n countries alone whose freedom has long subsisted;
in Switzerland, in Flanders, and in England, that no traces of its
effects are to be discerned in the manners and the condition of the
peasantry; that the enjoyment of individual security has enabled the
poor to spread themselves in fearless confidence over the country; and
that the traveller, in admiring the union of natural beauty with general
prosperity, which the appearance of the country exhibits, blesses that
government, by the influence of whose equal laws that delightful union
has been effected.

In the neighbourhood of Paris, and in those situations which are
favourable for vineyard or garden cultivation, this circumstance gives a
very singular aspect to the face of the country. As far as the eye can
reach, the sloping banks, or rising swells, are cultivated with the
utmost care, and intersected by little paths, which wind through the
gardens, or among the vineyards, in the most beautiful manner; yet no
traces of human habitation are to be discerned, by whose labour, or for
whose use, this admirable cultivation has been conducted. The labourers,
or proprietors of these gardens, dwell at the distance of miles, in
antiquated villages, which resemble the old boroughs which are now
wearing out in the improved parts of Scotland. In the greater part of
France, the people dwell in this manner, in crowded villages, while the
open country, every where cultivated, is but seldom inhabited. The
superiority, accordingly, in the beauty of those districts, where the
cottages are sprinkled over the country, and surrounded by fruit-trees,
is greater than can well be imagined: and it is owing to this
circumstance that Picardy, Artois, and Normandy, exhibit so much more
pleasing an appearance, than most of the other provinces of France.

In the district between Paris and Soissons, as in almost every other
part of the country, the land is now in the hands of the peasantry, who
became proprietors of it during the struggles of the revolution. We had
every where occasion to observe the extreme industry with which the
people conduct their cultivation, and perceived numerous instances of
the truth of Mr Young's observation, "that there is no such instigator
to severe and incessant labour, as the minute subdivision of landed
property." But though their industry was uniformly in the highest degree
laudable, yet we could not help deploring the ignorant and unskilful
manner in which this