M. Pluquet's kindness
allowed me to make the tracing of the signature, which I send you.--
[Illustration: Rabelais hand-writing]
Such an addition as we here find to Rabelais' name, denoting that the
owner of a book considered it as being the property of his friends
conjointly with himself, is not of uncommon occurrence. Our friend, Mr.
Dibdin, who had been here shortly before us, and had carried off, as we
were told, some works of great rarity from this collection, has
enumerated more than one instance of the kind in his _Bibliographical
Decameron_; and the valuable library of my excellent friend, Mr.
Sparrow, of Worlingham, contains an Erasmus, which was the property of
Sir Thomas Wotton, and bears, stamped upon its covers, _Thomae Wotton et
amicorum_.
From Bayeux we returned to Caen, by way of Creully, passing along bad
roads, through an open, uninteresting country, almost wholly cropped
with buck-wheat.--The barony of Creully was erected by Henry Ist, in
favor of his natural son, the Earl of Gloucester: it was afterwards held
by different noble families, and continued to be so till the time of the
revolution. At that period, it gave a title to a branch of the line of
Montmorenci, whose emigration caused the domain to be confiscated, and
sold as national property; but the baronial castle is still standing,
and displays, in two of its towers and in a chimney of unusual form, a
portion of its ancient character: the rest of the building is modernized
into a spruce, comfortable residence, and is at this time occupied by a
countryman of our own, General Hodgson.
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