nger nations, and her fame went out into all lands.

"Un reglement de l'echevinage, du 12^me avril 1566, fait voir qu'on
fabriquait a cette epoque, des velours de toutes couleurs pour
meubles, des colombettes a grands et petits carreaux, des burailles
croises, qu'on expediait en Allemagne--en Espagne, en Turquie, et en
Barbarie!"[1]

All-coloured velvets, pearl-iridescent colombettes! (I wonder what
they may be?) and sent to vie with the variegated carpet of the Turk,
and glow upon the arabesque towers of Barbary![2] Was not this a phase
of provincial Picard life which an intelligent English traveller might
do well to inquire into? Why should this fountain of rainbows leap up
suddenly here by Somme; and a little Frankish maid write herself the
sister of Venice, and the servant of Carthage and of Tyre?

[Footnote 1: M. H. Dusevel, Histoire de la Ville d'Amiens. Amiens,
Caron et Lambert, 1848; p. 305.]

[Footnote 2: Carpaccio trusts for the chief splendour of any festa in
cities to the patterns of the draperies hung out of windows.]

And if she, why not others also of our northern villages? Has the
intelligent traveller discerned anything, in the country, or in its
shores, on his way from the gate of Calais to the _gare_ of Amiens, of
special advantage for artistic design, or for commercial enterprise? He
has seen league after league of sandy dunes. We also, we, have our sands
by Severn, by Lune, by Solway. He has seen extensive plains of useful
and not unfragrant peat,--an article sufficiently accessible also to
our Scotch and Irish industries. He has seen many a broad down and
jutting cliff of purest chalk; but, opposite, the perfide Albion gleams
no whit less blanche beyond the blue. Pure waters he has seen, issuing
out of the snowy rock; but are ours less bright at Croydon, at
Guildford, or at Winchester? And yet one never heard of treasures sent
from Solway sands to African; nor that the builders at Romsey could give
lessons in colour to the builders at Granada? What can it be, in the air
or the earth--in her stars or in her sunlight--that fires the heart and
quickens the eyes of the little white-capped Amienoise soubrette, till
she can match herself against Penelope?

The intelligent English traveller has of course no time to waste on
any of these questions. But if he has bought his ham-sandwich, and is
ready for the "En voiture, messieurs," he may perhaps condescend for
an instant to hear what a lounger about