herself wooes us again with variety of charms. The tanskinned peasants, grimy artizans, or clay-stained potters are good company; the woods and cornfields, nestling churches and mouldering castles; the quarries, gardens, mines, abbeys, rocks of all fantastic shapes, and flowers of every hue, with a clear current continually winding by our side-now swift, now shallow-Belgium has offered these for our full enjoyment, before we reach the flourishing town of Liege.

§ VI. LIEGE.

Here the past and present mix together. Quaint buildings, river scenery of cheerful banks and crowded bridges, a multiplicity of fountains, and tree-avenued market places with picturesque country girls, might tempt to a longer stay. But we do everything in a hurry now-a-days. We keep skating over the surface, and bobbing down to the depths in hasty diving-bells; whirling along everywhere, as Americans say, on greased lightning; and then off again, in a balloon, for a change. We breakfast at the pyramids, dine on Mont Blanc, sup in Antiparos grotto, or Wanlockhead lead mines; whence we escape by atmospheric railways to a station, where a hundred Esquimaux dogs and their drivers (mutually undistinguishable) soon whisk us off to the North Pole; and so, a little tired and with frost-bitten noses, we return after three months of absence, fibbing like Mandeville, and declaring that we have seen the world, but there is nothing in it. We may well become confused, after a few years of travelling, and be doubtful whether Cambridge, Timbuctoo, and Nova Zembla are not within half an hour's pipe of one another.

The country, as we go on towards Aix-la-Chapelle, is wholly different from our first experiences of Belgium. Now hilly, and garnished with fashionable spa-towns, of pretentious trimness and occasional comfort. The yawning listlessness of Bruges is unseen here. Those

bedyked pasture-lands, with blinking cattle and idle herdsmen, lazy burghers, nodding priests, slumbering bead-tellers, listless waiters and gaping chambermaids; those droning barges, sluggish canals, or stagnant fountains, with irrecoverably slothful market people— all these have vanished utterly. In their stead appears many a token of Prussia being near. The cleanly shaven cheek and chin of Belgium are exchanged now for German hirsute embroidery. Pipes are invariable additions. The scenery grows full of interest. After Verviers and Limbourg, the Prussian frontier is reached. Next comes Aix-la-Chapelle.

§ VII.

AIX TO COLOGNE.

Cleanliness and aristocratic dignity reign at Aachen. It has a memory of departed royalty. Its inhabitants— or, rather, its resident visitors-moved along the bright streets with a superb consciousness of ten descents, and the very women selling cherries did it with a look of benign condescension. The place is purified by its own baths, unlike Baden. A sweetness of person has induced a sweetness of disposition; and if ever a commissionaire penetrated these hallowed precincts, he became converted from his evil ways, lost his badge of mental or moral degradation, and died immediately in the odour of sanctity.*

In the Cathedral, silence and solemnity reign. The orientalism of the building, approaching to gorgeousness, combines with a sort of faded greatness, as though its own antiquity and frequent use for coronations were made evident. To the simple marble

tha Is it not somewhat saddening to remember that the persons who see but f sacred places-those closely connected with the higher inspirations, anmote from selfish or sensual enjoyments-are generally the least impressed by the treasures whereto they guide? Must it always be that Vulcan associates himself with Venus, and the beauty of a Circe attracts a crew foredoomed to bestial transforigations.

slab, nearly in the centre of the church under the dome, marked Carolo Magno, our eye turns, fascinated: not to the pretended relics of swaddling-cloths, Aaron's rod, sponge or nails, arm bones or locks of hair, whereof the sacristans keep charge. Even the ancient throne is less interesting than the tomb whence it was taken. That busy life of Charlemagne-hastening from war to war, from Italy to Germany, to Spain and Italy again, ever and ever conquering or giving battle; never long at peace, yet bearing a calm, kingly heart withal; and only racked by thoughts of the succession to himself. Of him, with Schiller's Wallenstein, as with Napoleon also, might it be said :

"Our life was but a battle and a march,

And like the wind's blast, never resting, homeless,

We stormed across the war-convulsed earth."

