who resided there during the winter 1775.  This gentleman, who is one of Doctor RADCLIFFE’S travelling physicians, had performed several very astonishing cures, in cases which the French Physicians had long treated without success:  And indeed the French physicians, however checked by interest or envy, were obliged to acknowledge this gentleman’s uncommon sagacity in the treatment of diseases.  What I say of this ingenious traveller, is for your sake more than his; for I know nothing more of him than the fame he has left behind him at Montpellier, and which I doubt not will soon be verified by his deeds among his own countrymen.

LETTER XXXIX.

AVIGNON.

There is no dependence on what travellers say of different towns and places they have visited, and therefore you must not lay too much stress upon what I say.  A Lady of fashion, who had travelled all over France, gave the preference to the town I wrote last to you from (Marseilles); to me, the climate excepted, it is of all others the most disagreeable; yet that Lady did not mean to deceive; but people often prefer the town for the sake of the company they find, or some particular or local circumstance that attended their residence in it; in that respect, I too left it reluctantly, having met with much civility and some old friends there; but surely, exclusive of its fine harbour, and favourable situation for trade, it has little else to recommend it, but riot, mob, and confusion; provisions are very dear, and not very good.

On our road here we came again through Aix.  The Mule blanche without the town, is better than any auberge within, and Mons. L’Abbe Abrard Praetor, de la ordre de St. Malta, is not only a very agreeable, but a very convenient acquaintance for a stranger, and who is always ready to shew the English in particular, attention, and who had much attention shewn him by Lord A. PERCY and his Lady.

From Aix we passed through Lambresque, Orgon, and Sencage, a fine country, full of almond trees, and which were in full blossom on the 7th of March.  At Orgon the post-house was so bad, that after my horse was in the stable, I was obliged to put him to, and remove to the Soleil d’Or, without the town, and made a good move too.  The situation of Notre Dame de St. Piere, a convent on a high hill, is worthy of notice, and the antiquity of the town also.—­Five leagues from Orgon we crossed a very aukward passage in a ferry-boat, and were landed in the Pope’s territories, about five miles from Avignon.  The castle, and higher part of the town, were visible, rising up in the middle of a vast plain, fertile and beautiful as possible.  If we were charmed with the distant view, we were much more so upon a nearer approach; nothing can be more pleasing than the well-planted, and consequently well-shaded coach and foot roads