22 MARCH 1913, Page 20

"COMMON • OBJECTS OF THE RIVIERA."

[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] SIR,—Those of your readers who have felt the attraction of the coast of Provence, so well described in your review of the above book, may perhaps like to know that a great deal of interesting information upon the subject will be found in a quarter where few would be likely to look for it, viz., in the recently published "Taylor Papers" (Longmans and Co., 1913). Lord Brougham, who discovered Cannes in 1831, recommended the climate of that place—then a village of the humblest kind —to Sir Herbert Taylor as preferable for winter residence to that of Hyeres or Nice or any other with which he was acquainted ; and Sir Herbert proceeded in 1837 to build himself a house there—the second built by an Englishman .at Cannes, Brougham's villa being the first. The volume to which I have referred contains notes by Taylor giving a .detailed description of the Ligurian coast—the scenery, the agriculture, the manners and customs of the inhabitants, and the antiquities. In particular he took much pains to trace .the course of the Via Anrelia, of which he could not find any satisfactory record "in works of history, geography, topo- graphy, or descriptive travel." It would be a delightful task to compare, on the spot, his particulars with those in Lentheric's

" Provence Maritime."—I am, Sir, &c., C. L. D.