Travels in France during the years 1814-15

Travels in France during the years 1814-15 is a historical book. We passed through Kent in our way to France, on Sunday the first of May 1814. This day's journey was very delightful. The whole scenery around us, the richness of the fields and woods, then beginning to assume the first colours of spring; the extent and excellence of the cultivation; the thriving condition of the towns, and the smiling aspect of the neat and clean villages through which we passed; the luxuriant bloom of the fruit trees surrounding them; the number of beautiful villas adapted to the accommodation of the middle ranks of society, the crowds of well dressed peasantry going to and returning from church; the frank and cheerful countenances of the men, and beauty of the women all presented a most pleasing spectacle. If we had not proposed to cross the channel, we should have compared all that we now saw with our recollections of Scotland; and the feeling of the difference, although it might have increased our admiration, would perhaps have made us less willing to acknowledge it. But when we were surveying England with a view to a comparison with France, the difference of its individual provinces was overlooked; we took a pride in the apparent happiness and comfort of a people, of whom we knew nothing more, than that they were our countrymen; and we rejoiced, that the last impression left on our minds by the sight of our own country, was one which we already anticipated that no other could efface.