A STEP
FROM
THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD,
AND
BACiK AGAIN:
WITH
THOUGHTS ON THE GOOD AND EVIL IN BOTH.
BY
HENRY P. TAPPAN.
VOL. If.
NEW-YORK:
D. APPLETON  AND  COMPANY,
200 BROADWAY, & 16 LITTLE BRITAIN, LONDON.
M.DCCC.LIL




Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1852, by
HENRY P. TAPPAN,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.




ERRATA.
VoL. 1. p. 48, line 4 from the top, for reputatione read repetition.
"S    p. 267, line 8 from the bottom, for bespeak read bespoke.
VOL. II. p.,34, line 10 from the bottom, dele much before dazzling.
i    p. 51, line 15 from the bottom, for then read there.
"    p. 52, line 2 from the bottom, for breaks read break.
4"   p. 74, line 1 at top, for view read vine.
"    p. 76, line 3 firom top, for arrayed read arranged.
p. 82, line 5 from bottom, for their read these.
p. 99, line 8 from top. for toon read tour.
p. 133, line 3 fiom top, folr western read water.
p. 158, line 15 from bottom, for beguen read begaen.








VOL. II.
THE RHINE, SWITZERLAND, BELGIUM, AND FRANCE.








CONTENTS OF VOL. II.
Pago
THE LowER RHINE.9
II.
SOMETHING ABOUT POLITICS..              32
III.
COLOGNE AND ITS CATHEDRAL..  4
IV.
BONN AND ITS UNIVERSITY...                     61
V.
THE MIDDLE RHINE. FROM BONN TO BIBERICH.               68
VI.
MIDDLE RHINE CONTINUED. FRANKFORT ON THE MAINE —HEIDELBERG-BADEN-BADEN —STRASBURG....  84
VII.
BASLE OR BASIL.......  99




8                      CONTENTS.
Page
VIII.
THE VAL MOUTIERS -BIENNE-NEUOHATEL-LAUSANNE. 108
IX.
LAKE LEHMAN —GENEVA... 127
X.
MORAT-AVENTICUM-SWISS CONFEDERATION.              144
XI.
THE OBERLAND....... 155
XII.
THE OBERLAND CONTINUED                         ~.     169
XIII.
LUCER-NE-ZUrRICH-BASIL.             178
XIV.
COUNTRY AND HOME...... 199
XV.
DOWN THE RHINE-BELGIUM..... 211
XVI.
PARIS....... 236
XVII.
BOOKS AND WORKS OF ART-THE BIBLIOTHIEQUE NATIONALETHE LOUVRE.... 267
XVIII.
THE UNIVERSITY-THE SORBONNE-THE COLLEGE OF FRANCETHE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE..... 285
XIX.
FROM PARIS TO HAVRE —HOMEWARD BOUND..    298




C /he   ow er  IAh inne.
d( af (Maase or Meuse at Rotterdam, the Waal-so called
above the junction with the Meuse as far as Pannerdenthe Ligne, the Leck, the Old Rhine at Leyden, the Vecht at
Utrecht, the Yssel that flows past Zutphen and thence to the
Zuyder Zee, what are these but the Rhine itself, which having
received the waters of a multitude of tributaries, finds the ocean
through the mud and sand of Holland-mud and sand which
it has itself there deposited? Its sources are in the Alps. The
avalanches and the glaciers feed the lakes and streams of
Switzerland. These find their outlet in the mighty Rhine-the
king of rivers-holding its course nearly a thousand miles
through the fairest and richest fields of Europe, its banks
crowded with cities and towns, or rising into vineclad hills —an
historic and a " wizard stream" beyond all others-navigable
voL..            1




10                   ARNHEIM.
for six hundred miles from Basil to the sea, it quietly loses
itself in the ocean in sluggish and meandering streams. The
river is called the Lower Rhine from Cologne or KOln to its
mouths, a distance of three hundred miles. The country on
either side is low, and in many cases the dykes which protect
it from inundations are so elevated that but little prospect can
be gained from the low steamers which ply upon this river.
At Amsterdam we took the train for Arnheim, passing
through Utrecht.  The same rich cultivation prevailed, and
many villas embowered in trees came into view. As we approached Utrecht, the country became somewhat more elevated and the flat lands were left behind. The morning had
been hazy, but when we reached Arnheim, we had a glorious
sunshine, and the temperature was delightful. The country
about Arnheim is very pleasing. In full view of the Station
House, Hartzerberg, the seat of a Baron, spreads out its lawn
of brilliant verdure tastefully diversified with trees. The mansion is not exceedingly large, and is quite simple in its effectq
The whole attracted my fancy by the quiet good taste which
seemed to predominate, and a cheerful homelike air. But
every thing appeared cheerful this day: I had reached the
Rhine, I was about to ascend it-the glories of the Rhine and
of Switzerland were before me-the dreams of many years
were about to be realized.
Above the Station House, in the second story, was an excellent Restaurant with a large and well-furnished saloon connected with a piazza. Here we ordered our dinner. In an
adjoining room was a band of music playing many beautiful
airs. The serene day, the presence of the Rhine, the river of




THE RHINE  STEAMER.                   11
story and of song, the sound of the German tongue on every
side, the music, the exquisite exhilaration arising when expectation is about to grasp its object, all combined to produce
a state of feeling which is too delicate and complex to admit
of description, but which when once experienced can never be
forgotten, and the moments are afterwards recalled as moments in which the very sense of life was luxury.
Imagination indeed made the sky brighter, the verdure
fresher, the spot more romantic, the music sweeter, removed
commonness from common men and common things; and,
perhaps, from ordinary materials made a beautiful picture for
herself by scattering profusely over every thing colors of her
own. But do we not always half create the beauty which
seems to surround us, and breathe from our own souls the
melody which seems to enchant our ear?
The steamer, through some accident, was delayed several
hours beyond the appointed time. Passengers were collected
in the steamboat office, some seated on chairs, some on trunks,
while others were pacing along the wharf chattering and
smoking, and endeavoring to wear away the weary time. To
me, however, as all was novelty, so nothing was wearisome.
At length, over the land in fiont of us, a little wreath of
smoke was seen in the distance: but so numerous are the
turns of the river, that it was a considerable time before the
pipe came into view, and still a good while ere the low, long,
narrow and dark thing came puffing up to the wharf as if
tired out with tugging against the current. And so we got
aboard amid a promiscuous company, chiefly Hollanders and
Germans. The bow of the boat was appropriated to a crowd




12               THE  PEASANTRY.
of the peasantry who had probably descended the Rhine on
rafts, and were now returning home to the Duchy of Nassau,
where most of the rafts are launched. They were dressed in
blouses, with wooden shoes on the feet, and little caps on the
head, from under which straggled long locks, generally light
colored, and many of a perfect flaxen hue. Each man, too,
had his pipe. The pipe was evidently a matter of pride and
ornament, as well as comfort, and appeared in every variety of
fantastic form.  Some were sitting  some reclining, some
collected in groups talking. There was little of frolicksomeness
among them. They seemed rather to be enjoying the repose
of the return voyage, and had a meditative air while sending
forth clouds of smoke from the constantly employed pipe. I
observed, too, now, as well as afterwards, that the German
peasantry, both men and women, have a care-worn, anxious
and depressed expression. They have strongly marked and
intelligent faces, they are very civil and obliging in their manners; but they appear like beings who seldom know pleasure,
whose lives are an unintermitted toil which yields them little,
— a hard struggle for a bare subsistence-a life of stern experience without any hope of brighter days-an inexorable
necessity. Can their thoughts find relief except in theories of
socialism, dreams of revolution, or possibilities of emigration?
The stern of the boat was occupied by passengers of a
widely different description. Here were well-dressed people of
both sexes and all ages, full of sociability and hilarity. Many
of them  were ascending the Rhine on pleasure excursions
to the watering-places and to Switzerland. Here, too, smoking was universal among the men; generally cigars, not fine




SMOKIN G -EM MERtI H.                 1
Havanas, bit made of Dutch tobacco, and to me not very
agreeable. I had some Havanas with me, and so I lighted
one to make an atmosphere for myself: as the trappers on
the prairies fight fire with fire, so I fought tobacco with
tobacco. There were also bottles of bright Rhenish wine
plentifully scattered about.
When I went below, I found the saloon filled with men
and women taking coffee. Here also smoking was going on.
There was no compunction whatever in smoking in the presence of the fair sex; and the fair sex seemed to experience
no inconvenience from it. It was an established custom
which the lords of creation had made. Whatever rebellion
there may have been at its first institution, this rebellion
had died away in past generations, and tobacco-smoke was
now universally accepted as an essential element of the social
atmosphere.
Steamboats on the Rhine are not "floating palaces" like
those on the Hudson, and have no accommodations for sleeping. Hence at night the passengers go ashore at some of
the towns. This is all the better, for there are some parts of
the Rhine where it would be almost a sin to go to sleep; and
to a stranger all the towns have something worth seeing.
Our stopping-place for the night was Emmerich, the first
Prussian town. We ought to have reached here at sunset,
but owing to the delay above mentioned it was eleven o'clock
at night before we were moored at the wharf. We however
had lost nothing as to scenery. At Emmerich the Customhouse officers boarded us. How the others fared I did not
pause to see, but for myself I began at once to unlock my




14  LATE  TO  BED, AND  EARLY TO   ItS1,
trunks, when one of the officers, just glancing at the contents
of a trunk, allowed me to proceed no farther, saying it was
sufficient, expressing to another officer at the same time, in
an under tone, his satisfaction at my readiness.
It was midnight ere our weary limbs were stretched out
for repose. Scarcely had we sunk into that disturbed sleep
which follows a day of excitement, when some one thundered
at our door; it was four o'clock, and the steamer would be
off at five. Oh, the agony of that getting up! The cathedrals of Cologne and Strasburg, the Drachenfels, Ehrenbreitstein-the glorious Rhine-the glorious Alps-all sunk into
insignificance in the intense longing to lie still and sleep.
With eyes half open, muttering dissatisfaction, quarrelling
with fate, we dragged our reluctant steps on board. But
when the steamer began again to stem the current of the
Rhine, and the fresh morning air to play upon our faces, the
mists of night, too, began to vanish from our spirits, and the
sense of pleasurable existence to revive. Then as we wound
our way through the rich verdant champagne, where villas
and towns were rushing into view, attention grew fully awake,
the charm of novelty again exerted its power, and we felt
that indescribable emotion which every imaginative traveller
must experience when he exclaims to himself for the first
time, I am ascending the Rhine!
It was not long before the passengers were seen arranging
themselves in groups, or sitting solitarily by little tables on
the deck, where coffee and bread and butter, and, in some
instances, other viands, were served according to each one's
fancy.  Coffee and bread and butter was the common break



COFFEE AND GOOD -HUIMOR.                 15
fast. With the coffee, conversation revived. As each one
took his cup of the delightful beverage, and stirred it with the
spoon and sipped, the eye brightened, an air of comfort and
satisfaction spread over the countenance, over the whole
man;' and the nervousness of slumber untimely broken,
and the fretfulness of the hurry of getting on board which
had been universal, and which the morning air and the Rhine
had not dissipated in many who were not very sensitive to
the one, and found no novelty in the other, now yielded to
this nectar. The change was instantaneous and marvellous,
and the currents of Low Dutch and German were pleasantly
running together, until the conversation became like the
babbling of brooks running over smooth stones and through
green meadows. Those who did not fancy the morning air
took to the saloon below:; and thus above and below the same
revivification was in progress.
After the coffee and bread and butter had been disposed
of, smoking recommenced. Each one did his best. Was it
the smoke of the steamer's pipe, or the smoke of our pipes
and cigars that streamed behind through the air? I again
in pure self-defence lighted my Havana; and getting into
conversation with a group of iollanders and Germans where
Low Dutch and High Dutch seemed to be mutually intelligible, and which I intermingled in a strange jargon, I passed
around my Havanas to enlarge the circumference of a more
fragrant atmosphere. I was charmed with the universal sociability, and talked away, hit or miss. At first I was taken for
an Englishman; but I found, both then and ever afterwards,
that I gained a hundred per cent. in the good will and kind




16               CONVERSATION.
offices of my fellow-travellers by letting out that I was an
American. America-the land of freedom, and the new
home of so many thousands of their countrymen-is a theme
of the liveliest interest to the German people. With the
Hollanders I claimed a common nationality. "Ah! and what
is your name a" said they. " My name," I replied; " oh, maybe you will not own that: my ancestor was a Belgian, or
perhaps a French Huguenot who emigrated with the Dutch
from Holland to America; but on my mother's side, at least,
I am pure Dutch; her name was De Witt."  " Oh yes," said
they; " we still have that name in Holland." And thus we
drew still more closely together.
As the day advanced, bottles of Rhenish wine were
brought up. There was universal hilarity and good-fellowship. There was nothing drunk stronger than light Rhenish
wine, and this was not taken to excess. No one that drinks
the native unadulterated wine becomes intoxicated; at least, I
never saw a drunken man in the whole Rhine country. The
elderly Scotch gentleman who had kept us company since we
landed at Rotterdam, seeing every body drinking Rhenish
wine, said to me, "I believe I will get a bottle, and try what
kind of stuff it is." After he had taken a glass or two with
quite a dubious expression of countenance, he paused and
meditated a few moments; " Och!" he then exclaimed, " there
is mair virtue in ane glass o' Scotch whiskey than in a bottle
o' this."
Our dinner was served on the deck, over which an awning was stretched. Here I had the first specimen of a German dinner, consisting of a multitude of courses-the pudding




DINNER-LOWER RHINE.                      17
being served about midway. Some of the courses were
simply vegetablesb Judging from the number of courses, the
eating was immense; but then it must be recollected that
the same viands which we jumble into one course, were here
kept distinct; and that the expectation of many courses had
begotten a sort of habitual calculation as to the quantity to be
taken of each course, so that none but a stranger would be in
great danger of exceeding the bounds of temperance. As I
had heard of German dinners, I hope I exercised a proper
caution. One of the courses was sour krout, a friend of my
early life, long neglected and almost forgotten. In renewing
my acquaintance I cannot say that the old relish returned.
The scenery of the Lower Rhine presents no natural objects of striking interest. The guide-books, therefore, advise
the traveller to avoid this part of the navigation, and to take
the steamer at Bonn. Once, however, if not from Rotterdam,
yet certainly from Arnheim, every one ought to ascend the
Rhine, or ought to descend the same portion of it. One cannot
form an adequate impression of the majestic river, without
seeing it winding through the low countries as well as rushing
through the mountain gorges above. I think the ascent is to
be preferred to the descent, since it is the natural order to
go from the plains to the mountains-from  the beautiful to
the sublime.
The Lower Rhine, too, is rich with historical associations.
There are many localities of course which have a peculiar interest, such as Kaiserswerth-an island which was once the
seat of the German emperors, and certain battle-fields and
fortresses; but, to my mind, the plains of the Rhine had a
VOL, II        1*




18           A  FLOATING ISLAND.
solemn grandeur collectively, as the great scene over which
the generations of the mightiest nations from the Romans
downwards had swept and passed away like the inundations
of the liver. Here kingdoms and empires had been lost and
won. What displays of human passion and strength had
here been made! These fair fields, spread out by the hand
of nature for peaceful cultivation and the abode of happy
multitudes, had been trampled over innumerable times by
armed hosts: was there a spot which had not been stained
by human blood! And the great river ever flowing on was
there the perpetual witness: the murmur of its waters touched
my ear like the voice of centuries.
On the Lower Rhine we had an opportunity of contemplating a floating village-I mean a raft of logs some six or
eight hundred feet long by two hundred and fifty broad,
with eight or ten houses made of boards scattered over it. It
was inhabited and navigated by some five hundred men,
besides women and children. There were pigs and poultry
and a butcher's stall also on board; and the women were
engaged in spinning, sewing, and knitting.  Many long
sweeps were attached to it fore and aft, by which it was
managed. A number of little boats fastened and floating
behind showed that the island could at pleasure communicate with the shore. These logs had been collected from
many distant hills and mountains; and, floated into the
Rhine by different tributaries, were there united into one
huge structure: and then brought down to be sold in Holland. The voyage sometimes occupies several weeks.
We at first thought of proceeding as far as Cologne with




D U S  ELD O RF-H O FG A R T E N.        19
the steamer; but reaching Duisseldorf only a little before
sunset, we concluded to stop there. We put up at the
Breidenbacker Hof, where, obtaining very pleasant accommodations, we remained several days.
The morning after our arrival we were attracted to the
window by strains of very sweet but mournful music. It was
a funeral procession following the bier of a youth, a member
of the gymnasium, and the music was a funeral hymn sung
by his companions. I never witnessed any thing more mournfully beautiful and affecting.
Dusseldorf is a good specimen of a German town. The
Altstadt, which we entered from the Rhine, is unpleasant,
consisting of narrow and rather filthy streets. But the other
two quarters, Carlstadt and Neustadt, are handsomely built
and exceedingly neat. The public gardens about Dusseldorf
are, beautiful. The Hofgarten, the principal one, is considered
one of the finest in Germany. It is filled with dense groves,
and is cut in every direction by charming drives and walks.
It extends to the bank of the Rhine, where, from an elevation
similar to a blug, an extensive view is obtained up and down
and beyond the river. The Dissel, a small river which here
empties into the Rhine, skirts it, on whose farther bank are
spread soft green meadows. These grounds are never invaded
by the spirit of improvement. The town is quite large, containing between thirty and forty thousand inhabitants, and
appeals to be increasing: but the new buildings are erected
without the garden. Here the people congregate after dinner, walking or sitting, or smoking, and drinking coffee at the
restaurant situated on a mound in the centre of the garden.




20   ARMY -SCOOL OF PAINTING.
The Germans live much in the open air, and appear to enjoy
far more leisure than we do, Their pleasures are Inexpensive,
simple, and innocent.
Dusseldorf contains a large garrison. Military parades
are frequent, and the military bands fi11 the town with music.
In Prussia all the males, who are not exempted by ill health
or personal defects, are compelled to serve in the army one
year at their own charges, or three years at the public expense. Those who serve at the public expense are provided
with soldier's clothing, and receive daily a ration of black
bread and two: and a half groschen, or about six cents of
our money. In this case, they must in part support themselves, as it is hardly possible that they can live on the allowance of the government.
Dasseldorf has within a few years become a familiar name
to us through the gallery of fine paintings collected in New
York, and known as the Dusseldorf gallery.  We have in this
gallery some of the best paintings of the Dusseldorf school.
The famous gallery of paintings now in Munich was removed
from Dusseldorf in 1805. The Dusseldorf school was established long after this, in 1828, by Cornelius, a native of the
town. In his studio the first artists of this school were formed.
The artists who are now quite numerous, occupy a palace
built by one of the electors. In historical and landscape
painting this school has unquestionably attained eminence
The annual exhibition which was open during our visit, contained many pieces of merit. There was here a series of
drawings in crayon, by a Norwegian, so extremely beautiful
that I cannot forbear giving a brief description of them.




SERIES OF DRAWINGS.                     21
They represent the course of human life. In the first a shepherd boy barefooted and bareheaded, with a hale rustic air,
is playing on a pipe with all the earnestness of his soul. Beside him sits a gentle girl with downcast eyes. She is employed in knitting, but her soul seems absorbed by some
inexpressible thought.  They appear to be a mystery to
themselves.  A sentiment is working in them  which they
cannot explain, of which they dare not speak. He can only
play upon his pipe, commanded by a delicious inspiration
which comes he knows not how, only that the form beside
him and the music seem to be one, and her name is the only
song which his thoughts fit to the air. And she can only sit
and knit, and hear in silence, while the soul of the musician
is strangely entering her soul through the music, and she feels
in mingled confusion and delight that he is reading a secret
of her heart. This picture represents the first sense of love.
In the second picture love has come to understand itself, and
has found words in which to express itself. The boy and girl
are ripened into early manhood and womanhood. The years
of inexpressible and delightful torment melt into the exquisite
pleasure of telling the tale of love. He speaks, she hears and
replies by the yielding hand, and by looks of innocent and
rapturous affection, This is the betrothment.
In the third picture is a rustic church, and a bridal procession is entering the portal. How beautiful and natural the
expressions which beam in the faces of the happy pair! Hopes
realized, joy overflowing, brighter hopes awakening, more tender joys in store, pure delight as of an opening heaven without
a dream of sorrow!




22        COURsE OF HUMAN LIFE,
In the fourth picture love has borne its first beautiful fruit,
and father and mother are gazing upon the infant in a cradle.
In the fifth picture comes the first sad experience of life-the
parents are hanging in speechless anxiety over the sick child.
In the sixth picture, is a quiet family scene-the mother
is teaching two little girls to read, and knit. In the seventh,
the father is teaching his boy a trade-they are hammering
out a bar of iron together upon an anvil.  In the eighth picture, the strong and hopeful youth is leaving his home to seek
his fortunes in the world. The parents are full of sorrow as
they bid adieu, and give their parting blessing. The youth
with staff and knapsack is eager to depart, and appears hardly
to sympathize with the grief he leaves behind.
The last of the series is called The Last Consolation. The
boy and girl of the first picture have now become an aged
man and woman. Again they are alone, and most dear of all
the world to each other.  They sit together reading the
Bible with resigned and heavenly expressions. Earthly hope
and activity are gone. They are quietly awaiting the call to
depart.
There is so much character, force, and truthfulness in the
whole, and such an exquisite moral tone, that the eyes of the
beholder become suffused with tears.
I could describe many pictures which interested me, but
the description of pictures is not apt to be interesting to
others.  If any one visiting Dasseldorf should find there
still remaining the crayon sketches I have above' described,
I know full well that my estimation of them will be sustained.
And there are two other pictures before which he will pause




ST. N I C    LAS.                23
with unmingled delight. One is the Eve of St. Nicholas,
where a mock St. Nicholas enters among a group of children.
Some of the children are quite terrified, and endeavor to hide
themselves, overturning chairs and tables in their flight; others
are partly terrified and partly pleased; while others again
have quite a composed air of boldness: surprise, fright and
pleasure are all expressed together; the cheat is half suspected, and yet credulity half prevails.
The other picture speaks still more to the child's heart
which never wholly dies within us. Here the gifts of St.
Nicholas are examined on the morning after his visitation. It
is a scene in humble life. The mother is seated with a wellgrown baby on her lap, whose eyes are filled with wonder and
delight, noticing every thing with dawning intelligence. A
girl stands by the mother's side all absorbed in a doll. A
little way off is a chubby-faced boy blowing his trumpet with
distended cheeks, and eyes starting out of his head, regardless
of every thing around him. On the other side of the mother,
and between her and the grandmother, stands the eldest boy,
crying with the most perfectly disappointed and woe-begone
countenance-he has received only a bundle of whips. The
father stands behind the mother contemplating the scene
with a half smile and a knowing expression. The mother
looks grave, but it is an assumed gravity-something evidently
is behind the scenes. The whole is explained by looking at
the grandmother, who, stopping her wheel for a moment, is
just beginning to pull the elbow, of the blubbering boy, while
a pair of new shoes peep from under her apron. I love these
subjects taken from simple natural life; they carry us back to




24        THE BREIDENBACKER Eo0F.
what we were; they make us feel what we are; and they
restore to us some of our lost humanity.
Our table d9hAte at the Breidenbacker Hof was excellent.
Here I became fully initiated into the peculiarities of the German cuisine.  The courses were more numerousd elegant
than on board the steamer, which was but a miniature of the
hotel.  If there were dishes not agreeable to every taste,
there was ample room for selection. At every plate stood a
small bottle of light Moselle wine.  If wine of a finer quality
was desired, it was called for.
The company at the table varied from day to day, and was
always well-bred, and sometimes high-bred.  There always
reigned a charming ease, and pleasant sociability. There were
no airs of pretension, no attempts to appear consequential, no
studied looks of dignity, no fidgety anxiety to seem  to be
somebody. All Germans are remote from all this. Simplicity
is an element of their character.  All truly well-bred people
of all nations have none of it.  There is a certain class of
English and Americans who are full of it. This class have no
desire to pass for exactly what they are; they wish to surround themselves with a certain indefinite and mysterious
greatness. If they have plenty of money to spend, they will,
at least, succeed in impressing the weight of their purse upon
minds who have little regard to any thing else.
The proprietor of our hotel, a well-dressed and youngloolking man of modest and polite manners, sat at table with
his guests like one of them, and paid no attention to the
serving. This was managed by the waiters very methodically,
neatly, and quietly. These German waiters perfectly under



B R E A D —-   E W S A  P  E W- SA.    25
stood their business. One of them also made up the accounts,
and received the money; so that the proprietor, although he
really was at the bottom of every thing and had an eye to
everything, appeared to the guests to be a gentleman at large.
The breakfast is a light meal in Germany-a cup of
coffee and a roll of bread with or without butter, taken in
your room or in the dining hall. The dinner-hour is one
o'clock. After dinner it is customary to take a cup of coffee
in the public garden, where you are served with the very
best. Diisseldorf is celebrated for its bread. It is not made
into loaves, but into small oval rolls about the size of a large
apple. It is the finest bread I ever ate. Paris does not
furnish any equal to it.
In one corner of the dining-room stood a table where
the German newspapers were laid daily for the use of the
guests. They were very small in size, and contained summaries of general news and bits of literature, but did not indulge much in political discussion. Germany is the land of
books, but not of newspapers, contrasting thus strongly with
our own country. While looking over these papers fiom day
to day, I was naturally led into speculations about newspapers
in general. Nothing so marks the difference between despotic
and free governments. The former must guard newspapers
as they would firebrands: to allow them to say what they
please, and to have free circulation among the people, would
produce a revolution.. In our country, any one who pleases
may set up a newspaper and publish what he pleases. While
this right is preserved, our country must remain free. The
unrestricted newspaper is the palladium of civil and religious




26    GoOD  AND EVIL O'i NXEWSPAPER8.
freedom. We may laugh at kingcraft and priestcraft while
MWe have this. The abuse of newspapers with us is self-conceit
and demagoguism.  Could high talent and education, manly
independence, and pure patriotism and morality, always be
enlisted in conducting them, they would be pure streams of
light and life. But how often do we see men, who have only
capital and adroit management, acquire, by editing a paper, a
consequence and influence to which they are wholly unentitled.
It is amusing and often disgusting to see a man of small
capacity, when seated in an editor's chair, assume the airs of
a Sir Oracle in politics, religion, social questions, and criticism,
The demagoguism is one of the worst features. Such a paper
panders to the multitude to make gain out of them; it enlists
in the cause of a party with the spirit and aims which- characterize all demagogues. It is the worst of all demagogues,
too, because it occupies a taller stump, and speaks to a greater
multitude. We have not in our country a greater interest
than the establishment of: newspapers and reviews as the
vehicles of sound principles and good taste, and removed
from the domination of sects and parties. I can conceive of
a no more exalted position for a great aid gifted mind than
the editorship of such a publication. I can conceive of no
field so ample and momentous for the exercise of the highest
and holiest gifts.
Dr. Robinson and his family were our fellow-passengers
in the Washington.  We separated at the Isle of Wight.
By a happy chance, we met again at the Breidenbacker
iof.  He had left his family at Berlin, and was now
on his way back to America previous to his journey to




THE GROSSE-IRCiHE.                    27
the Holy Land. Last December he sailed again for Germany on his way to the scene of his researches. A ripe,
exact, and indefatigable scholar, he is an ornament to our
country. May God prosper him, and bring him back in
safety, 1 perceived in Disseldorf that he was taken for a
German. An early education in that country gives untold
advantages.
We went together on Sunday to the Grosse-Kirche. It
is a large building, plain and neat. On the walls, and along
the front of the gallery, passages of Scripture are painted in a
distinct character, The floor was sprinkled with white sand.
The men and women sat apart. In the German churches the
numbers of the psalms and hymns for the day are exhibited
to the whole congregation on a placard beside the pulpit.
The whole congregation united in singing these beautiful
compositions.  The music was solemn, sweet, and grand.
Here music is cultivated by all; hence, all are prepared to
sing with taste. I never was more impressed with church
music as an expression of sublime devotional feeling. There
was no attempt at an operatic display; it was purely sacred
music. I was deeply affected by the whole worshlip; my
mind was filled with thoughts of Luther and the glorious
scenes of the Reformation. I said to myself, Germany must
be dear to all Protestants. I felt that this people was my
people-I was at home among them. Although little accustomed to the German as a spoken language, the enunciation
of the preacher was so distinct and clear that I followed him
very well; and I felt assured that a few months' residence in
Germany would make me quite familiar with the language.




.28          SUNDAY IN GERMANY.
The sermon was an excellent one, and what we would call
evangelical-the old Lutheran doctrine. The German preachers generally speak with a great deal of animation and fervor;
but they have a decidedly preaching tone which is stereotyped
among them.
After dinner I walked for a short time in the Hofgarten
to see what the people were about. I found them here as
on other days, taking their coffee and playing at dominos.
All was quiet and decent as usual, but nothing that indicated the Sabbath particularly. Sunday in Germany is considered a day of relaxation as well as of worship. Our
strict observance of the day had its modern origin with
the Puritans. I believe we are right in considering it as the
Holy Day. If the Puritans Judzaized it to some extent, the
rest of the Protestant world have erred on the other hand in
conforming to the lax notions introduced by the Romish
church. A multitude of holy days of mere human institution, are a poor substitute for the one Holy Day which God
has appointed; which is not so frequent as to interfere with
our necessary labors, and yet, which regularly occurring every
seventfl day, makes a solemn and grateful pause in our
earthly pursuits, and brings us to sit a while at the gates of
heaven. A holy Sabbath will make a holy church and a
happy state.
It is but justice to the Germans to remark, that while
the Sabbath is not kept so strictly with them, neither is it
made a day of dissolute amusement. I walked about Disseldorf in the evening, and I saw no drunkenness, heard no
profanity, and witnessed no rowdyism.




STREET WORSHIP.                    29
In the course of my walk, I chanced, about the time of
sunset to come upon a large Catholic cathedral, where a curious scene presented itself. On the outside, in a deep angle
of the wall and open to the street, a mound of rough stones
was piled up: on its top was planted a granite cross about
eight feet high. It was evidently intended to represent Calvary. The cross was hung with bouquets and garlands. All
over the mound tallow candles were stuck, which they were
beginning to light. A rude railing surrounded the whole:
on the outside the worshippers were kneeling. A stone in
front of the mound bore the inscription, " Mission MDCCCLI."
So I concluded that this was a Roman mission church, designed to collect the passers-by. But few were assembled as
yet. At nine o'clock I went again to see what was going on.
Two or three hundred were now kneeling on the pavement.
The forest of tallow candles was flaring and smoking.  A
priest inside of the railing was reading prayers with great
volubility and in a sing-song tone, while the people without
responded with the same volubility and in a similar tone.
The crowd was increasing continually. Men and women
would approach, drop on their knees, cross themselves, and
join at once in the responses. I stepped in among the crowd,
and took off my hat; but the night air being rather cool, after
a while I put it on again, when a woman came softly behind
me and tipped it off my head. Fearful of taking cold, and
not wishing to give offence, I walked away. It was no place
for a Quaker, at least, to worship.
My obliging host invited me one day to make an excursion with him by railway to Benrath, a few miles from




30                   BEN RATH.
IDasseldorf. It is a chateau built by the electors of Cleve
and Berg. Murat occupied it when Grand Duke. It is now
occupied by the king of Prussia on occasional visits. The
building contains some apartments approaching to magnificence, but its general air is that of elegance and comfort,
There are some fine paintings and frescoes also. The grounds
are laid out with great regularity, and are too much in the
French style to suit the freedom and ease of an English taste.
The general effect, however, is to be admired. There were
no inhabitants but an old man, who might be an old soldier,
who conducted us through the apartments. When we went
out we dropped some coins into his hand. I, partly through
carelessness, and partly through ignorance of the exact
value of the coins, happened to make a donation quite below
what he expected and I suppose ordinarily received. As I
walked away I heard him muttering, and turning around saw
him holding my donation in his extended palm, soliloquizing
to himself with an expression so comic, that I understood
him at once and burst into laughter. There was no impa?
tience, and no movement to obtain redress; he seemed to be
amused at his own disappointed expectations. I went back
of course, and corrected my mistake to his satisfaction.
The grounds were equally solitary. I saw only a boy,
who was feeding two patriarchal and venerable looking storks.
And what was he feeding them? He had in his hand a covw
ered basket, from which he took out live frogs and cast them
before the long-beaked and voracious birds. The poor frogs
seemed instinctively to apprehend their fate, and hopped as
fast as they could to get out of the way, but the storks were




TEE  STORKS AND FRo  s.                31
sure to grab them and swallow them down whole as quick as
thought-grab, cluck, and they were gone. Then I thought
~t4t the storks represented the despots who sit upon thrones,
and the friogs the people, and the boy the ministers of state,




IL.
AScomething  about  Politics.,3M  would be unjust to represent despotic governments, universally, in point of fact, by the boy feeding the storks, for
there have been despots with great virtues, and who have not devoured the people; and there have been good ministers of state
under despots. The history of despotic governments, however,
is- generally very much like this; and it cannot be denied that
the tendency of such governments is to give the many as food
to the few: the despots have it in their power to become the
storks, and then the people must become the frogs, and then,
too, the boy will be found to keep the frogs in a basket, to be
served out as may be required.
The theory of a despotic government is very beautiful;
but it is always attended with the fallacy of assuming that the
monarch is gifted with a divine wisdom, power and goodness,




THE  GOVERNMENT.                    33
and that his ministers are angels. But since the monarch
is always a fallible man, and may be a very bad man; and
even when a good man, must necessarily intrust the details
of government to a multitude of subordinates who are liable
to be ambitious, selfish, and oppressive, the chances of a wise
and happy administration are clearly very few. If it be
granted that in a country like Russia, where the people are
semi-barbarous, a despotism is the only practicable form of
government, then it were just to demand of such a government that it should employ its functions for meliorating-the condition of the people, and preparing them for more liberal
institutions, and a form of government less liable to abuse.
But despotic governments always assume that they are the
true and just form of government; and not only check every
attempt at change within themselves, but also look with jealous eyes upon free institutions wherever found, and would,
if they had the power, reduce all nations to their own granitic
stratum. Who can doubt that the Czar of Russia is sternly
fixed in the idea of an autocracy; that his policy is to check
all liberal movements in Europe, and that the overthrow of
all free governments would appear to him like a political millennium? That the kings and princes of Germany entertain
the same sentiments is plain from the fact that, although under
solemn obligations arising from express stipulations made before the battle of Waterloo, to grant to their subjects constitutional governments, they have ever studiously evaded the fulfilment, and will probably continue to do so until compelled to
adopt a different course by the resistless combination of the
people. In despotisms there is no tendency to change. All
o011, u.          2




34                 THE  PEOPLE.
their natural influences, as well as their professed policy, is to
perpetuate themselves. Their leading axiom appears to be
that the people are for the government, and not the government for the people: the frogs were made to be eaten, and
the storks, having the instinct and power, have a right to eat
them.
It is a sad thing that princes will be so stolid and miscalculating, and instead of gracefully bestowing, and thus making
themselves the objects of a people's gratitude, will obstinately
withstand, until compelled to yield, at the risk of popular execration, and perhaps of absolute expulsion from their thrones.
Nor can the German princes plead, in self-justification, that
their subjects are not prepared for a more liberal form of government; for if there ever was a people prepared for such a
change by intelligence, general education, and fine social and
moral sentiments, the Germans are that people. But if they
be not yet prepared for freedom, how is that preparation to
be gained under the nurture of despotism? Shall we refuse
to open the eyes of the blind because, unaccustomed to the
light, it may prove too much dazzling for them? Or is it the
best preparation for a future, indefinite, hypothetical vision to
pursue measures which can serve only to perpetuate blindness?
A people will gain intelligence and advance in civilization
through the necessary progress of mankind, in spite of the
direct tendencies of despotism. Despotism, as such, can lead
to freedom only by creating a terrible reaction against itself.
Then freedom comes through the storm and desolation of
revolution.  Alas! alas! that we cannot bring in peaceably
what humanity will sooner or later-demand. The good pastor




SECRET  THOUGHTS.                    35
whom  I heard preach on Sunday, thanked God in his
prayer, that the storms which had so lately threatened the
country had passed away. True, so it appeared; there were
no longer any visible signs of storms: there were many thousands of troops in the garrisons; and the people were at work
in the fields; the vines were growing upon the hills, and the
rafts were floating down the Rhine. But were not the hearts
of men the same? Discontent, thoughts, dreams, hopes, determinations, have chambers to dwell in which no police can
enter. The outward forms of power may often succeed in
breaking up the combinations of the people, and crushing
nascent revolutions, but the people still live and think. The
struggle that has been still lives in memory and in history; it
remains a fact that there was a struggle between the people
and the government-a struggle that had some meaning.
The people failed-the government triumphed. But why?
These speculations respecting the causes of failure are, dangerous,
and yet who can repress them? And these men will say to
themselves: The government had old political experience and
discipline; it had thousands of trained and skilful subordinates,
from the ministers of state to the policeman; it had the money
and the soldiers; it had its leaders all ready; it had alliances
with other governments organized in like manner; and the
people-what had they but their rough, bare hands? They
could gain the consciousness of strength only by rude, and it
may be, ill-directed attempts. They had to grope about to
find a leader; and perhaps they did not find one. Partial
and unsuccessful insurrections may be the necessary discipline
for the great revolution. Nay, a great movement may fail




