Fruit and forest trees, flowers and grass, are intermingled. I now speak of the more ruinous and the most ancient part of the castle. . . . We walked upon a platform before the windows, where a band of music used to be stationed, as on the terrace at Windsor-a fine place for festivals in time of peace, and to keep watch in time of war. . . . From the platform where we stood, the eye (overlooking the city, bridge, and the deep vale, to the point where the Neckar is concealed from view by its winding to the left) is carried across the plain to the dim stream of the Rhine, perceived under the distant hills. The pleasure-grounds are the most delightful I ever beheld; the happiest mixture of wildness, which no art could overcome, and formality, often necessary to conduct you along the ledge of a precipice—whence you may look down upon the river, enlivened by boats, and on the rich vale, or to the more distant scenes before mentioned. One long terrace is supported on the side of the precipice by arches resembling those of a Roman aqueduct; and from that walk the view of the Castle and the Town beneath it is particularly striking. I cannot imagine a more delightful situation than Heidelberg for a University-the pleasures, ceremonies, and distractions of a Court being removed. Parties of students were to be seen in all quarters of the groves and gardens. I am sorry, however, to say that their appearance was not very scholarlike. They wear whatever wild and coarse apparel pleases them their hair long and disorderly, or rough as a water-dog, throat bare or with a black collar, and often no appearance of a shirt. Every one has his pipe, and they all talk loud and boisterously.

Never surely was any stream more inviting! It flows in its deep bed-stately, yet often turbulent; and what dells, cleaving the green hills, even close to the city! Looking down upon the purple roofs of Heidelberg variously tinted, the spectacle is curious-narrow streets, small squares, and gardens many and

flowery. The main street, long and also narrow, is (though the houses are built after no good style) very pretty as seen from the heights, with its two gateways and two towers. The Cathedral (it has an irregular spire) overtops all other edifices, which, indeed, have no grace of architecture, and the University is even mean in its exterior; but, from a small distance, any city looks well that is not modern, and where there is bulk and irregularity, with harmony of colouring. But we did not enter the cathedral, having so much to see out of doors.

Heidelberg, Friday, July 28th. . . . The first reach of the river for a moment transported our imagination to the Vale of the Wye above Tintern Abbey. A single cottage, with a poplar spire, was the central object. . . . As we went further, villages appeared. But Mr. P. soon conducted us from the river up a steep hill, and, after a long ascent, he took us aside to a cone-shaped valley, a pleasure-dell-I call it so— for it was terminated by a rural tavern and gardens, seats and alcoves, placed close beside beautiful springs of pure water, spread out into pools and distributed by fountains. A grey stone statue, in its stillness, is a graceful object amid the rushing of water! . . . Our road along the side of the hill, that still rose high above our heads, led us through shady covert and open glade, over hillock or through hollow; at almost every turning convenient seats inviting us to rest, or to linger in admiration of the changeful prospects, where wild and cultivated grounds seemed equally the darlings of the fostering sun. Many of the hills are covered with forests, which are cut down after little more than thirty years' growth; the ground is then ploughed, and sown with buckwheat, and afterwards with beech-nuts. The forests of firs (numerous higher up, but not so here) are sown in like manner. Immense quantities of timber are floated down the river. Sometimes in our delightful walk we were led through tracts

of vines, all belonging to the Grand Duke. They are as free as the forest thickets and flowery glades, and separated from them by no distinguishable boundary. Whichever way the eye turned, it settled upon some pleasant sight.

Baden-Baden, July 29th (Saturday).— . . . Met with old-fashioned civility in all quarters. This little town is a curious compound of rural life, German country-townishness, watering-place excitements, court stateliness, ancient mouldering towers, old houses and new, and a life and cheerfulness over all.... A bright reflection from the evening sky powdered with golden dust that distant vapoury plain, bounded by the chain of purple mountains. We quitted this spectacle with regret when it faded in the late twilight, struggling with the light of the moon.

