picturesque fragments and masses; and the ancient walls shelter and adorn fruitful gardens, cradled in the otherwise now useless trenches. The town itself appears so dull-the inhabitants so poor, that it was almost surprising to observe walks for public use and pleasure, with avenues and arbours on the level adjoining the ramparts. The struggle between melancholy and cheerfulness, fanciful improvements, and rapid decay, leisure and poverty, was very interesting. We had a fine evening; and the ride, though, in comparison with the last, of little interest-the vale of the Rhine being here wide and level, the hills lowered by distance-was far from being a dull one, as long as I kept myself awake. I was roused from sleep in crossing the bridge of the Moselle near Coblentz.

Coblentz, Sunday, July 23d.-Cathedral.-The music at our entrance fixed us to our places. The swell was solemn, even aweful, sinking into strains of delicious sweetness; and though the worship was to us wholly unintelligible, it was not possible to listen to it without visitings of devotional feeling. Mary's attention was entirely absorbed till the service ceased, and I think she never stirred from her seat. After a little while I left her, and drew towards the railing of the gallery, to look round on the congregation, among whom there appeared more of old-fashioned gravity, and of antique gentility, than I have seen anywhere else; and the varieties of costume were infinite. . . . All that we witnessed of bustle or gaiety was near the river, facing the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein; and upon the wide wooden bridge which we crossed in our way to the fortress. Fruit-women were seated on the bridge, and peasants, gentry, soldiers, continually passing to and fro. All but the soldiers paid toll. The citadel stands upon a very lofty bare hill, and the walk was fatiguing; but I beguiled my weariness with the company of a peasant lass, who took pains to understand my broken German, and contrived to make me

acquainted with no small part of her family history. This bonny maiden's complexion was as fresh as a rose, though no kerchief screened it from the sunshine. Many a fierce breeze, and many a burning sun must she have struggled with, in her way from the citadel to the town; and, on looking at her, I fancied there must be a stirring and invigorating power in the wind to counteract the cankering effect of the sun, which is so noticeable in the French peasantry on their hot dry plains. No sooner do you set foot in the neighbourhood of Calais than you are struck with it; and, at the same time, with the insensibility of young and old to discomfort from glaring light and beat. Whatever slender shade of willows may be at the door of a hut on the flats between Calais and Gravelines, the female peasants, at their sewing or other work, choose it not, but seat themselves full in the sunshine. Thence comes a habit of wrinkling the cheeks and forehead, so that their faces are mostly ploughed with wrinkles before they are fifty years old. In this country, and all through the Netherlands, the complexions of the people are much fresher and fairer than in France, though they also are much out of doors. This may perhaps be, in part, attributed to the greater quantity of wood scattered over the country, and to the shade of garden and orchard trees. . . The view from the summit of the hill of Ehrenbreitstein is magnificent. Beneath, on a large, flat angle, formed by the junction of the Rhine and the Moselle, stands the city, its purple-slated roofs surrounded by many tall buildings-towers and spires, and big palaces among trees. The vale of the Moselle is deep and green, formed by vine-clad steeps, among which the eye, from the heights where we stood, espies many a pleasant village. That of the Rhine is more varied and splendid-with towns that, from their size, the irregularity of the buildings, and their numerous towers and spires, give dignity to the proud river itself, and to the prodigally scattered hills. Downwards we looked through the plain,

along which we had travelled the evening before from the town of Andernach, which stands, as Coblentz does, upon a low bank of the Rhine: and there is no eminence between the two towns to obstruct the view. The course of the road, which is widely parted from that of the river, may be seen in a straight line for many miles. We behold below us the junction of the two great rivers; how steady and quiet is their meeting! A little while each goes in his own distinct path, side by side, yet one stream; and they slowly and by degrees unite, each lost in the other happy type of a tranquil meeting, and joining together in the journey of life!