36         REVOLUTION  oF  1848.
only to bring about a more mighty concentration of popular
energy. The Elector of Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, and
the hopes of Germany once seemed all to go down together
before the great Emperor: and yet the man and the hour of
deliverance were then just getting ready.
I have heard the remark made again and again, that tile
failure of the revolutionary movement of 1848 demonstrated
that the people of Europe were not prepared for a change in
their institutions. But, can it be denied that whatever stolidity, ignorance, want of capacity for self-direction, and imbecility of purpose and action may be affirmed of them, were
characteristics which had grown and ripened under despotism? Shall we reproach them with the degradation which
had been ground into their souls by centuries of oppression?
There was, surely, some merit in making an attempt to deliver themselves; it indicated some sense of their degradation,
some relish for freedom; a wish, a hope, a purpose, however
feeble, to reach a better condition.  There was, therefore,
some preparation for a better condition; an aspiration after
freedom is the first taste of freedom, as an aspiration after
virtue is the first taste of virtue. But there were causes not
difficult to discern for the failure of the revolutionary movement of 1848, independently of any presumed unfitness of the
people for free institutions. France was a constitutional government aiming, in the first instance, merely at the correction
of certain abuses, and not at a revolution. The revolution
was an accident, and not a purpose. Suddenly thrown into
an unlooked for position, she was led astray by the. mere
name of a glory which had departed; and that name has




CAUSES  OF FAILURE.                   37
now forced her into a despotism. It is a singular drama: beginning with a sort of comedy, in its progress it has become
tragic; the catastrophe is yet to come. The revolution in
Italy was repressed by the French and Austrians, co-working
with the incapacity, if not the treachery of Carlo Alberto.
The Hungarian cause, cankered by treachery within its own
bosom, fell by the crushing force of Russia, and the supineness of England.  The dawning confederacy of Germany
melted into air before the spells of diplomacy. Had there
been a power to back the cause of freedom, as Russia backed
the cause of despotism, we should now be looking upon regenerated nations, instead of listening to the laments and
appeals of exiled patriotism upon our own shores, in one of
the most eloquent voices that ever gave utterance to the
thoughts of a great and true soul.
There was such a combination of untoward events to
change the fair promise into darkness and horror, that it
takes the form of a fatality to a superficial vision; but to a
deeper insight it is so marked and singular, that one cannot
help believing, that it is the womb of something more momentous'than has yet appeared-perhaps the weeping which
endures for a night preceding a morning of brightness, of joy,
of triumph. The common thought, emotion, or purpose
which passed through so many peoples, tongues, and languages,
indicates a force which has not spent itself. After the first
burst of the hurricane, there has come a lull, which the simple may flatter themselves is the calm which the storm leaves
behind it when it has swept far away; but the observer of
storms knows full well that it is but the momentary repose of




38          TYRANNY  OR  MADNESS.
the terror, which returning with ten-fold violence, will hurry
to destruction whatever lies within its path.
Much, too, is said at the present time of "socialism," and
"red republicanism;" they have become the watchwords of
terrorists. Those who do not clearly comprehend their meaning, are the more affected by them;. since an indefinable evil
gives full scope to the imagination. Nay, I know not but
many, even in our own country, are inclined to look upon the
compound tyranny of Jesuitism and Napoleonism, as better
than the compound madness of socialism and red republicanism. Let us have, say they, some system of order, although
it be held together by iron chains, and be protected by bayonets, rather than a state broken up into warring fragments:
the luxurious and elegant tyranny of Louis XIV. is better
than the "Reign of Terror."  But shall we forget that the
elegant and luxurious tyranny produced the "Reign of Terror? " And who can deny that socialism and red republicanism are a similar reaction of humanity maddened by oppression? Indeed we shall preserve order if we can make our
tyranny heavy enough to compress the turbulent elements:
but, suppose our tyranny be not heavy enough, is it not plain
that when an explosion takes place, it will be destructive in
proportion to the previous compression?
Those are the authors of the evil who drive the people to
the madness of despair. We shall now have fearful theories
of human rights; and in the first battle for liberty, the furies
will seem to have been let loose. Let me quote from Macaulay one of his fine and apt illustrations: "Ariosto tells a
pretty story of a fairy, who, by some mysterious law of her




SELF-GOVERNMENT.                       39
nature, was condemned to appear at certain seasons in the
form of a foul and poisonous snake. Those who injured her
during this period of her disguise, were for ever excluded from
participation in the blessings she bestowed. But to those,
who, in spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected
her, she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and celestial form which was natural to her; accompanied their
footsteps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses with
wealth, made them  happy in love, and victorious in war.
Such a spirit is liberty. At times she takes the form of a
hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she stings. But woe
to those, who in disgust shall venture to crush her. And
happy are those, who, having dared to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall at length be rewarded by
her in the time of her beauty and glory."
The government of a state, like the government of an
individual, reaches its highest form and condition when it
becomes a self-government, wherein the first implies a participation in the act of government by all the members of the
state, as the second implies the free participation and activity
of all the personal functions.
A republic presumes the intellectual and moral exaltation
of the people; and what it presumes, it fosters and advances
more and more. A republic honors humanity by committing
to free men the power of choosing their own legislators,
rulers, and judges. It affirms the principle that where the
rights of opinion and conscience are conceded, and the means
of education provided, there is a stronger probability that the
majority of a whole people will elect proper representatives




40        THE  ONE, AND  THE  MANY.
and rulers, than that a hereditary monarch will be found in
the regular succession competent to unite in himself the functions of legislator and ruler.
A despotism, on the contrary, presumes the intellectual
and moral degradation of the people, and their total incapacity to govern themselves. And then it elevates one man,
whom it assumes to have divine rights, and well-nigh divine
gifts to control and guide the childish, unthinking, and rude
masses. Proceeding upon the theory of the wisdom, excellence, and glory of the One, and of the ignorance, weakness,
and meanness of the many, all its influences must legitimately
go to give power, exaltation, and splendor to the One, and
humiliation and bondage to the many. It must make good
its own cause. It is a strange thing this-the One goveping
the many. But how can the One govern the many??egitimately, as we have said, only, when the One possesses attributes approximating to the divine. And if such a One could
be found among mankind, he could not be surely found
always in one house, in one unbroken succession. Philosophers, wise men, good men, statesmen, poets, heroes, are not
such by descent in a particular line: neither can kings-kings
fit to govern absolutely, be such by natural descent. But
there is one thing, a particular House-a particular line can
get,-they can get power-defacto, the supreme domination;-they can get possession of the revenue and the control
of the army; they can surround themselves with a host of
dependent and interested subordinates; they can surround
themselves with the state and prestiges of majesty to awe and
subdue the multitude. If they have not possessed themselves




THE PRIEST  AND  THE  KING.                41
of divine attributes, they have succeeded in infusing into the
popular mind the sentiment that "divinity doth hedge a
king;" until it has gained all the force of an ancient superstition. And to make this sentiment the more effective, the
hierarchy and the monarchy join hands-the priest and the
king work together. The priest enters into the conscience —
the stronghold of the hufman soul, he enslaves the inner man,
and gives him over to the king. The king, with the outward array of power, enforces the decrees of the priest over
the outward man. The one has his crown, his sceptre, his
sword, his Bastile. The other has his mitre, his crosier, his
purgatory. Poor humanity-what a helpless victim art thou
now! The Lord's anointed has his foot upon thy neck; the
vicegerent of God has his terrors in thy soul.
Where the church and the state are thus wedded together,
a revolution in the state must involve a revolution in the
church. It was so in the French revolution-church and
state went down together. And in France now, the re-composition of despotism involves the re-composition of the hierarchy.
I will not deny the possibility of the existence of the
Roman church separately from the state, and its existence
under a free government. Many priests were engaged. in the
late struggle for liberty in Italy. Roman Catholics were engaged in the Hungarian revolution; Roman Catholics are
becoming republicans in the United States. It may even be
possible for the Pope to be acknowledged as the head of the
Roman church while no longer the head of the Roman state.
But if such a change take place in the temporal relations of
vor. li,      2*




42        FAcTs    AND  CONCLUSIONS.
this church, a corresponding change in its ecclesiastical vitality
is inevitable. The history of many centuries cannot be made
light of; and conclusions are forced upon us. Men whose
consciences were held by the priest have been most easily
held by the grasp of the despot; then the priest was the
most powerful when the sword of the state was at his command. This is the great fact of history. Now break this
alliance in the struggle for civil liberty, and the conscience
must also soon regain its freedom. The Roman church which
embraces men of free consciences will not be the Roman
church of the past. This is our conclusion.
Again, break this alliance, and temporal power and rewards will no longer dazzle the ambition of the hierarchy.
The priest now can no longer sell men with enslaved consciences to the state. When the market is closed, he will no
longer have a motive for furnishing the commodity. There
may indeed be some private trade between priests and demagogues; but in the presence of civil and religious liberty, it
can never rise above the stealth and infamy of a contraband
affair. The priest now will bear the same comparison to the
priest of old, that the demagogue does to the tyrant of old.
The inevitable change in the character of the priesthood is
another conclusion. And then when the Roman church is
brought to stand upon its real merits, to be determined by free
and enlightened reason and the Word of God, it must, in a
spiritual point of view, either become more powerful by vindicating its claims in a legitimate way, or sink away into the
bosom of a universal, that is, a truly catholic Christianity.
Now in accounting for the failure of the movement in




THE  =CHURCH  AND  THE  PEOPLE.    43
1848, and in estimating the difficulties to be overcome in any
new attempt, it is plain that the resistance of the Roman
church in its grand and governing powers must be calculated.
The present condition of France, taken in connection with the
intervention of France in the affairs of Italy, shows the force
of this resistance.  Does not the hierarchy understand its
own position in relation to the state?
The march of the people will be onward for civil liberty,
regardless of consequences? This is our right, they will say;
if the church be for us, it is well; but if the church be
against us, then let it take care of itself as it best can; we
must have our right. It is fortunate for the church just now
that the ultraism into which the people have been driven enables it to array itself on the side of order. Now it does not
appear to be in conflict with civil liberty, but with the excesses of Socialism and Red Republicanism. But what are
these Orders of the people —if you please to call them socompared with the Orders of Dominic and Loyola? The
church has had enough of bloody fanaticism to justify some
toleration of fanaticism on the part of the people.
While speculating about the modification of European
governments, the inquiry arises, Are the people prepared for
a republican form of goverment, or is a limited monarchy
best adapted to their character a
It is easier to pursue principles than to experiment upon
forms of government. Any people may more safely contend
for their rights than pass through many changes of government in order to see which is best adapted to them.
A people, too, who perceive and appreciate their rights,




44           LET THE  PEOPLE  TRY.
and are willing to die in their defence, may be assumed to be
prepared to enjoy them. In the full enjoyment of what is
genial to its noblest faculties and convictions, the soul of man
repairs all its moral defects, and consequently improves all its
outward conditions, more rapidly and securely than when
good is measured out to it in a stinted way, and in the constant endeavor to give it only what it is deemed capable of
bearing. It is true of nations as well as of individuals, that it
is better to rush out of the chamber of the valetudinarian,
and enjoy sunshine, firesh air, and free motion, than to sit pining away in the vain attempt to live by the scale and the
thermometer. The examples of the Swiss and the Hollanders lead to favorable conclusions respecting the capacity of the
European people for self-government.  The people of Germany, to say nothing about other parts of Europe, are not
less intelligent than the Swiss and Hollanders. The fact to
be deplored in the history of all attempts to establish free institutions in the Old World, is the intervention of foreign
powers unfriendly to those institutions. Switzerland has been
saved only by her mountains; England by her insular position. Holland is the victim of intervention.  Hungary, Germany and Italy, have not been suffered to develope their
instinctive tendencies from  the same cause.  We cannot
pronounce authoritatively against purely republican institutions, where a fair experiment has never been permitted by the
watchful might of despotism. France, I know, is ever held
up as an example 6f futile republican experiments. But the
truth is, no fair experiment has ever been made in France.
From extreme despotism she rushed by an inevitable reaction




THE  AUTHORS  OF CoNFUSION.                 45
into the extreme and destructive fanaticism of freedom. Then
her turbulent elements were gathered into a magnificent despotism, which still, in some sort, expressed the will of the
people. By the determined resistance of legitimacy led on
by England herself, this new despotism, in the vigor of its
aroused might, was led to overleap its bounds, until an accumulated flood of nations rushed back upon it, carried it away,
and restored the stale ancient despotism. This gave way to a
constitutional monarchy. This in turn fell before a mock republic, which has grown into a despotism, putting on the
forms of the Empire. No republic has really yet been established in France. Have not the party of the legitimates, and
other partties of a kindred cast, served but to stimulate the
excesses of the democratic parties? Nothing but the breath
of a rational constitutional freedom will ever heal the torn
members of the state.
It is unjust to charge all public disturbances upon the
people, and to hold them up as the only objects of dread. The
people ask for their rights, and the party in power denies
that they have any rights. Who are the disturbers of the
public peace, those who desire justice, or those who deny it?
Those who say, Give us constitutional liberty, or those who
are determined to support the old order of things? O trust
the people, cherish the people-for they, after all, make up
the mass of humanity-and then all the generous sympathies
of human nature will be called into exercise to bind together,
to heal, and to diffuse fresh life through the body politic.
The question between a pure republic and a limited monarchy, is chiefly one of expediency. It is not a question to be




46            LIMITED  MONARCHY.
determined in respect to the supposed rights of royal houses;
for they have no rights that can claim a sacrifice of the rights
of the people. The people are not for them, but they for the
people. The opposite doctrine is the great heresy of despotism. Where a limited monarchy already exists, like that of
England, the people possess the cardinal rights of representation, freedom of conscience and opinion, and trial by jury.
Whatever abuses exist, can be corrected constitutionally, and
without the convulsion of a revolution.  The monarch is a
hereditary chief representing the sovereignty of the state, but
through the Commons dependent upon the people. It is a
form of government upheld by old custom, and use, and yet
one under which the people are free. Why then disturb it?
Where despotic monarchies now exist, it would be expedient
to have them wisely and quietly slide into constitutional monarchies, to prevent the violence and uproar and confusion of
civil war. It might be expedient to choose this form of government, even where it could be determined by simple choice
when the exposed position of a country, or the mixed character of its inhabitants, as in Hungary, or other circumstances,
might require at once a more concentrated executive power.
In the present state of Europe, it is expedient to aim to
establish popular freedom by constitutional guarantees, without making the form an essential question. It is infinitely to
be desired that princes and people would unite in the wise
and unbloody work of remodelling the governments upon the
basis of rational liberty. The princes still have it in their
power to do so, and thus to bind the people to themselves by
everlasting ties of gratitude. But the day may come unex



STORM  AND  SUNSHINE.                   47
pectedly when it will be too late. Then there will be darkness, dismay, and scenes of woe. Conceive of the French
Revolution falling upon the whole continent of Europe. But
when the thrones are all overturned, the atmosphere will at
length become clear again, the institutions of freedom will
arise under a more glorious sunlight, and humanity will vindicate its capacity for self-government.




MII.
Cologne  and   it4s   Cathedral.
T0Oi3 Dusseldorf we proceeded to Cologne by the
- railroad. The Roman Colonia of the Emperor Claudius and his wife Agrippina is here- still in the modern Cologne. You seem at once to plunge into the bosom of antiquity. The marks of the Roman survive in ancient walls,
altars, inscriptions, and coins; in the names of the streets,
and in the very features and complexions of the inhabitants.
From Deutz we crossed -the bridge of boats in an omnibus,
with the great cathedral in full view. And then we rattled
along through the crooked and narrow streets, between tall
houses, and ever and anon in front of some old time-worn
church.
Every thing speaks of the past; even the air seems
heavy and murky with the dust of ages. Coleridge has put
every traveller upon the scent, in entering Cologne, by his
lines:




COLOGNE  AND  N EW-YORK.                   49
"Ye nymphs who rule o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne:But tell me, nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine?"
I, however, was agreeably disappointed in this respect; partly
because the city is admitted to have improved in cleanliness
since Coleridge wrote his lines, and partly too, I am constrained to confess, because long accustomed to the streets of
New-York. The streets of New-York are wider than those
of Cologne, and are visited by the sea-breeze; but the latter
city, independently of these circumstances, must yield the
palm to the former. With water all around us, and washed
almost by the ocean itself, with fountains in every street, so
abundantly fed that we might well nigh turn our pavements
into the beds of rivers, in wet weather we have black, nauseous compost mud to wade through, and in dry weather our
houses, our shops, our clothes, our ears, noses, eyes, mouths
and lungs are filled with the same compost triturated to a
fine powder, and blown about in every direction. And then,
oh happy city of Cologne! thou hast thy fragrantEau de
Cologne to hide thy smells and comfort thy inhabitants.
Between twenty and thirty manufactories are constantly engaged in producing this article. We have our fountains of
Croton which we do not use, but every man, woman, and
child in Cologne may carry about a bottle of the Eats as a
corrective of the evil which the poet celebrates. Nay, the
very sight of the shops, all professing by huge signboards
painted with large characters to be the genuine successors




50'EAU  DE  COLOGNE,
and heirs of the far-famed Jean Marie Farina, is refreshing.
In truth, the manufacturers of the Eau de Cologne are engaged
in the good work of creating an odoriferous atmosphere over
a spot where sewers and charnel-houses have for many centuries taken the place of the virgin freshness of nature.
It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a stranger
to collate all the authorities, so as to determine satisfactorily
who is the genuine successor of the great Farina. Our coachman drove us to a shop which in his judgment was the true
fountain of excellence. But the ladies, upon consulting Murray, decided that it was a counterfeit; and so, turning our
~backs abruptly upon the plausible shopkeeper and his thousand
and one arguments, and rebuking the coachman for deceiving
us, off we drove for the establishment opposite Jilichs Platz.
Here, the proprietor spoke in scornful indignation of the pretensions of his rivals, affirming that they bribed the coachmen
to lead strangers astray; and produced, as a conclusive testimony that he alone possessed the mystic art by due inheritance, a biographical sketch of Jean Marie Farina, with a history of the invention and its transmission from generation to
generation. The air of triumph with which he produced this
document, together with a plentiful sprinkling of the cambric
handkerchiefs of the ladies from a bottle kept ready for the
purpose, was absolutely overpowering. The ladies have ever
persisted in believing that thlis is the best Eau de Cologne
they have ever met with. I for my part, while I am  quite
ready to grant that there is none better, am inclined to suspect that the supposed superiority is imaginary, and that the
other shops furnished very much the same article.  However,




THE CATHEDRAL.                       51
it is well to satisfy the imagination also, and therefore I would
rcommend visitors to go to the Jiilichs Platz.
But the reader will be ready to ask, Did you not go to see
the great cathedral, and was all your time spent in searching
for the genuine Eau? 0 yes, we went to see the great cathedral first of all; and our search for the Eau was an incident by the way on our return.
The great cathedral of Cologne-methinks I see it stillit rises before me in my " mind's eye." We stood before its
ancient front, with its two unfinished towers covered with the
most delicate carving, as if the artist's hand had touched every
spot. But the finger of time, too, has touched every spot, and
the edges are rounded, the lines of beauty confused, and the
forms marred by the crumbling away of fragments.  The original material was not hard enough. But then it rises in its
majestic proportions, the survivor of ages-its veil of beauty
torn and blackened. Certain portions of the exterior which
had become very much dilapidated, have been restored by
masonry and sculpture which rivals the old in delicacy of execution; but the contrast of the new and the old has an unpleasant effect. The choir is the only part finished. Within
the last tell years vigorous efforts have been made to carry
forward the building, and the nave, the aisles, and the transepts
are now all thrown open, so that a conception can now be
formed of the vastness and the splendor of the interior. The
towers which, in the original plan, are intended to be five
hundred feet high, remain as they were left centuries ago, not
half completed. The estimated expense of completing the
whole building is about four millions of dollars. But the age




52          A  PETRIFIED  FOREST.
for building cathedrals is past, and it would not be surprising
if the work should again stand still.
As we entered at the front a commissionaire stood ready
to lay hold upon us. Wishing to indulge my contemplations
without the disturbance of impertinent descriptions and stories,
I could not help replying to him somewhat sharply, Have I
not got eyes to see? One of the greatest vexations attending
you while visiting works of art, is the multitude of people who
are ever thrusting themselves in your way with books to sell,
or the offer of their services. It were gain to pay them the
franc to get rid of them, but your pockets would be empty ere
you had found the end of them. Look at the grand and beautiful in solitude and silence. Or if there be any one with you,
let it be some one who can feel with you and keep silence
with you. I would gladly have bought an hour or two of
solitude and silence in the cathedral of Cologne. We enter:
What are these! petrified trees of the ancient world! long avenues of them —a forest of enormous majestic trees! how they
spring up towards the heavens-how gracefully they stretch
out and interlace their branches! We cannot see the heavens
through the thick shade they make overhead; but a soft and
beautiful light plays around us: does it struggle through variously colored leaves touched by the hand of autumn? We
hear distant music, very sweet and solemn. We advance,
and now we see a flood of glory pouring down as from the
opening heavens. The choir, one hundred and sixty-one feet
high, its pillars and arches, its chapels, its stained windows,
through which the light streams in such effulgence, breaks
upon the eye with an effect almost supernatural. The whole




THE  BUILDIN G-THE  RITES.                  53
interior is like the work of magic. I walked about as one
entranced. Ideas of art were mingled with a sort of superstitious awe. There were historical associations, too. There
was something in the simple thought that I was standing in
the old and far-famed cathedral of Cologne. While my eyes
were roving over the splendors of art, and my ears were drinking in the solemn music without noticing from whence it came
— strains that seemed born in the very atmosphere-and
silent thought was busy, the rush of complex emotions was
delicious-it was an intoxication of the pure sense.
But after a while I got engaged with other sights which
dashed these high emotions-there was a descent from, the
sublime to the puerile and ridiculous. Several priests in the
choir before the high altar were perfornaing the daily service.
The vestments of the priests, the tawdry embellishments of the
altar, the images, the boys with candles, the genuflections,
the various motions, the rapid and monotonous tones, affected
me in a way that painfully contrasted with the impressions
produced by the noble structure itself. Was it the prejudice
of education —was it bigotry? I could not feel that it was
either.  Had this been the ritual of the temple at Jerusalem,
it would have been inappropriate; but it was not even that:
it surely was not a ritual ordered by the Divine Author of
our religion, for when he abrogated both Mount Gerizim and
Mount Sion, he proclaimed, " God is a spirit, and they that
worship himn must worship him in spirit and in truth." The
temple at Jerusalem had no image of the Almighty: the worship there ordained was the worship of an invisible spirit. The
Parthenon on the Acropolis had a beautiful and majestic image




54    THE  THREE  KINGS  OF  COLOGNE.
of Minerva. A Jew visiting the Parthenon might have admired that glorious temple as I admired the cathedral of
Cologne; he might have experienced similar delicious emotions purely resthetical: but had he witnessed the ceremonial
of the Parthenon, he might have shrunk back as I did in the
cathedral, in the irrepressible conviction that the worship before him was sensual and not spiritual: the sublime homage
of the soul to the Invisible was wanting.
As we and some other visitors were perambulating the
aisles, the sacristan approached us and offered to show us the
shrine of the Three Kings of Cologne, or the Magi who presented the infant Christ with gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
This privilege, of course, had to be purchased by a certain
fee. A small chapel behind the high altar was unlocked and
we were ushered in. The chapel was lighted by lamps. The
shrine is of considerable magnitude, made of silver plates and
gilt. The workmanship is very curious. It is adorned with
figures of the prophets and apostles, and with precious stones,
and elegant cameos, some of which are antiques. Although
many of the gems were sold when it was removed for safety
to Westphalia during the French Revolution, it is still valued
at more than a million of dollars. After walking around the
shrine and admiring its various curiosities, we came in front
of it, when the sacristan touched a spring, and three grinning
skulls with gilt crowns were suddenly presented to view.
They had a very clean and polished appearance, and each
one bore a name inscribed in rubies. These names were
Gasper, Melchior, and Balthazar —names I suppose as
signed by tradition. An elderly French priest —a portly man,




T H E  THRE E  KINGS  OF  COLOGNE.    55
with a shrewd good-humored face, of polished manners, and
quite a man of the world, notwithstanding his gown and skullcap, was one of our party. It was his first visit to the shrine.
Well, how did he act? Like a very sensible man: he took it
all quite indifferently, and appeared to be about as much affected as I was myself. The good sacristan, evidently, was
familiar with the relics; and having got his fee; made no bones
about showing them to heretical eyes.
And these three skulls were plundered from the city of
Milan, and presented to the Archbishop of Cologne by the
Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, nearly a century before the
cathedral was begun; and now they constitute the great
glory of this august temple. And is this splendid work of
art dedicated to preserve these three miserable skulls!
What man in his senses believes they are the skulls of
the Magi —and if they were, what are they worth? Bury
the skulls, sell the shrine, and build up the toweis. But the
benighted multitude are imposed, upon: they must believe
what the church affirms.
Here is one of the evidences that Roman Catholics are
undergoing a change in the free air of our country: bring
these skulls to St.' Patrick's cathedral in New-York, and they
would become the objects of a public ridicule against which
no votaries could defend them. The Catholics themselves
would be ashamed of them.
If the Parthenon were still in a state of perfect preservation, it would probably be guarded as its ruins are now,
merely as a monument of art. Perhaps it would be difficult
to appropriate it to any useful purpose. It sprung into being




56  GREEK  AND  GOTHIC  ARCHITECTURE.
in connection with a religion which no longer exists. The
cathedrals of Europe had their origin in a peculiar religionism. Separate them from that religionism, and they become
mere monuments of art. The leading idea of Grecian architecture is proportion, and the beauty which arises out of proportion. It is beautiful, therefore, independently of ornament.
The idea of the ornaments which have been added is grace.
But proportion and grace are immortal: therefore the elements of the Greek architecture are designed to be perpetuated. It is, also, the architecture of a free, enlightened, and
polished people. It is a symbol of intellectual development —
of human progress. The leading idea of Gothic architecture
is solidity and strength. It is the architecture of fortification
upon rocky and irregular heights, with angles accommodated
to the nature of the site, and with buttresses, towers, and
parapets for stern defence. A fair even space is required for
the rectangular, symmetrical Grecian structure. Look along
the castellated Rhine, and you see there is not a hill or rocky
pinnacle where a Gothic fortress cannot be placed. A Gothic
building is kingly, proud, stern, awful: it is the symbol of
power and domination: it speaks of knightly robbers and
a plundered peasantry; of throned monarchs, and subjugated
multitudes. When this rigid and massive pile is ornamented,
it is like the armor of a warrior-made for war and speaking
of battle, but wrought all over with beautiful imagery and
inlaid with gold and silver, as if to throw a charm and splendor
over violence and terror.
When this architecture was introduced in the building of
churches, its multifarious angles were reduced to order by. giv



IDEA  OF  GOTHIC   ARCH. ITECTURE.    57.
ing the whole structure the form of a cross. Thus in its general
form it was made a symbol of religion.  Then the whole
exterior was wrought into beautiful tracery work to veil -the
rugged features of massive stone, and covered with images of
prophets, apostles, saints, angels, and heroes of the faith, until
it appeared one vast and glorious monumental representation.
And in the interior arose those branching columns; and
pendent roofs were stretched above; and stained windows
revealed sacred forms and shed their "dim  religious light;"
and holy chapels were multiplied along the walls; and
graceful images and affecting paintings were scattered every
where; and the solemn pealing organ was made to sound
through the vaulted aisles; and the gorgeous monuments of
the illustrious dead were erected in every nook and corner;
and priests and a priestly worship filled the sacred places;
and the people prostrated themselves in awe and veneration.
But the original idea still remained: it was still the architecture of power and subjugation. It had drawn around
itself more beauty and fascination, it aimed to represent religious ideas and awaken devotional fervor; but, it contained
a command more absolute and awful, it exercised a force
more resistless and terrible through its mitred and stoled
priests, than when in rude baronial halls it embraced helmed
and spurred knights and men-at-arms.
If the Gothic castle represented the power of the monarch
and barons, the Gothic cathedral represented no less the absolutism of the priest. There is in this architecture no type or
symbol of freedom in church or state. It tells of wonderful
art, but not of intellectual freedom and development. The
VOL. n.        3




58          SYMBOL  OF  DESPOTISM.
frowns of the middle ages hang about its towers. The beautifully colored lights within fall upon the pages of old legends.
Dreams of tyranny haunt its solemn aisles. Its buttresses
seem reared to prevent the present and future from invading
the past. Even now while walking in those old cathedrals, when
the first fascination has passed away, and sober reflection
again begins to assert its supremacy, you feel the presence of
a dread power repressing thought, forbidding speech, limiting
action, prescribing all things, and ready to fall upon you with
a crushing weight, should you overstep its prescriptions.
The Gothic architecture, to reach its proper magnificent
and striking development, requires vast magnitude, profuse
and costly ornament, and ample time for its completion.
A feeble attempt at it but reveals its ruggedness and defects
without attaining its majesty and beauty.  It cannot, therefore, be the architecture for a people like ourselves, who consult use and economy, and who aim to finish rapidly. Hence
our Gothic churches, and other buildings in this style, are
for the most part miserable abortions. It is one of our follies
to be ever rushing after novelties; and since nothing is so new
to us as the old of other nations, Gothic architecture is at
present all the rage.
But besides its inappropriateness in respect to use, the fact
that I have endeavored to set forth above, that it is the symbol of absolute power, and the subjugation of the people,
renders it unsuitable to the character of our institutions. Let
us indulge a freedom of thought and a boldness of design in
our architecture consonant with all our great enterprises and
improvements. The naval architecture of the ancients does




COLOGNE  PAST  AND  PRESENT.                59
not govern us in our ship-building; why do we bow down
before Gothic models in our civil and ecclesiastical architecture? If we are to gather ideas from any, let us rather go
back to democratic Athens, where the spirit of a free people
breathed through forms of art so cheerful and beautiful, that
even now, when we gaze upon the ruins, we gain inspirations
that make our free hearts leap within us.
There are several other churches of considerable note in
Cologne besides the cathedral. It must have been once a
city of churches, since it is said to have contained as many
as there are days in the year. Once the seat of extensive
commerce, it had one hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants,
and was a city of great wealth and splendor. Then it experienced a mournful decline when priestly bigotry expelled
the Protestants, who were its most industrious and enterprising
citizens. At the time of the French Revolution, it contained
little more than fifty thousand inhabitants; but it had two
hundred churches, and a multitude of ecclesiastics.  The
French Revolution converted most of its churches to other
uses, and only twenty-nine are retained for sacred purposes.
Cologne is recovering her prosperity, and now numbers between eighty and ninety thousand inhabitants.
I was walking alone through the narrow streets remarking
objects of antiquity, when I came opposite to what appeared
to be, and undoubtedly had been, a very ancient church. A
carriage was standing in front of an open gate on one side of
the building. I entered the gate, and ascending a flight of
rude stone steps, I encountered a man selling tickets of admission. It was the annual exhibition of the Art-Union of




60                 WASHINGTON.
Cologne. I found the collection quite extensive. There was
a number of very fine portraits and landscapes. As I was
sauntering about, I saw something that looked like the back
of a large screen. Passing to the other side of it, I was
startled by what met my eye, and uttered an exclamation of
delight. It was Wa Washington crossing the Delaware. I afterwards ascertained that this was the original painting of Leutze.
The canvas had received some injury by fire before he had
given it the finishing touches. He then painted the one
which has been exhibited and sold in New-York. No damage
was apparent on the one at Cologne. I was deeply affected
by the painting. It seemed like a visitation from my beloved
country. The grand and heroic character of Washington,
the American Revolution, our national greatness and freedom,
all rushed into my mind. I felt ennobled by my alliance to
such a country and such a history. I said to myself: I am
an American citizen-my father fought under Washington.
Then I thought of the ancient city of Cologne, with its memorials of antiquity and its monuments of art; I thought of its
magnificent cathedral; I thought of all I had seen and was
about to see in Europe-I was ascending the Rhine to the
Alps: —but, said I, they have nothing here so grand as our
Washington, and he is all our own. Then I walked away
musing. My mind has often since returned to the same
thought: the character and example of Washington is the
greatest possession a nation ever had. Let us prove ourselves
worthy of the immortal trust.




:'V.
B on n12 a  1e it 1  Un    ef  v       sit y
r~ -~ ~  banks of the Rhine between Cologne and Bonn are
flat like those below. We therefore proceeded by the
railroad.  At Bonn we put up at the Grand Hotel Royal,
situated on the bank of the river, near the University, and
overlooking the thickly wooded park which stretches in front
of it. Our rooms commanded a view beyond the Rhine, up
and down the river, and embraced the outline of the Siebengebirge-the seven mountains.  It was a clear serene summer
evening, aLnd the temperature was delightful.  Behind the
hotel the grounds were tastefully laid out, and on the bank of
the river seats were arranged for the guests. ITere an admirable military band was performing delicious music. Travellels from all nations were collected, walking and chatting, or
seated in groups; while here and there, some individual was
lounging apart, quietly whiffing a cigar, resigned to pleasant




62            A  SUMMER  EVENING.
meditations, and indulging to the full the dolce far niente.
Among the company there was a plentiful sprinkling of English. Of Americans, besides ourselves, there were two very
agreeable southern gentlemen, who had been our companions
from Cologne. Every one was in a good humor. We appeared like beings who had left all care behind, and were
making a voyage into enchanted regions. Life now was a
holiday. Whatever had been, whatever hereafter might be
of toil and sorrow, was not remembered or apprehended. The
plesent was to us a pleasure boat upon a summer sea. It
was an episode of beauty and joy on the weary way of human
life. We were strangers to each other, and we cared not to
know each other's names and occupations. We were to each
other not like creatures of the common earth, but mysterious
beings dropped from kindly skies-angels meeting angels, exchanging smiles and pleasant words, and then passing on, each
to his own happy purpose, each full of his own enjoyments.
We were on the banks of the legendary Rhine, under the soft
twilight of a'Midsummer evening, "lapped in Elysian airs,"
and the morrow was full of promise. Is it not well thus
sometimes to forget every thing but pleasure? Does not the
breath of the beautiful recreate us, and renew our strength to
return to the old reality of work?
In this happy mood we went to sleep. In the morning
we arose to take a view of Bonn and its University. Bonn is
not a large town; it contains only eighteen thousand inhabitants. But it is the more picturesque and agreeable in that
it is not a large town. It leaves the hills and trees standing,
and does not crowd upon the Rhine as if it were eager to




P RUSS I A N  U NIVERSITIES.              63
drink up all the water. The Electors of Cologne once resided
here. They removed their court from the dense noisy commercial city to this quiet town, reposing in the lap of nature.
Here no restless improvements are going on; improvement
seems to have been accomplished, and to be simply enjoyed.
But, nevertheless, improvement is going on here, improvement that never can slumber or pause-the eternal improvement of mind.: The palace of the Electors, a quarter of a
mile in length, contains the University. Here are the lecture
rooms, and the library of 150,000 volumes. It has at present
forty professors, and one thousand and fifty students. It enjoys a high reputation. Niebuhr and A. W. Schlegel were
professors here. The king of Prussia founded it in 1818, and
bestowed upon it the palace of the Old Electors. The University, indeed, constitutes the importance of Bonn.  The
beauty of the situation, and the literary advantages make it
a most desirable place of residence. I walked through the
library in mute admiration. It is a noble collection of books.
And yet this great and justly celebrated University has been
established only thirty-four years. It is therefore a young
institution. The idea that Universities must-be of slow growth
is not justified by the history of Prussia. The University of
Berlin was established in 1810. In 1826, the number of
matriculated students amounted to sixteen hundred and fortytwo, four hundred of whom were foreigners. And yet Prussia
has several other flourishing Universities. The whole monarchy equals in square miles only some two of our states, and
contains fifteen and a half millions of inhabitants. But Prussia is no less distinguished for common schools and seminaries




64   HoNOR TO W HOM  E HoNoR  i's DUE.
of every grade. In 1835, there were 21,790 elementary
schools, in which.two millions of children of both sexes received instruction. About the same time there were one
hundred and twenty-four gymnasia, where 24,641 scholas
were educated. Let it be remembered that the gymnasia
are superior to our colleges. There are many schools, too, in
Prussia, specially adapted to mechanics and to various kinds
of manufacture and business. Probably no country in the
world has an educational system  so comprehensive and
thorough.
The Universities nourish and bring together men eminent for genius and learning. The kings of Piussia, from
Frederick the Great down to the present time, have been
the enlightened patrons of learning and learned men. At
Berlin, in the immediate vicinity of the Court, are found
such men as Humboldt, Savigny, Ranke, Raumer, Ehrenberg,
Ritter, Grimm, and Schelling. Here, too, lived Schleiermacher and Neander.
And now this Prussia is an unlimited monarchy: these
kings are despots. I have said, in a previous chapter, that
despotic governments are beautiful in theory; and I there
intimated quite plainly that I deem them such, generally,
only in theory. But we must be just. In the educational
system of Prussia we have something more than theory.
Hlere is a glorious achievement of an enlightened and energetic despotism. I admit that there are many evils in
Prussia, and that the kings are both unwise, and in the
wrong, for not granting a constitutional government. But
here is a sublime work which they have accomplished for




WHAT WE NEED.                      65
the public good. But, it may be asked, Do you allow this
to be an argument in favor of unlimited monarchies?  I
answer that the government of Prussia is justly entitled to
all the argument that can be made out of it. So far, the
government may proudly say, Judge us by our fruits. And
the only way in which we can nullify the force of the argument is by proving by our works that a republic, too, can
create and foster the noblest institutions of learning, can
patronize the arts and artists, and learning and learned men.
The immense and peculiar blessings which are enjoyed
under a Republic are obvious to all; but it is required, too,
that it should be favorable to the highest forms of culture.
In order to prove that we are under the most elevated and
the happiest conditions of human existence, it is not enough
to show that men can be better fed and clothed here than in
other lands, and that we enjoy the fairest opportunities for
material accumulation; it must be shown, also, that we can
develope the grandest forms of humanity itself. We cannot
stand still; we must be advancing or deteriorating in
national character: we cannot advance without culture; and
we cannot have culture without great men as standards of
excellence, and as lights to guide us. Now, we have not
been without great men,-we have had our governing standards and our guiding lights,-whether in sufficient degree
and number I shall not stop to inquire; but we have had
them, and, perhaps, we have them now. But it is certain
that in a country so vast as ours, and with destinies so
momentous at stake, we want more great men than any
other people, for we have a greater work for them to do
VOL. II.       3*




66       EDUCATION  AND  THE  STATE.
here than elsewhere —to make a whole people great. It is
not only demanded of us as a justification of our institutions
that we show ourselves equal to every thing that advances
and adorns humanity, but it is the very condition of the perpetuation of these institutions. A Republic like ours must
be filled with the light of knowledge, must be permeated by
principles of truth and integrity, must be guided by great
men, must be filled by a great people-great in character
and worth-or it will go to pieces. We are not an inorganic
aggregation sustained by a mechanical force, but an organic
growth spreading out our branches, bearing fruit, and sustained by a vigorous and sound life within. We want,
therefore, both a popular education, in the sense of giving a
good degree of education to all, and the possibilities and
means of the highest forms of education open to all who
choose to avail themselves of them. In our country we
must open the most auspicious race to man for every thing
that meets his wants and destinies, and contributes to his
perfection.
In popular education we have done much; here we can
point to our works with satisfaction: but, in the higher
institutions, it must be confessed, we are sadly deficient.
We have not got in our country one University. One fiuitful cause of this deficiency is a current opinion that we are
yet too young a country to develope a University system
like that which has obtained in Europe, that it must be the
slow growth of time, and that when we are prepared for it,
we shall have it. But the early youth of our nation is the
very season to plant those institutions which shall deter



Now  IS THE  TI ME.                  67
mine our growth and maturity.  Nor is it true that they are
necessarily of slow growth. Look at the Universities of
Bonn, and of Berlin. We can create universities at once,
if we will. Let us show that the spirit of a free people is no
less enlightened and mighty than the unlimited monarchy
of Prussia.




