huge agate pin, and his neckcloth, were both white as the snow; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss, and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch-chain; his voice was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing, though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He had

made up his mind about the Reform Bill-the Catholic Question-the Corn Laws-and about things in general, and things in particular; he had doubts about nothing: it was evident that he was accustomed to lay down the law in his own village-that he was the tyrant of his own fireside that his wife was "his horse, his ox, his ass, his any thing," while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano. London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours-a receptacle of thieves, cut-throats and profligates-a place in which no sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets, would willingly set his foot; he thanked God that he never spent but two nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years: the first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire and vermin; and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he did not know, was to him not worth knowing;

and the word French, which comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both recently travelled; my farmer was enthusiastic in his admiration of the country. "A fine country, madam-a beautiful country -a splendid country!"

"Do you call it a fine country ?" said I, absently, my head full of the Alps and Appenines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po.

"To be sure I do; and where would you see a finer ?"

"I did not see any thing very picturesque," said I.

"Picturesque !" he repeated with some contempt; "I don't know what you call picturesque ; but I say, give me a soil, that when you turn it up you have something for your pains; the fine soil makes the fine country, madam !"

75

SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE AND

CHARACTER.

II.

MEDON.

I OBSERVED the other evening, that in making a sort of imaginative bound from Coblentz to Heidelberg, you either skipped over Frankfort, or left it on one side.

ALDA.

Did I ?-if I had done either, in my heart or my memory, I had been most ungrateful; but I thought you knew Frankfort well.

MEDON.

I was there for two days, on my way to Switzerland, and it rained the whole time from morn

VOL. 1.

E

ing till night. I have a vision in my mind of dirty streets, chilly houses, dull shops, dingylooking Jews, dripping umbrellas, luxurious hotels, and exorbitant charges,-and this is all I can recollect of Frankfort.

ALDA.

Indeed!-I pity you. To me it was associated only with pleasant feelings, and, in truth, it is a pleasant place. Life, there, appears in a very attractive costume: not in a half-holiday, half-beggarly garb, as at Rome and Naples; nor in a thin undress of superficial decency as at Berlin; nor in a court domino, hiding, we know not what-as at Vienna and Munich; nor half motley, half military, aš at Paris; nor in rags and embroidery, as in London; but at Frankfort all the outside at least is fair, substantial, and consistent. The shops vie in splendour with those of London and Paris; the principal streets are clean, the houses spacious and airy, and there is a general appearance of cheerfulness and tranquillity, mingled with the luxury of wealth and the bustle of business, which, after the misery, and murmuring, and bitterness of faction, we had left in London, was really a relief to the spirits. It is true, that during my last two visits, this apparent tranquillity concealed a good deal of political fer

ment. The prisons were filled with those unfortunate wretches who had endeavoured to excite a popular tumult against the Prussian and Austrian governments. The trials were going forward every day, but not a syllable of the result transpired beyond the walls of the Römer Saal. Although the most reasonable and liberal of the citizens agreed in condemning the rashness and folly of these young men, the tide of feeling was evidently in their favour: for instance, it was not the fashion to invite the Prussian officers, and I well remember that when Goethe's Egmont was announced at the theatre, it was forbidden by the magistracy, from a fear that certain scenes and passages in that play might call forth some open and decided expression of the public feeling; in fact, only a few evenings before, some passages in the Massaniello had been applied and applauded by the audience, in a manner so ill-bred, that the wife of the Prussian minister rose and left her box, followed by some other old women,-male and female. The theatre is rather commodious than splendid; the established company, both for the opera and the regular drama, excellent, and often varied by temporary visits of great actors and singers from the other theatres of Germany. On my first visit to Frankfort, which was