Road to Homburg.—Sunday, July 30th.-We were continually reminded of the vales of our own country in this lovely winding valley, where seven times we crossed the clear stream over strong wooden bridges; but whenever in our travels the streams and vales of England have been most called to mind there has been something that marks a difference. Here it is chiefly observable in the large brown wood houses, and in the people-the shepherd and shepherdess gaiety of their dress, with a sort of antiquated stiffness. Groups of children in rustic flower-crowned hats were in several places collected round the otherwise solitary swineherd. . . . The sound of the stream (if there be any sound) is a sweet, unwearied, and unwearying under-song, to detain the pious passenger, which he cannot but at times connect with the silent object of his worship.

Road to Schaffhausen.-A part of the way through the uncleared forest was pleasingly wild; juniper bushes, broom, and

other woodland plants, among the moss and flowery turf. Before we had finished our last ascent, the postillion told us what a glorious sight we might have seen, in a few moments, had we been here early in the morning or on a fine evening; but, as it was midday, nothing was to be expected. That glorious sight which should have been was no less than the glittering prospect of the mountains of Switzerland. We did burst upon an extensive view; but the mountains were hidden; and of the Lake of Constance we saw no more than a vapoury substance where it lay among apparently low hills. This first sight of that country, so dear to the imagination, though then of no peculiar grandeur, affected me with various emotions. I remembered the shapeless wishes of my youth-wishes without hope-my brother's wanderings thirty years ago, and the tales brought to me the following Christmas holidays at Forncett, and often repeated while we paced together on the gravel walk in the parsonage garden, by moon or star light.* . . . The towers of Schaffhausen appear under the shelter of woody and vine-clad hills, but no greetings from the river Rhine, which is not visible from this approach, yet flowing close to the town. . . . But at the entrance of the old city gates you cannot but be roused, and say to yourself, 'Here is something which I have not seen before, yet I hardly know what.' The houses are grey, irregular, dull, overhanging, and clumsy; streets narrow and crooked-the walls of houses often half-covered with rudelypainted representations of the famous deeds of the defenders of this land of liberty. . . . In place of the splendour of faded aristocracy, so often traceable in the German towns, there is a character of ruggedness over all that we see. Never shall Rhine from the

I forget the first view of the stream of the bank, and between the side openings of the bridge-rapid in motion, bright, and green as liquid emeralds! and wherever

* Compare vol. ix. p. 54.

the water dashed against tree, stone, or pillar of the bridge, the sparkling and the whiteness of the foam, melting into and blended with the green, can hardly be imagined by any one who has not seen the Rhine, or some other of the great rivers of the Continent, before they are sullied in their course. . . . The first visible indication of our approach to the cataracts was the sublime tossing of vapour above them, at the termination of a curved reach of the river. Upon the woody hill, above that tossing vapour and foam, we saw the old chateau, familiar to us in prints, though there represented in connection with the falls themselves; and now seen by us at the end of the rapid, yet majestic, sweep of the river; where the ever-springing tossing clouds are all that the eye beholds of the wonderful commotion. But an awful sound ascends from the concealed abyss; and it would almost seem like irreverent intrusion if a stranger, at his first approach to this spot, should not pause and listen before he pushes forward to seek the revelation of the mystery. . . We were gloriously wetted and stunned and deafened by the waters of the Rhine. It is impossible even to remember (therefore, how should I enable any one to imagine?) the power of the dashing, and of the sounds, the breezes, the dancing dizzy sensations, and the exquisite beauty of the colours! The whole stream falls like liquid emeralds— a solid mass of translucent green hue; or, in some parts, the green appears through a thin covering of snow-like foam. Below, in the ferment and hurly-burly, drifting snow and masses resembling collected snow mixed with sparkling green billows. We walked upon the platform, as dizzy as if we had been on the deck of a ship in a storm. Mary returned with Mrs. Monkhouse to Schaffhausen, and William recrossed in a boat with Mr. Monkhouse and me, near the extremity of the river's first sweep, after its fall, where its bed (as is usual at the foot of all cataracts) is exceedingly widened, and larger in proportion to the weight of waters. The boat is trusted to