V.
Thle ifiddle Rhine.  Fromn  Bonn
to Biberich.
G{~il( Middle Rhine extends from Cologne to Basil, a
distance of three hundred and fifty miles. From Bonn
to Biberich is the most beautiful portion of the Rhine. It
has often been described. Will it not prove a commonplace affair to attempt to describe it again? The guidebooks are full of it: read the guide-books, and have you
not got the whole of it by heart? But who ever tires of the
Rhine because it has been so often described? Who on this
account will forbear to go and see it for himself? After we
have seen it, do we not dream about it, and ever delight to
talk about it? No, we never tire of the beautiful. Beautiful
works of art, beautiful works of nature never satiate us. We
read over sweet poems again and again. I have been up
the Rhine and down the Rhine, and I wish to sail up and




"A   BLENDING   OF  ALL  BEAUTIES."    69
down again, to wander along its banks, to ascend its heights,
to loiter in its old towns, to pass summer days among its
old ruins.  How  could I grow  weary of the Rhine!  A
fellow-traveller was ascending the Rhine for the nineteenth
time, and he was gazing at and admiring its beauties. I
can only speak as I feel; I can only tell my own story. If
you have been there, you will sympathize with me; if you
have not, perhaps you will feel a stronger desire to go.
There are four thingsi which, taken together, make this
part of the Rhine more interesting than any other river: its
natural features are rare and striking; it is a record of
romantic legends; it is a stirring history; it is an endless
theme of poetry —nay, it is a poem in itself.
" True Wisdom's world will be
Within its own creation, or in thine,
Maternal Nature! for who teems like thee,
Thus -on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?
There Harold gazes on a work divine,
A blending of all beauties; streams and dells,
Fruit, foliage, crag, wood, cornfield, mountain, vine,
And chiefless castles breathing stern farewells,
From gray but leafy walls, where Ruin greenly dwells."
We are indeed much indebted to the poet-far more
than to the guide-books. The poet has seen with clear and
truthful eyes.  The beautiful without has found an answering beauty within.  He is the true painter; he does not
give sketches here and there upon the canvas-a dim imitation-a glimpse at parts of objects; but he quickens our
imagination by infusing his own spirit, and his words are




70             THE  SIEBEN GEBIRGE.
symbols upon which our thoughts work, until within us
there grows a full and lively representation. And then when
we go to behold what he has gathered into his verse, we
see with his eyes, we feel with his heart; he has thrown a
purple light over every thing; or, rather, he has put us into
a genuine communication with nature, by dissipating the
mists of a gross common life, and opening those fountains of
beauty which are somewhere to be found in every human
soul.
From Bonn to Coblentz, is thirty miles or more, and
thence to Biberich, between fifty and sixty miles. We went on
board the steamer at midday; we were again stemming the
current of the joyous Rhine. The change from the flat
banks of the Lower Rhine to the noble scenery which begins with the Drachenfels, is most inspiriting. This steep hill
rises more than a thousand feet above the river, terminating
in almost perpendicular basaltic rocks, and crowned with
those marvellous walls, the remnants of an ancient castle,
which appear as imperishable as the rock itself. The vine
is cultivated to the very foot of the rock. As we ascended.the stream, the Siebengebirge came all clearly into view,
crowned with ruins. The lowest is one thousand and fiftythree feet high, the highest fourteen hundred and fifty-three
feet. They are the highest hills on the banks of the Middle
Rhine. Between the Siebengebirge and around lie smaller
hills covered with forests and vineyards.  Koningswinter, a
beautiful little town, lies nearly at the foot of the Drachenfels. Those who have time would do well to stop here, and
make the ascent of the Drachenfels and other hills. The




THE  DRxACHENFELS.                       71
heights covered with the ruins of old castles, the level spaces
on the banks making angles in the hills, covered with towns
filled with antiquities; the steep hills around the towns,
or where they rise abruptly from the water's edge, planted
with vines; and wherever the banks are depressed, a beautiful undulating country in a high state of cultivation opening to view, with towns and villages-such is a general
description of this scenery.
" The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees,
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these
Whose far white walls along them shine.
And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes,
And hands which gather early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray,
And many a rock which steeply towers,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers;
The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round;
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound
Through life to dwell delighted here,
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear."
Opposite the Drachenfels on the other side of the Rhine,




72      ROLANDSECH- NoNNE NWE RT H.
there is a precipitous rock jutting out so near the brink of
the river as scarcely to leave space enough for a carriage
track. On this rock stands a ruined arch, the last remains
of the castle and tower of Rolandsech.  Directly opposite in
the middle of the river is the island of Nonnenwerth, where
in a beautiful grove of trees, stands the Ursuline nunnery,
built in the seventeenth century.  This nunnery occupies
the site of one more ancient, and coeval with the castle of
Rolandsech. One of the most beautiful and affecting traditions of the Rhine, is connected with these ruins, and is rendered still more so by Schiller's ballad of the "Ritter Toggenburgh," which, indeed, is but a reproduction of it.
Roland, the gallant nephew of Charlemagne, was betrothed to a damsel of rare beauty. News came after the
battle of Roncesvalles that he was among the slain. His
betrothed bride retired to the convent of Nonnenwerth. The
report of his death turned out false, and Roland returned to
find his beloved pledged as the bride of heaven. The ballad
of Schiller commences at this point. The'knight has one
meeting with his betrothed. She tells him her heart will be
devoted to him with a true sisterly love, that she can give
him no more, that they must calmly meet, and calmly separate.
Stunned with grief, he gives her one embrace, leaps upon his
horse and departs. Then he collects an armed band and
joins a crusade to the Holy Land.  Here he performs brave
and knightly deeds-his banner is ever foremost in the fight.
But the din and glory of battle cannot drive away the sorrow from his heart. After a year of secret pining and longing, he leaves the armed hosts, takes ship at Joppa, and sails




THIE  RITTER  TOGGENBURGIH                 73
for his native land. Now he again stands at the convent
gate, a lonely pilgrim, and claims to see the one object
upon whom his heart is fixed. - He is told that he can never
meet her more, that she had just taken the veil and was now
irrevocably devoted to God. Then he builds himself a hermit's hut opposite her window, and there, with his eyes ever
turned in that direction to catch a glimpse of the holy maiden, passes the remainder of his days. Whenever she opened
the casement she bowed to the hermit and gently smiled.
The vision as of an angel, charmed his soul to repose.
At night he lay down in the hope of the morning. Every
morning found him there seated with calm and tender
eyes to see her bending towards him with that angelic smile.
And so years wore away, until one morn he sat there, his
face still in death.
From  Rolandsech to Remagen the road on the banks of
the Rhine winds along the edge of the water and appears to
be cut into the rockl. Near Remagen the beautiful Gothic
Church of Apollinarisberg comes into view upon making a
sharp turn in the river.  The effect of these sudden apparitions of towns, churches and old ruins, is like the shifting
scenes of a panorama, where the mind loses the enchantment
of a present view, only, as it gives place to something new
and perhaps still more enchanting.
Beyond Iemagen, on the opposite bank, there are basaltic
precipices seven hundred feet high, which are planted with
vines in a most curious manner. Baskets filled with mould
are fastened in the crevices of the rocks; and here the vines
are planted, and grow luxuriantly. It is a warm, sunny ex



4            A M MER S T E I N-NE UW IED.
posure, and grateful to the view. Thus in these old and
populous countries is every thing turned to account, and cultivation is made to invade what at first sight would seem
inaccessible.
The scenery of the Rhine is very bold until at Andernach
the river appears to rush through a gorge of the mountains.
Thence to Coblentz the banks settle away into a plain, through
which the Moselle pours its waters into the kingly river. The
most interesting ruins, after the Drachenfels and Rolandsech,
which meet the eye here, are those of the Castle of Hammerstein, over which more than seven centuries have swept their
wings. Once a refuge of the Emperor Henry IV., there let it
stand, a memorial of his sufferings and his vain struggles
against the implacable Gregory. I have often wondered that
a history so tragic has not been wrought into a drama or a
romance. What a thrilling subject it would be in the hands
of a historian like Macaulay.
A plain but intelligent and affable man with whom I
chanced to get into conversation, and who pointed out to me
many interesting objects, as we approached Neuwied told me
he belonged to the Moravian Brethren, who occupy a distinct
quarter of the town. The account he gave me of Neuwied
led me to observe it more closely than perhaps I otherwise
would have done. I remarked about it an unusual air of
comfort, cleanliness, and prosperity. The streets are wide,
and it is substantially built. This town was founded not
much more than a century since, on the principle of entire
religious freedom and equality. Catholics, Protestants, Moravians and Jews live together in perfect harmony, and co



COBLENTZ.                      75
operate in enterprise and industry for the common good.
This liberal and rational policy is the source of all its prosperity. The' heavens seemed brighter over this spot, the air
more invigorating which breathed through it, and the people
wore more open and happy faces. I thought some secret
sympathy had drawn me into an acquaintance with the good
Moravian brother, and we parted with mutual and cordial
good wishes.
We reached Coblentz about six o'clock. The view of
Ehrenbreitstein on one side of the river, and the town on the
other side, lying at the junction of the Moselle and the Rhine,
was very striking as we approached. We put up at the Giant,
near the steamboat landing. The windows of our apartments
were directly opposite Ehrenbreitstein, and commanded a
view up and down the river. The traveller who does not get
apartments which afford him a fine view where there is something to be seen, loses time while in doors. Ehrenbreitstein
was an object of interest whenever we looked out of our windows; and I shall never forget a sunset when after a cloudy
day the sun suddenly broke out and changed those frowning
battlements into massive gold.
After tea, I took a walk through the city. I went through
many narrow and dark streets, stood and gazed at old
churches, and wandered about hither and thither, until the
night fell upon me. While making my way back to the Giant,
I approached a part of the city which appeared to be illuminated. When I came nearer, I found the illumination to
proceed from a multitude of little lamps suspended about and
within what appeared to be a public garden. Over the en



76i          E~ EEtIIR rEENnREITSTEIN.
trance was painted, in large characters, TEXAS. Upon going
in, I found a band of musicians seated upon a platform in the
centre; and all around were arrayed tables and benches,
where men and women were seated drinking beer, and chatting with the greatest glee. They were apparently mechanics
and common tradesmen who were taking their evening recreation. The name of the garden was rather ominous, and
betokened considerable license. But I walked about freely
and undisturbed, and observed neither intoxication nor indecency. It was a garden which the common people had all
to themselves; and Texas, I suppose, was a name to them
which symbolized freedom and plenty. Frequent conversations with the people of the middling and lower classes in
Germany and Switzerland made it clear to me how strong
were their aspirations after the boundless and glorious West.
NWith political questions I did not intermeddle-a point of
honor, I think, in a foreign country: I'generally listened to
what they had to say, and answered questions only to give
them proper information.
I ascended Ehrenbreitstein.  It is an extraordinary specimen of fortification; to me it was a great curiosity. All the
heights in the neighborhood are fortified likewise. On the
opposite side of the river are extensive fortifications overlooked by Ehrenbreitstein.  Every point of defence is occupied. The beauty and strength of the masonry are admirable. All the fortifications together are capable of containing
a hundred thousand men, and yet might be held by five
thousand. From Ehrenbreitstein alone four hundred cannon
stand ready to pour their fiery storm upon an invader. It is




STOLZENFE LS-MARXBURG.                     77
inconceivable how these defences could ever be overcome,
unless by starvation; and this is quite improbable, since the
magazines are large enough to contain provisions for eight
thousand men for ten years. It is the Gibraltar of the
Rhine. It absolutely commands the river. From the summit the view is magnificent. In front, the old city and the
bridge of boats, the Moselle with its stone bridge, and the
country stretching far away; below, the Rhine with its picturesque banks; above, the Rhine winding from  out the
gorges of the mountains which shut in the prospect.
It was ten o'clock in the morning when passing through
the drawbridge we left Coblentz behind, and made our way
to these gorges, from whence the breeze caine rushing down
with the swift current of the Rhine. The steamer buffeted
the force of the current like a strong swimmer. And to us,
who are now for the first time on the " Castellated Rhine,"
what can it be but a scene of wonder and romance? Are
we not like children reading a book of fairy tales? Let us
not be ashamed to be children —let us yield to wonder and
romance. There is Stolzenfels standing high upon a rock, a
proud feudal castle. But this is not a ruin; it has been
restored, and looks too much like a modern ambitious Gothic
structure. Here the King of Prussia received the young
Queen of England. Now we are at the mouth of the Lahn,
and just above is the old walled town of Oberlahnstein, and
rising behind the town, a tall rock covered with the broken
towers of Lahneck. And we scarcely lose sight of this when
the stately towers of Marxburg come into sight-a castle of
the middle ages in a perfect state of preservation. There is




78      STERNBE.RG  AND  LIEBENSTEIN.
the old Donjon Keep overlooking hill and valley. Within
are dungeons and chambers of torture. How grim its
aspect! Were the secrets of its hoary centuries brought to
light, what scenes of terror would be revealed!
And now sweeping past several villages in succession,
and the white castle of Liebenich, we wind through a marvellous bend in the Rhine, and come up to that very ancient
town of Boppcart, whose narrow streets, and old houses, surrounded by an old crumbling wall, look as if antiquity were
jealously brooding over it to save it from the polluting touch
of repair.
Who has not read the story of the Two Brothers who
occupied two neighboring castles; and who, falling in love
with the same beautiful maiden, forgot the ties of brotherhood in the madness of a stronger passion, and fought for
the possession of the beloved object, and pierced each other's
bosom, and left her solitary to weep over their crime in the
walls of a convent? And there rise before us the melancholy ruins of the twin castles-the castles of Sternberg and
Liebenstein. A valley lies between them. Eternally separated, they frown upon each other.
And here is EAhrenthal; and, a little higher up, the village of Welmich, at the foot of a mountain; and on the top
of the mountain stands the castle of Thurnberg, also called
the Mouse, in allusion to another castle above, at St. Goarhausen, called the Cat.  The Mouse and the Cat were deadly
enemies, and ever watching each other. Both are now
ruins; but the bare walls of the Mouse appear undecayed,
and might easily be restored.




ST. GOA R-RH E IN F E   -L  RLEI.    79
The beautiful town of St. Goar lies directly opposite the
Cat on the other side of the river, and above it rise the vast
and magnificent ruins of Rheinfels, built in the thirteenth century. Converted into a fortress by the Landgrave of Hesse, it
was in perfect condition until taken and blown up by the
French in 1794. All about here is wild and picturesque.
But now St. Goar is passed by, and the river bends among
black precipitous jagged rocks; and here is the dread whirlpool of the Lurlei-the mischievous water-spirit who, in days
of old, when boatmen had to battle the whirlpool and rapids
with their oars, lured them by her beauty and her songs,
among the fatal rocks which lay beneath.  But our steamer,
which bears the name of the Water Spirit, is the more powerful Lurlei of the two. The beautiful syren is now unseen
and unheard; the dash of our paddles, the hiss of our steam,
our sparks and smoke have frightened her away to her caves
in the bed of the river. Or, perhaps, she is sitting there invisible upon the pinnacles of those tall black rocks-the Lurleifelsen, lamernting with the shades of the robber-barons,
that the river, which was once all their own, has now become
a common and safe highway without drowning or toll-gathering. Suddenly we hear the blast of a bugle, and in an instant all the rocks are filled with answering bugles; and then
a gun goes off, and every rock fires its gun in reply.  We
look around and we see a man stationed on the shore opposite the Lurleifelsen, with bugle and gun, prepared to wake
the echoes as every steamer goes by-an attention to the entertainment of travellers characteristic of this region, where the
love of the marvellous and the beautiful ever lives. It is said




80         SCHONBERG-GUTENFELS.
that there are fifteen distinct echoes. I could not count them:
there seemed to me to be many more —the hills and rocks
were full of them.
The Lurlei and her whirlpool are left behind, the echoes
have died away, and we are now opposite Oberwesel with its
turreted walls, its round tower, and its beautiful gothic church
standing so light and airy upon a hill. And just above the
town are the ruins of Sch6nberg, where lived the knight with
his seven enchanting daughters, who were turned to stone for
jilting all the noble young knights around. Who can doubt
the story, when there just below Oberwesel we passed the
seven rocks into which they were changed, and which lift
their heads above water, a perpetual warning to all the fair
who pass up and down the Rhine?
And then a little way above Schbnberg, on the opposite
side of the river, are the dismantled walls of Gutenfels, named
after a fair lady whom an emperor loved. From this castle
once thundered the cannon of Gustavus Adolphus, when he endeavored in vain to pass the Rhine in the face of the Spanish
army. In the middle of the river stands the queer old castle
of Pfalz, built at the beginning of the thirteenth century by
the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria, as a toll-house.  Here, or at
the town of Caub, on the right bank, a toll is still collected by
the Duke of Nassau, the only remaining toll of the thirty-two
that were collected by the baronial oppressors of the middle
ages. The toll of the Duke of Nassau, I suppose, is a light
conceded by the German States. The toll system was broken
up in the thirteenth century by the celebrated confederacy of
sixty German towns, who sent powerful armies against these




BACHARAC a    -ST. WERNERXS CHURCH.  81
terrible strongholds on the Rhine, and reduced them to picturesque ruins, evermore to embellish where before they had
wasted and destroyed.
And now we turn another abrupt bend of the river, and
the ancient town of Bacharach is before us, with its ancient
wall strengthened with twelve towers still standing. Nearly
opposite the town is a small island; and adjoining the island is
a rock, the Bacci ara —the altar of Bacehus, which, when it
appears above the surface of the water, denotes a dry season
auspicious to the vine.  There is another ruin on the lofty hill
behind the town, and this is Stakiech, once the proud residence of the Electors Palatine.  But what beautiful ruin is
that, with pointed windows still perfect, and exhibiting the
most exquisite tracery work-Melrose Abbey again!
"Thou would'st have thought some fairy's hand'Twixt poplars straight the ozier wand,
In many a freakish knot had twined;
Then framed a spell when the work was done,
And changed the willow wreaths to stone. "
It is but a fragment standing alone upon a rock, and so
light, that you would almost expect it to wave gracefully in
the breeze. It is all that is left of St. Werner's Church, built
more than four hundred years ago, and is pronounced " the
remains of the highest and most elegant lancet style existing."
And now we pass Lorchhausen, and here rises before us
on those lofty rocks the ruins of Nollengen, and the height
on which it stands is the D)evil's Ladder; and then a short
VOL. II.             4




82              THE  RHEINGAU.
run brings us up to Lorch, lying at the mouth of the Wispenthal. O that I could stop here, and wander up that valley-but we are already past, and on the opposite shore is
the village of Nieder Heimbech, and behind overlooking the
houses, the ruined castle of Heimnburg. We are now in the
Rheingau, which begins at Lorch, and extends to Nieder
Walluf, below Biberich. It is six leagues in length and two
in breadth in the Duchy of Nassau, and is sheltered on the
north by the Taunus mountains. Far famed is the Rheingau for its beauty and fertility, and for producing the richest
and most delicate Rhenish wines.  Here are produced the
Johannisberg, the Steinburg, the Markobrunnen, the Rudesheim, the Rothenberg, and other kinds well known at least
to travellers on the Rhine; and, indeed, well known nowhere
else, for here they may be had unadulterated and with their
delicate flavor preserved. Happy is that country in respect
to temperance where the grape is cultivated, and light pure
wines takes the place of strong drink. I believe the taste for
these pure wines precludes the taste for strong drink. Are
not the wine-growing countries the most temperate? that is
the question.  If so, then the cultivation of the vine would
be the promotion of temperance.
But while I am writing this, or something like it in the
leaves of my portfolio, we have reached Sonneck, once a
robber castle, and destroyed when the vengeance of the people fell upon their strongholds of plunder, but now restored,
and picturesque and peaceful where it clings to the rocks.
Here all the heights seem to grow into turreted castles, for
here follow in quick succession Sonneck, Falkenburg, Clemenskirche, and Rheinstein, the last restored also, and the




RUDE SIE IM-J OHANNISBEERG.                 83
knightly and imposingesidence of Prince Frederick of Prussia.  Scarcely have we passed these, when we sail between
the broken walls of Ehrenfels on the right bank, and the
Mouse Tower of Bishop Hatto, built on a rock near the left
bank. The Legend of the Bishop may be found in verse
among Southey's poems.
Just above the Mouse Tower the Nahe empties into the
Rhine, and we are now running past Bingen. From Bingen
to Biberich the Rhine widens and is filled with little islands,
while the country opens, and the shores are less bold and
jagged. The Rheingau presents an undulating surface over
which the vineyards cluster. Rudesheim and Johannisberg
resemble each other in situation, and in the form of the land.
It would be natural to conclude that if Johannisberg produces fine wine, Rudesheim must do the same. But why
one should be superior to the other, from a superficial view,
it is hard to conceive. Perhaps the superiority of Johannisberg is owing to the nicer cultivation, and to the rejection of
all but the perfect grapes in the vintage; the reputation which
the wine has gained and the consequently high price warranting this particularity. The quantity of wine produced is
so small, and is so generally bought by princes and nobles,
that the traveller will act most prudently if he never calls for
Johannisberg on steamboats or at hotels. Rudesheim of a
fine quality he will sometimes meet with.
Well, we have left the Rheingau behind with its towns
and villages, its beautiful hills and valleys, its vineyards and
cornfields, its ruined towers and its princely seats, and we are
now at Biberich. Here we take the train, and before dark
we are at Frankfort-on-the-Main,




IV.
Middle Rhine Continued. Frcankfort on the Mciaine —Heidelberg
-B a de n- B a den - St r a s b6   g.
( Xt Frankfort, in the ancient part of the town, is an old. but respectable-looking house. Over the door is a coatof-arms bearing the device of three lyres; and underneath
the arms is an inscription, "This is the house in which GOthe
was born."  The arms of the father seem like a prophecy of
the genius of the son. Here the childhood and youth of
GOthe were spent.- Here his early studies were carried on.
Here he dreamed his early dreams of life. Here were laid
many of those scenes which his autobiography describes.
That autobiography was among the books of my boyish reading; and it made Frankfort, and the home of G6the a sort
of dreamland to my boyish fancy.  In visiting Frankfort
G6the was more in my mind than any thing else.




THE  POET  AND  THE  BANKER.               85
The house in which the Rothschild family were born is
here too, in the Jews' street, narrow and dark, and crowded
with old dwellings, shut in by a gate, formerly, which was
closed at an early hour every evening, until the cannon of
Marshal Jourdan knocked it down, never *to be replaced.
And this family have country-seats near the town, and the
mother has a splendid mansion outside of the gardens. I
chanced to see the Rothschild house at the same time that I
went to see the home of G6the; and thus was I led to compare the Banker and the man of Genius, the wealth of money
and the wealth of mind. Both had won success. There
was the Prince of Bankers, and there the Prince of Literary
men, both from the same town. A noble bronze statue of
G6the is erected in an open space opposite the Theatre. How
majestic that figure, how expressive that countenance! And
then around the pedestal are bas-reliefs which represent the
creations of his genius. The citizens of Frankfort have erected this statue. Will they erect one to the Banker?  If it
stood there, how would the rotund figure, the absorbed calculating countenance, contrast with the grace and fire of the
poet! What bas-reliefs would surround the pedestal a
There is a fine gallery of paintings in Frankfort, established by the munificence of an individual, who bequeathed
his collection of paintings and drawings, together with four
hundred thousand dollars to his native city. Besides the
erection of a suitable building, this fund yields four thousand
dollars annually for the increase of the gallery. Thus has he
entailed his estate.
In the Kaiser Saal of the Town-house, where the election




86            C E M E T E R Y    A RI AD NE.
of the emperors was celebrated, their portraits are arranged
upon the walls from Conrad I. to Francis II.  They were
painted by Lessing and other eminent artists, and have taken
the place of the old and miserably executed paintings. It is
an interesting collection, whether viewed as works of art, or as
historical memorials.
A short and pleasant drive brings you to the cemetery.
The dead-house is well worth examining. Befo'e interment
the body is placed in a room, and is so connected with little
bells, that the least motion would give notice to the attendant in an adjoining room. The design is to prevent premature interment. Every arrangement is made for promoting
resuscitation when any signs of life are given. This is a
merciful precaution, if it were only to relieve some minds
peculiarly sensitive on this point, from the apprehension of
being buried alive. Besides, the instances are not a few
where sensation has returned after apparent death.  The
cemetery itself is neat, but contains nothing very remarkable
except some exquisite bas-reliefs by Thorwaldsen, which every
one, of course, will take pains to see.
The most beautiful work of art in Frankfort is Dannecker's statue of Ariadne. Ariadne, the daughter of Minos,
King of Crete, falls in love with Theseus, one of the seven
youths destined as an offering to the Minotaur. She provides him with the clue of thread which, fastened at the
entrance of the labyrinth, enables him to find his way out
again after he had slain the monster.  They fly to the isle
of Naxos. Here, while she lies asleep, Theseus forsakes her.
She awakes to see his ship fading in the horizon. In de



GARDENS-MILITARY  BAND.                    87
spair she roams along the shore. There the beautiful god
Bacchus by chance meets her, and enamored with her
beauty comforts her, weds her, and bestows upon her immortality. The crown upon her head the god hurls into
the skies, where it becomes a constellation.
"Ariadne! grief and care are dying,
Thou, my queen! shalt never, never die!
By yon sun, in morning splendor lying,
Thou, like him, shalt dazzling reign on high."
Dannecker's work  represents Ariadcne reclining with
easy grace upon the back of the Bacchic panther. She is
already immortal, and has the air and look of a goddess.
The form and attitude are admirable. Every part is finished
with the nicest art, and the marble is forgotten in the life
which invigorates the whole. The expression of the face is
serious and thoughtful.  We may fancy that she is absorbed
by the mystery of her new condition. There is perfect content, but perfect delight is delayed by wondering thought.
Every one who visits Frankfort will be delighted with
the elegance and cleanliness of the town, and the beautiful
suburbs, where the old ramparts have been turned into shady
walks, and gardens. In these gardens a fine military band
performs in the afternoon.  The musicians are arranged in
orchestra style, and play from the notes, under the direction
of a leader. The music in the open air is charming. The
people are walking or standing around, and groups of children twirl around in the waltz or polka, as if by a sort of
spontaneity. Soldiers, too, off duty, are leisurely perambu



88         DARM STDADRT- ]-ODEN  ALD.
lating.  To add to the motley appearance, what should
I see but a very black, jaunty-looking negro, in uniform,
with his military cap placed a la mode upon his sooty curls,
walking about at his ease like a man among his equals.
Where he dropt from I know not, but here he was a German soldier.
At Frankfort we took the train for Heidelberg.  We
passed Darmstadt, a pleasant city with wide streets and
numerous squares, a part of it appearing like a collection of
country-seats rather than a compact town. In this respect
it answers to my beau-ideal of a town. The road to Heidelberg runs through the Odenwald at the foot of that chain
of vineclad and wooded hills, which still bear the name of
Odin. These hills are sprinkled with ruined castles and
towers. They form the eastern boundary of the valley of the
Rhine, which stretches away some fifty or sixty miles, where
it meets the opposite boundary of the Vosges mountains in
France.  The route is extremely pleasing from the picturesque hills on the one hand, and the vast plain on the other,
studded with towns and villages, and exhibiting the highest
cultivation. The Odenwald is a favorite district for pedestrian tourists. It is a region of legend and romance; and
the ascent of the hills with their old ruins offer many interesting excursions.
We arrived at Heidelberg about noon. One is at once
impressed with the beauty of its situation. The Neclar.
flows out of the mountain gorges, and just at the point where
it enters the valley of the Rhine, there is a narrow ledge at
the base of the mountain, on which the town is built.




HEIDELBERG-THE  CASTLE.                  89
Several hundred feet above the town, on another ledge, stand
the magnificent ruins of the castle and fortress of the Old
Electors Palatine.  The drive up the valley of the Neckar,
and returning by the way of the castle, is one of the most
beautiful that can be imagined. On going up the valley
you have the mountains before you, and the Neckar winding
out of them. On the return you ascend to the second ledge,
and before you is the Neckar, flowing through the valley
beneath, from which arise the wooded heights; the town is
at your feet; the valley of the Rhine stretches out into a
broad plain; the two silver rivers run together; still above
you are hills crowned with forests; and as you approach the
castle you enter enchanting groves, in the midst of which
rise up the massive broken walls, and one huge tower lies
toppled over in the fosse, of masonry so solid thatf it seems
like a rock split from the side of a mountain. The dimensions of the castle are vast. Some rooms are still inhabited,
but the mastery of ruin is plainly enough indicated. The
terrace in front is quite perfect, and affords a magnificent
promenade, commanding a wide view of the town, and of the
valley of the Rhine. Here princes and royal dames once
trod. Here were grandeur and pomp. And the town
beneath was a splendid capital. But sad associations prevail
over all others. The town has been five times bombarded,
twice burnt to the ground, thrice taken by assault and pillaged. The castle, ten times surrounded by war, has been
three times burnt, the last time by lightning.
The town now contains about fourteen thousand inhabitants, and has no remains of its ancient splendor but one lone
VOL. II.            4*




90                BAD E N-B AD E N.
building, whose dilapidated fiont still shows how rich were
its original architectural decorations. Heidelberg, however,
has a famous university, with professors of great distinction.
The little Duchy of Baden-to which Heidelberg  now
belongs-one hundred and fifty miles long, and its greatest
breadth one hundred miles, has two universities.
The beauty of the scenery, the cheapness of living, and
the presence of the university, make Heidelberg a very
desirable residence for a scholar. For two thousand dollars
a family may live here not only comfortably, but elegantly,
and keep a carriage and horses.
Our next route was to Baden-Baden.  The romantic
situation of this town in the valley of the Oos, and just on
the borders of the Black Forest, has often been described.
All are familiar with it, too, as, perhaps, the most celebrated
watering-place in Germany. However high one's expectations may have been raised, they will not be disappointed.
Valleys amid picturesque hills, beautiful groves and
forests, cultivated fields, charming drives, paths leading to
the most secluded and quiet spots, streams of water, fiesh
verdure, and every thing showing the hand of taste as well
as the lavish bounty of nature, conspire to make this a region
of enchantment.
My daughter and myself one morning ascended to the
ruins of the old castle, planted on the summit of a high hill
above the town, in the midst of a dense forest-a walk of
two and a half milesa  It was the residence of the ancestors
of the Duke of Baden during the middle ages. The ruins
are very curious. Solid masonry is joined to the still more




TI E  OLD:'AND  TIlE  NEW   CASTLE.    91
solid rocks, so that the walls are in part built by nature herself. Terrace rises above terrace, until, by stone steps, you
at length reach the loftiest battlements. Here a magnificent
landscape is spread out before you. The valley of BadenBaden stretches out to the left. The town lies at your feet.
The plain of the Rhine, with the majestic river winding
through it, is at the right. The delighted eye wanders over
hills and valleys, forests and open fields, towns and scattered
dwellings-every thing that is beautiful to look upon. As
we stood gazing upon the scene, the band of music in front
of the Trinkhalle, far below, began to play. How soft and
sweet were those strains wafted up through the pure air of
the morning! It was like music heard in dreams.
Far below the ancient castle, and immediately above the
town, is the new castle, one of the residences of the duke. It
was built in the fifteenth century. Underneath are aurious
dungeons. A winding stair conducted us below. Passing
through an ancient Roman bath we entered the vaults. Here
were the place of imprisonment, the hall of judgment, the room
of torture, and the awful pit into which criminals were precipitated. Over the pit was once a trap-door, and in a niche
in the wall, an image of the Virgin. The wretched criminal
was required to kiss the image, and in the act of doing so,
was precipitated beneath, and torn to pieces by knives and
lancets arranged for the purpose. The doors are blocks of
stone which move easily upon pivots. It makes one shudder
to walk through these dungeons, and imagine the scenes
which have been here enacted.
The Trinkhalle, or pump room, is a splendid building.




92  TRINKHALLE-C O N V ERSATIOT S HAUS.
Here every one goes and helps himself to the scalding draught.
The taste is very much like weak chicken broth. Adjacent
to this is the Conversations Haus. This building, also, is large
and handsome. The grounds around are tastefully laid out.
In this building are the celebrated rouge et noir and roulette
tables. Elegantly dressed men and women are walking up
and down the large saloon; others are seated in groups within
or without. A fine band of music is constantly playing in
the afternoon and evening. Some are dancing in an adjoining room. Every thing is calculated to intoxicate the senses.
The two gaming tables, which are quite long, are arranged at
one end of the saloon, separated from each other by a considerable space. At the centre of each table are seated four
persons, two on each side, who conduct the game. At the
sides and ends seated or standing are those who engage in
play. Two of the conductors manage the roulette or the
cards, and two handle the money. Nothing can exceed the
calm  cold gravity of these men. They pay out the losses
with indifference, they rake in the gains without pity. Constantly the wheel is turning, constantly the cards are shuffled,
constantly the gold is staked, constantly these men, with features immovable as those of Druid priests presiding over a
sacrifice, pay out and rake in. In a few moments thousands
are lost or won. There is no talking or whispering, no
smiles, no pleasantries of manner. All is profound silence,
but the low sound of the wheel and the fall of the ball, the
shuffle of the cards, and the monotonous cold voice proclaiming the result, and the chink of the money. And these sounds
seem like the voice of fate. While the wheel is yet turning,




ROULETTE- ROUGE  ET NOIR.                 93
a man puts down a handful of gold, the ball drops, the gold
is lost, and the man with the rake coolly draws it to his pile.
Another handful is put down, and with the turn of the wheel,
away it goes. Thus thousands are lost in a few minutes.
Sometimes fate decides the other way, and the bank loses
large sums. It even happens that for the evening the bank
is broken. A short time before I arrived at Baden-Baden, a
Russian had won twenty thousand dollars, and much to the
disappointment of the bank, quitted play and went off to
Paris. A year or two ago, a Russian won fifty thousand dollars, but intoxicated with his good fortune, kept on playing
until the tide turned. He lost not only all he had won, but
exhausted his letter of credit, so that he was compelled to beg
a loan of the bank to return home. A suicide now and then
occurs in consequence of bad luck. The bank is pleased at
losing occasionally considerable sums. It acts as a lure; and
as those who win generally go on tempting fortune, the bank
is sure to get the better in the end, the aggregate of chances
being in its favor. He who gambles for the first time, is
ruined if he wins. Bad luck is the best luck to him who has
not yet formed the habit.
It is a curious study to a bystander. There I saw a man
hoary with age intensely engaged. He could not have been
more earnest in the necessary and more appropriate work of
preparing to die. People of all ages and of both sexes were
there silent and absorbed.
I noticed a young man of dark hair and keen black eyes,
and a pale countenance. He put down gold one or two hundred francs at a time. It was swept away. He repeated it




94                THE  GA M B LER.
again and again; all went against him; he lost thousands.
Then he tried silver, with no better success. His brow grew
wrinkled, his agony was intense; he looked at a companion
and tried to smile, but his smile was ghastly and despairing.
He was at the roulette table. At length he went away and
tried the rouge et noir. Here he had moderate luck, and his
features somewhat relaxed; but when I left, he had by no
means made up his losses.
The countenance of a professed gambler has a remarkable
and decided expression-pale, anxious, dreamy, and stern.
He is a man always treading on the brink of fate. The very
agony of hazard becomes his life. His enjoyment does not
consist in possession, but in tempting ruin. His passion is allabsorbing. All his thoughts are melted into one monstrous
idea. He almost ceases to be man, and changes into a woful
spectre.
I felt most strangely while gazing upon these silent and
rapt beings.  They had to me an unearthly aspect.  It
seemed to me as if demons were hovering around and whispering temptations. I had a sense of horror, and yet experienced a wild fascination. It was like standing on the
brink of a whirlpool where mermaids were singing. I turned
away and walked out into the open air, and looked up to the
stars in heaven.
These establishments at the German watering-places are
licensed by the governments. The one at Baden-Baden pays
about fifteen thousand dollars annually for its license, besides a hundred thousand dollars more to be expended on
the grounds and buildings. This will afford some idea of




STRASBURG-FORTIFICATIONS.                  95
the extent to which gambling is carried on, and of the profits
which accrue to the proprietor. It is to be hoped that the
disgrace and crime of granting these licenses may be done
away.
We left Baden-Baden early in the morning for Kehl,
opposite Strasburg. Our luggage we sent on directly to
Basil, in charge of an acquaintance. At Kehl we took an
omnibus for Strasburg, and crossed the Rhine on the bridge
of boats. After a drive of three or four miles, we began to
wind our way through the fortifications. Immense labor and
skill have made these works apparently impregnable. On
entering the town, our passports for the first time were demanded. Every thing has the appearance of a garrison. On
the confines of Germany, Strasburg is a very important post.
The town itself is not very attractive: but our eyes had been
almost constantly directed towards the heavens pierced by
that wonderful spire of the cathedral. The cathedral is the
only striking object, but this is sufficient to draw a traveller
aside. It was already past eleven o'clock when we got into
the town, and so we drove off immediately to the cathedral,
as its marvellous clock performs all its wonders precisely at
noon. We found many persons already assembled, waiting
for the hour. This clock has been perfectly restored by a
living mechanician of Strasburg. The front in magnitude
and appearance resembles that of a richly-decorated chapel.
The clock is both a timekeeper and an almanac. But what
chiefly attracts attention, is the procession and motions of the
various figures connected with it. At. the striking of each
quarter, a figure passes over the face of the clock: at the




96                  THE  CLOCK.
first quarter, a little child, at the second, a youth, and last of all,
an old man. Two cherubs are seated in front, at about one
third of the elevation of the clock; one holding an hour-glass,
the other a ball and hammer. Higher up is a figure of Death
holding a hammer ready to strike a bell. Just in front of the
dial-plate, stands a figure of Christ. On one side, perched
aloft, is a cock with burnished wings. Just before the hour
of twelve, one of the cherubs reverses the hour-glass, the
other strikes the ball, and the cock flaps his wings and crows.
In the course of the movements the cock crows three times,
and with quite a natural intonation. At the hour of twelve,
Death strikes the hour-twelve solemn strokes. At the same
instant, the twelve apostles move in procession in front of
Christ; each one as he passes turns and makes an inclination
of the head, and the benignant image of the Saviour extends
its hand to bless them. When Judas passes by, the hand
makes the sign of the cross. When all have passed by, the
hand is extended again, as if to bless all the beholders. The
whole representation is beautiful and affecting.  The machinery certainly must be very curious and complicated by
which all these effects are daily brought about.
Having seen all the wonders of the clock, we had leisure
to walk about the cathedral. The interior is by no means so
impressive as the exterior.  Many parts of the architecture
are indeed grand, but there is not a harmony preserved
throughout the whole. There is an elegantly and richly
carved stone pulpit, well worth examining.
In one of the chapels some women were engaged in attiring a miserable-looking image of the Vierge doloreuse, with
a dead Christ in her lap. The attire was chiefly white muslin.




