book, and candle could not have done it better!

We set off this morning for a visit to Vaucluse, and our pathway extended beneath long fluttering willow groves and avenues of poplars, whose dainty vernal foliage, scintillating with lustre, afforded us but a feeble protection from the sun of Provence, especially whenever it pleased the early zephyr to stir the trembling head-gear of those Sisters of Phaeton.

The material picture of this renowned Region, the lineaments (so to say) of its locale are familiar to most readers. But in order not merely to realize but to appropriate the impressions its aspect and traditions are calculated to create, in order to test by idiosyncracy, its enchanting characteristics, it is necessary to be present in the body at Vaucluse. You must have seen, ay, you must have retraced through the long vistas of Memory, in visions of the night, and in reveries by day, that Haunt of Petrarch before you can fairly appreciate the influence it must exert over your affections and your intellect !

Ought we to be elated or humbled? Should we rejoice or regret that the workmanship of Nature, let it be ever so transcendent, receives from the Deeds and Memories of Man, be they good or evil, their last distinction shall I say? much more! the very Spirit that illustrates the spot, that communicating to its inert creations of

C

elementary matter the Promethean fire of Fame, first awakens it into life, and then consecrates it to Immortality.

That emeraldine Sorgue sparkling over its clear brown strand, that ruddy Chateau, meeting the sun midway in the meridian heavens; the awful barricades of the Ravine below, wherein the Genius of the place vigilantly guarding his beloved Nymph, hath prohibited the approach of Apollo himself, to her dedicated Stream! that deep purple Fountain, gleaming like an eye from a peacock's train, that immense romantic range of Rocks, wherein those Artificers of Ruin, Time, and Tempest, reversing their accustomed operations, have thought fit to amuse themselves with sundry masonic vagaries, splitting them into turrets and pinnacles, adorning them with porches, carving out windows, nay, tracing galleries and esplanades, and stairs along their rugged Façade, till they resemble some antediluvian city, some obsolete architecture of the Anakim! those profound Grottoes, which it requires no great stretch of superstition, Gothic or Arabian, to colonize with Fairies and Demons, Goules and Afrites; that lofty hemicycle which enshrines the Spring, where the eye toiling upwards to the scanty canopy of Sky above, almost expects to see the spectral Vulture of Oriental Lore, obliterating the blue space above with her stupendous pinions, as she swoops upon the rash adventurer, who has ventured among her invio

lable haunts. Those wrinkled Mulberry trunks, already beginning to fill the Valley with their golden bursting foliage, the wild Flora of its turfy banks, but above all, the gushing agonies of the Fountain, as, compelled to abandon the threshold of its domestic cavern, it plunges into a vortex of foaming waters, like a beloved Child, sent forth upon a troubled world from the safe recesses of a peaceful home,—all these creatures of Beauty and Love would have remained admirable had no eye seen them but His who " saw everything that He had made, and behold it was very good;"-but would the vicissitudes of the Seasons, the visitations of Day and Night, the voices of the Sun and his Planets, universal as their language, would the flowers and the herbage, the trees and the waters, although incessant in their chaunt of praise, would they have endowed this remote region with that wondrous spell which the very name of Petrarch, his friendships, and his every day domestic life, have woven for the valley of Vaucluse.

For my own part, much as I honour this cul de sac of Nature, for her own sake, I love her best of all, because for her it remained to exhibit the power of exorcising the Belial fiend from our beloved, our good, our truly great, but too susceptible Petrarch. Yes! it is in the shadows of Vaucluse that we first behold the Archdeacon of Parma, emancipated from the sentiment of a for