Peace to their mighty spirits, if it be kind to wish for such to those for whom, in life, peace was the hardest trial. Even their bodies rested not after death. From the lone isle of St. Helena-whereto many eyes turned anxiously, fifty years ago-across the sea came the burial fleet, bearing what remained of the modern Cæsar, to his tomb awaiting among the Invalides. And here before us, in much older time, was the vault opened, where sat Charlemagne, crowned, sceptred, and attired in all the panoply of state; such a memento mori, such a homily, vanitas vanitatum, as his successors in empire might quail to see. His white marble chair seems scarcely empty now. As we pace this sepulchral church, the silvery voice of old romance breathes a whisper of Ariosto, and again is heard the winding of Orlando's horn at Roncesvalles.

It was night when Cologne was entered, but not so late that the hum of a large population had become silenced. The path that tempted led straight to the docks. I was at length beside that river which had awakened so much longing-the river, consecrated by many songs and legends of heart devotion and patriotic

love-the Rhine. In the clear moonlight the noble stream swept onward, reflecting a thousand stars; the faint and rosier coloured glitter of the lamps upon the bridge of boats crossing to Deutz, and those in windows of Cologne, giving a social warmth that did not mar the solemn feeling. Very dimly was discernible the outline of the Cathedral; and the roof of many a lofty building showed like toys beside the larger structure. Afterwards, if I felt lonely in the silent hours of night— for all the deeper emotions have their root in sadness; and quailed a moment at remembering that I was a stranger, not robust or equable of spirit, with a toilsome life before me, with no hand perhaps to clasp my own, and no voice to cheer me if despondent-did such twilight sorrows come across the mind, they were not suffered to remain oppressive. I remembered that to work my way through difficulty was better for me, as also for others, and more suited to my humour, than mere idle pleasure. Next morning I stood within the cathedral, than which there never rose before my eyes, in the most favoured hour of dreams or waking contemplation, a nobler structure.

Many years have passed since then. What matters it that mere detail has faded; that when I think of it, only the airy vastness and the graceful form are present with a dim inspiring beauty: and I feel as a dreamer dwelling in faëry visions, rather than as one who wandered in a real triumph of man's art, a temple raised in honour of his Maker? The sensation can never die in one who has gained what such a cathedral as Cologne teaches. There was something learnt that day which no lesser buildings can give; for no accumulated trifles are equal to the unity of art, no assemblage of small talents can balance in sublimity the weight of one solitary genius.

Here at Cologne I had gained, moreover, my first sight of the RHINE.

J. W. E.

(To be continued.)

TURGIDUS ALPINUS.

My miserable countrymen, whose wont is once a year To lounge in watering-places, disagreeable and dear; Who on pigmy Cambrian mountains, and in Scotch or Irish bogs

Imbibe incessant whisky, and inhale incessant fogs: Ye know not with what transports the mad Alpine Clubman gushes,

When with rope and axe and knapsack to the realms of snow he rushes.

O can I e'er the hour forget-a voice within cries "Never!"

From British beef and sherry dear which my young heart did sever?

My limbs were cased in flannel light, my frame in Norfolk jacket,

As jauntily I stepped upon the impatient Calais packet. Dark lowered the tempest overhead,' the waters wildly

rolled,

Wildly the moon sailed thro' the clouds, and it grew wondrous cold;'

The good ship cleft the darkness, like an iron wedge, I trow,

As the steward whispered kindly, "you had better go below"

Enough! I've viewed with dauntless eye the battle's bloody tide;

Thy horse, proud Duke of Manchester, I've seen straight at me ride

I've braved chance ram-rods from my friends, blank cartridges from foes;

The jeers of fair spectators, when I fell upon my nose;