THE CATHEDRAL-THE SPIRE.   97
On the head was placed a gilt tinsel crown. At vespers, I
found a crowd of women kneeling before the image, gazing
at it with strained eyes of adoration.
The exterior of the cathedral produces on one the effect
of a beautiful poem. The figures of angels and saints beside
and over the doors, are each a study. The whole of the exterior is covered with exquisite carving. It realized fully my
idea of Gothic architecture, as a delicate veil thrown over naturally rugged features, and softening every thing into grace
and beauty.
The spire, which rises four hundred and seventy-four feet
above the pavement, is the highest spire in the world. To
the eye it appears to be constructed of iron bars, so hard and
so finely wrought are the stones of which it is built. More than
four centuries have passed over it, and there it pierces the heavens still, with no sign of weakness or decay. During the day I
spent in Strasburg I visited the cathedral again and again; I
walked around it more than once, pausing at every point to
gaze and admire, and when at length I was compelled to bid
it good-by, I felt sad and reluctant. Some weeks afterwards,
when descending the Rhine, I caught again a view of the
spire, and felt a thrill of pleasure. I had a strong desire to
turn aside and take another look at the cathedral. From the
time the nave was begun to the. completion of the spire, was
four hundred years. The other spire will never be built.
Mankind will build no more such cathedrals. Monuments of
grandeur and beauty; hoary remains of ages never to be revived, let them stand. Our modern attempts at Gothic archit ecture are like imitations of the Iliad.
Strasburg is half German and half French. The com



98              ROUTE  TO  BASLE.
mon language is a strange patois. There is nothing here to
interest one much besides the cathedral, unless it be this curious mixture of habits and language, and the fortifications.
There is but one fine hotel in the place, and that is the
Ville de Paris, so that travellers need not be perplexed in
making a choice.
From Strasburg we took the train for Basle, on the French
side of the Rhine. The road here is better than on the other
side, and the travelling more rapid. The route lies in a level
country bounded by the Vosges mountains. I observed that
the land was cultivated -in narrow strips, with different grains
and vegetables. Upon inquiry I found that this was owing
to its being divided among small proprietors, each of whom,
in growing a necessary variety, was compelled to make those
minute subdivisions of his portion. The cultivation was very
nice, and the land made to produce to its utmost capacity.
But how different from the ample and substantial farms of
our country, each with its house and barn, and belonging to
the absolute lord of the soil!  We have, comparatively, a
careless husbandry, but we have independence and plenty.
I was pained to see the strips of potatoes very generally suffering from the rot. A failure of this kind must prove a real
calamity, where every product of labor is so greatly peeded.
We reached Basle about noon,.and put up at the Three
Kings, the best hotel in the town, and beautifully situated
immediately on the bank of the Rhine. The Three Kings,
as large as life, are perched aloft in front, and are undoubtedly
as genuine as the three skulls we saw at Cologne, and devoted
to a much better purpose, for here they promise a regal entertainment.




VII.
Bas9le  or  Bcasil.
r~~(~ &Three Kings exhibited a very lively scene. Post
coaches and other carriages were drawn up on one side.
Travellers of various nations were standing on the broad steps
and platform of the entrance. Couriers were bustling about,
and servants of different descriptions running to and fro. Until
night had set in there were constant arrivals of travellers going
to or returning from the Alps. Basil is the grand confluence
of travellers. Here properly the toon of Switzerland begins.
From here you may proceed in various directions-to Schaffhausen, to Zurich, to Lucerne, to Berne, to Neuchatel and Lausanne, and thence to Geneva.  We took the latter route.
I had intended, like most travellers, to make no stop at
Basil, and to push immediately for the Alps. Mr. Burchard,
our consul, persuaded me to remain from Friday, when I ar



100       CONSULS  AND  MINISTERS.
rived, until Monday. This gentleman, a true American at
heart, indefatigable, earnest and faithful in all that he undertakes, of a most genial and obliging disposition, intelligent,
and well versed in the languages of the country, is singularly
qualified for the post he  holds. It is to be hoped that no
change of our administration will be a sufficient reason for
supplanting him.
Should a charge d'affaires be appointed for the Swiss
Cantons, how much better to give the post to a man who is
qualified alike by education, experience and residence, than
to send some new man into the field who has every thing to
learn.
The indiscriminate removal from office upon every change
in our administration is an evil attending our free institutions,
which we can submit to with a very good grace at home.
Some changes are for the better, and many are not for the
worse. Individuals suffer, rather than the country at large.
But since every man takes office at home under the expectation of giving place to somebody else, sooner or later, the
individual has no injustice to complain of. The case is entirely different with respect to our consuls and diplomatic
corps.  When we have placed the proper man in a post
abroad, and he has gained experience and tact,.the nation
suffers far more than the individual by his removal. It is
required of our foreign ministers that they should be men of
education, well acquainted with the language of, the court at
which they reside, and with the French as the common
diplomatic language. Profound historical and political knowledge they, of course, should have. When in addition to




-B AS L E - T o w N  AND  B'ASLE.       101
this they have by long residence become perfectly familiar
with their duties, what can be more absurd, as well as more
suicidal of our foreign interests, than to displace them merely
because we have elected a new President at home? What
have our party politics to do with our foreign relations? The
frequency of these changes is a matter of sufrprise and even
of ridicule in foreign countries.
One among many evils to be deprecated in sending abroad
men who are not acquainted with the language of the country in which they reside, is that they come into contact only
with the court and its parasites. Hence, they cannot know
the true condition of the country, and the mind of the people, nor possess themselves of the facts which are essential in
enabling them to form a correct judgment of political questions and the state of political parties.
The late Mr. Gallatin informed me that when he first
took up his residence at the court of Russia as our minister,
he set himself at work to acquire the Russian language, and
that in three months he was able to read the newspapers
printed in that language. He indeed had an extraordinary
facility in the acquisition of languages; but, it was characteristic of this truly great man that he would not accept the
French —the court language-as his only medium of gaining
information respecting Russian affairs.
The modern canton of Basle-town separated from the
old canton of Basle, comprises the city, and a territory of
only four miles in extent on the right bank of the river.
Here the Middle Rhine begins. This too is the head of
navigation.  The Upper Rhine, with its tributaries, pours




102         UNIVE RS I TY-MI NSTER.
down from the glaciers and lakes of Switzerland. The country around Basil is highly picturesque, and cultivated like a
garden. The Rhine rushes through the town broad and
rapid, and of a beautiful green color. The Black Forest lifts
its hills on one tide, and the Jura range rises on the other.
The town is watemd, well built, and has the appearance of considerable trade and wealth.  It contains only twenty-five
thousand inhabitants, and yet it has a university, with twenty
professors. Euler and Bernouilli were once professors here.
The present professor of chemistry is the inventor of guncotton. The public library contains fifty thousand volumes.
The Reading-room is finely situated near the Terrace. This
is planted with trees and commands a wide view over the
Rhine, the town, and the country beyond. In the Readingroom I found newspapers from every part of Europe, and the
leading papers of America. Nearly a hundred papers and
magazines are taken.
In front of the Terrace stands the Minster, more than
eight hundred years old. It is a very curious and interesting
building. Here are the tombs of Erasmus, and of the Reformers (Ecolampadius, Grynoeus, and Meyer.  The portal
of St. Gallus is adorned with statues of Christ, St. Peter, and
the wise and foolish virgins. The equestrian statue of St.
George and the Dragon, on the west front, is striking, but
somewhat grotesque. Here also is St. Martin and the Beggar.
The gallery of paintings and drawings contains many
interesting pieces of Holbein, who was a native of Augsburg, but took up his residence here until he went to England. Among these pieces are admirable portraits of




HOLBEIN'S  PAINTINGS.                   103
Erasmus, and of the artist himself. The portraits of his wife
and two children, in one piece, is pronounced by artists the
finest painting of all. They are represented in a state of
want and misery which was real, for the artist suffered much
from poverty before his removal to England. In gazing at
the group the illusion becomes perfect, and your sympathies
are strongly moved. Lifelike reality is the distinguishing
characteristic of Holbein.  This appears again in his painting of the Passion of our Saviour. It is painted on panels,
and comprises eight compartments, representing the scenes of
the passion from the arrest to the entombment. The first
and the last are the best. The dead body is so real, and
the marks of violence on the feet and hands, and the agonized expression of the countenance are so truthful, that one
shudders to look at it.  This painting was carried away
during some convulsion of the state, and repurchased for
thirty-six thousand florins.
In this gallery are six frescoes of the original Dance of
Death, which once belonged to the walls of the Dominican
Church of Basil. There is also a series of colored drawings, which represent all the figures. These frescoes were in
being before the birth of Holbein, so that he cannot be the
author of them.
On Saturday we drove into the country, accompanied by
Mr. Burchard, who kindly took upon himself the office of
cicerone. We first drove to the battle-field of St. Jacob, a
short distance from the gates. It borders upon the Birs, at
an angle made by two roads. Sixteen hundred Swiss forded
the stream and attacked sixteen thousand French, com-'




104         BATTLE  OF ST. JACOB.
manded by the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI. The battle
lasted ten hours. Only ten of the Swiss survived and fled.
They were held in disgrace by their countrymen. Nearly
one-third of the French were slain. The politic Louis made
peace at once with a people of such determined bravery, and
entered into a perpetual league with them. He enrolled a
body-guard from among them, a practice continued afterwards by the French monarchs. Vines now cluster around
the scene of strife, and the red wine which they produce
bears the name of Schweitzer Blut. At a little inn near the
bridge, and separated fiom St. Jacob only by the road, we
called for a bottle, and drank the Swiss blood to the memory
of.the brave. The wine is light and of a pleasant flavor.
Suspended to the beams of the inn was a rusty sword,
which had been tuirned up on the battle-field. The Swiss
call St. Jacob their Thermopylhe. It filled Europe with the
fame of their arms.
We next proceeded to Arlsheim, some six miles distant,
by a pleasant road along the stream, with the Jura on our
left. On our way we passed the picturesque ruins of Wartsburgh and Reichstein. At Arlsheim we left our carriage at
the village inn, ordered dinner,' and in the mean time
ascended to the deserted convent and hermitage. The hermitage is about half way up the ascent. In it are preserved
the bed of rushes and the few articles of furniture which belonged to the devout man. A figure of the hermit dressed
in his garments is seated by the table, with a missal open
before it, and has quite a natural appearance. The hill,
which is a spur of the Jura, has many natural grottoes,




HERMITAGE  AN D  CONVENT.                 105
which the industry of this man through many years of solitary labor improved and fashioned into beautiffil retreats —a
fit haunt for poets as well as religious men.
Intus aqun clulces, vivoque sedailia saxo;
Nympharum domtus.
The face of the hill is thickly enbowered with trees; paths
wind about in every direction; rural seats are placed at
intervals; at sudden turns of the path the grottoes are presented; openings among the trees give enchanting views of
the valley beneath; the music of brooks and waterfalls
catch the ear; and the happy birds fill the trees, and build
their nests, and sing their songs undisturbed.  It is a place
to meditate in, to dream dreams, to drink in all the beauty
and quietude of nature.
On a rock is the following inscription: "H ospes! debes,has delicias naturce, industrice," &c. The name of the hermit follows, which I have forgotten.
One of the grottoes deeper than the rest contains the
tomb of the hermit. This was suddenly illuminated by our
attendant with lights kept ready for the purpose, and the
tomb, with the figure of an angel, and a transparency beyond
representing a heavenly radiance, rose out of the darkness. It
was evidently a shrine where the villagers resorted to say
their prayers.
On the summit of the hill stands the convent, empty and
falling intq ruins. The little garden is still cultivated by some
one, and a small vineyard outside of the wall lies basking in
the sun. The view from the convent commands one of the
VOL. If.          5




t1o       V  I eF W  F RO M  I' T  E   C( N V'E N I.
most lovely and quiet scenes in the world. At the left,
the valley of the Birs seems shut in by the Jura mountains which wind around westward; at the right, you look
down the valley of the Birs toward Basle; in front, lie beautifully cultivated fields, the river flowing through them;
Arlsheim and Dornach are at your feet; you look along the
sidcl  of the Jura, where several ruins peer out; you turn and
look in the rear of the convent, and a valley, hemmed in by
the steep sides of the mountain, with a brook gurgling through
it, seems to invite you with an air of mystery to explore
strange places of beauty, and you feel a longing to know
what can be found there, far among mountain fastnesses.
When we descended to the inn, we found a table very
neatly spread, and sat down to a dinlner prepared after the
German fashion, consisting of many courses, excellent in
quality, and well cooked. We were surprised to get one of
the best dinners, we had met with on the continent, in this
plain country inn. We were furnished with a white wine the
produce of the fields around, marked Arlslheimer, 1825. It
was unquestionably the pure juice of the grape, mild and
agreeable. The daughter of the host waited at table, a plain,
cleanly, and honest-looking young woman, apparently about
as old as the wine. We were charged two francs and a half
each for the dinner, and one franc a bottle for the wine.
On our return, we passed by.Dornach, where the Swiss
gained a memorable victory over an Austrian army, larger
than that of the Dauphin, in 1499, during the Suabian war.
Near the Capuchin Convent is a house in which the skulls
gathered from the field of battle are still preserved-a strange,
ghastly, but not inappropriate monument of the event.




ST. M      A  GARET'S -H   GUE N 01S.    7ti 7
The battles of St. Jacob's and Dornach were alike decisive
of Swiss valor and Swiss liberty.
We diverged from the main road at Dornach to reach the
Church of St. Margaret. The church is an ancient building.
The house of the pastor is attached to it. The whole had
an air of comfort as well as sacredness. Our object in visiting
it was to enjoy the noble prospect which it commands. The
valley of the Birs was again presented us, the Black Forest,
and the Jura; but in addition to this the city of Basle lay
under our eye, and the landscape was complete. It was now
near the setting of the sun, and a day of rare enjoyment was
finished by contemplating a scene which combined more
beautiful and striking points, very clearly defined, than any
I had yet met with. And even now, after I have seen much
grander prospects, my mind returns to the view from St.
Margaret's Church with a sense of delight which proves to
me that I received no ordinary impressions.
Basle is a town strict in religious observances. The gates
are closed on the Sabbath, and the inhabitants are assembled
in the churches at an early hour. We attended the church
of the Hluguenots, where the service is still performed in the
French language. The building is several centuries old, and
considerably dilapidated. The congregation is small, and is
composed chiefly of the descendants of the Huguenots who
first established the church. The preacher delivered his discourse without notes, and gave us a good gospel sermon.
His enunciation was easy, fervent, and impressive.  The
associations of the place were hallowed, and I felt that I was
sitting among Christian brethren.




VIII
Thke  Vcal   loutisers-Bienne —
NVe u ch a  e 1-19 a    x e a n n e.
~&     us recall the general features of Switzerland now
that we are about entering it. From east to west it
extends two hundred miles from the Tyrol to France, and
from north to south one hundred and fifty miles from Baden
to Lombardy. Two ranges of mountains traverse this country, and run nearly parallel to each other from the southwest
to the northeast, —the Jura and the Alps. The Jura range
is about two hundred and fifty miles in length, and forty in
breadth, and bold and precipitous on the side which faces
the Alps. The Alps longer, broader, loftier, branching out in
all directions, and with Mont Blanc as king of the mountains, fill the land. Mountains of snow and ice, seas of ice,
glaciers or torrents of ice pouring down into green valleys,
valleys beautiful as fairyland, perpendicular precipices of black




THEy  VALLEY  OF  THE  BIRS.               109
rock rising thousands of feet; torrents, cascades, waterfalls,
brooks, rivers, and lakes, gloomy forests, fields of beautiful
cultivation-every wild, grand, and lovely form of nature, is
presented in Switzerland. Where in the wide world can
another region be found like it.
Our route from Basil lay in the Jura range, along the
Birs which has its source in this range above Tavannes. It
is really the valley of the Birs, for nature seems to have rent
the rocks to open a course for the river. It is called the Val
Moutiers, after the village which lies at the head of the principal gorge.
The road which winds through this valley is firm  and
smooth. It runs along the foot of precipices, close to the
edge of the river, and frequently crosses from  one bank to
the other on stone bridges, to find a level space. Sometimes
it is cut along the side of the precipice, where a slope affords
a convenient passage.
The Jura, by its spurs and sinuosities, makes a succession
of valleys or basins, above which rise the rocky sides and firclad peaks. The freshness of the verdure which clothes these
valleys is enchanting.  The grass and the foliage feed upon
the purest mountain streams, and the brightest sunshine.
The hamlets and villages which lie scattered about, look as if
they had retired from a noisy and impure world and sought
here an everlasting repose, and an exemption from the vices
and miseries which beset the rest of mankind. It makes one
sad to be forced to the conviction that the common human
nature dwells here.
The rocks which once separated this succession of valleys




110      THE  GO R GE   OF THE  JuRA,
from  each other have been cleft asunder, forming narrow
gorges where the mighty precipices rise above you like, a
wall. The road is thus between two huge walls. The whole
space between is often occupied by the stream and the road.
Some of the rocks are strangely scooped out into grottoes and
caverns; some are piled up in a smooth wall; some are jagged and afford a precarious footing for trees and shrubs;
while dark forests overhang the brow of the precipice.
The wildest and most wonderful of these gorges is the
one which lays open the basin in which the village of Moutiers is situated. The Jura here is cleft to its very foundations, and the strata of limestone are like immense slabs set
up on their edges.
It is this alternation of wild gorges and lonely valleys
which makes up the enchantment of the Val Moutiers. It
is indeed the alternation of the sublime and the beautiful.
You forget carriage and horses and all the common contrivances which are bearing you along, and you become sensible only of the succession of grand and beautiful objects and
the succession of emotions within you. Nature seems to be
a written music blending the wildest and sweetest strains;
your outward motion is a motion along the lines of the
music, while your heart is all the while joyfully singing the
tune. On ascending a steep and long acclivity, by a turn
of the road and through a vista of rocks and trees, I got a
view of a valley we had just left behind.  The softest meadows lay far beneath smiling under a magical sunlight, and
swept away under the shadow of bordering woods. Here
and there a cottage appeared, and then a clump of trees.  I




A SPOT OF   E A U'Y- NATURAL An c -I. ill
felt as if I had got for a moment a peep into some hallowed
spot-some little paradise. I recollect when a boy away in
the woods, or angling in mountain streams through the summer days, having fallen upon spots so beautiful that they
appeared to me as not of this world, and they aw,ikened in
me strange fancies which connected heaven with earth.
While looking into this valley, these memories of my boyhood came floating through my mind, so that tears filled my
eyes. Then I realized how the effect of the beautiful present
to as is heightened by an association with other scenes.
These impressions are imperishable.  They wake up a strain
of melody which is continually lengthening, and every new
experience is rendered more exquisite by becoming a part of
that which already exists.
After passing Tavannes, and leaving the source of the
Birs behind, the road quits the valley, and winds up a steep
ascent. Midway, it passes underneath an arch of rocks bearing a defaced Roman inscription. The arch may have been
enlarged by art, but it evidently is mainly the workl of nature.
I is a strange work-a door through the mountain.
At length we reac;hed the last slope of the Jura. How
magnificent and thrilling the view which now at once broke
upon us from the brow of tile hill!  The town and lake of
Bienne lay beneath us. In the lake reposed the isle of St.
Pierre, the dreamland of Rousseau. Far and wide stretched
the region watered by the Aar, the Emme, and the Zihl.
BehinCd the whole, rose the glorious Alps. Only the black,
gigantic masses were visible; the snow-mountains were hidden in clouds. But there were the Alps!  I repeated to




112           TE  A L P S -B I E N N E
myself, There are the Alps-the Alps! How wild were my
emotions! I felt ready to leap from the vehicle, to clap my
hands, and shout aloud, The Alps-the Alps! I realized that
I was in Switzerland; and, oh! how I longed to have those
clouds lifted, that I might, see the vision which they concealed [
The expectations of years were now to be realized. Behind
that mass of clouds lay those wonders of creation. As we
descended the long hill, my eye passed rapidly over the
intervening objects, beautiful as they were, and toiled to
penetrate the mystery of the clouds. Those black mlountains appeared immense, and yet they did not reach the
region of ice and snow. The ice-peaks were in the clouds of
heaven.
We gained the bottom of the descent, we wound along
through vineyards, and entered Bienne. Here we paused
only to change horses and vehicles. We had occupied the
coupe of the diligence, which just accommodated our party of
three. It was of ample dimensions, and, glazed on the sides
and front, gave us a perfect view. We had taken the couped
two days before, for Neuchatel. But we had not been informed that this pleasant vehicle proceeded on our route no
further than Bienne, and that we were there to be transferred
to an inferior carriage. We still occupied what was dignified
with the name coupe, but it was narrow, uncomfortable, and
open to the weather. The beauty of the drive, however,
compensated for every thing. The road followed the shore
of the lake. Vineyards covered the slopes of the hills on our
right. On our left was the lake, and beyond, the range of
the Alps. Our coachman ca'tied a huge whip, with which




T -H E C o A C H Mi AN-NE UC HAT E L.    113
he constantly amused himself, making strange and rapid
evolutions, and giving cracks that the distant Alps might have
re-echoed. Whenever we entered a village, his importance
and energy increased. The whip made fearful circles around
his head, the houses appeared to shake with the concussion,
the children ran into the streets, the dogs barked, the whole
populace were thrown into a state of agitation. The horses,
for whose benefit the great whip might be imagined to be
especially designed, took it all very quietly, and seemed quite
used to the freaks of their master.  The sun had set ere
we arrived at Neuchatel. We put up at the Hotel des Alpes,
pleasantly situated neat the lake. We had dined by the way
at a good village inn. At another inn a pretty Swiss maiden
had supplied us with pears and apricots, and a bottle of wine.
A cup of black tea, bread and butter, and a comb of the
transparent honey in which Switzerland abounds, formed a
simple but sufficient supper. Weariness and pleasant thoughts
invited a profound and refreshing sleep.
The next morning we took a view of Neuclhatel.  The
town lies partly against the steep slope of the Jura, and partly
upon a level space on the border of the lake. It looks out
upon the lake, and the Alps are ever in sight except when
veiled in clouds. None but the black masses were yet visible.
Neuchatel, although possessing none of that boldness and
grandeur of scenery which distinguish other towns in Switzerland, has a quiet and picturesque effect which renders it very
agreeable.
Professor Agassiz, the distinguished naturalist, and who is
now a professor in one of our own colleges, was born here.
VOL, I.       5




114       DAv I D  PURY- Ou   R OUT E
The Museum of Natural History in his native town is indebted
to him for many valuable collections.
Some time during the last century a poor boy named
David Pury, without friends or resources of any kind, wandered away from Neuchatel to seek his subsistence somewhere in the wide world. By industry and frugality he gradually accumulated property, became in time a jeweller and
banker in Lisbon, and grew into a large fortune. The boy
who had known nothing in Neuchhatel but the home of poverty, when he died became its benefactor, bestowing upon it
his whole fortune, amounting to nearly a million of dollars.
A hospital and poor-house: and many other public benefits,
are the fruits of his charity. Neuchatel will for ever be his
monument, and his memory will live in the hearts of its citizens.
At Neuchatel we procured a very commodious and easy
carriage, with good horses, and a civil and obliging coachman.
We had another day of pure enjoyment.  Our route was
along the northwest shore of the lake until we reached Yverdun at its lower extremity, where we diverged to the south
and crossed the high ridge which separates the lakes of Neuchatel and Geneva.
On the one hand we had the Jura, on the other the lake,
and beyond the lake, the Alps, the ice-peaks still in the clouds.
The vineyards covered the hills. The whole country was
beautiful. The eye was constantly entertained. The temperature was delightful.  We enjoyed a holiday, and a holiday seemed to be spread over creation.
Near the outlet of the lake is situated the small town of




TOWN  AND  CASTLE  OF  GRANSON.  115
Granson. Here is the old castle in which Charles of Burr
gundy besieged a Swiss garrison, whom, upon surrender, he
hung on the trees or drowned in the lake. And not far from
Granson we rode over the celebrated battle-field, still marked
by three granite obelisks, where the Swiss took their revenge.
It is a narrow strip of land on the border of the lake, at the
foot of the mountain. On this strip of land Charles led his
gay and gallant horsemen. His infantry was planted against
the side of the mountain. It was a glorious array of sixty
thousand men-the most splendid and well appointed army
in Europe. More than a hundred pieces of cannon were
drawn up in front.
The army of the Swiss did not number more than a third
of the Burgundians; but they were fired with a spirit which
nothing could resist-the bodies of their countrymen were
still hanging upon the trees.
I asked our coachman if he knew any thing about the
battle. He immediately told the story in his rude patois.
All the Swiss are familiar with it. Scott, in his Anne of Geierstein, has put the story in the mouth of the rough and clownish Sigism und Biederman. His language, perhaps, was similar
to that of the coachman. I will make an extract, therefore,
as the best translation I can give:" Then there was a huge cloud of dust approaching us,
and we began to see that we must do or die, for this was
Charles and his whole army come to support his vanguard.
A blast firom the mountain dispersed. the dust, for they had
halted to prepare for battle. Oh, good Arthur! yoa would
have given ten years of life but to have seen t he sight. There




116       THE  BATTLE  OF GRANSON.
were thousands of horse, all in complete array, glancing against
the sun, and hundreds of knights with crowns of gold and
silver on their helmets, and thick masses of spears on foot,
and cannon, as they call them. I did not know what things
they were which they drew on heavily with bullocks and
placed before their army, but I knew more of them before
the morning was over. Well, we were ordered to draw up
in a hollow square, as we are taught at exercise, and before
we pushed forwards, we were commanded, as is the godly
rule and guise of our warfare, to kneel down and pray to
God, Our Lady, and the blessed saints. Charles, supposing
we asked grace, was determined to show us that we had
asked it at a graceless face, for he cried:'Fire my cannon on
the coward slaves; it is all the mercy they have to expect
from me 1' Bang-bangbang-bang —off went the things I told
you of, like thunder and lightning, and some mischief they
did, but the less that we were kneeling; and the saints
doubtless gave the huge balls a hoist over the heads of those
who were asking grace from them, but from no mortal creatures. So we had the signal to rise and rush on, and I
promise you there were no sluggards. Every man felt ten
men's strength. My halberd is no child's toy, and yet it
trembled in my grasp as if it had been a willow wand to drive
cows with. On we went, when suddenly the cannon were
silent, and the earth shook with another and continued growl
and battering, like thunder under ground. It was the menat-arms rushing to charge us. But our leaders knew their
trade, and had seen such a sight before. It was:' Halt, haltkneel down in the front-stoop in the second rank-close




YVERDUN- SWISS  HousEs.                 117
shoulder to shoulder like brethren —lean all spears forward,
and receive them like an iron wall!' On they rushed, and
there was a rending of lances that would have served the
Unterwalden old women with splinters of firewood for a
twelvemonth. Down went armed horse-down went accoutred knight-down went banner and bannerman —down
went peaked boot and crowned helmet; and of those who
fell, not a man escaped with life. So they drew off in confusion, and were getting in order to charge again, when the
noble Duke Ferrand and his horsemen dashed at them in
their own way, and we moved onward to support him. Thus
on we pressed, and the foot hardly waited for us, seeing their
cavalry so handled. Then if you had seen the dust and heard
the blows! The noise of a hundred thousand thrashers, the
flight of the chaff which they drive about, would be but a
type of it. On nmy word, I almost thought it shame to dash
about my halberd, the rout was so helplessly piteous. Hundreds were slain unresisting, and the whole army was in
complete flight."
A little beyond Granson is Yverdun, where we stopped
for dinner. The drive from 1here to Lausanne affords many
fine prospects, and has an agreeable variety of up-hill and
down-hill. Villages are scattered all along the way. The
Swiss build their houses and'barns under the same roof. Hay
and grain are often stored away over their sleeping apartments. Sometimes these apartments are over the stables.
The villages too are rendered foul and unsightly by stacks of
manure reeking in fiont of the dwellings. The Swiss chalets
and villages are beautiful objects in the landscape, but are
not veiy inviting on a close inspection.




118       EVENING-SWISS  WOMEN.
At one of these villages, I noticed for the first time our
coachman feeding his horses with good rye bread. This I
found to be a general custom. An excellent lunch this for
horses, and one that occupies but little time.
As the evening approached, the air on these hills became
quite cold, so that we were fain to put on our overcoats.
Men and women who had been working in the meadows
were wending slowly homeward with scythes and rakes; and
wains heavily laden were creaking under their burdens.
The glorious setting sun tipped the hills with gold, while the
valleys lay in shadow. The peaks of the Alps caught the
last rays.
The Swiss women have stout persons, and large arms and
hands. They go bareheaded, and do all kinds of work in the
fields.  I frequently saw them  swinging the scythe. The
young women, with full bronzed cheeks, bright eyes, and long
hair, have a good deal of rustic beauty. The old women have
leathery complexions, and a haggard, care-worn look. Borrowe remarks of the Gipsies in Spain, that the young women
are very beautiful, while the old women are perfect hags. In
rustic and rude modes of life, youth has a peculiar freshness
and energy. The beauty is the mere beauty of youth. When
this fades there is no beauty of expression to supply the loss.
The highest beauty of the humAn face is that of expression:
but this depends upon the cultivation and the.graces of the
soul. The old age which follows a life of thought, of virtuous
affections, and of active benevolence, exhibits the human face
in its noblest and most impressive beauty. The frail blossoms
have fallen to the ground, but the golden fruit now hangs




TRUE  BEAUTY-SWISS COWS.                  119
upon the boughs. The sensual loveliness has given place to
the pure dignity of intellect, and the benignity of goodness.
Indeed, old age will bring out into bare expression the passions, whether good or bad, which have governed the life.
All human beings, therefore, will grow beautiful, or ugly, as
-they grow wise and good, or the opposite. The poor Swiss
maidens, and the peasant women of Europe generally, have
little control over their destiny. But ye who have life at your
command, and would be beautiful and attractive, learn the
only true way i
Women work in the fields, but, not only this, cows drag
the plough. So it is with the feminine gender of both man
and brute. I pitied the poor motherly cow. I contrasted her
condition with that of the cows of England and America, roving in fat pastures, and when weary with cropping the grass,
lying down under the shade of tress to chew the cud, and
then in the evening quietly walking to the farmyard to give
cheerfully the treasures of her udder to the milkmaid's pail.
And the cow in Switzerland'has an ox-like appearance, just as
the women are masculine. I asked the coachman, " Why do
you work your cows?) "Oh!" said he, "oxen give no milk;
they are good for nothing but to work." " But," replied I, "your
cows do not give as much milk, nor as good."  "Yes, but it
is more profitable to work cows, for they give us some milk!"
The peasantry in Europe do not indulge much in the luxury
of butter. The Swiss get milk enough to eat with their bread,
and with that they are content. In the higher Alpine regions,
where the land is devoted to pasturage, the cows lead their
natural life, and quantities of butter and cheese are made.




120      ICE MOUNTAINIS OF  SAvoY.
The night had set in when we reached Lausanne. We
drove to the Hotel Gibbon. The house was nearly filled with
guests, so that we had to mount up several stories to find our
apartments.
One of our apartments overlooked the lake. The following morning was clear and bright. I arose and went to the
window, and threw open the shutter. What a scene burst
upon my eye! Was it enchantment, or was it reality! Was
it earth or heaven! I can never forget that moment; neither
can I describe my feelings. The beautiful lake lay beneath
me. Directly opposite, on the further shore, arose, as from
the water's edge, a wall of mountains; and mountain rose behind mountain, and over the whole was the delicate haze of
the morning like a transparent veil. I looked down the lake
towards Chamouni, and in the distance there was nothing but
clouds. I turned towards the head of the lake, and the ice
mountains of Savoy were glittering beneath the morning sun.
So clear was the atmosphere, and so huge the masses, that
they appeared just at hand. The ice mountains!  Now I
saw them for the first time. The ice mountains piled up, far
above all earthly things, in the clear heavens! I gazed in
silence. Then I turned away and walked about the room instinctively, to collect my thoughts, and arouse myself from the
stupefaction of wonder. I went back to the window-there
they were still. How glorious! how beautiful! how pure!there was no stain upon them. How deep the consciousness
that I possessed a soul, and thought, and feeling! I seemed
to spread myself over them-to embrace them-to become
one with them. God is great: the soul of man is great. O




VIEW  FROM  THE  SIGNAL.                121
Almighty Spirit! we are thy work, made after thine image;
and here without are thy stupendous works; the heavens are
thine-thou hast garnished them; the earth is thine; these
everlasting mountains are thine: we see thee in thy workswe feel the glory of thy presence.
Our first excursion was the ascent of the heights above
the town. We rode up in a carriage by a steep road.
From the platform called the Signal, that view is gained
which all travellers have celebrated. I scarcely know how
to speak of it. There are scenes which can be embellished
by description. There are scenes which appear more beautiful in a painting than in Nature. But this is not one of'
them. The effect upon my mind was similar to what I experienced in looking out of the lofty window of the hotel,
but more intense and bewildering, as it was far more extensive and magnificent. There was the same visionary splendor which had struck me at first, especially in the direction
of the ice mountains. There is nothing in the world besides
like these mountains. No one can adequately conceive of
them without seeing them. Here they appeared so near and
so distinct, that I felt their presence; not their coldness, for
that did not enter into my thought, but their vastness, their
mightiness, their purity.  They were not of the earth,
earthly; they were above the earth; man had not dwelt
upon them; they were removed fiom the region of littleness,
of vain ambition, and polluting passion. They were nearest
to the skies; the morning sun first touched them with his
light, the evening sun left his last splendor upon them.
They sometimes hid themselves in the clouds, as if to hold




122       SUBLIME AND B E AUTIF UL.
solitary communion with heaven; and when they looked
out from the clouds, it was with a countenance of light,
majesty, and purity. Sublime and beautiful! Yes, sublime
and beautiful!  Two ideas, two emotions perfectly united.
The more sublime, because at the same time beautiful;
the more beautiful, because at the same time sublime
The ideas of incomprehensible vastness and power, joined
with the ideas of harmony, purity, and grace. The majesty
of God walking in brightness; the power of God building a
throne of solid light from earth to heaven. I felt reverence
and awe, but I felt love also. At one moment my thought
said, How great is God! at the next moment my thought
said, How beautiful is God! I experienced an inexpressible
delight. I said to myself, How happy I am, that I am! I
rejoice in life! I live, I think, I feel! My soul embraces
this beautiful world!
I looked down upon the picturesque town-a fine point
in the landscape-and yet I cared not to dwell upon it.
Why should I gaze at piles of stone and brick, at spires, at
paved streets? I looked to the right; there was a green
and richly cultivated undulating country; and behind lay
the Jura. I looked down the blue lake until its curvature
hid it from my eye. Beyond the lake, mountain rose upon
mountain, until the clouds shut in the prospect. I looked
towards the head of the lake, and there was that region of
splendor I have spoken of. There the swift Rhone pours
into the lake, the same Rhone which rushes fiom it at the
lower end. The river comes from the bosom of the mountains. The lake lies at tile foot of the mountains. The




VARIETY  AND  CON'RAST'.                123
variety of objects, each striking in itself, in this landscape, is
wonderful. The variety of hues, too, which adorn it, adds
to the magical effect, perhaps constitutes that dreaminess
which hangs over it. The splendor of the ice mountains
contrasts with the dark precipices of the lower regions-like
mighty diamonds set upon a dark ground. The blue lake
contrasts with both, and appears like quiet beauty sleeping
at the feet of awful majesty. The cultivated and picturesque
country, on the Jura side of the lake, contrasts with the
wildness and grandeur of the Alpine domains on the opposite side. The Jura range contrasts with the Alpine: the
first is of a piece with what Nature does in other lands; the
second shows the triumph of her power and majesty here
The town lies upon little hills and in ravines. Here man
has erected his dwellings, and piled up and adorned one of
his beautiful cathedrals. It is a charming spot, when one
thinks of a home-that town of Lausanne. I thought I
would like to have a house there, like Gibbon, and pursue
my own quiet thoughts and studies. Then when tired of
indoor work, I would look out of my windows, walk in my
garden, and sometimes ascend these heights to take a wider
view of the lake and the mountains.  But the town so
attractive as a home, what a little thing it appears amid these
scenes. How man's feebleness contrasts with the strength
that threw up these mountains into the face of heaven!
The Cathedral of Cologne, the spire of Strasburg, what toys
they would be before these blacl precipices and these pinnacles of ice! Let not man build cathedrals or towers, or
obelisks or pyramids here; this is no place for his works.