Coblentz, as every one knows, was for a long time the headquarters of the French noblesse, and other emigrants, during the Revolution; and it is surprising that in the exterior of manners and habits there should be so little to remind the passing traveller of the French. In Ghent and Brussels, it is impossible to forget that you are in towns not making a part of France; yet, in both those places, the French have sown seeds which will never die—their manners, customs, and decorations are everywhere struggling with the native stiffness of the Flemish but in Coblentz it is merely incidentally that the French courtier or gentleman is brought to mind; and shops, houses, public buildings, are all of the soil where they have been reared-so at least they appeared to us, in our transient view.

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St. Goar, Monday, July 24th.-.. . The town, seen from the heights, is very beautiful, with purple roofs, two tall spires, and one tower. On the opposite side of the river we peep into narrow valleys, formed by the lofty hills, on which stand two ruins called, as we were told by our lively attendant, the Katzen and Mausen Towers (i.e. the Towers of the Cat and the Mouse). They stare upon each other at safe distance,

though near neighbours; and, across the river, the greater fortress of Rheinfels defies them both. A lovely dell runs behind one of the hills; at its opening where it pours out its stream into the Rhine we espied a one-arched Borrowdale bridge, and behind the bridge a village almost buried between the abruptly-rising steeps. . . . I will transcribe the few words I wrote in my memorandum-book, dated Beside the Rhine, St. Goar':- How shall I describe this soothing place! The river flows on. I see it flow, yet it is like a lake-the bendings of the hills enclosing it at each end. Here I sit, half-way from the centre of the curve. I see the Borrowdale bridge beside the lowly hamlet in the cleft of the other dell. A ferry-boat has been approaching its landing-place with a crew of peasants. They come now slowly up from the shore, a picturesque train in grey attire-no showy colours; and at this moment I can fancy that even that circumstance gives a sweeter effect to the scene, though I have never wished to expel the crimson garments, or the blue, from any landscape.' Here let me observe that grey clothing-the pastoral garb of our mountains-does, when it is found on the banks of the Rhine, only look well at a certain distance. It seems not to be worn from choice, but poverty; and in this day's journey we have met with crowds of people whose dress was accordant with the appearance close at hand of their crumbling houses and fortifications.

Bingen, Tuesday, July 25th.-Most delightful to the imagination was our journey of yesterday, still tempting to hope and expectation! Yet wherever we passed through a village or small town the veil of romance was withdrawn, and we were compelled to think of human distress and povertytheir causes how various in a country where Nature has been so bountiful-and, even when removed from the immediate presence of painful objects, there is one melancholy thought

which will attend the traveller along the ever-winding course of the Rhine-the thought that of those buildings, so lavishly scattered on the ridges of the heights or lurking in sheltering corners, many have perished, all are perishing, and will entirely perish! Buildings that link together the Past and the Present-times of war and depredation, of piracy, of voyages by stealth and in fear, of superstitious ceremonies, of monastic life, of quiet, and of retreat from persecution! Yet some of the strongest of the fortresses may, for aught I know, endure as long as the rocks on which they have been reared, deserted as they are, and never more be tenanted by pirate, lord, or vassal. The parish churches are in bad repair, and many ruinous.

Mayence. I thought of some thriving friar of old times; but last night,* in reading Chaucer's Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, mine host of the Tabard recalled to my memory our merry master in the dining-room at Mayence.

...

Heidelberg, Thursday, July 27th.-After dinner, Mary, Miss H., and I set off towards the castle. The ascent is long and steep, the way plain, and no guide needed, for the castle walks are free; and there-among treasures of art, decaying and decayed, and the magnificent bounties of naturethe stranger may wander the day through. The building is of various dates: it is not good in architecture as a whole, though very fine in parts. There is a noble round tower, and the remains of the chapel, and long ranges of lofty and massy wall, often adorned with ivy, the figure of a saint, a lady, or a warrior looking safely from their niches under the ivy bower. The moats, which must long ago have been drained, retain their shape, yet have now the wild luxuriance of sequestered dells.

*This was when writing out her Journal, begun two months after her return to Rydal Mount.