young’s TRAVELS IN FRANCE.

11-4

there has been nothing like rain ; but one unvarying clear bright Iky and burning fun,yet not at all fuffocating, or to me even unpleafant. I afked whether they were notfometimes caught in the rain ? they faid, very rarely indeed j but if rain did come, it isfeldom more than a heavy Ihower, which a hot fun quickly fucceeds and dries every thingfpeedily.

The canal of Languedoc is the capital feature of all-this country. The mountainthrough which it pierces is infulated, in the midfl of an extended valley, and only halfa mile from the road. It is a noble and ftupendous work, goes through the hill aboutthe breadth of three toifes, and was digged without {hafts.

Leave the road, and eroding the canal, follow it to Beziers ; nine flui'ce-gates let thewater down the hill to join the river at the town.—A noble work! The port is broadenough for four large veflfels to lie abreaft; the greatefl of them carries from ninety toone hundred tons. Many of them were at the quay, fome in motion, and every fignof an animated bufinefs. This is the beft fight I have feen in France. Here LouisXIV . thou art truly great!—Here with a generous and benignant hand, thou difpenfefleafe and wealth to thy people !—Si fic omnia, thy name would indeed have been revered!To effeft this noble work, of uniting the two feas, lefs money was expended than to be-fiege Turin , or to feize Strafbourg like a robber. Such an employment of the revenuesof a great kingdom is the only laudable way of a monarch’s acquiring immortality; allother means make their names furvive with thofe only of the incendiaries, robbers, andviolaters of mankind. The canal paffes through the river for about half a league, fe-parated from it by walls which are covered in floods; and then turns off for Cette.Dine at Beziers . Knowing that Monk l’Abbe Rozier, the celebrated editor of theJournal Phyfique, and who is now publifhing a dictionary of hufbandry, which in France has much reputation, lived and farmed near Beziers , I enquired at the inn the way tohis houfe. They told me that he had left Beziers two years, but that the houfe was tobe feen from the ftreet, and accordingly they {hewed it me from fomething of a fquareopen on one fide to the country ; adding, that it belonged now to a Monf. de Rieufe,who had purchafed the eflate of the Abbe . To view the farm of a man celebrated forhis writings, was an objeCt, as it would at leal! enable me, in reading his book, to un-derftand better the allufions he might make to the foil, fituation, and other circum-ftances. I was forry to hear at the table d’hote, much ridicule thrown on the AbbeRozier ’s hufbandry, that it had beaucoup de fantafie mats rien folide ; in particular, theytreated his paving his vineyards as a ridiculous circumflance. Such an experimentfeemed remarkable, and I was glad to hear of it, that I might defire to fee thefe pavedvineyards. The Abbe here, as a fanner, has juft that character which every man willbe fure to have who departs from the methods of his neighbours; for it is not in thenature of countrymen, that any body fhould come among them who can prefume withimpunity to think for himlelf. I afked why he left the country ? and they gave me acurious anecdote of the Biftiop of Beziers cutting a road through the Abbe ’s farm, atthe expence of the province, to lead to the houfe of his (the biftiop’s miftrefs), whichoccafioned fuch a quarrel, that Monf. Rozier could ftay no longer in the country.This is a pretty feature of a government: that a man is to be forced to fell his eftate, anddriven out cf a country, becaufe bifhopsmake love— I fuppofe to their neighbours’ wives,as no other love is fafhionable in France . Which of my neighbours’ wives will temptthe Biftiop of Norwich to make a road through my farm, and drive me to fell Bradfield ?I give my authority for this anecdote, the chat of a table d’hote: it is as likely to befalfe as true ; but Languedocian bifhops are certainly not Englifti ones. Monfieur deRieufe received me politely, and fatisfied as many of my enquiries as he could y for he

knew.