124   WORKS OF NATURE AND  OF MAN.
Nature has forestalled him. If he build he will, indeed, add
to the variety of the landscape; but let him do his best, and
he will only serve the humble office of increasing the effect
of the might of Nature, by bringing it into contrast with his
own weakness. Build cathedrals or palaces here!  When
the avalanches fall, the mountain echoes will laugh you to
scorn. No, no; build here commodious and tasteful dwellings, if you please, but let them be unpretending. Do not
try to show your might and your pride; here the might
and majesty of the Almighty are too palpably seen. And
if you want a temple to worship in, go to the roof of your
house, or into a closet with a window open toward the
mountains; or, better still, go into some solitary place, where
the trees shut you in from human view; but where through
vistas you can see all without.  And was there ever a
grander temple built than this? Jura on one side, the Alps
on the other, green slopes of meadows and vineyards,
and the blue lake between, and the serene heavens overhead!
H-ere kneel down and pray, or muse in speechless devotion.
What mean those who talk to us about consecrated places?
This glorious world, has not God made this himself, and
consecrated it himself?
It is a human contrivance to take the beautiful world for
base uses-for mere agriculture, commerce, and ambition and
violence; and then to inclose some little spot between four walls
and call that a place of worship. Men endeavored to shut
out God from his earth and heavens, and to imprison him in
a temple where they might visit him as they pleased. When
God condescended to human weakness and permitted a




HIGH  MOtTNTAINS A-RE  A  FEELING.  125temple to be built upon Sion, it was announced that it could
not contain him. When the Son of God was upon earth
he went out into the mountains to pray.
Now that I have spoken of the Alps and all this glorious
scenery around, I feel inclined to speak of nothing else in or
about Lausanne. Just at this point, it has occurred to me to
look at the third canto of Childe Harold, and I am almost
startled as I recognize there my own thoughts and feelings.
What I have written above came from my own soul, and I
have within me the evidence that the poet uttered true words
about man and nature.
" I live not in myself, but I become
Portion of that around me; and to me
High mountains are a feeling -"
" Are not the mountains, waves, and skies, a part
Of me and of my soul, as I of them?
Is not the love of these deep in my heart
With a pure passion?"
It is this melting of the soul into the grand and beautiful
of nature, or this reception of the grand and beautiful into the
soul itself, by which we seem to become one with that without us, so that " High mountains are a feeling," that contains
the mystery and yet the explanation of all that ecstatic delight which we experience amid such scenery. The ideas of
the infinite and the beautiful within us now find their embodiment. Coleridge has expressed the same truth in his
Hymn in the Vale of Chamouni:




]26     THE  SOUL  AND  THE  INFINITE.
" O dread and silent mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.
Yet like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my thought,
Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy;
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty Vision passing-there
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!'
From the material form which in its indefinite vastness
becomes to us an expression of the infinite, the soul ascends
to the infinite itself.  In the greatness of its idea it becomes
conscious of its own greatness, and seems to clothe itself with
those majestic forms in which its idea is reflected.




IX.
Lake Lemarn-Gen e va.
(P;4,1g  the Signal, the view of the head of the lake
] is perfect. This is the grandest part of it. Is this the
scene of the thunder-storm which Byron describes? I have
thought so, since he mentions Clarens immediately after.
The rent in the mountains, where the " swift Rhone cleaves
his way," appears, however, to refer more naturally to the
wild gorge near Collouges. It is probable that he intends
to grasp the whole lake and its sublime scenery in his description. But while standing on these heights above Lausanne, although the heavens were clear and the sun shining
in his strength, the idea of a storm among these mountains
rushed into my mind, and I repeated to myself the wonderful lines:
" Far along,
From peak to peak, the rattling crags among,




128             BYRON-ROU SSEAU.
Leaps the live thunder! Not from one lone cloud,
But every mountain now hatll found a tongue,
And Jura answers, through her misty shroud,
Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud!"
The conception is very grand, and unsurpassed, if equalled,
by any similar description in human language. The storms
enthrone themselves, each on his mountain, and as if in wild
sport, "fling their thunderbolts from  hand to hand:" the
mountains roar and give out their echoes as if rejoicing o'er
the birth of an earthquake: the big rain dances to the earth:
the lightning gleams like phosphorescence over the surface of
the lake: and the Jura and the Alps from all their peaks
shout to each other. All is life: the agencies of nature
become mighty spirits; and darkness, and lightning, and
thunder, and tempest-all that is terrifying to man, is but
the stir and glee of their sport among the hills. To witness
such a storm amid such scenes were worth more than years
of ordinary dull life.
To the admirers of Rousseau this is a classic region.
Byron was one of them. His admiration of Rousseau led
him to write verses which throw a more genuine charm over
Lake Leman and its shores than any thing which Roussaau
has written. Byron's poetry is noble.  What charm is to
be found in the sentimental Sensualist, to a man of thought
and true taste, I never yet could comprehend.
The names of Rousseau, Voltaire, Gibbon, Madame de
Stael, and Byron, are all associated with the picturesque
shores of this lake. But of a1l these, Byron, by his Prisoner
of Chillon, and his third canto of Childe Harold, is the only




LAKE  LEMAN..                       129
one who has really given a lofty, tender, and classic interest
to these scenes. Together with an inimitable power of description, there is a depth and almost sacredness of sentiment
which show the better elements of his nature, and place him
very far above Jean Jacques.
The following stanzas breathe the very spirit of these
scenes. I have in my mind now a sense of the beauty which
dwells there-a beauty whose power I felt at Lausanne and
Geneva, by day and by night, and while sailing down the
lake and back again. These express it all:
"Clear placid Leman i thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwell in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing
To waft me from distraction; once I loved
Torn ocean's roar, but thy soft murmuring
Sounds sweet as if a Sister's voice reproved,
That I with stern delights should e'er have been so moved.
" It is the hush of night, and all between
Thy margin and the mountains, dusk, yet clear,
Mellowed and mingling, yet distinctly seen,
Save darkened Jura, whose capt heights appear
Precipitously steep; and drawing near,
There breathes a living fragrance from the shore,
Of flowers yet fresh with childhood; on the ear
Drops the light drip of the suspended oar,
Or chirps the grasshopper one god-night carol more;
YOL. 11.            6




130             STANZAS OF BYRON.
"He is an evening reveller, who makes
IIis life an infancy, and sings his fill;
At intervals, some bird from out the brakes
Starts into voice a moment, then is still.
There seems a floating whisper on the hill,
But that is fancy, for the starlight dews
All silently their tears of love instill,
Weeping thems6lves away, till they infuse
Deep into Nature's breast the spirit of her hues.
" Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!
If in your bright leaves we would read the fate
Of men and empires,-'tis to be forgiven,
That in our aspirations to be great,
Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state,
And claim a kindred with you; for ye are
A beauty and a mystery, and create
In us such love and reverence from afar,
That fortune, fame, power, life, have named themselves a star.
" All heaven and earth are still —though not in sleep,
But breathless as we grow when feeling most;
And silent, as we stand in thoughts too deep:All heaven and earth are still: From the high host
Of stars, to the lull'd lake and mountain coast,
All is concenter'd in a life intense,
Where not a beam, nor air, nor leaf is lost,
But hath a part of being, and a sense
Of that which is of all Creator and defence.
"Then stirs the feeling infinite, so felt
In solitude, where we are least alone;
A truth, which through our being then doth melt
And purifies from self: it is a tone,
The soul and source of music, which makes known




CONTRAST OF THE SHORES.    131
Eternal harmony, and sheds a charm,
Like to the fabled Cytherea's tone,
Binding all things with beauty:-'twould disarm
The spectre Death, had he substantial power to harm.
" Not vainly did the early Persian make
His altar the high places and the peak
Of earth-o'ergazing mountains, and thus take
A fit and unwall'd temple, there to seek
The spirit in whose honor shrines are weak,
Uprear'd of human hands. Come, and compare
Columns and idol-dwellings, Goth or Greek,
With Nature's realms of worship, earth and air,
Nor fix on fond abodes to circumscribe thy prayer!"
The stir of the feeling infinite, mingled with the feeling of
the beautiful, fed by every object which here meets the sense,
whether of earth or sky-where earth and sky are so in harmony as to appea', indeed, parts of the same world-and
these lifting up the soul to Him who is of all Creator and defence,-this expresses the emotions of every one whose mind
grows into unison with Lake Leman and the scenery in which
it lies embosomed.
In sailing down to Geneva the contrast between the northern and southern shore struck me as the source of the peculiar
charm which belongs to this lake beyond all others. The first
presents beautiful slopes mantled with vines, broad meadows,
fields of corn, smiling villages and enchanting country-seats;
the other is a scene of mountains rising above mountains, in
some places starting from the water's edge, in others leaving
a narrow margin witlh fields and villages, until you approach




132         MONT  BLANC-GENEVA.
Geneva, where the hills settle away as if to reveal the full glories of Mont Blanc.
The day we sailed down the lake, Mont Blanc and the
other ice peaks were lost in the clouds, except at one point
where, through a gorge of the adjacent hills, we caught a view
for a few minutes, of the snowy crown of the king of mountains. At first I was not certain whether it was the loftiest
mass of clouds or the mountain itself, and I turned to a gentleman and asked, "Is that Mont Blanc?"  " Yes," said he,
"that is Mont Blanc."  And then I noticed that it glittered
in the sunbeams as clouds never glitter. There it was above
the clouds of heaven-nothing of it visible but that one shining peak above the hills and mountains, above the highest
clouds, piercing the azure arch of the sky, looking down upon
all earthly things, and seeming to thrust itself into the very
path of the sun.
The country near Geneva is one succession of villas beautifully situated, embowered in trees, and all looking out upon
Mont Blanc. The appearance of the town itself, upon approaching it from the lake, is quite imposing. One portion
of it called the upper town, and where are generally to be
found the residences of the aristocracy, is situated upon eminences of a considerable elevation, and shows proudly in the
distance. The lower town is composed of narrow streets, with
lofty houses, and is the seat of trade. The hotels, stores, and
dwellings on the Quai, and particularly in the Quartier des
Bergues, are new and elegant. The town lies on the two
banks of the Rhone, which are connected by bridges; and just
where the river shoQts Qot of the lake is a long bridge span



DUKE OF SAVOY AND BONNIVARD. 133
ning the lower point of the lake, and resting midway upon a
little island. The approach to Geneva, and the entrance from
the western side, give the most pleasing impressions. These
are not diminished upon a further acquaintance with it, although it contains no peculiar objects of interest. It is, in
itself, a pretty town, and the situation and the environs are so
beautiful, and the whole region of the lake so magnificent,
that Geneva can never want attractions.
Geneva is a small state: but although it fills only a little
place on the map of Europe, it fills a large place in the history
of civilization and religion. The whole canton, in its greatest
length, is less than twenty miles, and contains some sixty
thousand inhabitants, of which the city contains about the
half.
The republic of Geneva had its origin in the municipal
government of the city. A prince bishop, as a feudatory of
the empire, was the chief magistrate until the Reformation
drove him away. The House of Savoy also claimed supreme
authority, as derived from the counts of Genevois, a line which
became extinct in the fourteenth century. It was in defending the rights of Geneva against the Duke of Savoy, that the
patriot Bonnivard became a prisoner in Chillon for six years,
from 1530 to 1536.
The Genevese finally triumphed, and the man who had
been chained to a pillar in the dungeon for so many years,
and whose solitary tread had worn a path in the pavement,
was released with acclamations. He came forth to see Geneva
free and reformed. At his death he gave his library to the
Republic, and made it the heir of all his goods on condition




134   PRISONER  OF CHILLON-CALVIN
of founding therewith a college after a plan which he himself
had projected. His library, which contained many rare editions of the classics, became the foundation of the public
library which now contains forty or fifty thousand volumes.
Bonnivard did not suggest to Byron the theme of his poem.
He remarks in a preface, "When this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavored to dignify the subject
by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues."
With respect to a poem so perfect and so beautiful, it is
difficult to regret any thing; but, if any thing is to be regretted, it surely is that Byron was not acquainted with the
history of Bonnivard when he wrote the Prisoner of Chillon.
He could not have made a more affecting picture of suffering, but he might have infused an element of historic heroism, and celebrated in his immortal verse a man who deserved
so much of his country and of mankind.
Geneva has produced a host of distinguished men in theology, science, and letters, whose names are familiar to the world.
It is remarkable how pre-eminent the name of Calvin stands
among them all. Whatever amount of severe criticism may
be passed upon him, there is the fact, that this man-a poor
man, who lived poor and died poor, and with no other source
of authority than what was found in his writings, his preaching, and his conversation-simply the authority of mind, did
virtually govern Geneva both civilly and ecclesiastically; was
a terror to the Roman Catholic church, and a tower of
strength to the Reformers; was honored as a great authority
in theology by the most eminent men of his own day, and




CALVIN  AND  HIS  ENEMIES.'135
has been honored as such by multitudes in every subsequent
age; and is at this day a great and venerable name in the
most free and enlightened nations of the world. No one can
doubt his intellect and scholarship, no aspersion canl be
thrown upon the purity of his life. When his enemies speak
against him, they assail his doctrines; but these are to be refuted by argument and not by personal abuse. Or, they ridicule
his sumptuary laws, and inveigh against the tyranny of his laws
for the regulation of public morals. This is the man, say they,
who limited ten persons to five dishes, interdicted plush
breeches, rebuked from the pulpit those who violated the
Sabbath, punished adultery with death, and exposed the
gamester in a pillory with a pack of cards tied around his
neck! But, this is a question of legislation which must be
judged of relatively to the times and occasions; and, was the
state strengthened or weakened, at a time when it could afford
to lose no strength, by laws which enforced frugality and
morality? Did any good citizen feel the pressure of these
laws? When every thing else would fail, the case of Servetus is adduced. Now, God forbid that any one should
ever justify the burning of Servetus: but do not insist that
Calvin, to be a good man at all, must be in all things beyond
the age in which he lived. Remember, that neither in his
own age, nor in the subsequent age, did his worst enemies
lay this to his charge; that Servetus had already been condemned by a Roman Catholic government under a similar
accusation, and would have met the same death had he not
fled; and that his condemnation at Geneva was under an
existing law of the state. The principle of religious tolera



136              T I _u   RE F ORMERS.
tion, and of the separation of the church and the state, had to
be vindicated afterwards.  The sun of a glorious day had
arisen, but it was still shorn of its beams by the mists of the
morning.  And it is just in this way that I would judge of
Calvin and all the Reformers: compare them with the men
of their own age, and they are immeasurably ahead of them
in light and freedom; but the very fact that they were at
the beginning of a great movement, that they were at the
point where mankind were just emerging from the darkness
of ages, is a reason why they should not be an absolute authority to us. Calvin, could he reappear, would not be the
same man in our day that he was in his own.  H-ow stolid
are we, if with centuries of experience, and with new light,
we make no advances upon them i Those are not the true
followers of the Reformers who shut up the free thoughts of
their own minds, and have only wit enough to repeat verbatim  the words which were spoken centuries ago; those,
rather, are their true followers, who imbibe their fearless spirit of inquiry, and who dare to differ from them, for sufficient
reasons, as they dared to differ from the learned and mighty
hierarchs around them, and from  all the tomed fathers, if
need be.
Calvin gave out a certain theology according to his philosophy and criticism.  Why should not a thinker now, as
well as in past times, fiame a theology, by a philosophy and
criticism, perhaps, more fully developed and perfected?
There is one fact worthy of notice in the history of Calvinism;-it has been the creed of the heroes and martyrs of
fieedom. This is to be explained by a cardinal element of




CREED  OF  HEROES  AND  MARTYR~S.  1 37
this creed-the absolute sovereignty of God, resulting filom
the doctrine of absolute divine decrees.
This doctrine, as expounded by Calvin, appears to us,
when carried out to its logical consequences, to annihilate
the human will, and to introduce a system  of pantheism.
But the Calvinists have, by no means, carried it out to its
logical consequences; but they have employecl it in a practical way to set forth the sovereignty of God-a doctrine, unquestionably, fundamental to all true religion.  Thus divine
sovereignty became Nwith them  an all pervading idea-it
pervaded their preaching, their hymns and their prayers, and
was fraimed into a test of their religious experience. But the
men who botw  to an authority so holy and august, who were
penetrated by the sentiment that God governs all things in
heaven and earth, and that it is the first duty of the human
being to merge his own will into the Divine will-these were
not the men tamely to submit to any human priest or despot.
The very passivity with which they yielded to a Divine
authority, became a most energetic activity against the pretensions of any other authority. The government of God over
them was the government of the Infinite-and of truth, justice
and love, as attributes of the Infinite-the Lord God was lord
of their conscience; how contemptible must the authority of
popes and kings have appeared to them when attempted to be
exercised over the conscience 1
The doctrine of Divine sovereignty is not indeed exclusively appropriated by Calvin's view of the Divine decrees:
that sovereignty really appears more exalted when exercised
over beings of perfect freedom of will. But the extreme doevort. I[       6*




138        FRI E N DS-SIcK  SERVANT.
trine of the great Reformer was calculated to fix the mind
upon it with great intensity, and to signalize it as the distinctive feature of his creed.
Our estimate of Calvin, therefore, would lead us to give
him a very exalted place among the great and good men who
have devoted themselves to the propagation of truth and
righteousness, while claiming for ourselves that same fireedoln
of opinion for which they were ready to suffer and to die.
The hotel des Bergues is a very large building, occupying
a fine and commanding site. It has the reputation of being
the best hotel in Geneva. I am inclined to think it is reposing somewhat upon its reputation.  I have no doubt there
are other hotels as good, if not preferable. Here we found a
party of friends from  Savannah, Georgia, who had sailed a
fortnight before us. We had been on their track for some
days, and we were most happy to come up with them at
last.
They had been detained by the sickness of a colored manservant. Instances of cruelty to slaves are very apt to be recorded. But are we equally forward to record instances of
kindness? Here was one worthy to be noticed. This man
had been sick with.a southern fever before he left home, and
was in a very delicate state of health in consequence of it.
His owner took him abroad purely on account of his health.
Eiis services were not needed, and he was not in a condition
to render any important services. At Lausanne he had been
attacked again with fever. He appeared to be convalescing,
and they removed to Geneva. Here he experienced a relapse
and became very ill. The best physician was called in, and a




A       )ISAPPOI N T   E N T.         139
nurse provided. The qualities of the nurse were not satisfactory; and the two ladies of the party, who were strictly
southern ladies of refined breeding and habits, devoted thenmselves to their sick servant, day and night, and performed for
him all the tender offices which sisters could perform for a
brother. His disease was subdued, and when we arrived, he
was just beginning again to move about. We travelled together in Switzerland for a month, and during this time I observed this colored servant treated with all the kindness and
consideration that could be bestowed upon any human being.
We found our friends making preparations to start for
Chamouni the next morning. We accordingly engaged a
carriage to accompany them. The excursion cannot be made
in less than three days, two of which are occupied in going
and returning.  Early in the morning our fiiends set off; but
two of our party being decidedly on the sick list, we were
compelled to remain behind. In the end, we regretted this
less as we had glorious views of Mont Blanc from Genevamore glorious, it is said, than can be gained at the foot of the
mountain itself, where the proximity prevents the eye from
taking in the whole outline. The valley of the Grindelwaldl,
too, which I shall notice hereafter, compensated us for the
loss of Chamouni. By many the former is preferred to the
latter.  I find Lord Byron among this number.  In one of
his letters he writes:-" We have been to the Grindelwald
and the Jungfrau, and stood on the summit of the Wengen
Alp; and seen torrents 900 feet in fall, and glaciers of all
dimensions; we have heard shepherds' pipes and avalanches,
and looked on the clouds foaming up from the valleys below




140           DOL C E  F A   NlN   T E
us like the spray of the ocean of hlell.  Chamouni, and that
which it inherits, we saw a month ago; but, though Mont
Blanc is highel, it is not equal in wildness to the Jungfirau,
the Eighers, the Shreckhorn, and the Rose Glaciers. Besides
this, I have been all over the Bernese Alps and their lakes,
and think many of the scenes —some of which were not those
usually visited by the English —fner than Chamlouni."
We left the hotel, and procured lodgings about a mile
fiom the town, in a most delightful and quiet spot. The
building is surrounded with fine grounds and trees, and was
once a chateau. It is kept by a Mr. Argand, whose wife
is an English woman, and one of the neatest and kindest
beings in the world. It is much resorted to by the English.
The situation commands a view of the town, the lake, the
country beyond, and the Alps.  Our window opened towards
the Alps. HIere we remained five or six days, driving out,
walking, or lounging under the trees enjoying the dolce far
niente,
The weather was clear, the air soft and temperate, and
heaven and earth full of cheerfulness. Every night the sun
cast his last rays upon the ice mountains in full view  and
vwhen he went down, they pierced the heavens-as Coleridge
hath it-like a wedge, an ebon mass, the kingly Mont Blanc,
towering above them all. In the morning there were clouds
about them, and they were indistinct, until the sun got up
into the heavens, and then through the bright day they were
pure silvery masses. But when the sun got low in the
western horizon, they would take those pink and roseate hues
which made them appear of such marvellous beauty, that one




SUNSET  AND  MONT BLANC.                141
might have fancied theml the stately gates of heaven, before
which the angels were singing evening hymns.
But there was one evening of all others, which I can
never forget, when Mont Blanc came into view with a distinctness, magnitude, majesty and beauty, which even by the
inhabitants was regarded as a rare vision. The atmosphere,
I suppose, must have been remarkably fiee from humidity,
and exceedingly transparent. Mont Blanc seemed to lie just
behind the hill beyond the lake, so near, that one ignorant of
the real distance might have imagined that a short ride would
bring him to the foot of it. The whole mass of the mountain
appeared to rest against the face of heaven, as if it were
some great barrier placed there before an opening. Or, it appeared like some vast substance just floated out of the skies,
and resting upon the earth while its top was yet in the azure
arch. It was a thing more of heaven than earth. It was too
glorious and beautiful to belong to earth. There was nothing
earthly about it. The hues changed as the sun descended
lower and lower, but a most delicate rose-tint predominated.
At least, this hue is more distinctly in my imagination than
any other, and therefore it must have lasted longer. On the
side of the mountain there was a deep bosom like a sloping
plain, on which it would have appeared natural if myriads of
happy beings in shlining garments had been trooping up and
down. And from this plain the high peak of the mountain
shot up as if forming a connection between earth and heaven..
It did not appear to me a thing of ice and snow; it had a
warm, sunny look. It was as grateful to the eye as the soft
golden clouds which lie on the western horizon at the close of




142     T H E ARVE AND TI E RHONE.
a summer day. It was something one could never tire of
gazing at: it fed the eye with harmonies of colors. The only
fear was that night would come too soon and throw her dark
veil over it. It was worth the whole journey to Switzerland
to see. Now that I have seen it, I have in my mind an
image of sublimity, glory, and beauty which Was never there
before, and which I could have got in no other land. How
rich I am in this possession! But how is the conception to
be conveyed to him who has not seen it. No painter can
paint it, because he cannot convey the magnitude by any
witchery of his art; no poet can sing it, for how can he put
the colors of heaven into his verse? What image my words
may call up in the mind of another I cannot tell. The best
effect will be if I shall induce him to go and see for himself.
It is a pleasant walk from Aux Charmilles, the name of
our chateau, to Chatellaine, on the right bank of the Rhone.
The bank here is very high and steep; and from a little platform, with a railing about it, you look down upon the junction
of the Arve with the Rhone. The Rhone empties into the
upper end of the lake a muddy stream; it shoots out of the
lower end purified, and blue as indigo. The Arve, turbulent
and furious, comes rushing down from Chamouni as muddy
as the upper Rhone. When it joins the blue Rhone, the two
rivers, for a considerable distance, flow side by side-the muddy
Arve along one bank, the blue Rhone along the other, until
at length they are commingled, and the Rhone flows on a turbid.stream to the sea.
There was a captain of the British navy lodging with his
family at the same house with us, very intelligent and very




A  PLEASANT AN C IORAGE.                143
social. He had been knocking about the ocean for many years
at the equator and the poles, and had seen abundance of icebergs in his day. He never went to Chamouni, nor to the
Grindelwald. He said he had had his fill of adventures and
grand sights, and enjoyed now his quiet anchorage more than
any thing else. It was natural for him to feel as he did. Hie
was right in his way. But to him whose life has been too
much of an anchorage, motion is delight. An anchorage at
Geneva, however, could not be regarded as an ordinary affair.
One cannot help seeing grand sights there. Much was yet
to be seen; but we all felt no little regret in leaving the old
chateau and its kind entertainment, the environs of Geneva,
the placid lake, and the sunlit face of the mountain king.




JIo r a t.- Av c 2n tic  Un.  --- SIv i Is s
Con/cl der at i osn.
k~~)~3<i iGeneva we returned to Lausanne by the steamer.
From  Lausanne we went to Berne. Our party now
consisted of six persons besides George, the colored man.
We stopped for the night at Payerne, and the next morning
proceeded to Berne.
Our route from  Neuchatel to Lausanne lay on the Jura
side of the lake of Neuchatel. Our route from Lausanne to:Berne lay on the Alpine side of the same lake, close by the
small lake of Morat, which is separated from the former lake
by a narrow strip of land. Berne is thus east of Neuchatel,
and nearly on a line with it.
At Morat the battle-field is indicated by a granite obelisk,
bearing an inscription and the date, 1822. It is erected on
the very spot where the ossuary stood in which, for three hun



BATTLE  OF  MORAT.                   145
dred years, the bones of the slain had been preserved as a
monument, in like manner with Dornach. The Burgundians
had, for ages, been accustomed, when passing this way, to
carry off some of the bones to their own country; and postilions had purloined them for knife handles. In 1798, the
Burgundian legion in the French army destroyed the ossuary
to efface the memory of the defeat of their forefathers. The
bones which remained were, in 1822, buried under the obelisk.
At Morat the defeat of Granson was repeated, only it was
more dreadful and fatal. When the Duke of Burgundy heard
of the approach of the Swiss, he left his entrenchments and
marched out upon the narrow level on the borders of the lake,
prompted by that wild and gallant spirit which characterized
him. The Swiss covered the heights above. The men of
Uri and Unterwalden sounded their horns, and the whole mass
came down upon the Burgundians like an avalanche. They
overran the cannon, and leaped upon mailed knights and menat-arms. The Burgundians, crowded together in the narrow
pass, were crushed like insects, or driven into the lake. Fifteen thousand were left dead upon the field; thousands perished in the lake; a few succeeded in swimming the lake and
escaped by NeuchAtel. The bold Charles never recovered
from the effects of this defeat. The battle of Nancy next followed, in which he lost his life.
" While Waterloo with Cannae's carnage vies,
Morat and Marathon twin names shallistand;
They were true glory's stainless victories,
Won by the unambitious heart and hand
Of a proud, brotherly, and civic band."




146     AVENTICUM —JULIA  ALPINULA.
Morat lies near the upper end of the lake. Avencles,
the Roman Aventicum, is situated near the lower end. The
ancient walls can yet be traced for four miles, which extended
to a circumference of six miles when the city under the
Roman rule was the capital of Helvetia.
When the legions of Germany, A. D. 69, proclaimed
Vitellius, the Hielvetians, not yet acquainted with the murder
of Galba, stood forth in his defence.  Caecina, the legate,
routed their forces with prodigious slaughter. Aventicum
offered to surrender, and sued for mercy.  Coecina gave sentence of death against the principal inhabitants. Among the
rest was one Julius Alpinus, who had a daughter named after
himself Julia Alpinula, a priestess of the goddess Aventia, the
tutelary divinity of the city. She interceded for her father.
CQecina would not relent, and the father was executed. The
daughter died soon after of a broken heart;
" And then-oh! sweet and sacred be the nameJulia-the daughter, the devoted-gave
Her youth to Heaven; her heart, beneath a claim
Nearest to Heaven's, broke o'er a father's grave."
The story is gathered from  the following sepulchral inscription, found many centuries after among the ruins of
Aventicum:
Julia Apinulac: Hic Jaceo.  Infelicis patris infelix
proles,  Dece Aventice Sacerdos.  Exorare patris necem
non potui: Male mori in fatis illi erat. Vixi annos XXIII.
Morat and Aventicum are two great historical monuments.
The modern history and the ancient stand here side by side.




EARLY  STATE  OF THE  COUNTRY.  147
Until the fifth century the Roman power prevailed, with the
exception of the central valleys, where a rude independence
was maintained. At the breaking up of the Roman Empire,
Helvetia was divided between the Burgundians, who came
from the shores of the Baltic, and the Alemanni who had
planted themselves on the banks of the Rhine. Then Clovis
the king of the Franks conquered the Alemanni, and gained
possession of the greater part of Helvetia. New races thus
rooted out or mingled with the natives and destroyed the
Roman civilization. Under the successors of Charlemagne,
the feudal system was established in Helvetia.
In the eleventh century, the whole country was annexed
to the German Empire. The Suabian house of Zahringen
now governed Helvetia as a feudatory of the Empire. This
continued until the line became extinct in the thirteenth century. Next, the country was governed by various counts, of
whom the principal were the Counts of Savoy, Neuchatel and
Toggenburg.
In 1264, Rudolf of Habsburg became the most powerful
noble in Helvetia, and nine years afterwards was elected
emperor. Here begins the house of Habsburg. We passed
the ruins of the ancient castle of this House on the route between Basle and Zurich.
After the death of Rudolf, his son Albert attempted to
annex the free towns and states of Helvetia to the patrimonial
domains of Habsburg. Now commenced the great struggle
for Swiss freedom.
In the vicinity of the lake of Lucerne is a wild and mountainous region, divided into the three cantons of Uri, Unter



148           THE  WALDSTATTER.
walden, and Schwyz, called, collectively, the Waldst'tter or
Forest Cantons. These cantons had been free from time
immemorial. It is probable the Romans never subdued them.
They were now under the protection of the German Empire.
They therefore acknowledged the Emrperor, but they refused
to acknowledge Albert as patrimonial Duke; and demanded
the imperial, and not ducal judges, to be sent to administer
justice. Albert sent them as imperial judges two noblemen,
creatures of his own-Gessler and Beringur. Ministers of
justice by name, these men were guilty of the grossest acts
of injustice and oppression.
Then Werner Stauffacher of Schwyz, Arnold Von Melchthal in Unterwalden, and Walter Furst of Uri, conspired for
the deliverance of their country. In a small green meadow
on a ledge at the foot of a precipice, the spot called the
Grfitli is still pointed out, where the three confederates took
their solemn oath. The story of Tell, who slew Gessler, is told
at every fireside. Soon the whole Waldstatter was in a state
of insurrection. The officers of Albert were driven out, and
their houses razed to the ground; but by a noble and humane forbearance, they were expelled without personal injury.
It was an insurrection without bloodshed. Albert, while on
the point of marching in person to avenge himself on the
Waldstatter, was assassinated by his nephew.
Seven years after this, his son Leopold was defeated at
the battle of Morgarten, by the people of the Waldstatter.
The three Forest Cantons now formed a federal union, and
the inhabitants henceforth go under the name of Schwyzers.
Hence are derived the names Swiss and Switzerland, wlhich




TRIUMPrHS OF THE  SWIss.               149
are now applied to the people and country at large. These
Cantons constituted the grand centre of the Swiss confederation.
In 1332, Lucerne withdrew from the House of Habsburg,
and joined the confederation.
The feudal nobles after this entered into a league against
Berne. The Bernese led on by Rudolf Von Erlach gained a
decisive victory at Laupen. A bronze statue of the hero with
a suitable inscription adorns the open space in front of the
cathedral. The duke of Austria was again defeated by the
inhabitants of Zurich. Successively, Zurich, Glarus, Zug and
Berne joined the confederation. There were now eight independent cantons, and a federal Diet or Congress was appointed
in 1352. In 1375, the Bernese defeated the army of the
French adventurer, De Coucy, at Frauenbrunnen. In 1386,
the men of Lucerne gained the victory of Sempach over the
Austrians, where Leopold II. was slain. Two years afterwards
the Austrians were again defeated at Nafels. This was followed by a truce of twenty years with the Swiss. The Swiss
extended their possessions by purchase and conquest. The
Canton of Appenzell next revolted against the Abbot of St.
Gall. During the fifteenth century, the Valais revolt and
join the confederation; the people of Rhavtia revolt against
their feudal lords, and form the league called the Graubund;
the battle of St. Jacob is fought with the Dauphin of France;
Austria, in another war, loses all her possessions except the
town of Winterthur, which she mortgages to Zurich; the victories of Granson and Morat are won over Charles the Bold;
the Swiss defeat the Milanese at Giornico; and the Empe



150           POPULAR  FR E E DOM.
ror Maximilian is finally defeated in the Tyrol and at Dornach.
This ends the wars of the Swiss for their independence. In
the mean time several other cantons join the confederation.
It is a remarkable history. These men fighting for liberty
were uniformly victorious, and that, too, over the most splendid armies of Europe. -While the rest of Europe was subjugated, they threw off feudalism and monarchy, and vindicated
the capacity of the people for self-government.
They are a hardy and warlike race by nature; and the
face of their country —its mountains, lakes, and rocky passes
— gave them great advantages over invaders: but they, probably, are not superior to other nations of Europe in native
intelligence and social and moral capabilities. Their love of
liberty grew by conflict, and their national dignity and selfrespect by victory and success. And this formed their superiority. The misfortune of the people of Europe in general
is, that they cannot win for themselves the opportunity of
making that experiment of free institutions which the Swiss
won under the peculiar circumstances which favored their
struggle. And when an occasional outbreak takes place, or
a revolution is attempted, and the people are defeated by
organized force and diplomacy, the cry is the people are not
yet prepared for free institutions. But'when will they be
prepared? and by what discipline is this preparation to be
made?
The Swiss were prepared five hundred years ago. The
Swiss have been a free people for five hundred years.
The introduction of the Reformation into Switzerland led
to civil commotions. The Roman Catholic and Reformed




Swiss  CANTONS.                   151
cantons made war upon each other. From  1531 to 1712
there were three religious wars. It was a struggle for fieedom of conscience. In the end the great cause was won.
Religious toleration was added to civil liberty.
There are now twenty-three cantons in the Swiss confederation.  Of these seven are Roman Catholic, namely,
Lucerne, Uri, Schweitz, Unterwalden, Zug, Tesino, and Valais. In the remaining sixteen the Protestants are greatly in
the majority. Of the entire population the Protestants constitute about two-thirds. Nearly two-thirds of the population
also speak the German language.
Under the French Republic, Switzerland was overrun by
the French. Bonaparte, by his act of mediation, constituted
the Swiss confederation of nineteen cantons under the protection of France, and annexed Geneva, Neuchatel, and Valais
to France. The allied powers at the Congress of Vienna,
restored Switzerland to its ancient limits.
In the Waldstatter the purest democracy has always
prevailed. Here the entire male population constitutes the
popular assembly. In most of the larger cantons representation had been based upon property. Twenty years ago universal suffi.age was introduced. The city of Basil made a
strong opposition, and finally separated fiom the country district and became a distinct canton.
The confederation, as it now exists, assembles a Diet at
least once a year, by turns, in Berne, Lucerne, and Zurich.
The Diet has power to declare war, to make peace, to enter
into alliances with foreign powers, and to appoint foreign
ministers and consuls. All difficulties between the particu



152       GOVERNMENT- P  OSPERITY.
lar cantons are settled by the Diet. Each canton casts a
single vote.  A simple majority decides all questions except
those of war, and peace, and foreign alliances, when threefourths is required. The deputies cast their votes according to the instructions of their constituents. A council, together with a chancellor and secretary, is appointed by the
Diet, fiom the canton in which it meets for the year, to carry
out its resolutions. This council is called the Vorort.  On
the demand of five cantons the Vorort has power to convene
an extraordinary Diet.
This is the general constitution of Switzerland. It will
be seen that it is highly democratic. The Almighty, who
has reared its enormous mountains, has made them  the fastnesses of civil and religious freedom in the midst of surrounding despotisms.
God and nature have secured it against foreign intervention
beyond all other European countries.  Switzerland is a standing proof of what the people can do for themselves when let
alone by priests and despots.
And Switzerland is in evelry respect a prosperous country.
Its husbandry resembles that of England. Every spot capable
of cultivation is made productive: and where the plough and
the sickle cannot reach, the green pastures sustain innumerable flocks and herds. It is filled with fine towns, villages, and
country habitations. No country has better roads. It has
also arts, manufactures, and commerce. And, finally, it is
distinguished for its literary institutions and for men of learning.
The remark is frequently made that the Swiss have de



Swiss  CHARACTER.                     153
generated from their ancient virtue, under the influence of
French manners, and the cupidity awakened and fostered
by the influx of travellers. The remark is just, to a certain
extent. But it must be recollected that travellers fall in with
the worst specimens of Swiss character. Hotel-keepers and
all their dependents, persons who keep carriages and horses
for hire, watchmakers and jewellers, and the whole tribe of
small traders, are the individuals with whom travellers are
continually brought into contact. It is not strange that those
who make it a business to impose upon travellers as far as possible, if taken as representatives of Swiss character, should
lead to very unfavorable conclusions. But it is to be hoped
that Switzerland, as well as other countries, would present
very different forms of character in those classes which the ordinary traveller never meets with.  The extraordinary scenery
of Switzerland attracts to it more visitors than any other country in the world, who spread themselves through every part of
it. It is natural, therefore, that many persons should everywhere
be on the lookout to earn money by their services.  Travellers
are themselves very much to blame for the lying and cheating
of which they complain. The wish to appear rich is a pernicious vanity, and reckless expenditure encourages extortion.
I soon found it necessary to examine the hotel bills carefully,
and frequently detected errors made to my own disadvantage; but I never had any difficulty in getting them corrected
by calmly pointing them out.
The practice of begging is obviously owing to injudicious
giving. Well-clad children rush out of comfortable chalets,
And hold out their hands for alms. They are by no means
VOL. II.            7




154        I N J U D I CIOU    TRAVELLERS.
objects of charity, but they must be successful in their applications on some occasions, or they would not continue them.
If travellers will give where they ought not, merely to show
their indifference of their pence, decent children will be degraded to beggars.
Guides, postillions, and persons of like character, whom I
had occasion to employ, were always civil, obliging, and faithful.  Except where there were fixed rates, they always had
an asking and a taking price: but this is human nature every
where.
My conclusion, therefore, is, that the cupidity, lying, and
cheating of the Swiss are only what might be expected under
the circumstances; and that travellers have it very much in
their own power to restrain and correct them in these vices.
I do not believe their national character is lost. They
have still a hardy and brave peasantry, who, when the occasion comes, will show the ancient virtue of Granson, Morat,
and Dornach.  That they have, too, cultivated classes, and
not a few distinguished and good men, is unquestionable.
The history of Switzerland, no less than its scenery, is
Alpine. Such a history is a constant inspiration to a people.
"The high, the mountain-majesty of worth
Should be, and shall, survivor of its woe,
And from its immortality look forth
In the sun's face, like yonder Alpine snow,
Imperishably pure beyond all things below."




