to trust them to the care of a good Providence, for he held a correspondence with none of them during his travel; indeed he could neither write nor read, and he never expressed any anxiety about them; yet, as I shall have occasion to notice hereafter, I can witness for him he had a true, kind, and fatherly heart.

Such was our voiturier; and, after having committed our baggage to his care, having seen the two trunks secured behind with an iron chain, another box and the three carpet-bags placed before in a large kind of basket that was under the feet of the driver, we got in, and, without more ceremony, set off under a broiling hot sun for Friburg; indeed, in the sky there was scarcely the smallest cloud to be seen. Skies of this kind (though called Italian, and often painted by the old masters) I never can admire. To me, the clouds form the very poetry of the heavens; there is so much in them, not only of beauty, but they afford such a theme for speculation, by their variations, their forms, and combinations: with these we may busy ourselves, if not absolutely in build

ing, at least in discovering, those castles in the air, to trace out which is always a favourite diversion with a fanciful mind.

On leaving Strasburg we passed the lesser Rhine, and crossed the long and famous bridge of the great and rapid Rhine-a bridge immortalised by the pen of Sterne. We passed through the small town of Khel, whence the steam boats start every day in their progresses both up and down the river.

We were now in the duchy of Baden, and the drive on this day was truly beautiful; being in an open carriage, we could enjoy it without any interruption. I have always found how difficult, indeed I must say how impossible, it is to describe scenery with any thing but the pencil! I never yet read any description that brought any particular scene, in its exact form. and colour, before the mental vision. It is impossible. Copy nature as closely as you may, an author can do nothing more than give a general idea of a landscape; its individuality must remain for the painter. As well might we attempt to make one man see the portrait of

another, personally unknown to him, by description, as show him the exact resemblance of any spot in nature by mere words. Labouring under this disadvantage, and yet feeling very anxious to give you some Swiss sketches of our journey, I shall not attempt what is impossible. I shall but generalise; and leave you to picture to yourself, from such accounts, according to your own fancy, any nooks in a land distinguished by all the characteristics of the sublime and the beautiful-objects of love and objects of terror; calculated alike to stir the bosom with the most animated, and at the same time the most deep and solemn, emotions.

That part of the territory of the Grand Duke of Baden through which we passed was a vast plain skirted by mountains, populous with villages, and having such a vast number of churches that to count them would have been worth while as a mere matter of curiosity; and I am sorry we neglected to do so in the journey of this day. The land was in a high state of cultivation, but no hedge-rows were to be seen; and this injured the appearance of the country,

since, for want of them, wherever the fields united, or where they were of a quite opposite colour to that of the corn, or of any plants growing upon their neighbour piece of land, they wore altogether the appearance of those squares of cloth laid down side by side in the variations of a tailor's pattern-book.

We met several of the women of the country; they were desperately ugly, particularly the old women, who looked like witches, according to those standard ideas of a witch with which we have possessed our minds from our earliest youth, by the pictures drawn of such beings by Otway and Shakspeare. To these I would add Spenser, whose hags are no less characteristic.

The women in this part of Baden wear upon their heads a sort of garniture, rather than cap, which, if it could but be seen above a tolerable face, I should greatly admire. It was composed of broad black ribbon, put together in the most picturesque fashion, with two large bows and ends at the top. The men wore a dress, the style of which I had before

seen, though smarter and gayer, as the costume of the dancers in some of the ballets at our Italian Opera House in London. This dress consists of a white shirt, made not exactly in the common way, over which are seen the braces that support the nether socks, as antiquaries designate that part of male attire concerning which (as old Miss Grizzy very truly tells her brother, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck) a lady must not particularise. These braces are often painted, like a painted oil-cloth, with gay patterns; sometimes they are of black embroidered velvet.

We stopt on the road to dine, and to rest the horses, for a couple of hours. Nobody in the house could speak French, so we were obliged to call in our voiturier in the new character of interpreter: and, considering we were now in a regular German inn, the dinner was tolerable; there was less spice, less grease, and fewer sours than we generally found. I seldom eat fish, even in England, so I will not pass judgment on that part of the viands; but I observed here, what, in fact, I afterwards remarked more than once