intance with the language.
Monsieur, her brother, perceived my embarrassment, and becoming my
interpreter, helped me out of it with much good-humour, and with some
dexterity. I resolved, however, another time, never to tilt with a
French lady in compliment.

Being alone with the young man, I made some inquiries upon subjects upon
which I wanted information, and found him at once communicative and
intelligent. The agriculture of the country about Calais appears to be
wretched. The soil is in general very good, except where the substratum
of chalk, or marle, rises too near the surface, which is the case
immediately on the cliffs. The course of the crops is bad
indeed--fallow, rye, oats. In some land it is fallow, wheat, and barley.
In no farm, however, is the fallow laid aside; it is considered as
indispensable for wheat, and on poor lands for rye. The produce, reduced
to English Winchester measure, is about nineteen bushels of wheat, and
twenty-three or twenty-four of barley. Besides the fallow, they manure
for wheat. The manure in the immediate vicinity of Calais is the dung of
the stable-keepers and the filth of that town. The rent of the land
around Calais, within the daily market of the town, is as high as sixty
livres; but beyond the circuit of the town, is about twenty livres
(sixteen shillings). Since the settlement of the Government, the price
of land has risen; twenty Louis an acre is now the average price in the
purchase of a large farm. There are no tithes, but a small rate for the
officiating minister. Labourers earn thirty sous per day (about
fifteen-pence English), and women, in picking stones, &c. half that
sum. Rents, since the Revolution, are all in money; but there are some
instances of personal service, and which are held to be legal even under
the present state of things, provided they relate to husbandry, and not
to any servitude or attendance upon the person of the landlord. Upon the
whole, I found that the Revolution had much improved the condition of
the farmers, having relieved them from feudal tenures and lay-tithes. Oh
the other hand, some of the proprietors, even in the neighbourhood of
Calais, had lost nearly the whole of the rents, under the interpretation
of the law respecting what were to be considered as feudal impositions.
The Commissioners acting under these laws had determined all old rents
to come under this description, and had thus rendered the tenants under
lease proprietors of the