XI.
T7e   Ob erlan d.
(~      approaching Berne, we gained our first view of the
OBERLAND-highlands-or Bernese Alps.  The road
passes over a considerable elevation.  The day being unclouded, with a transparent atmosphere, we saw the whole
range with perfect distinctness. There were no intervening
objects to interrupt the view: all the peaks rose up against
the sky in dazzling whiteness.
At Chamouni, the ice-peak is called Aiguille-needle:In the Oberland, it takes the German name of Horn, which
is the same with our English word horn, but is applied by
the Germans to mountain-peaks also.
The Wetterhorn —the peak of tempests, the Schreckhornthe peak of terror, the Finster, Aarhorn-the gloomy peak of
birds of prey, the Eigher, the Monch, the Jungfrau, and the
Blumlis Alp, all lay before us. It was a more perfect and




156         BERNE  AND  ITS  BEARS.
extensive view of the ice-peaks than we had had at Geneva.
No single mountain in this range equals Mont Blanc, but there
is no part of Alpine scenery which, taken together, produces
such a magnificent impression. This is owing to the fanciful
forms of the peaks, their brilliancy, and to the fact that, from
several points of view, one can take in the whole range at
once.
When Berchtold, the founder of Berne-so goes the tradition-laid the foundations of the city, he slew a huge bear
upon the site. Hence it was called Berne, or the Bear. The
bear is the armorial bearing of the canton, is the effigy upon
its coins, and forms the embellishment of signs, fountains,
and public buildings.  The principal fountain in the city is
surmounted by the figure of a bear in complete armor, with
a sword by his side and a banner in his paw.
In one of the ancient watchtowers there is a clock which
reminds one of the clock at Strasburg: a wooden cock claps
his wings and crows, and a procession appears in fiont of the
dial-plate; but it is a procession of bears. There& are two live
bears, also, kept at the public expense in a very pleasant place
prepared for them. Here they sit erect, good-naturedly show
their teeth with a sort of effort to laugh, and gratefully receive
gifts of cakes and apples.
Berne, besides being one of the cities in which the Swiss
Diet holds its sessions, is also the residence of the foreign
ministers. The city is built upon a promontory seventeen
hundred feet above the level of the sea. The sides are very
steep, but covered with a green sward. The houses are substantially built of stone, and rest upon arcades which form




CATHEDRAL BRIDGE-FOUNTAINS.   157
covered walks in front of the shops. There is here a Gothic
cathedral of great beauty. The principal entrance is ornamented with reliefs of the Last Judgment and of the Wise
and Foolish Virgins. Among the representations on the windows there is one which excites a smile as a poignant witticism. The Pope is grinding the four Evangelists in a mill,
whence they issue in the shape of wafers which a bishop collects in a chalice.
The Aar nearly surrounds the town. There is a noble
bridge of granite thrown over the river and the gully through
which it flows, nine hundred feet in length; the central arch
is one hundred and fifty feet wide, and ninety-three feet high.
Near the cathedral is a terrace built of solid masonry, one
hundred and eight feet high. It is a charming promenade,
particularly at sunset, when the Alps in full view are tinged
with those magical roseate hues of which I have already
spoken. All the ramparts are now converted into agreeable
walks. The most beautiful walk is the Enghe, outside the
Aarberg gate. It is an elevated terrace and looks out upon
the town and country around, with the Alps in the background.
The streets of Berne are well paved and cleanly.  Rills
of water flow through many of them. There are also numerous fountains, some with quaint ornaments.  One of these,
the Ogres fountain, has the figure of a giant devouring a
child, while his pockets and girdle are stuck full of children,
whose countenances and struggles make a most grotesque
expression of terror.




158       IN s T IT U  I-O  S — C O A C Hf MAN.
Berne has also a University and a Museum, and a Public Library containing 40,000 volumes.
Altogether it is one of the most picturesque and interesting towns in Switzerland, and must form a very agreeable
residence.
Thun is some sixteen miles distant from Berne. At Berne
we engaged two carriages. When the carriages drove up one
of them had but one horse. Some difficulty had occurred.
Without waiting for the explanation, as we had only a short
stage to make, I jumped into the one-horse carriage. The
horse was a small, black, sluggish-looking animal, and the
driver a stocky, queer little fellow. When we started, the
long and slow paces of the horse augured very unfavorably
for speed, and by the time we had reached the granite bridge
with a hill on the opposite side to ascend, I begun to insist
upon going back to get another horse. The little coachman
was very good-natured, and begged me to have patience, assuring me that the horse would go better as he grew warm and
got his joints loosened, and that he would beat the two-horse
carriage.  So, I yielded, and walked up the hill to relieve
the poor animal. When I got in again at the top of the
hill, the slouching animal began to show his mettle, and,
sure enough, we left the other carriage behind, and reached
Thun a very considerable distance ahead. This was another
illustration of the saying, not to trust to first appearances.
The little coachman, too, was a treasure in his way, full of
good humor and very talkative.
The road from Berne to Thun leads through the valley
of the Aar, and is a delightful drive. The valley presents




VALLEY  OF THE  AAR -TUN.                159
the fieshest meadows and pastures, and is filled with villages,
and picturesque Swiss dwellings, with their broad overhanging roofs. Each story has a piazza sheltered by the projection of the roof, and the stairs are on the outside fiom one
piazza to another.Beyond the valley the snowy Alps were constantly in view,
with the dark limestone mountains-the Stockhorn and the
Niesen in the foreground.
The Hotel de Bellevue, with two or three dependencies,
al beautifully situated, and surrounded by extensive walks
and gardens, and commanding a fine view of the Aar and its
valley, is the great establishment at Thun. The proprietor
has erected a neat Episcopal Chapel on the grounds for the
accommodation of the English who resort here, where service
is performed every Sabbath during the summer.
Besides this hotel there is the Pension Baumgarten, kept
by a son of the proprietor of the Hotel de Bergues, in Geneva.
The situation of the Baumgarten is equally pleasant, not far
from the Bellevue, and surrounded in like manner with gardens and walks. These hotels are outside of the town. We
selected the Baumgarten as the more quiet of the two. It is
well kept, and a favorite retreat of English families. With
two or three exceptions, besides ourselves, there were none
but English here. Among them was a clergyman and his
daughters; Colonel R, a retired Irish officer on half pay,
with his English wife, both full of good humor and pleasantry; Sir Claude W, of the East India Service, also
retired, with a young and beautiful wife; and others of respectability and agreeable manners. All were social, and




160               SNOW  STORM.
our time within doors passed cheerfully. I say within doors,
for here we were shut up for several days by a storm of rain
and sleet, which began the very night of the day we arrived.
The day had been the warmest I had experienced in Switzerland, when suddenly the wind rose and brought the storm.
The next morning the ice mountains were hidden in the
clouds, and the limestone mountains were covered with a deep
snow to a considerable distance below their summits.
We heard much of this storm a~fterwards. Several par
ties of English ladies and gentlemen were caught by it on the
Grimsel and other passes. The roads were blocked up with
snow; some struggled on waist-deep; but most were obliged
to seek the nearest refuge, until the roads were cleared by
the shovel, or trodden down by the mules.
We met some of these adventurers at Interlachen. They
appeared much elated with the dangers they bad passed
through, now that they were safely housed, particularly the
ladies. To be caught in a snow-storm on the Grimsel, or on
the Great Scheideck, was something worth remembering —
something worth relating in after years. A day in the passes
under a bright sunshine was mere romance: in a snow-storm
it became heroism.
To many Englishwomen of strong fiames and robust
health, crossing the passes appears to be the great charm of
visiting Switzerland. From the conversations I overheard in
the saloon of the hotel, I was led to suspect they were more
penetrated by the love of adventure than by the love of the
sublime and beautiful. Still I could not help admiring the
vigor and spirit which carried them through all difficulties.




INTERLACHEN - SETTING  OUT.               161
Colonel RR- and his agreeable English wife, had been
over all the passes of the Oberland. They talked of it as a
frolic, but they were not insensible to the grandeur of the
SCelnery.
By and by the snow began to disappear on the lower
ledges of the Stockhorn and the Nieser, the air grew milder,
and the sun began to show himself again. We took the
steamer for Interlachen, and sailed up the enchanting lake of
Thun. But before we had proceeded half way, the rain
poured down again, and we reached the Hotel des Alpes
only to be immured for the rest of the day. This hotel is
situated directly opposite the Valley of the Latschine, and
commands a view of the Jungfrau. In the evening the valley
was filled with mist which rolled up to the top of the mountains. Early the next morning the top of the Jungfrau peered through the clouds with the sun shining upon it. We
immediately ordered carriages for Lauterbrunnen.
The Latschine, swollen by the rains, rushed along wildly
and furiously. Two or three miles up the valley is the junction of the Black Latschine from the Valley of Grinldelwald
with the White Lfitschine from the Valley of Lauterbrunnen.
The clouds collected thick again, with occasional showers.
The appearance of the valley was grand and wild beyond
description. Our road lay on the bank of the Liitschine, at
the foot of tremendous precipices rising into the clouds and
mist. At every turn of the road, we saw torrents, in some
places pouring down steep slopes; in others, hanging like a
strip of foam against the perpendicular rock; and again,
in others, rushing down gullies, hiding themselves for a
VOL. rr.       7*




162      VALLEY  OF  THE  LUTSCHINE.'
moment beneath rocks and foliage, and then bursting out
to the light as if emerging from the bosom of the earth.
On the other side of the river, the mountains recede a
little, and precipices of rocks alternate with wooded slopes.
Up these slopes the mists rolled like billows dashing upon
the shore. The amazing walls of rock, beside which the
proudest cathedral would be but a child's toyhouse, the
huge rocks scattered about, which had toppled from the
precipices-each an old minster in itself, the torrents and
cascades, the overhanging clouds resting upon the edges
of the precipices, the boiling mist, the river raving through
the valley, the gloom that seemed to fill the air-all gave
an impression of power, majesty, and awfulness which was
like the presence of the Supernatural.  These were indeed
the forms of nature, but it required no great stretch of the
imagination to believe that mighty spirits were playing with
the elements.
At length we reached the entrance of Lauterbrunnen.
HIere the road runs between two walls of perpendicular rock,
from which the streams are every where dangling in white
foam, forming a beautiful contrast with the dark face of the
rock. These are smaller specimens of the Staubbach. Making our way up this narrow deep and dark valley where the
sun is not seen until several hours after he has risen, we
catch, at length, a view of the Staubbach-the dust stream;
we reach the hotel. I jump out of the carriage, and between
a run and a walk, hasten to the foot of the fall. By the way
are several little shops where Swiss toys are sold, every one of
which addressed me and offered their articles for sale; then




LAUTERBRUNNEN-THE  STAUBBACH.  163
beggars waylaid me; and last of all, a boy with a horn began
to blow for my edification. Good heavens! exclaimed I, do
these people think I came here to buy toys, to listen to beggars, and to be entertained with horns! And so I did like
Bunyan's Pilgrim, who put his fingers in his ears and ran
through the teasing crowd calling out Eternal life! Eternal
life! I fixed my eyes steadfastly upon the Staubbach, and
looked above the petty annoyances.
The torrent was unusually full, and falling sheer from the
precipice nine hundred feet, came down in fine spray scattered
over a wide circumference. In my eagerness to get as near
it as possible, that I might bring it between myself and the
sky, I found myself suddenly enveloped in a mist-like shower,
which soaked me thoroughly.
On the brow.of the rock, dense clouds were hanging, so
that it seemed as if the fountains of heaven were opened. It
is of wonderful beauty:-a fit place for the beautiful Witch
of the Alps to be evoked.
Looking into the valley of Lauterbrunnen higher up, the
appearance was that of a tumultuous ocean of mist and spray.
The Jungfrau was hidden; but, ever and anon, the mist and
spray gave way, and then appeared the dim outlines of mountains, and between them dark depths. It was like catching
glimpses of a sublime and mysterious immensity.
There is a wide difference between the Staubbach and
Niagara. The one, a brook falling nine hundred feet, is a
thing of beauty rather than grandeur; the other, a wide,
deep and mighty river, falling one hundred and fifty feet, is a
thing of power and sublimity as well as beauty.




164       ELEMENT  OF  THE  SUBLIME.
The Englishman Tupper-the author of Proverbial Philosophy and some other pieces, has pronounced Niagara
properly an object of beauty, and seems to doubt the applicability of the epithet sublime.  He does not in this remark
reach the true element of the sublime, which is the idea of
the Infinite.
Indefinite space and magnitude, or the exhibition of an
indefinite strength and force, whether of minde or nature, by
the very fact of surpassing our ordinary standards of measure,
call up this idea with its corresponding emotion. It is an
error into which some fall, to imagine that the sublime must
always collect around it images of wildness, terror, and destruction. These images, as representing indefinite power and
force, are connected with the sublime, but not because they
belong to wildness, terror, and destruction. Where order,
harmony, and beauty are connected with indefinite power
and force, the idea of the infinite is no less prone to be
awakened; and the emotion of the sublime is enkindled with
an undisturbed fulness.  Terror, when excessive, often subdues the sublime emotion, but beauty and order always harmonize with it, and serve to enhance it. Infinite space, infinite duration, and infinite intelligence and power displayed in
the starry heavens, are sublime without terror. And why
should not infinite power, producing order and beauty, be sublime as well as when displayed in destruction and terror?
Nay, more sublime, since now there is no conflict of emotions.
It is the immeasurable power of Niagara, " notching its centuries in th' eternal rocks," that gives it its sublimity. Its
spray and rainbows clothe it with beauty, but do not lessen




CASTLE  OF  UNSPUNNEN.                  165
the sense of amazing power.. The spray and the rainbows of the
Staubbach clothe it with beauty also; but it has not the sublimity of Niagara, because not an object awakening an equal
conception of power.
Near the entrance of the valley of the LDitschine, on an
eminence overlooking a space of green meadows, are the ruins
of the Castle of Unspunnen.  There is a story current of the
last baron of Unspunnen, how that his beautiful daughter and
only child Ida went off, clandestinely, with his enemy, the
knight Rudolph, of Zahllringen, and became his bride. And
then long years of bitter and cruel strife followed, until the
knight, taking Ida and his infant son, presented himself, unattended and unarmed, at the gates of Unspunnen.  The affection of the father was aroused by the sight of his daughter
and the infant, and his anger subdued by the confidence
which his foe reposed in his generosity.  A reconciliation followed, and the son of Rudolph was received as the heir of
Unspunnen.
But a still higher interest attaches to these ruins, from the
general belief that Byron made the castle the residence of
Manfred. It is in the very neighborhood of the Jungfiau, of
the Staubbach, and of all that wild and majestic scenery amid
which the poem is laid. And it is the only old castle there.
Its solitary position, its solemn and melancholy air, might well
attract the eye of the poet. And Manfred is the most solitary
of beings, and the poem a most solemn and melancholy poem.
Filled with grandeur and beauty, and a wonderful work of
art, I, nevertheless, never read it without feeling completely
wretched. And it seems to me to be wrung from the poet's
own heart, as if every line had cost him a pang.




166. MANFRED.
It was a strange passion of Byron to exaggerate his own
faults and to misrepresent his better qualities. He seems to
have been possessed with the belief that the world was bent on
abusing him, and in a sort of madness he helped on the
abuse. And this he did not merely by a reckless life, braving
public opinion, but by painting characters in which his own
identity was sure to be recognized, and yet distorted and
enlarged so as to make a hero of crime or of wretchedness, or
of both united.
In Manfred, this character painting upon himself attains
its highest and grandest development:-Manfred the solitary,
despising yet pitying mankind, with an intense love of the
beautiful, and that love uniting him to one being in guilt and
sadness, and ending in some mysterious crime, and a misery
like the misery of the damned; Manfred attaining to high mysterious and unlawful knowledge and power, calling upon the
fierce spirits of the elements, walking among the dizzy cliffs
of the Jungfrau, gazing at the Staubbach upon the mild
beauty of the Witch of the Alps, and then on the very summit of the Junfirau mingling with the Destinies, Nemesis
and Arimanes, and all in pursuit of forgetfulness.an. annihilation; and failing in these, calling up the dead to ask forgiveness, to inquire after her fate, to know if they are to meet
in another state, at least to hear once more her voice; and then
at last dying himself, triumphing over the spirits of hell, and
departing into the unknown world to be his own torturer, his
own hell. It is grand and terrible, second only, perhaps, to
Milton's picture of the "Archangel ruined," but more sad and
affecting. Manfred is alive to the beauty of nature, has a




MANFRED.                         167
quick sense of his own sins and wrongs, and condemns himself, in utter despair, under the consciousness of irremediable
crime.
He is a lofty nature crushed by the weight of guilt.  He
suffers extreme agony, but is calm and majestic in suffering.
In the language of the good Abbot:
" This should have been a noble creature: he
Hath all the energy which should have made
A goodly frame of glorious elements,
Had they been wisely mingled; as it is,
It is an awful chaos-light and darknessAnd mind and dust-and passions and pure thoughts
Mix'd and contending without end or order,
All dormant and destructive."
Was this a picture of Byron himself in his exaggerated
imagination of himself?  But there is one thing in which
there is no exaggeration, and that is the dark skepticism which
haunted his soul. In Manfred is. the restless spirit.of the poet
himself-believing in immortality, half believing in retribution,
confident of that retribution at least which is self-inflicted"The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts" —
With moral sensibilities for a better creed, and yet held
in the torturing grasp of doubt. "At times there is something
mournful and depressing in his skepticism; but oftener it is
of a high and solemn character, approaching to the very verge




168        THE  POW E   OF  THE  POET.
of a confiding faith.  Whatever the poet may believe, we,
his readers, always feel ourselves too much ennobled and elevated, even by his melancholy, not to be confirmed in our
own belief by the very doubts so majestically conceived and
uttered.  His skepticism, if it ever approaches to a creed,
carries with it its refutation in its grandeur."'*
Wonderful is the power of the poet when even the scenes
of the Jungfrau receive a new interest fiom his words! But
the poem grew in his mind in the midst of this scenery. The
internal mood found its apt representations in the forms without. The mind, too, has its ice-peakls, its avalanches, and its
boiling mist, "like the foam of the ocean of hell."
Plrof. Wilson.




_XII.
Ihe  Oberland  Conltinued.
~i( next morning the mist rolled up the mountains and
dissolved in air, the sun shone out bright, and the Alps
had that apparent proximity which indicates a clear atmosphere and settled weather.
We accordingly took an early start for the Grindelwald.
Unspunnen lay in the shadow of the mountains, silent and
melancholy as ever. We entered the valley of the Latschine.
Here the aspect of every thing was changed. The river and
the mountain torrents had expended some of their fury.
Most of these torrents, where they cross the line of the road
are bridged. There was one which the dayJ before we had
been compelled to ford with some apparent danger, for the
carriage was swept down several feet, and the horses staggered. To-day it was a harmless babbler. The remaining mist




170  Mo RNIN G-MOUN'  AIN  TORRENTS.
curled lightly up the mountain sides, like an offering of incense
which the mountains were paying to the serene and smiling
heavens.  The tops of the precipices were visible, and
their dark faces were softened by the cheerful light of the
morning. The tufts of foliage were bright and fresh, and
glistened with the exhaling rain-drops. The cascades hung
against the steep precipices every where like threads of light.
The birds were singing out their joy to the returning sunshine.
And the majestic Jungfrau in her virgin whiteness rose right
before us, rearing her head into the heavens, like innocence
conversing -with God. Nor only the Jungfrau, but peak after
peak burst upoIn our sight.  It was a scene of glory and
beauty, such as mine eye had never beheld before. It seemed
as if we were entering an enchanted land, or as if the doors
of paradise itself were opening to us.
We reached the junction of the Black and White LUtschine, and turning to the left, crossed a stone bridge, and
entered the valley of Grindelwald. The Liutschine was at our
right, deep in the valley, while the road wound along a ledge
of the mountain. The precipices rose on both sides to an
amazing height-several thousand feet, from  whence the
streams were descending in every imaginable form: sometimes rushing through a gully, a roaring torrent; sometimes
falling from ledge to ledge a succession of waterfalls; and
sometimes falling sheer several hundred feet, and then meeting a slope of the mountain, and curling down its side to the
bottom.  On our right, above these precipices, peered the
snow-peaks, except when we descended too far under the
shadow of the mountains.  There were meadows below, and
pasturages above us scattered over with chalets.




IDE AL WORKS OF N A TURE.                171
Nature here seems to be dealing in ideal works. Man
has his works of utility, and these are chiefly his works.
Sometimes he becomes the artist, and aims only at beautiful
and sublime expressions. The artists are the few, the useful
workers the many.  The artists, indeed, are useful workers
also, under a lofty and just estimation, for they minister to
the most exquisite and rational enjoyments, and to the highest
culture and good of human kind; while the mere useful
workers aim at the good of man the animal-a creature to
be clothed and fed. Nature is bountiful to man the animal,
but no less so to man the creature of thought and beautiful
tastes.
In ordinary scenes, we are so occupied with the harvestfields of the plains, the mines, quarries, and timber of the
mountains, and the mechanical power of the streams, that we
come to look upon nature as only the grand useful worker.
But in the valley of Grindelwald, the commonness of nature
is gone, and here, at least, she becomes the idealist-the
artist.
The road to the Glaciers takes various turns, presenting
the different peaks, which appear to be quite near, and you
are expecting every moment to come up to the foot of the
snow mountains, and you begin to wonder that what appears
to be so near should be constantly receding. Then suddenly
the road bends to the right, the scene opens, and the Lower
Glacier is directly before you-a frozen torrent pressed down
into the green meadow-and the mountains of snow stand
revealed!
Then the road descends into a hollow, and then ascends




172    GRINDENWALD-TH E  GLACIERS.
again, and the whole of the Grindelwald is presented —an
amphitheatre of Alps!  On the south side of the valley
rise the three enormous mountains-the Eigher or Giant, the
Mettenberg-above which, as from a base, rises the Schreckhorn-and the Wetterhorn.  Between these mountains, the
two glaciers crowd down their icy masses into the valley.
Above the Lower Glacier, a portion of the Mer de Glace is
seen, and beyond, the peak of the Finstel Aarhorn. On the
right, the Jungfrau towers aloft eleven thousand feet above
the valley: below her summit are the Silber-horner-the
silver peaks, which are called the breasts of the Jungfrau.
The Silber-hbrner glittered in the sunbeams, and appeared
like drifts of spotless snow.
It was about the hour of noon, and from the Mettenberg
the avalanches were falling-loosening in masses upon the
airy heights, and then scattered into snow-dust.
We visited the Lower Glacier, which is four times as large
as the Upper. After leaving the green meadow, there is a
space covered with rocks and gravel, which have been forced
down by the ice; above this is the foot of the glacier-a vast,
scragged wall of ice, in which are deep caverns in every grotesque form, with pillars of ice.  The water is constantly
dripping from the roof and trickling down the sides. It is
the melting of the glacier in the crevices which forms these
caverns. While the ice is melting at the extremity, the
pressure from above still moves down the frozen masses, so
that the advance of the glacier keeps up a wall of ice on
about the same line from  year to year.  Near the farther
edge of the glacier is an immense arch of ice quite regularly




How   THE  GLACIERS ARE  FORMED.  173
formed, and-if my memory serves me right-seventy feet
high, from under which the black Liitschine rushes into the
sunshine.
On ordinary mountains, the rains which fall are collected
into fountains and lakes, and run off in brooks and rivers. On
the Alps, the rains are turned to snow. There are no fountains
and lakes, but the whole superincumbent mass, obeying the
law of gravity, topples off the steep peaks in avalanches;
presses down into the hollows between the mountains, and
forms the Mer de Glace —the sea of ice; and the sea of ice
receiving constant accumulations and pressure from  the
heights above, urges down into the valleys and forms the
glacier. The snow obeys, in general, the same law which
the mountain streams obey. The glaciers are the grand outlets of the mountains of snow. They descend into the temperature which melts them, and their ice-caverns are the
fountains of the rivers. The sea of ice and the glacier form
one body, the latter being the extension of the former. The
surface of the glacier is broken into crevices, and covered
with pinnacles of ice, which are caused by the movement of
the glacier over an uneven surface, the melting below, and
the action of rain and sunshine above.  The appearance
is grand and terrific.  The movement of the glacier ploughs
channels in the rocks, and carries along rocks, stones, and
gravel. These channels have a peculiar appearance; and
being found in localities where glaciers no longer exist, indicate a lower temperature at some former period, when
these mighty masses made their way thlrough districts where
the fields now produce corn and wine.




174            VE R DURE-P ASS E S.
The mountains of snow and the fields of ice are fringed
with forests of fir. Next to these are green pastures dotted
every where with chalets. The verdure has that peculiar hue
which belongs to cold mountain regions, soft and moss-like.
The contrast between the ice and the green forests and pastures has a magical effect. Often on the summ{t of a seemingly inaccessible precipice a green spot appears, an oasis
amid tremendous rocks; but a chalet, and cows and goats
feeding about, show that man has found somewhere a path
to reach it, and has made it a home. No green spot is left
unappropriated.
The passes are depressions in the mountains over which
mule and foot paths, and in some instances carriage roads, as
the Simplon, and Spligen, are carried.'By ascending these
the mountains of snow are more nearly approached, you look
upon them midway of their height, you look down upon the
seas of ice and the glaciers, and into deep and awful valleys.
The summit of the pass of the Wengan Alp is more than six
thousand feet above the level of the sea. This pass leads
fiom Grindelwald to Lauterbrunnen. The Faulhorn, situated
between Grindelwald and the lake of Brienz, is more than
eight thousand feet high.  Some of these passes may be
made with perfect safety, others are attended with danger.
When the atmosphere is clear the views are described as
magnificent in the highest degree. When enveloped in mist,
or caught ii a snow-storm, there is no pleasure but that of
toil and adventure, which is probably greater in the retrospect than in the experience. The ladies of our party were
not English enough to endure the fatigue, and to meet the




DowN  THE  VALLEY-ICE-PEAK.    175
hazards; and as Mr. H-I   and myself could not well leave
them to their fate, while we went scrambling over the mountains, we concluded to defer these adventures to some other
occasion.
When I shall have made these passes I will have a story
to tell about them. Now I can conceive of nothing more
beautiful and majestic than the appearance of the Alps rising
fiom the meadows and forests of Grindelwald-pyramids and
obelisks which the hand of the Almighty hath built up. The
more you gaze upon them, the more entranced do you become. The eye and the soul dilate with the mighty and
glorious vision.
We left Grindelwald with reluctance: but we did not say
farewell for ever: we cherish the hope of re-visiting these
scenes. In descending the valley, every object was placed in
new points of view. In Switzerland there is endless variety,
arising from the changing views as well as the changing objects. In winding up and down the valleys, you seem to
carry on a mystic dance on all sides of beautiful and grand
forms;-the cliffs take every shape, the waterfalls make a
fantastic play, and the snowy tops of mountains start into view
like apparitions in the clouds to surprise you.
One of these apparitions startled me as we were approaching
the lake, on our way back to Thun. I chanced to look towards
the G(rindelwald, where the mountains had been for an hour
or two veiled in clouds, when a shining speck caught my eye,
high up in the heavens above the clouds, and as I supposed,
at first, above the tops of the Alps. The clouds opened a little more, and I perceived it was a snow-peak. I never before




176    THE  LAKE- CASTLE'OF THUN.
had such an impression of the height of the Alps. Our judgient of height, as well as of magnitude generally, is relative.
From childhood nothing has appeared so high to us beneath
the heavens as the clouds. From the place where I was, I
could not see any of the lower mountains; —I saw only a
mass of clouds, and the snow-peak above them. The comparison, therefore, was simply with the clouds themselves.
How high did it appear? The height varied with my
thought, but sometimes it seemed to occupy the elevation of
the sun, for it broke out of the clouds as the sun is often seen
to do.
While sailing on the lake down to Thun, as the sun sunk
low in the west, the whole range of the Oberland gradually
emerged from the clouds. Peak after peak sprung up into
the levelled beams of the sun, and the horizon was studded
with golden pinnacles which seamed to rise from a sea of
clouds. The shores of the lake rejoiced in the same beautiful
sunlight; and when we reached the lower end of the lake, the
Aar, as it shot from its bosom, appeared like a swift messenger hastening away to far-off lands, to tell them a story of the
lake and the mountains.
There is an old castle in Thun-some eight centuries old
— standing upon an eminence in the midst of the town-to
which you ascend by steps: and near the old tower is an old
church, with a terrace on which some yews are planted. This
terrace looks out upon the lake and the Alps. I went up
there to witness the effect of the setting sun upon the icemountains which now lay exposed to view in a clear atmosphere. It is a sight one can never grow tired of. I looked




THE  BLUMLIS  ALP.                     17
out fi'om between two young yew-trees: the old town lay at my
feet; then came the river, emelging frorm the lake above the
town, with wooded banks and beautiful country-seats scattered
along; then the lake of Thun, now dark under the shadow of.
the Niesen; then the farther shore rising into forest slopes,
and these again into limestone hills and mountains; then the
Alps, with mist at their base above the lower mountains; and
last of all, the snowy tops in the heavens, bathed in purple
and roseate sunshine.
The Blumlis Alp was nearly opposite, and as clearly defined as possible.  It is a curious formation.  It had this evening the appearance of a vast fortress with enormous square
towers, all hewn out of white marble.  I called it the Ehrenbreitstein of the Alps. But what is Ehrenbreitstein, compared
with this! I looked right into the bosom of this Alpine fortress.  The towers cast their shadows sharply into the immense court beneath.  The roseate hues of the parts exposed
to the sun, contrasted beautifully with those shadows.
When the sun had set on all other objects, his rays still
lingered on these lofty towers in rose and purple.  Gradually
these delicate hues crept up the sides of the towers, then rested
a moment on the top, while all beneath was dark, and then
were gone-like the last flash of an angel's wing, disappearing
in immensity. Truly, I exclaimed, Switzerland. is God's masterpiece!
VOyI. I. 




XIII
I6c  r n e.-  Zur i  lc    -  B  a  l bI.'( beauties of Thun and Interlachen, are celebrated.
Of the two I prefer Thun. The valley of the Aar, the
exceedingly variegated and beautiful country around, the perfect view of the Oberland which it affords, form a combination
of objects unsurpassed by any scenery in Switzerland.
Interlachen-between the lakes-is also between  the
mountains, a charming, secluded spot. It would be a perfect retirement from  the world, if the world did not here
rush in upon you. During the summer, its numerous hotels
and pensions are crowded with persons on their way to the
Alps or returning from excursions. While we were there
the mountains were so covered with mists, and we were so
deluged with rain, that I am aware I cannot do justice to it.
The morning we went to Grindelwald, however, revealed it,




A  CONCERT — RANZ DES VACHnES.   179
It is a perfect gem in its way, but it has not the variety of'
Thun: It is hemmed in by the mountains, and lies under
their shadow; while Thun, as firom an eyrie, looks out upon
them.
At length we took our departure from  the Oberland.
Our route lay towards Lucerne. The queer little fellow who
drove the little black horse from Berne to Thun, was one of
our coachmen. He had the black horse again, but matched
with another which he deemed of similar extraordinary
qualities.
Our first stage was to Lagnau, twenty miles from Thun,
where we passed the night. After tea, we were about retiring, when a loud concert of voices singing Swiss songs
came up fiom the public room below. On going down we
found a dozen men or more seated at a long table, on which
were placed some bottles of common Swiss wine, and who
were making merry after the labor of the day. Their drinking appeared moderate, and the wine was more acid than
strong. There evidently was no inebriation. At the head
of the table was seated the Corypheus, a burly, jolly fellow.
Some two or three began the song, the' rest joined in the
chorus, which was sung in that clear, musical, and ringing
falsetto peculiar to the Swiss.
At our request they sang one of the airs of the Ranz des
Vaches. This name is given to a class of melodies, of which
there are many different airs, hlaving their origin in the Alpine valleys. The name signifies a row of cows, referring to
the order in which the cows march home at the milking time,
when the shepherd calls to them through the Alpine horn.




1.80       SWIss  BED —-A   B ATTLE.
This horn is made of wood five or six feet long, and wound
around with bark.  In the Valley of the Grindelwald, girls
twelve or fifteen years old, with brown faces, bright eyes, and
hair streaming in the wind,. trotted beside our carriages, singing airs of the Ranz des Vaches as long as we kept tossing
batz to them. The singing of the girls in the open air was
wild and sweet.  Our company at the inn of Lagnau had
more stentorian voices, but they sang well and kept good
time.  Some of the songs were very pretty.  Some were
comic.  Great good humor prevailed, and they appeared to
sing from the love of it. Long after we had retired to bed
we heard the merry cloruses below.
Indeed, I felt more disposed to listen to the singers than
to go to sleep. The beds in Switzerland are a sort of square
box, always made for short men, or made on the principle
that every one must fold up his legs when he goes to sleep.
Now, being somewhat tall, and accustomed to stretch out my
legs in bed, which, I believe-the Swiss notwithstanding-is
the true principle, I very often found myself, indeed, in a box.
This night, the box was shorter than ever, and I had no relief
but to protrude my feet far, far beyond this Ptrocrustean
measure.  Wlhen my  feet grew tired  of this pendulous
condition, I placed myself diagonally; then again I tried
the folding up. system, and so I spent the night in vaili efforts
to dispose of my limbs. And all this was carried on, not on
a feather bed, but under it, for the Swiss and Germans put
the feathers above. The music was my only solace, until a
light was struck in the adjoining room, where the ladies
engaged in a battle with the fleas. This occupied the




LuCERNE.                     181
remainder of the night, and I forgot my sorrows in listening
to the uproar and exclamations of the combatants. I knew
the number of the wounded, but the number of the slain
has never been reported.
The next day we reached Lucerne before sundown. In
driving up to the Hotel de Suisses, our little coachman was
intent upon making a display: so he whipped his jaded
horses and came dashing up in fine style; but not calculating all the turns he had to make, he came very near running
into another coach, which he prevented only by a sudden
check. The spirit of his horses was gone, his whip dishonored, and with all odd expression of deep mortification on
his face he slouched up to the door.
The Hotel de Suisses-considered one of the best in
Switzerland-was thronged with travellers. We had taken
the precaution to write to Lucerne a few days before to engage apartments. We accordingly were well accommodated,
our apartments being situated to overlook the lake. Mount
Pilatus and the Righi were before us. The lake has wonderful wildness. Pilatus and the Righi were usually hidden
in the clouds.
We sailed up the lake, one day, to the bay of Uri, and
to AltoTf. The lake twists about among the mountains.
Dark and majestic are these mountains, which shut up in
their bosom the waters gathered from the melting glaciers.
Imagine the wildest and grandest mountains piled together
and covered with firs. Next imagine them to be split irregularly, making a huge fissure; and let all the mountain
streams pour into it, and then you have the lake of Lucerne.




182                  THE  LAKE.
In many places, the precipices and mountains rise abruptly
from the water: then again there are level spots of meadow at
the foot of the mountains, or scattered on their bosom like
emerald gemns.  Often you seem to be sailing right against
the mountain side, when suddenly turning a bold point of
land, a new scene opens, and other mountains rise aloft.
Schiller's Wilhelm Tell, a noble composition in itself, and
embodying a portion of history of which human nature must
ever be proud, derives an additional charm firom the scenery
of this lake.  One of.the scenes is thus described: "A meadow surrounded by forests and high rocks.  On the rocks are
paths with rails, also ladders, on which the country people
are seen descending.  In the background the lake appears,
and over it hangs a rainbow of the moon. The prospect is
closed by high mountains, behind which still higher rise the
mountains of ice. Deep night has settled upon the scene, and
only the lake and white glaciers are shining in the moonlight." And this is true to reality.
The lake is properly called the Vier-  alkdstaiter-See
the sea of the four Forest Cantons;-Lucerne, Uri, Unterwalden, and Schwyz, lie about it.  Superior to all other lakes
in the grandeur and beauty of its scenery, it is consecrated by
the associations of freedom, heroism, and virtue.
" Each cliff and headland, and green promontory,
Graven with records of the past,
Excites to hero-worship."
The river Reuss, which issues from the lake, divides Lu



KAP'ELL-BRUCKE -A  PAINTING.    183
cerne into two parts. The town commands a prospect of the
beautiful lake, of mountains, and the snowy Alps of Schwyz
and Engelberg. A summer might be spent here in excursions amid the grandest scenery of nature.
The bridges of Lucerne are numerous, and are singular
on account of the pictures which adorn them. These are
suspended against thl  timbers supporting the roof. The
Kapell-bracke, near the Hotel de Suisses, contains seventyseven pictures. In passing from the hotel to the opposite
bank you see a series of pictures taken from Swiss history:
in returning you see another series representing the acts of
St. Leger and St. Maurice, the patron saints of the town.
The church beyond this bridge is surrounded by curious
cloisters which contain a number of monumental paintings.
One of these struck me as very beautiful. There are two
figures, the one a man, the other an angel. The face of
the man is youthful, expressing reverence, faith, and goodness: the face of the angel is transcendently lovely, expressing purity, benignity, and sympathy. The human, although
pure and beautiful, belongs to a race sinfuLl and sorrowful,
and doomed to trial; the angelic tells of a being that had
never known personal sorrow and trial, had never sinned, and
had nothing to repent of, or regret-a being sympathizing
with evils not his own. What an experience that must be
which can say, I have never known sin and sorrow —I have
wept for others, but never for myself!
The monument erected to the memory of the Swiss
Guards who fell in defence of Louis XVI. is worthy of the
praise which has been bestowed upon it. It exhibits the




184    MO NUME NT-ENGLI SH  CHAPELS.
masterly conception of Thorwaldsen, and the execution, although by another artist, is not unworthy of the conception.
It is cut out of a rock in the side of a bill, and represents a
colossal lion, twenty-eight feet long and eighteen high.  The
noble animal, wounded and dying with a spear sticking in his
side, still grasps between his paws a shield bearing the fleurde-lis. The names of the officers of the Guards are inscribed
below. At the foot of the monument a basin is scooped in
the earth, which receives the water which trickles from the
rocks. The scene is solitary and quiet.
There is an old man dressed in the uniform of the Guards,
who attends upon visitors, and claims to be the last survivor
of those who escaped the massacre. He speaks French, and,
of course, is full of the story. He says he was a drummer in
the regiment, and sixteen years old when the catastrophe
took place.
Lucerne is a Roman Catholic canton. In the town, out
of more than eight thousand inhabitants, there are only some
two hundred Protestants. There is a little German Protestant
church where the English service is performed at hours when
the congregation do not occupy it. We attended this service
Sabbath morning. I have remarked the strictness with which
the English attend their own little chapels planted at the
places of principal resort in Switzerland and other parts of
Europe. In a foreign country they do not forget their religious habits nor the church of their fathers. These chapels in
Switzerland are open for the English service, only during the
travelling season. Young clergymen are generally sent to
officiate in them. Besides the stipend, which depends upon




LAKE  ZUG -       IIGH  ALBIS.          185
the voluntary contributions of the worshippers, they have the
advantage of spending a summer in the neighborhood of the
Alps.
The preacher in Lucerne was remarkable for his intonation and mannerism-faults which age and experience may
moderate, but which are not likely to be cured.
I have been struck by the tones which belong to and distinguish classes of preachers. I have observed a tone peculiar
to many of the Dissenters in England, and which is never
found among the ministers of the Established Church. The
Established Church, again, has its own stereotyped tone.
The German Lutheran clergymen have their tone; and the
German Catholic priests their sing-song monotony in opposition to it. They are all a departure from nature, and all
more or less disagreeable. I believe the effect of preaching
is very much destroyed by this. Let a man speak as he feels.
Why should he act a part? Nature is full of beautiful variety.
We get into this mouthing by overstraining nature: and then
growing tired of excess, we take up our repose in monotony.
We had had of late some disagreeable, misty days. But
the day on which we started for Zurich was clear and cool.
We took the route by the pleasant lake of Zug, and over the
High Albis.
The drive, of about thirty-three miles, was one of unalloyed pleasure. The road is carried up and down the Albis
in zigzags, and is an admirable one. The summit, over which
the road passes, is twenty-four hundred feet above the level
of the sea, and a thousand feet above the lake of Zurich.
From  this sLuminmi we looked down upon a vast l andscape
V.irn,   I,         8;




186         VTIw     FROM  THE  ALBIS.
embracing the town and lake of Zurich and the Alps. The
view is panoramic, and extends over a large portion of
Switzerland.
The lake is twenty-six miles long, and only three broad.
Its banks are green slopes, beautifully cultivated; andc so numerous are the villages, country-seats, and dwellings of various
descriptions scattered along the water and against the slopes,
that the whole appeared, from the point at which we stood,
like an immense straggling town adorned with vineyards,
gardens, and trees.
We got out of our carriages and walked some distance,
to enjoy more fully the prospect. And then when we betook
ourselves to the carriages, and drove down the Albis by the
zigzag road, we were constantly entertained by new views as
we changed our direction. We passed the battle-field where
Zwingle was killed. Then we got involved among the dwellings and country-seats on the border of the lake:  the
gardens grew more limited, the houses more clustered, and
so, by charming gradations, we found ourselves in the town
of Zurich with its fifteen thousand inhabitants.
The Hotel Baur, at which we put up, is large and elegant,
and, to our taste, the best hotel we had found in Switzerland.
On the roof is a Belvidere, fiom which you look out upon the
town, the lake, and the country. It was here that we enjoyed
again those splendid sunsets which I have already described,
and saw the Alps once more clothed in those delicate hues
which make them an unearthly vision.
The proprietor of the Baur was engaged in completing an
additional building of large dimensions on the sho-re of the




A  S.JUMMER  IN  SWITZERLAND.               187
lake. The grounds of this establishment extended to the
water's edge, and were tastefully laid out in walks, flowerbeds, and clumps of shrubbery. I then thought how delightful it would be, some future summer, to cross the Atlantic,
ascend the Rhine, make another tour through Switzerland,
and repose some weeks by the lake of Zurich. The time and
money which are wasted at Saratoga and Newport would be
sufficient to accomplish this.  How much better, instead of
returning to the city satiated and jaded with fashionable dissipation, to return from such a tour with renovated strength,
and with an imagination filled with images which can never
fade, which invigorate thought, and minister delight whenever
we recur to them I
in Switzerland, as in other parts of Europe, you hire rooms
at a hotel, ancd then dispose of your time as you please. You
may take your meals at the hotel, or elsewhere, according to
your fancy or your convenience. NQthing is compulsory but
the hire of your rooms. Here you may live with perfect retirement, freedom, and comfort.  There is in Zurich a library
of more than forty thousand volumes. The roads are perfect,
and the drives in every direction enchanting.  Or, if you are
fond of sailing and fishing —behold! the beautiful lake is before you. Do you love walking-Zurich is surrounded with
charming promenades: or, you may ascend the Albis and
walk along its brow as far as you please, growing stronger
and stronger at every step, for there is no lassitude in this air.
Or, do you wish to make wider and bolder excursions —see!
the Alps are there inviting you.  Culture, beauty, grandeur,
and the sense of health and vigor, all are here.  Inspired by




188         LIVE   WHILE  You LIVE.
these representations, d6 you say —Come, let us make up a
party and away to Zuricl? I reply, Come then; I am ready
at your call. Why breathe this hot, dusty and polluted air,
when God has made such a country as Switzerland to
breathe in?
We do not make enough of the world which God has
given us. How we waste existence in the endless pursuit of
wealth, ambition, and pleasure, imagining enjoyments neither
fitted to our nature, nor to the conditions of our being'; while
we forego the sweet influences, of the heavens above us, the
beauty of the earth spread around us, motion and breath in
the pure air freely given us, the melody of running streams,
and the happy thoughts of a mind set free from toil and care.
While we are preparing to live and enjoy, life wears out, and
a thousand enjoyments slip fiom  us never to be recalled.
Duty and enjoyment have a common principle, in that they
are not to be waited for in the future, but are to be found
under the sunshine of to-day.
How many of the beautiful towns of Switzerland are
similarly situated: Geneva, where the Rhine issues from
Lake Leman; Thun, where the Aar issues from Lake Thun;
Lucerne, where the Reuss issues from the Vier-WValdstatterSee; Constance, where the Rhine issues from the Bodensee;
and Zurich, where the Limmnat issues from  the Lake of
Zurich. The Alps, which form the splendor and majesty of
Switzerland, are the parents of all its beauty -feeding the
lakes and streams, which freshen and adorn the valleys.
Zurich, like the otlers, is agreeable as a town, and like
theln, too, derives most of the attractions presented to the




REFORMATION  TN  SWITZERLAND.   189
eye from the situation. In this land nature has done so
much, that even the best works of man are turned into
insignificance.
But Zurich has historical associations dear to fireedom
arid religion. The old banner of Zurich was the banner of
the Reformation in Switzerland; and here lived Zwinglethe hero of tliat Reformlation-one of the finest and loftiest
characters that appears in history. The cathedral in which
he preached was to me a place of the deepest interest.
Zwingle was not mcade by Luther; nor was the Reformation
in Switzerland made by the Reformation in Germany. The
man and the movement sprang from the soil, and grew in the
air of Switzerland.  There appears to be a law which governs
humnan thought and events, by which a great conception is
born in several minds at once, and men friom different quarters rush to the same point of action. Evidently, human
thought had been working to a common conclusion, for when
the Reformation began, communities and states were electrified by it. Eminent scholars in different parts of Europe
were reaching the truth by the study of the Hebrew and
Greek Scriptures; and the corruptions of the Church of Rome
had become so gross that they began to strike the common
sense of the people.
The great alnd true-hearted Zwingle was born in an
Alpine valley, two thousand feet above the lake of Zurich,
near the source of tle Thur, where his eye from infancy
looked upon the savage grandeur of rocks, glaciers, and the
mountains of snow. His father was a shepherd of many
sons and daughters; a man of uprightness, and a patriarch of
the village




190      ZWINGLE-HIs EARLY  LIFE.
The house in which Zwingle was born is still standing.
Like other rude dwellings in these mountain regions, where
the winter storms are violent, the roof is covered with large
stones to give additional security to the shingles.  I did not
make a pilgrimage there, but I have seen many such dwellings. In these mountain fastnesses we look for strength of
character, as well as strength of limb and nerve.
The boy Ulric gave indications of uncommon intelligence.
His father gave him up to the care of the Dean of Wesen,
his uncle, to be educated. In due time he was sent to the
University of Basil. From thence he went to Vienna, and
finally returned to Basil, where he finished his scholastic
studies. He became an elegant classical scholar, and well
versed in the philosophy and theology of his day.
At twrenty-two years of age he was ordained priest and
pastor of Glaris, not far from Wildhaus, his native village.
Here his talents and schorlarship drew the attention of she
Bishop of Sion, and he soon was informed that the Pope had
granted him a pension of fifty florins to aid him in his studies.
This money, accordingly, was spent in the purchase of classical and theological books.  He was now a solitary student
of the Alps.
HIis repose was disturbed by the sounds of warlike preparation; for the Swiss were g'athering under the influence of
the Bishop of Sion to join the standard of Pope Julius II. on
the plains of Italy.  Zwingle was zealously opposed to these
enlistments in foreign war. His patriotic spirit could not
bear to see the flower of the Swiss youth perish in battles in
which their country had no interest, and he lamented the




VISIT  TO  ITALY-H IS STUDIES.   191
dissolute manners which were introduced by those who returned to their native mountains. He had already published
a poem and an allegory setting forth these evils. But, as
the pastor of Glaris, he was compelled with the Landaman
to join the march.  Such was the custom.
His visit to Italy revealed to him  many abuses. On his
return, he devoted himself to the study of the Greek. " I am
resolved," so he wrote to one of his friends, "to apply myself
so closely to the Greek, that no one but God shall call me off
from that study; and this I do, not from a love of fame, but
for the sake of divine learning."  It was ever afterwards a
great principle with Zwingle, that the study of the New Testament in the original was the spring of the Reformation.
When charged with being a Lutheran, he replied, "'I am no
Lutheran, for I understood Greek before I heard the name of
Luther."  And thus he grew and ripened into a Reformer in
the solitary study of the Greek Testament, while a Catholic
pliest in an Alpine village.  This is a great and pregnant
fact, both in relation to the man and the cause. The Reformation in Switzerland began in these studies of the priest
of Glaris.
In 1515, when thirty-one years of age, he again accompanied the confederate Swiss to Italy.  He harangued the
soldiers. He preached to them before the battle of Marignan.
In this battle, so fatal to his countrymen, he stood by them.
He was a soldier and priest at the same time.  Ie clisapproved of the war, but his bold spirit would not stiffer him to
hide himself from the standard of his country.
He returned home filled with indignation at the slaughter




192         ABBEY  OF EINSIEDELN.
of the Swiss in the ambitious wars of the Pope. The ignorance, licentiousness and pride of the priesthood, were still
more apparent to him.
Now he gave himself up to expounding to the people the
Gospels and Epistles. Here was the firuit of his studies. He
did not directly attack the Church, but he preached the Gospel to the poor.
IBetween the lakes of Zurich and Wallenstadt is a naked
undulating plain, on which stands the Abbey of Einsiedeln.
In the ninth century a hermit had built his cell here, where
he was murdered by robbers. The cell was afterwards rebuilt by monks of the Order of St. Benedict, and a convent
and a church founded in honor of the Virgin.
When the Bishop of Constance and the monks were
assembled at prayers,.the night before the day appointed for
the consecration, they were startled by a heavenly chant performed by invisible beings. The next day when the Bishop
began the service of consecration, a voice cried out three
times,'" Stop! Stop! Christ himself has consecrated it."  The
music they had heard was the angelic hymn of consecration.
A bull of Pope Leo VIII. confirmed the legend and forbade
any one to doubt it. In consideration of the miracle, he
granted plenary indulgence to all who should repair to the
shrine of Our Lady of Einsiedeln. For nine centuries, pilgrims from the surrounding countries have resorted to it. Its
wealth consequently became enormous, and its Abbot, usually
selected from noble families, was made a prince of the Holy
Roman Empire with a seat in the diet.
In the chllurch of this colAnvent, Zwingle, one year after his




ZWINGLES PREA C IIING.                  193
last return from  Italy, was called to officiate as priest and
preacher. Conrad of Reiclburg, of ancient and noble descent,
was the Abbot.  He prided himself upon breeding fine
horses, and was given to hunting.  He was an honest, independent and hospitable baron, rather tlan an ascetic priest;
and averse alike to the pretensions of Rome and to scholastic
discussions.  The Baron de Geroldsek, the administrator of
the monastery, was pious and fond of learning. His great
aim  was to convert the convent into a society of learned
men.  He permitted the nuns of the nunnery of Einsiedeln
to read the_ Bible in the vulgar tongue.  He became a convert to the Reformation, and died with Zwingle in the field of
Cappel.
Zwingle soon saw all the superstition and folly of these
pilgrimages. He derived his income from the contributions
of the pilgrims, but he did not hesitate between his interest
and his duty.  Boldly did he preach to the pilgrims upon the
inefficacy of all they were doing their weary journeys, their
offerings and prayers to the Virgin, their fasts and penances"Christ alone saves us," cried he, and "Christ saves every
where."' The multitudes were astonished.  Some shrunk
away in pious horror; but greater numbers returned to their
homes proclaiming the blessed truth, that " Christ alone saves,
and saves every where." The shrine of Our Lady of Einsiedeln
was well nigh deserted.  Thus did the truth extend more and
more, the eloquence of Zwingle was blazed abroad, and the
number of his friends increased.  It is wonderful how little
opposition he, at this time, met with.  His course indeed
was eminently prudent as well as faithful, for he laid out his




194           ZWINaGLE  rIN  ZURICH.
strength in expounding the Scriptures, and in pointing out the
way of salvation.
From Einsiedeln he was called by the canons of the cathedral of Zurich, to become their preacher.  His election had
met with opposition on account of his innovating spirit. Nevertheless, he prevailed by a large majority.  When he was received by the chapter, his duties were explained to him.
These were, to collect the revenues, to exhort the people to
pay all tithes and dues, and to increase as much as possible
the income arising from visitations to the sick, and from masses
for the dead.  Without directly replying to this, he declared
that his intention was. to set before the people the life of Christ,
and that for this purpose he would begin by lecturing upon
the whole Gospel of Matthew.  "It is to the glory of God and
of Christ," said he, "and to the salvation of souls, that I desire to consecrate myself."
Here began the great work of Zwingle.  Preaching Christ
and him crucified, he overcame all opposition.  He came to
Zurich as a priest of the old religion, and was regularly inducted into the cathedral service. But he preached as the
early fathers of the church, and as the apostles preached-he
preached only the true Gospel.
What followed was a result to be expected. The people,
instructed in the Gospel, became true converts under the Gospel. Both Zwingle and his hearers were carried along by a
genial and happy current of light and love, and without violence. Whenever he was opposed, he simply appealed to
the word of God, and therefore was always victorious. Zurich
became reformed, and the doctrines of the Gospel, from thence




ZWINGLE  AS  A  POLITICIAN.                 195
as from a centre, spread far and wide. The man who had
been the instrument of so great a change could not but have
paramount influence.  By wisdom, foresight, fearlessness, and
decision, united with a clear and powerful eloquence, he was
fitted to be a leader of the people. The union of church and
state every where existed.  In a democratic state like Zurich,
how could its most distinguished citizen, while this union existed, keep aloof from state affairs?
But there were many events taking place around him
which led him, as it appears to me, unavoidably into those
political movements for which he has been blamed even by
his admirers.  The forest cantons, bigoted in their attachment
to Rome, forbade the preaching of the gospel, and in several
instances condemned the faithful servants of Christ to be beheaded or to be burnt at the stake.  They even went so far
as to form an alliance with Austria, their ancient, enemy, to
put down the reformers in Switzerland.  Then Charles V.
appeared on the stage, making the most mighty combinations
in Europe, to extinguish the Reformation.  The Protestant
states in Germany, and afterwards the states of Holland, were
compelled to unite in defence of the natural rights of opinion
and conscience.  Was it wrong in Zwingle to aim  to bling
about a similar union in Switzerland, and even to efiect a
union of all the Protestant states of Europe. The Catholic
states were mllakin1g war upon the most holy and valuable of
all natural rights.
Zwvingle and his adherents did not aim to propagate the
gospel by the sword. They trusted alone to the fiee preaching of the gospel. As members of the state, they stood forth
only in the defence of natural?ights.




196      BATTLE  OF  CAPPEL-BADE~N.
The battle of Cappel was a battle for liberty of conscience,
against those who had invaded it. Zurich lost the battle and
Zwingle was slain, but the cause, in the end, triumphed.  He
accompanied the troops to battle, in obedience to the custom
of his country, as he had before accompanied the troops of
Glaris to the fields of Italy. IHe fell at Cappel, a martyr in a
holy cause. The spirit of his enemies was clearly shown in
the brutal ferocity which committed his mangled corpse to
the flames, and then scattered his ashes to the winds.
Zwingle, from the beginning to the end of his career, was
a consistent and heroic advocate and defender of the truth of
God, and the rights of man.
From this episode, into which I have naturally been led
by the associations of the place, as well as by feelings which
I could not well suppress, I return to the journal of a traveller.
From Zurich we went by railroad to Baden.  Our friends
accompanied us thus far, and then took leave of us. Their
route lay in the direction of Constance.  After visiting Munich, Dresden, Berlin, and Vienna, they were to spend the
winter in Italy. How happy we would have been to have
accompanied them.  But we were bound for France, and
thence home again.  Italy is to us still an object of expectation.
The route from  Zurich to Basil is one of great natural
beauty, and of historical interest. -At Baden the Limllmat
has forced its way through the mountain to join the Rhine.
On one side of this gorge stands the ruins of a castle, once
the stronghold of the Princes of Austria.  The Swiss Ba



BRUiGc —CASILE  OF  HABSBUItG.   1097
den, like- Baden-Baden, and Baden in Austria, is resorted to
for its baths.
Next after Baden is the ancient town of Brugg.  Below
the town, the Liimmat, the ReLss, and the Aar form a junction, and then they all flow on as the Aar, and join the
Rhine. Where the Reuss unites with the Aar stood the Roman Vidonissa. Near Brugg is the abbey of Koningsfelden,
founded in 1310, on the spot where the emperor Albert was
assassinated. On the height of Wqpelsberg stand the ruins
of the castle of Habsburg, built in the eleventh century by
Count Radbod, an ancestor of the family, whence came
Rudolph the first emperor of that house. A small estate,
had these Counts of Habsburg, who took possession of the
throne of Charlemagne.
At the foot of the Wapelsberg are the baths of Schintznach, the most celebrated of the watering-places in Switzerland. The number of these places in Germany and Switzerland is astonishing. They all have their uses and attractions,
and they all are resorted to.
At Brugg we crossed the Aar by a long wooden bridge,
and wound our way up the long hill of Botzberg. It was
here that we began to meet crowds of pilgrims, of all ages
and of both sexes, on their way to the shrine of our Lady of
Einsiedeln. After this we passed them  continually. Most
of them were from  the French side of the Rhine. They
carried packs containing provisions and other necessaries.
They were all of the lower order.  We could hear them at a
considerable distance repeating their Paternosters, and Ave
Maricias.  It was like the hum of bees swarming, and as




198   P ILGRI  IS-AD IE'I O TlE  ALPS.
rapid as the repetition of the alphabet, or multiplication
table by children.  On they trudged with fixed countenances, apparently weary and heavy laden, some with packs,
some with age, and perhaps, too, with a sense of their sins,on they trudged day after clay to the sacred seat of the HIoly
Mother to find rest unto their souls. 0 that the voice of a
Zwvingle could again penetrate them as of yore, " Christ alone
saves us, and Christ saves every where." The average number of pilgrims annually at Einsiedeln is 150,000. In 1834,
36,000 resorted there during one fortnight.
From  the summit of the Bbtzberg we saw for the last
time the glorious Alps. During our ascent they had come
into view, and for nearly an hour they lay before us. There
again were the Eigher, the Mbnch, the Wetterhorn, the
Schreckhorn, the Jungfrau, the Blumlis Alp.  As we descended the other side of the bill, gradually we lost sight of
them:-at, last only their snowy peaks shot above the brow
of the hill; we descend a little lower, they are gone.  For
some time I felt sad, and I said to myself, When shall I see
them again!
We left the Botzberg; we were again on the banks of
the Rhine. The evening drew on. The cornfields, meadows,
and vineyards of the canton of Basle were around us; and as
the sun went down, we were under the protection of the
Three Kings of Cologne, or rather of mine host of the Three
Kings in the goodly town of Basle.




XIV.
CYo niry and'd Home.
XiX fattachment of the Swiss to their country and
homes is well known to all. Every one is familiar
with the story, that Swiss soldiers in foreign armies are prone
to desert if by chance they hear the airs of the Ranz des
Vaches. And this Switzerland does look like a country
which one would love to call his country; and these Swiss
towns, and villages, and glorious valleys, have a homelike
aspect. Attachment to country and home is a strong and
dear feeling of the human heart. Home, indeed, is home
every where, for it is made up of the circle of parents and
children; and it is possible to remove it from country to
country and yet to preserve it. But, nevertheless, the home
feeling is strengthened by the attachments of friends and
neighbors, and by attachment to the country in which we
mnake our home. It is strengthened also by local associations,




20'    THIl  SWISS A ND'HEIR HOMES.
and by natural objects of beauty and grandeur. The spot
where our fathers have lived before us, the old house in
which they were born and in which they died, the lands on
which they toiled-these gather a sacredness around them.
And when mountain and valley, and lake and river, and
mountain-streams, make up a glorious scenery, the imagination and the heart become wedded to the soil by a charm
whose power is then only fully realized when the connecting
tie is broken. If, in addition to all this, one's country has an
old and heroic history, is filled with native literature and
native arts, and with the memory of great and good men, is
fostered by benignant political institutions, and is under holy
religious influences, so that patriotism and piety join hand to
hand, —then are the ties of country and home complete.
Such a country and such a home the Swiss have had.
And yet, with the other nations of Europe, they are beginning
to emigrate to America in large numbers. Even from the
Oberland they are flocking to our shores. They seek to
escape fiom an overcrowded population; they desire a more
abundant subsistence more easily obtained; they want more
space and freedom of action; they distrust their own security
amid the vortices of European revolution; they wish to escape
fiom the liabilities to war and invasion, and to sit down undisturbed amid the arts of peace. The time was when their
mountain fastnesses were the only home of liberty; but now
they are filled with dreams of the glorious West, where liberty
is still more secLre, and where all that man wants is more
abundant; and thus restlessness and hope conspire to lead
them away. But I cannot believe they can leave their native




WlHY  THEE  SwIss EMIGRATE.              201.
valleys without regrets and tears. And yet the human heart
is often a rude thling. Man the animal overcomes man the
creature of thought and feeling. It is) too, a great thing to
have independence and plenty.
I was sitting on the elevated box beside the coachmanaccording to my practice in Switzerland, in order to enjoy a
better view of the country-on our way to Basil, when
learning I was from America, he expressed a strong desire to
emigrate.
lfyself.-Why don't you go, if you wish to?
Coachman.-Ah! if I only had the money.
Xhyself. —It costs but little. The sailing ships take emigrants very cheap. You can get from here to America for
one hundred and fifty francs.
Coachmnan.-But how shall I get so many firancs?
Myself.-You have a family, I suppose.
Coachmzan.-No, but I can only just live myself on my
wages. How much do you pay for yourself and your ladies
in the steamnship?
Alyself.-Twenty-five hundred firancs.
Coachman - (in astonishment).- Twenty-five hundred
francs! Holy Virgin! If I had so much money, I would
give up work, and live like a lord.
When I told him  how easily a laboring man could
earn thirty dollars in our country, and how possible it was
for him even to get together five hundred dollars, he listened
as if I were telling stories about an El Dorado. This explains
the willingness of the Swiss to emigrate. But will they form
anl attachment to country and home like that which posVOl. If.           9




202   DECAY  OFi THE  HLtOME  FEELING.
sessed them in their native land? Will they not often long
to see the glacier, and the snowy Alps, and the green valleys between the mountains, and to hear the sound of tile
Alpine horn, the music of waterfalls, and the thunder of the
avalanche? Will they not sing the Panz des Vaches, and
long to go home?
The question has often arisen in my mind, Are the
tendencies of society in our country calculated to create a
strong home feeling, and intense love of country? With
my present impressions, I am not prepared to give a favorable
answer. I state these impressions that I may do somewhat
to correct an evil which I fear really exists among us.
First as to the home feeling. There are not many places
in our country which have old associations about them connected with particular families.  And where these do exist
they are invaded by that spirit of enterprise which carries away
the young men to distant cities and new states in the pursuit
of wealth and distinction. We are a restless people from the
very conditions of our country. We seek for' change and
dare fortune. We do not seek wealth as a means of creating
a home, and finding repose. Business is our occupation,
and increase of riches opens but a wider field of activity.
We accumulate that we may accumnulate more.
We build houses and occupy them with no idea of permanency, but with the idea of some future speculation.  The
street in which we build may become a great business street;
or we may, somehow, have an opportunity of selling again
at a profit.  We buy an estate in the country; but if possible we will locate it near somne railroad, or expected railroad,




O S S BLI T I E S WITHOUT  E N D,    203
and hold ourselves ready to to turn it into village lots, or divide
it in any way, or make any disposition of it which may make
increase of value. Windfalls of this nature have been so frequent in our country, that we cannot buy without dreaming
of them, nay, we calculate upon them. We are a people
who buy and sell, and get gain. Beyond all nations that
ever existed, we are a money-nmaking nation. Possibilities
with us are endless. Possibilities open to every one. The
newsboy may yet be the greatest man -upon change; he may
be the Mayor of the city; he may be the President of the
Union. But the race for money takes precedence of every
thing, for here the chances are most numerous. It is more
or less with the whole country as it is with California. There
are gold mines in which every one may dig, and rich enough
to reward the labor of many. Let us dig away then. Who
can tell without trying where the largest lumps of gold are to
be found?
Now it is plain that in all this we are not founding homes.
We are not building houses to grow old over the heads of our
descendants; we are not planting trees that their hoary
branches may wave around the old homestead from generation to generation.  We hardly know where we shall be in a
dozen years hence; and Heaven only knows where our children will be. In other countries those changes are extraordinary events, whic, with us, are an ordinary experience. Families there may be scattered, here we know they shall be
scattered.
As, then, we are not foundilng homes, how can the home
feeling exist among us? Is not this precious element of our be



204             LovE' ov  COUNTRY.
ing going to decay?  Are not even our fireside charities supplanted by the prevailing genius of our country?  When
fifneas fled from the sack of Troy, there were two treasures
he did not forget to carry away with him, his old father Anchises, and the Penates —the iozuseliold gods.  I-Ie first of all
thought of founding a new home.
As to love of country, there are similar indications.  WVe
are, indeed, proud of our country, and quite ready to fight for
it, if need be.  But what does our country contain for uswhat is it that we value in our country?  Is it dear to us, and
are we proud of it on account of its history-those old heroic
andi virtuous memories; on account of its institutions-its government and laws, its religious freedom, its educational privileges, its arts and literature, its noble public monuments, its
development of a higher phase of humanity, its glorious example to the world, its power to work upon the destinies of
nations, and its own destiny as the mighty Palestine, where
the oracles of truth and liberty are preserved for the universal
good?  Or, is it dear to us, and are we proud of it as the
great mart of trade, and because here are our profitable
investments and our sources of revenue?
Our conduct must decide the question.  Do the great
objects I have mentioned above inspire us?  Do we live for
the greatness and glory of our country in these points of view?
Are we public spirited citizens engaged in the preservation of
our old honors, and in promoting all that enlightens, elevates,
and adorns a state?  Do we enter manfully into political and
municipal affairs for the public weal?  Are we willing to take
upon ourselves great trusts, and to devote ourselves to the




WANT  OF  PUBLIC' SPIRIT.                   205
good of the state?  Do we aim to build up great institutions,
both for our own times and for after times?  Are we ambitious
to set forth our country as a mighty and benignant power in
the world to crush oppression and hold up the oppressed?
As it now stands with us, we are letting all the offices of
society run into the form of trades and professions.  Our merchants, and our men of business of every kind, are just intent
upon their business.  While this thrives, they are content.
Another class of men, often the most worthless and incompetent, take upon themselves to manage the municipal and state
affairs.  This becomes their trade-their profession-their
mode of getting gain.  Great abuses may exist, but the man
of business is prospering nevertheless. He buys and sells with
profit: he lives in his ceiled house secure.  What does he
care whether this man or that is elected to the State Legislature or to the general Congress?  What does he care how
the city government is administered?  Public peculation,
dirty streets, and general neglect of the vital public interests,
do not reach him.  He can endure it all while trade flourishes,
and the stocks stand well.  How can the men who are engaged in profitable business of any kind afford to mingle in
politics, to hold public offices, or see to the well-being of the
city or state? Let the rabble who have nothing better to do,
attend to this.  And as to the great and noble institutions
which give birth to a national character by permeating society
with elevated principles and refined tastes, and by quickening
the moral, intellectual, and social life-let the poor scholars
and artists attend to these as they best can: this is their trade,
and they must contrive to live by it.  Let the worst come to




206        THE  COMMERCIAL SPIRIT.
the worst, the state and the city will last as long as we last;
our fortune, at least, is made: let posterity take care of itself.
I will admit, of course, that there are exceptions to this, I
will even admit, if you please, that the picture is strongly
drawn; but who can deny that a spirit like this is prevalent
among us, and that we are feeling the effects of it?
The same intense commercial activity, the same love of
gain which destroys the home feeling, destroys the spirit of
a manly, high-minded, and devoted citizenship.  Our country
or our city is a place to stay in for certain purposes, but we
do not cause our heart's blood to flow together in one genial
tide of ardent and devoted patriotism.
When we visit other countries we are charmed by the institutions of learning, by the glorious works of art which we
see every where, and by the elevated tone of society.  We return and say, What charming lands we have travelled
through, what beautiful things we have seen, how ripened
and perfect are all things there. But taught by what we
have seen, why do we not set about creating the same things
here?  And when we come to make a comparison between
our country and other countries, we content ourselves with
saying, they indeed have better institutions of learning, they
have more perfect arts; but we have more freedom, and we
have more to eat and drink.
But how is it, that with our greater freedom, our greater
abundance, our more ample field of action, our young and
mighty energies, we do not strive to rival them  in all that
goes to elevate, embellish, and perfect society?
London, at an expense of thirty thousand dollars annually,




D:EVOTI ON'TO  OUR  COUiNTrRY.             207
has clean streets.  Is it a part of our freedom in INew-York to
expend one hundred and eighty thousand dollars annually,
for the same purpose, and yet live with streets that might
breed a pestilence?
The great cities of Europe have universities, great libraries, and collections of art.  Are these symbols of despotism?
Is it a part of our freedom to deny our youth the means of a
high cultivation, and while we decry the transatlantic aristocracies, do all that we can to foster a vulgar aristocracy of
noney, and the tyranny of a rabble municipality?
In England, the nobles, the men of learning, the men of
wealth, make it their glory to take part in the affairs of the
state.  Nothing there is so honorable as to serve the country.
Is it a part of our freedom  to forsake the assemblies of the
people, and to resign the public offices to peculators and
sciolists?  In a country like ours where every individual forms
a part of the state, because every individual contains a portion
of the universal sovereignty, it ought to be the pride as it is
the duty of every one to take part in the concerns of the state,
not in the leading strings of a party led on by a self-interested
demagogue, but in the spirit of a clear-sighted and magnanimous patriotism.  Each man ought to feel that he has a duty
to perform, and he ought to perform  it fearlessly and with a
hearty interest.  We ought to feel that we have a country to
take care of, ald a country worthy of all our devotion.  Let
us receive a baptism  from  the spirit which animated our
fathers-those men  who laid the foundations of our institutions.
If any onne asks, What remedy shall be applied to correct




208         A  HIGIHE R  CULTIVATION.
these evils?  I reply, that the first thing is to become convinceci that the evils exist, and to measure their bearings.
After this we may seek for a remedy.
In respect to to the home feeling, a difficulty must be acknowledged to exist, necessarily growing out of the conditions
of our country.  Our rapid growth, our vast improvements,
and our wide-spread territory, are at war with permanency,
and bring about constant changes.
The absence of the law of entail prevents also the growth
of old estates. In our country the love of home must grow
up with the love of country.  It may have a more. particular
determination in the interest we take in the city, or the particular locality in which we reside.  Let us take, for example,
the city of New-York.  Here are great capabilities and opportunities.  This city, in point of commercial activity and population, is fast advancing upon the greatest cities of the world.
Let us not look upon it as a mere mart of trade.  Let us consider how it may be adorned by public buildings and works
of art. Let us make it the seat of great institutions of learning and the arts. Let us aim to diffuse the spirit of a higher
cultivation.  Let us make it an intellectual as well as a commercial metropolis. Let it become as remarkable for its beauty
and magnificence, for its taste and order, for a graceful and enlightened society, as it now is for active trade and growing
wealth; and let the beautiful shores of its waters become the
seats of men of cultivation as well as men of wealth.  When
this is accomplished, then we have thrown about it charms
and attractions which strike the imagination, sand enkindle enth1usiasm; and which make it a region that we fcel we can call




THE  ATHENIAN- SPIRITI'                209
our home. The city of Athens-the city itself was the home
of every Athenian.  The city was his pride and glory.  And
why was it? Because, there was the Acropolis with its temples, and the whole city was adorned by the hands of its artists. There was the grove of Academus. There was its theatre-not like our theatres, places for the exhibition of buffooneries and farces, but a vast space, open to the heavens, where
the whole population assembled to hear the compositions of
2Eschylus, Euripides and Sophocles. There was the Areopagus. There were the assemblies of the people where zEschines and Demosthenes reasoned and thundered —in no barbaric vulgar style-but in pure classic Greek, with cultivated
oratory, before a people who were competent judges of eloquence and grace. Athens had commerce and arms, imerchants and heroes; but it was philosophy, poetry, eloquence
and art which so polished and enriched it, and invested it
with such splendid attractions and dear associations, that it
was the only home in the wide world that an Athenian could
find.
The unfortunate sons of Israel, in past centuries, had no
resource but in prosecuting traffic and gain.  They went
wherever traffic and gain attracted them.  They were without
a country and a home, and their pursuits harmonized with
their fate.  We have a country and a home; but the concentration of all our passions and energies in the mere love of
gain will make us, like them, ready to wander up and down
the face of the earth; the ties of kindred band countlry will
be easily broken; and all things under heaven will be measuired and valued by a commercial standard.'We shall even
Vo1i  1.




210  A  HOME  TO  LIVE  AND  TO  DIE  IN.
build churches and schools of learning to improve property
rather than to cultivate human souls. Our very charities will
become a speculation. The true remedy is, to begin at once
to act upon higher principles. The love of home and the
love of country will be revived and confirmed when Wve engage earnestly in those great and beneficent works, which will
make our country a grand and sacred thing, and fill it with
those fresh, beautiful, and holy places, where we shall be
drawn to build our habitations, for thought and for usefulness,
and where our ashes at last maybe gathered to an honorable
rlepose.




w io, the   hi?   e. —      6Be    i t 211.
I turned my back upon Switzerlandl, I felt like
one leaving home.  I had now been several weeks
among those stupendous mountains, and wandering through
those green sequestered valleys.  It was to me a new experience.  Such seenery I had never seen before.  Indeed, such
scenery is nowhere else to be found.  In respect to its natural features, it seemed more like home to me than all other
lands, because, mnoie grand and beautiful than all others.
Where we find most to love, there we find most of home.
The soul is most at home amid the grand and beautiful, because it finds itself there reflected.  It sees itself, and it sees
God, the Infinite Soul.  It flows out into the objects around,
and becomes one with them.  It is conscious of its own greatness and beauty.  The Alps are its fellows, the avalanches its
playthings, the green valleys its senlse of beauty, the sound of




212           BAD E N-BADEN  AGAIN.
streams and waterfalls its own music, in which it is perpetually
expressing joy and adoration.
Does not the soul always feel sad when it leaves the beautiful behind-whether it be the beauty of Nature, or the
beauty of Art, or the beauty of " the human face divine"the index of the loving heart?
We had one month before entered Basle from the French
side of the Rhine: we now descended on the German side,
and passing through Freiburg, before nightfall were again at
Baden-Baden.  The throng of visitors had passed away, but
a very considerable number yet remained.  The region had
lost none of its beauty.  I took some clarming walks, the
early part of the next day.
In the Conversatiozs Has, I found the 9rouge et noir and
roulette tables still surrounded by absorbecland eager gamnesters. There was the same awful stillness, the same joyless
faces.  Chink, chink, the money was still changing hands.
They appeared like men offering sacrifices to the Destinies.
Speaking with a gentleman about these gambling establishments, he related to me a story which illustrates the infatuation of play.  A porter in Paris who earned about
twenty-five francs a week, went, at the end of a certain week,
with what he had accumulated, into a large ganibling-house
to try his luck. The play all went in his favor, and he came
out with forty-five thousandc francs in his pocket.  I-Ie immediately deposited the money with a banker whom he happened to know. After a few clays, lie called upon the banker
and asked for tenl thousand francs, that he mlight go and try
his luck once more. The banker strongly dissuaded him,




THE  DuciHY  OF  BADEN.                213
but all in vain. He gave him the ten thousand francs, telling
hilm at the same time that he would not let him have any
more of his money for that purpose. The mlan lost his francs,
and came back to the banker for more. The banker refused,
told him he would not suffer him to ruin himself, and urged
him to invest the remainder in some kind of business. The
man insisted upon having his money, and at length told the
bankerl he wished to rob him of his own. The banker grew
angry, returned him all his money, and bade him begone.
-le lost the whole, and the next day he was at his old employment again.
At Baden-B3aden we took the train for Manheim, passing
through Carlsruhe.  The station-houses were decorated with
wreaths and garlands, in preparation for the Duke, who was
expected that way.  We saw the carriages designed for himself and suite. The one he was to occupy was decorated
with the ducal arms. In Europe the carriages on the railroad are taking the place of all other vehicles. Kings and
princes travel now in this way as well as other people.
I noticed in the Duchy that the fields were mostly
worked by women. The men are called off for garrison-duty.
Emigration to America is going on very actively from the
Duchy.  I was informed that whole villages were nearly
deserted.  In Mayence is an office for emigrants where they
take passage for America.  In mnany places I observed placards were posted designed to dissuade the people from emigrating.  They contained accounts of the manner in which
emigrants are cheated at New-York by agents, and of the
unhealthiness of the climate in our Western states and terri



214             M A N  E I M-M  AI N Z.
tories.  At one of the stations I noticed a laborer on the road
eating his dinner. It consisted of a chunk of black bread and
some hard pears.  He was nevertheless a hearty-looking
young fellow, and ate with a good appetite.
We reached Manheim in the afternoon. It is a dull-looking
place, situated on very low ground at the junction of the
Neckar with the Rhine. It was once a strongly fortified position, and the capital of the Palatinate.  Its fate, like that of
Heidelberg, has been a sad one, having been several times
bombarded, and twice burned to the ground in two centuries.
How this rich and beautiful country has been desolated by
war, truly called the pastime of princes!  The people-the
poor people, have had to endure the suffering and bear the
burdens.
At Manheinm  we took the steamer. Night had set in
when we reached Mainz.  It being Saturday night, we remained here during the Sabbath.  We took apartments at
the Europaischer Hof-a fine hotel, and which boasts of the
distinction of having entertained Queen Victoria.
Travellers on the Rhine are very apt not to stop at LJainz
at all, but to land at Biberich, as we did when ascending the
river, and to proceed on immediately to Frankfort. Indeed,
there is not much to detain one here. The cathedral, built of
red sandstone, has many interesting monuments.  Those of
the Archbishop Electors are particularly so, both from their
historical associations and from the effigies of the archbishops
represented in full costume.  The cathedral itself is admired
by architects as a fine specimen of ecclesiastical architecture.
There is also a fine bronze statue of Gutemberg, the reputed




THE  GA  nR I S o    N.            215
inventor of movable types. It is cast after a design by Thorwaldsen.
The public gardens around the city are very agreeable.
The town is very compactly built, and the streets are narrow
and crooked. It drew my attention particularly as a garrison
town. The fortifications are very strong. It is connected by
a bridge with the opposite shore, where there is a fortification
commanding the bridge.  It is, I believe, the most important
fortress on the Rhine after Ehrenbreitstein. It has been a
place of consequence in military operations from the days of
the Romans.  It now belongs to Hesse Darmstadt, but is
garrisoned by the German confederation.  The troops, eight
thousand in number, are partly Austrian and partly Prussian.
Sabbath morning we went to the cathedral for a short
time, where many of the Austrian troops were assembled.
There is but one Protestant church in the place besides the
garrison church of the Prussians.  We attended  divine
service at the latter.
The orchestra was composed of the military band.  The
music was admirable.  There were but few instruments besides the organ. The church was filled by the soldiers. They
all had prayer and hymn books, and, according to the German
custom, they all united in the singing.  Their conduct was
perfectly orderly, and they appeared attentive and devout.
They were young men of fine robust forms. At their homes
they had been trained to religious duties, and their early
habits had not forsaken them  here.  The preacher delivered
an appropriate sermon with much earnestness, and his prayers were devout.




216           WAR-ST. B O  I F A CE.
It was an affecting sight to me. I could not help thinking what a terrible scourge these military establishments are.
These strong young men are taken from their homes, while
their mothers and sisters are left to work the fields. How
many tens of thousands of just such young men have been
slaughtered in the wars which have swept over this country
from age to age! And here on garrison duty, not only is their
labor lost to the country, but their support is a drain upon the
produce of the fields, to which they contribute nothing.
These would be happy regions if nations could live
without being embroiled in war. War, war, this is the great
curse of Europe.  Could we calculate all the cost of war in
the loss of labor, in the destrnuction of the lives of the laborers, in the expense of maintaining armies, and in the clestruction of property by battles and sieges, and the march of
troops,-what an enormous sum  it would be!  And then
imagine all this to have been appropriated to the arts of
peace-to human improvement, and howdclifferent the condition of nations would have been! We live in the bosom of
a rich and bountiful Nature who has enough for all; but in
making war upon each other, we make war upon her: we
desolate the kind mother who would nourish us all as her
happy children.
The first archbishop of Mainz, St. Boniface, was a missionary. The Pope made him  primate of Germany.  His
successors became earthly princes, and ruled over a territory
containing four hundred thousandcl  souls.  Their revenues
were immense.  They maintained a powerful body-guarld,
andi surrounded tllemuselves with the trappings of -oyalty,




)ESCENDING  THE  RHINE.                 221
and still they were priests.  In the Diets these archbishops
presided.  They were at the head of the princes of the German empire.  Did the true church exist when its kingdom
became a kingdom of this world?
At the table d'h6te of the Europaischer Hof were several
military officers.  Aline host, according to the German custom, dined with us. After dinner they lighted their cigars,
and commenced a garme of cards together-that is, the officers
and mine host.
WVe landed Saturday evening within a few yards of the
hotel.  Our luggage was carried up by the public porters.
I was surprised at the unusual charge.  I found that according to the police regulation the same charge is made for
porterage to every part of the town: one yard or one mile,
it is all the same. The tariff, however, is based upon the
presumption of the greater distance.
Monday morning we were again upon the Rhine.  iWe
were now transferred to another line of steamers below the
bridge.  The descent of the Rhine was rapid.  We now had
the advantage of the swift current which in the ascent we
had to stem. The scenery still struck me as beautiful. I
was still interested in the old ruins upon the hills. The foliage was not so bright: the first touch of the declining season
was apparent. I found that the promise of the vineyards
was poor, owing to the rains, and the coolness of the season.
There was one thing which I could not avoid remarking
-that the scenery of the Rhine, although equally picturesque, did not appear as bold as before.  My impressions of
Switzerland made every thing appear diminutive.




218   AIX-LA-CHAPELLE-HOT  SPIRINGS.
We reached Cologne in the afternoon. We paid another
visit to the cathedral, and were more than ever struck with
its beauty.  Then we took the train for Aix-la-Chapelle,
where we arrived some time after dark, and put up at Nuellin's hotel, opposite the fountain.
Next morning we were awakened by a balld of music. I
got up and went to the window, when I saw persons walking
up and down a colonnade, while every instant, some were disappearing, and others starting up, through what had to me,
where I stood, the appearance of a trap-door. I dressed myself, and crossed over to the colonnade. There were spacious
apartments at either end of it open to the visitors. Within
a railing was collected the band of musicians. What had
appeared like a trap-door turned out to be an ab rupt descent,
by stairs, to the steaming fountain.  I looked down below,
where I saw people receiving one after another tumblers of
the scalding fluid, which they cooled and drank like people
taking any otler hot draught.  It is right to get all the good.
we can wherever we go; and so, if an additional portion of
health were to be had at Aix, by simply drinking a tumbler
of hot water, why should I not take it   I therefore suddenly
disappeared like the rest, and received a tumbler which I
could hardly hold in my hands-it was so hot. I tasted itthen drew back in dismay: the water at Baden-B3aden was
wealk, insipid cllicken broth; this was chicken broth fiery hot,
and spiced with sulphuretted hydrogen. But all around me
were dlinking it down very composedly, one tumbler after
another.  I observed, too, that as soon as they had completed their potations, they went aloft and walked about where




T HE  POWER  OF  M  s Ic.               219
the delicious music was floating through the air. Then I
concluded that the band played while the people were
drinking, to allay nervous irritability, and to take them
"with ravishment," like Milton's fallen aangels, and suspend
the torment.  So, I opened my ears wide to the music,
and bravely swallowed down a tumbler full of stuff that
might well serve in purgatory to punish drunkards.  If
I had need of the music before I drank, I had much
more afterwards.  The music, indeed, did some good, but
the best remedy was a substantial breakfast at Nuellin's.
The potation, however, wrought in me the whole day, at
least so thought my companions, for to them I appeared
unusually irritable and fiery towards porters, coachmnen,
ancd all that tribe who generally try the good-nlature of
travellers.
The waters of these hot springs, after furnishing the baths
and supplying the drinkers, escape in sufflicient quantities to
accommodate the washerwomen.  The water, containing an
alkaline salt, as well as beingg-very hot, saves them  both soap
and fuel. The odor of the linen thus washed, to be sure, is
not pleasant to strangers, but the inhabitants of Aix, accustomedl as they are to drink sulphur and inhale sulphur, can
have very little objection to wearing sulphur likewise.
The name of this old city-which the Germans change
into Acacheq —is compounded of the Celtic word Ac, —the same
with the Latin aGtual,-andc la clcqpelle, the chapel, referring
to the cathedral founded by Charlemagune, in the latter part
of the eighth century.  The Roman name is said to be Aquisgranumm, after Granius, who, under Hadrian, in the second




220               CIi AR LEMA G N.
century, is supposed to have founded the town.  So the wvaters of Granius have become the waters of the Chapel.
Aix in France, and Aix in Savoy, both have medicinal
springs: hence the name given to them.
Aix-la-Chapelle, the place where Charlemagne was born,
where he died, and where his tomb was erected, has associations which are familiar to all readers of history.  It is now
included in the dominions of the king of Prussia.
The tomb of Charlemagne was opened by the emperor
Frederic Barbarossa, in 1165.  The skeleton of Charlemagne
was found seated on his throne, clothed in the imperial robes,
the royal sceptre still grasped in the fleshless hand, the crown
upon the skull, the sword still belted on, and the pilgrim's
pouch still fastened to the girdle.  Wllat a spectacle of the
vanity of human greatness and power!  The throne-an
armed chair-is still preserved in the cathedral; the other
regalia are deposited at Vienna.
The bones of Charlemagne, together with other relics,
namely, a locket of the Virgin's hair, a piece of the true cross,
the girdle of Christ, the rod which smnote him, and the sponge
dipped in vinegar, and several more, are preserved in the
treasury of the sacristy. On these relics the emperors of Germany took the coronation oath.
The grand reliques are another collection,. comprising
those which were presented to Charlemagne by the Patriarch
of Jerusalem and Haroun, the king of Persia.
These are shown once in seven years, from  the 15th to
the 27th of July.  At the last exhibition 180,000 pilgrims
were present.  The next exhibition takes place in 1853.




A TI ERD  AL-LIE cx IE.               221
Travellers can nmakhe their calculations accordingly, if they feel
curious about these matters.
The cathedral did not interest me mluch, except on account of its antiquity.  The pillars of porphyry, collected by
Charlemagne firom the east, and from  -the Exarbchs palace at
Ravenna, are very beautiful.
Aix, for the most part, is a sombre looking town.  A
traveller, on entering it, however, receives a different impression, on account of a new street which leads firom the railway
to the theatre and to the principal hotels.  This is wide and
very elegantly built.
On our way to Antwerp, we passed by Liege, anid Mechlin or Malines. We had a very good view of Liege.  Situated
at the junction of the Ourthe with the Aleuse, in a very fertile
valley, it has always been a place of consequence, and celebrated for its manufactures.  Here reigned the bishops, raised
by the emperors of Germany to the rank of sovereign princes.
Their dynasty continued down to the time the French took
possession of the country, at the close of the last century. The
reign of the bishops was by no in eans peaceful, for the brave and
enterprising citizens were ever striving for their freedom.  It
is one of those conflicts which Scott introduces into his Quentin Durward.  The bishop, at this time, was a Bourbon supported by Charles the Bold.  Charles marched against Liege
to quell the insurrection of the people, and to avenge the
death of the bishop.
Brave and stern was the defence of the men of Liege, but
the Burgundians and French succeeded in storming the city,
slaughtered the inhabitants, and burnt it to the ground, with




222        MECILIN-TI-IE  COUNTRY'.
the exception of the churches and convents.  Liege then contained 120,000 inhabitants.  The present number is between
seventy and eighty thousand.  Louis XI. fomented the very
insurrection which he aided in putting dclown.  Such was the
game of princes, and such the fate of the people.  Sir Walter
Scott, in this novel as well as in others, does not give sufficient
prominence to the cause of the people.  It is painful to find
fault with the amiable and gifted novelist, but it must be confessed that his sympathies were with knightly deeds rather
than with the struggles of liberty.
In passing Malines we caught a glimpse of the cathedral
with its unfinished tower.  It is three hundred and forty
feet high.  It was designed to be six hundred and forty feet;
but there it stands, and will stand like the tower of Babel,
until time shall crumble it to the ground.  The cathedral
was built by the sale of indulgences.  The completed works
of Gothic architecture are vast and astonishing; they were
the labor of centuries; and yet the designs outran even the
zeal of superstition.
The appearance of the open country of Belgium is very
pleasing, and reminds one of England, by its high cultivation, order and neatness. The peasantry under a limited
monarchy, and with a good king, are in a happy condition,
and experience few of those evils which afflict other parts
of Europe.  The position of Belgium, however, exposes her
to invasion from  the neighboring mighty powers, or makes
her a convenient battle field in any rupture which may take
place between them.  To France, Belgium  seems to have a
sort of natural affinity, and France seems ever ready to swal



ANT WERP.                      223
low her up when any plausible pretext shall arise.  E-er security, therefore, depends more upon the balance of European
powers than upon her own independent strength.
On entering Antwerp, one is struck with the great strength
of the fortifications.  In this respect, it is similar to Strasburg.
But these fortifications in time of peace, with their green emnbankments and slopes planted with trees, and a sort of labyrinthine effect of the many angles, constitute an embellishment
of the town, and afford many a pleasant promenade.  The
principal streets have a very striking air of elegance and magnificence.  The houses are tasteful, and blilt in a substantial
manner of a light-colored sandstone called Kcareelsteen, which
is obtained at Boom, only a few  miles from  Antwerp.  The
town is in good repair, and has a considerable amount of
manufactures and trade, and yet one experiences an instinctive feeling that some great change has come over it.  There
is not that activity and bustle which would be expected in a
city of such magnitude, and such displays of art and wealth
in its buildings, both public and private.  In driving from the
railway station to the Hotel dclu Pare, near the cathedral, we
passed through the heart of the city, and it appeared to me
then that there was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading it.  It
is a city whose life does not fill out the measure of its capacity.  It is, I suppose, something like Venice, although by no
means in such a state of decay.  The same impression is felt,
still more deeply, upon visiting the Quzays upon the Schelde,
and the basins and careening docks constructed by Napoleon.
Here are preparations for a commerce which no longer
exists.




224          FtOa  M E It   R   )  rOSPEn:T Y.
In tle eleventh century, Antwerp was a small republic.
In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, she was the unrivalled seat of commerce.  Then she had 200,000 inhabitants, her merchants were princes.   Two thousand vessels
annually entered her port; the money put in circulation
annually was more than five hundred  millions of guilders;
and five thousand merchants assembled every day on the
Exchange.
The Duke of Alva gave the first blow to the prosperity of
Antwerp. In 1576, it was given up to three days' pillage by
the Spanish soldiers.  "Antwerp, at the time of this catastrophe, was in the most flourishing condition.  Companies of
merchants from almost every commercial nation resided in it,
possessing storehouses and factories filled with the most precious commodities.  Great numbers of the citizens, too, were
the wealthiest in Europe.  Their magnificent houses were
adorned with the most costly furniture; and their shops and
warehouses stored with gold and silver stuffs, and all other
kinds of valuable effects, collected from every corner of the
globe. Upon these the Spaniards seized without any discrimination of the owners, and without considering whether the
persons whom  they pillaged were friends or enemies. The
plunder that lay open and unconcealed was immense; but it
was far from being sufficient to satiate the avarice of the Spaniards. They exercised the most unrelenting cruelty upon all
whom they suspected to have concealed their treasures; and
nothing was to be heard in the city, but either shrieks and
groans of the sufferers, or the lamentations of those whom
they compelled to behold the. torments of their husbands,




FATE  OF ANTWERP.                   225
wives or children. Contemporary historians have described
some of the several species of torture which they inflicted;
but the reader's modesty would be offended, and his humanity
shocked by the recital. In this manner were these men, for
three days and nights, employed in plundering and butchering by turns, a people who were subjects of the same prince
as themselves, and from whom-whatever ground of complaint
they might pretend against the council of state-they had
never received the smallest injury or provocation. Nor does
it appear that their officers interposed to moderate their excesses, till the soldiers exhausted with fatigue, were about to
give over of themselves. The money in specie which was
extorted, amounted at least to eight hundred millions of
guilders, besides an immense quantity of gold and silver, in
plate, stuffs and furniture, which the owners were not able to
redeem.
The loss which the people of Antwerp sustained by the
burning of so many buildings, was not less than what they
suffered by the rapacity of the soldiers. The most beautiful
part of the city was burnt to the ground; and great numbers
of shops and warehouses containing the richest goods, were
consumed to ashes."*
The imagination dares not dwell on the horrors of this
savage brutality. But the calamities of Antwerp did not
end here. In 1585 it capitulated to the Prince of Parma
after a siege of fourteen months. The Protestants were compelled to leave the city, and carried their wealth and enterprise with them into Holland. In 1648 the final blow was
* Watson.
VOL. i.           1.0




226             THE  CATHEDRAL.
struck at its prosperity, when, by the terms of the peace
of Westphalia, the navigation of the Schelde was closed,
and Amsterdam  absorbed its commerce.  The French,
indeed, re-opened the navigation of the river in 1792, and
Antwerp was recovering a part of its original prosperity,
when the revolution which separated Belgium from Holland
again concentrated in the Dutch towns the commerce which
before Antwerp had shared with them. At present Antwerp
contains less than eighty thousand inhabitants. The number of ships which entered its port in 1829, before the revolution, was about one thousand. Inll 1831 this number was
reduced to less than four hundred.
But, although its commerce has decayed, there stands yet
its glorious cathedral, and it has yet the fame and paintings
of Rubens.
From the windows of my apartments in the Hotel du
Pare, I saw that beautiful spire, four hundred feet high, every
hour of the day, whose delicate carving Napoleon is said to
have compared to Mechlin lace. Day and night I heard the
musical chimes of its ninety-nine bells. Pauses indeed there
were —short pauses, and then they would strike a new variation. In the intervals of slumber, in the night, I would
hear them; they even mingled with my dreams. Sweet and
clear, they seemed to come from the upper regions of the air,
and produced a constant ravishment of the sense.
The appearance of the spire is eminently beautiful at
night, when the sky is clear, and bright with stars. Then
it lies against the heavens, and all the interstices are specks
of light. I think it must have been this view of it which
led Napoleon to make his comparison.




RUBENS' PAINTIN GS.                   227
The interior of the cathedral, five hundred feet in length,
and two hundred and fifty in breadth, with its lofty choir and
nave, produces a sublime effect.
Over the high altar hangs one of Rubens' famous pictures,
The Assumption of the Virgin.  This picture he is said to
have finished in sixteen days.  The deification of the Virgin
in this and other pictures, I confess, is so painful to me as to
distract my mind from the splendors of art.
But in another part of the cathedral there are pictures
where an art almost divine has wedded itself to a divine subject. I mean the two great pictures of Rubens, The Elevation of the C'ross, and The Descent from the Cross.
The Elevation of the Cross is in three compartmentsthe central one being the cross. On the left are the two
thieves represented in the background.  One is partly nailed
to the wood, and struggling with the executioners. The
other, ghastly pale and horror-stricken, is about to be thrown
down. On the right, Mary and John stand together; the
first pale, and in silent, unutterable despair; the second excited, astonished, and dismayed-beholding, and yet scarcely
believing, the awful reality before him. Here, too, are the
Marys and the aged Salome.  Mary Magdalene bows her
head as if incapable of beholding the sight. Mary, the wife
of Cleopas, has an infant at the breast.  She is aghast with
horror; and even the infant is overcome by an inexplicable
distress. Salome exhibits intense sympathy, touched with
the calmness of age.
Christ is nailed to the cross, which is partially elevated.
The large, sorrowffil eyes are raised to heaven.  The contrast




228        Ex P R ESSI ON  OF  REALITY.
between tile horror and struggles of the thlieves, and the
sublime submission of the august sufferer is strongly expressed. The nails have just been driven through the living
flesh; he is suspended by them, while the soldiers in every
variety of muscular action, are straining to erect the cross.
With him there is no appearance of resistance: he is as a
lamb led to the slaughter.
Rubens is remarkable for his coloring, and the reality
which he gives to his paintings.  Yes, reality, that is the
word which expresses all. I stood and gazed in silence. I
forgot the artist and his canvas.  I had no thought of playing the critic.  I too was standing by the; cross. I was
looking on the face of Christ. I shuddered and was awestruck before the sublimest and most momentous event that
ever transpired. There he was, wounded for my transgression, suffering for my guilty soul. Now mine eye saw, what
before I had only heard of by the hearing of the ear.
The Descent from the Cross is considered by artists the
greatest work of Rubens.  He has here achieved a wonderful
triumph of art in wrapping the body in white linen without
hurting the coloring of the flesh.  "I consider," says Sir
Joshua Reynolds, " Rubens' Christ as one of the finest figures
that ever was invented: it is most correctly drawn, and, I
apprehend, in an attitude of the utmost difficulty to execute.
The hanging of the head on the shoulder, and the falling of
the body on one side, gives it such an appearance of the heaviness of death, that nothing can exceed it."
But here, as in the other picture, I was impressed by the
reality of the scene. In reflecting upon these pictures and




ACADEMY  OF PAINTING.                  229
the effect they produced upon me at the time, I perceive that
I then for the first time understood the qualities of a great
artist, and the power of his works. We may read books on
-art, we may comprehend -esthetical principles in general, we
may form an acquaintance with many very good pictures, but
never can we be truly said to know what art is, until we see
with our own eyes what art has done by the hand of the great
and unquestionable masters-those who have re-created nature, or made her more perfect on her own principles.
Antwerp contains many beautiful churches.  Among
these St. Jaques is the most remarkable. The interior is
very splendid, and adorned with marble columns of exquisite
workmanship, and delicate and curious carvings in wood.
These churches are filled with paintings by Rubens, Vandyke,
and other artists.
The Academy of Painting is a large edifice, formerly a
convent, and contains a very large collection. The works of
Rubens and Vandyke here are numerous.
There are four great paintings of Rubens in Antwerp which
form a series, and to which in my own mind I gave the name
of The Epic of Redemption. The first is in the church of
St. Jaques, and represents the scene of the scourging. It is
too painful to look at. The blood trickles under the lash,
and the blue marks of the bruised flesh not yet bleeding are
reality itself. The patient and illustrious sufferer is meekly
bent to receive the scourge. What a sight! I could not
endure it-I turned away.
The second is the elevation of the cross already described.
The third is the crucifixion of Christ between the thieves.




230   THE FOUR GREAT PAINTINGS.
This is in the Academy. A soldier is just piercing the
side of Christ. Another is breaking the legs of one of the
thieves, who in his mortal agony has torn one of his feet fromn
the nail which fastened it to the tree. This figure is horrible. The other thief is quiet and turns his dying eyes to
Christ. The head of Christ is bowed in death, and the whole
frame relaxed. Mary Magdalene is at the feet of Christ and
convulsively stretches out her hand as if to prevent the spear
from entering his side. The figures of the mother of Christ,
St. John, Mary the wife of Cleopas, and of the centurion,
make up the principal group. This Sir Joshua Reynolds
pronounces " one of the first pictures in the world, for composition, coloring, and what was to be expected from Rubens'
correctness of drawing."
The fourth of this series is the Descent from the Cross.
The mysterious and sublime facts of Christianity inspired the
genius of Rubens. He is the Milton of painters.
The series of historical paintings in the Louvre have
merits indeed as works of art; but the subjects could not
call out the great powers of Rubens. The flattery in them
is so extravagant and fulsome, that to me they were positively
disagreeable. I can admire the painter's art when employed
on common or indifferent subjects; but I am not enough of
a connoisseur so to lose myself in the display of art, as to rise
above anl offensive subject. And this I deem the natural and
highest effect of a painting, when it causes the observer to
forget art itself, and brings his mind into direct union with
the subject.
Antwerp is one of the places in Europe for the study of




BRUSSELS.                     231
paintings.  I think, too, it would be agreeable as a residence.
Could Napoleon have carried out his stupendous design,
Antwerp would have recovered its ancient glories. It would
have become the commercial metropolis of his empire, and his
naval arsenal and dep6t. Now it seems destined to a quiet
existence, unlesss war should arise, when it would be important as a fortress.
Brussels is a fair city on the little river Senne, with steep
streets leading from the lower to the upper and more elegant
portion, where the noble, wealthy, and fashionable reside,
and where the hotels are situated. All say it has the air of
Paris; but as it has only one hundred and forty-five thousand
inhabitants, including the suburbs, it is only Paris in miniature. And yet, in the heart of the town, where you are
affected only by the objects immediately around you, and
can form no judgment of the entire circumference, it may be
called Paris to all intents and purposes, presenting as it does
a similar style of building, a similar display of elegant shops,
and pouring upon your ear the rapid and easy inflections of
the same language. Flemish is indeed spoken by the mass
of the population, but not in those places where a'stranger is
apt to resort. There is a difference, however, as far as language is concerned, which will very soon begin to appear:
in Paris you will hear but little English, in Brussels a great
deal. The English love to make this a residence; and, since
the battle of Waterloo, they must of necessity come here,
while making their annual, or rathertheir perennial pilgrimage.
Brussels has fine churches, magnificent palaces, and other




232    ROYAL LIBRARY-EXHIBITION.
public buildings of note. It has a pleasant park and boulevards. The Royal Library contains two hundred thousand
volumes. In the Burgundian Library, which is now united
to the Royal, are eighteen thousand manuscripts, of great
value. They are richly bound, and many of them embellished with exquisite miniature paintings. I found nothing
in Brussels of equal interest with these manuscripts. They
are named after the Dukes of Burgundy who began the collection at an early period.
At the time we visited Brussels there was a grand exhibition of paintings and statuary, to which all the artists of
Europe had been invited to contribute. It was a competition for public attention with the grand exhibition in London. The collection was immense, particularly of paintings.
There, of course, was a great variety of merit. Among them
were paintings of a high order. I noticed many from the
Dusseldorf artists. But, I had just come from viewing the
great works of Rubens; and, I believe I was not in the mood
to do justice to any modern paintings. They all appeared
to me too fiesh and too fine. They appeared too much like
paintings. They did not affect me with the sense of reality
like the works of Rubens. But even a great painting gains
more of this effect from age, when the glare of the paint is
gone, and only the lines and coloring remain.
I suppose many feel disposed to ask me the question, did
you visit Waterloo  No, I did not. I had read many descriptions of the battle; I thought I understood the battle as
a battle sufficiently well for all the interest I had in it. The
marks of the battle are mostly obliterated. Little additional




WATERL OO.                    233
knowledge can be gained by visiting the field. But thenit may be asked-did you not feel a curiosity to stand on the
spot where this glorious battle was fought-did you not desire
to feel the inspiration of the associations? I can only tell the
truth about my feelings. The field of Waterloo has for me
no glorious and inspiring associations. I admire the Duke of
Wellington, the immovable bravery of the English, the gallantry of the Prussians. But I never could see what great
triumph Europe gained there. I believe a great many who
were filled with enthusiasm at the time, have since doubted
the results. I am not prepared to say that I wish Napoleon
had gained the day. This is not what I mean. But I would
that Wellington and Napoleon, that England and France had
never been brought to such an issue. I cannot discuss the
subject here; I can only express an opinion which I think is
capable of being sustained, that England at an early period
might have consolidated a peace with France that would
have been immeasurably better for herself, and for the liberties
of Europe, than the terrible wars which resulted in the prostration of Napoleon, and nothing more. Napoleon was the
choice of France; he was hailed as a deliverer by Italy and
Poland; he shattered the old tyrannies of the continent; and
he propagated throughout Europe more liberal ideas than
had before existed. He brought out ripened results from the
French revolution. His excessive ambition, his tremendous
struggles for domination were stimulated by the dogged determination of England to overthrow him. Now, when a usurper
of the same name holds France, and that; too, not with the
genial grasp of the first Napoleon, why does not England'
VOL. II.      10*




234        RESULTS  OF WATERLOO.
stand forth again the defender of legitimacy? Is not the
cause the same? Has she learned wisdom by her past experience?
At the Congress of Vienna, England was associated with
Rome and the despots of Europe. There was no power that
represented the liberties of Europe. And what followed this
congress of the nations? The Bourbons returned to France,
to re-enact a tyranny which soon led again to their expulsion. The Czar returned to his undisturbed autocracy. Austria resumed her leaden sceptre. The princes of Germany
forfeited their pledges made to the people, who had sustained
them. Spain and Portugal lay down again the corpses of
nations. The Pope regained a power under which England
herself is now writhing. And England was covered with
glory, and loaded with a debt which has ever since caused
her gigantic strength to tremble.
Europe, at this moment, is more unsettled than ever, and
is only waiting for the man and the opportunity.
So we left Brussels behind, without seeing Waterloo. In
one day we went from Brussels to Paris. This is an admirable
railroad, and the speed is great. We passed many important
places, and skimmed over the surface of a wide stretch of
country. The appearance of the country is not very interesting. It has no striking features. It is a dull level, under fair
cultivation, indeed, but it wants the freshness and beauty of
England.
By-and-by, late in the afternoon, we become aware that
wve are approaching the great city. There is not that smoky,
dingy atmosphere lying before us, which indicated our ap



PARIS.                     235
proach to London, but we catch glimpses of domes and spires.
On we rush-domes and spires thicken upon the view: at
length an immense mass of buildings lies spread out before
us, and we seem to be dashing right into them. Suddenly
our speed slackens-we are under the shadow of the city, and
in another moment we are under the roof of the vast stationhouse-the train stops-the carriage-doors are unlocked, and
we step out into Paris.




XVI.
V:      step into Paris;-but the first step is not made into
any inviting place:-it is a large room under the same
roof with the station-house, where all the trunks and parcels
are deposited to undergo the inspection of the custom-house
officers. Ladies who enter Brussels seldom leave it without
Brussels lace. And, then, in entering France, there is apt to
be a little trepidation respecting the above-named inspection.
The lively Flemish woman of whom the lace was purchased,
had assured us that there would be no difficulty, since we had
not purchased as traders, but, as would appear at once to the
officers, only for private use. Paessengers stopping short of Paris
had to undergo an inspection upon entering France. How they
fared I know not. But at Paris, when my trunks and parcels were all collected, I handed over a box of cologne as un



APARTMENTS  IN  PARIS.                237
questionably subject to duty, and opened one of my trunks,
adding, at the same time, that I was an American travelling
for my pleasure. The officer immediately conducted me to
the bureau, where I paid a small duty on the cologne, and
received a permission to pass all my baggage.
And now we ar in a carriage, driving through what appears to us, wearied as we are, an interminable range of
streets, in the direction of the Tuilleries. We seek for lodgings in two or three hotels without success: Paris, like London,
is thronged with visitors-several thousand Americans, it is
said-how many English, I know not. At length we get
rooms at the Hotel de Lille et d'Albion, in the Rue St. Honore. They are the only rooms unoccupied in the house —so
said the little woman with sharp black eyes, who kept the
hotel. They are very elegant-a large parlor, and two large
bed-rooms, en suite. They must all be taken together, and
the price is exorbitant. We took them for one day.
The next day, through the intervention of a friend, we
succeeded in hiring furnished apartments-just vacated-in
the Rue St. Honor6e, near the Tuilleries. We, of course, had
the entire floor, which comprised a parlor, a dining-room,
four bed-rooms, a kitchen, three rooms for servants, and an
ante-room. We had more room than we needed, but the
entire suite had to be hired. The same friend procured us a
man-servant, who was a man of all sorts of work, and a good
cook in the bargain. The same night we were settled as
pleasantly as if we had been in our own home. The rooms
were amply and tastefully furnished. We had every convenience. After the French fashion, every mantelpiece had




238               CoN VE IX E SC-.
an elegant clock, besides various ornaments, so that we had
no less than four clocks ticking at the same time.
Our breakfast and tea we always took at home. We dined
at a restaurant whenever we pleased. More frequently, however, we dined at home, when our servant prepared for us
some substantial dish of meat, with vegetables, while soup,
entrees, and dessert were procured at a restaurant. We had
infinitely more comfort than we could have had at any hotel,
and at a cheaper rate.
We remained in Paris a month, and we succeeded in
hiring our apartments for just that time.
The convenience of living in Paris is admirable. The
French, beyond all other people, understand the economy of
life. In London we hired apartments also, but the arrangements were not so complete nor so convenient. In Paris,
you are as much isolated, as much at housekeeping, as really
at home, as if you lived in a separate house. This is owing,
in the first place, to the style of building.  The ground floor
is appropriated to shops or offices. The form of the buildings
is quadrangular.  The entrance is by an arched way in the
middle into an inner court shut in from the street by massive
double doors, and is wide enough to admit carriages. From
this court winding stairs ascends to the top of the house, with
platforms connecting with the ante-rooms of the different
stories. This stairs answers the purpose of a private street,
with which each story is connected as a separate dwelling.
The different stories are as completely shut out from each
other as different houses, standing side by side in the same
street, are with us. The accommodations in each story are




EcoNOMY.                      239
complete for all the purposes of a private family. The houses
differ in size, so that more ample or limited apartments may
be obtained according to the number of the family. That I
hired more ample accommodations than I required was owing
to the fact of my being obliged to make my arrangements
without delay, and for a particular time, so that it was prudent
to embrace what so fortunately was offered to me at once.
Those who contemplate a longer residence, and who take
time to look about, can make very exact and economical
arrangements.
Sometimes apartments are hired unfurnished, or furnished
only in part; but there is no difficulty in hiring furniture or
any articles necessary to housekeeping. There are persons
who make it their business to hire out every thing of the
kind. The rates are all fixed. An inventory is taken of all
the articles when you take possession of your apartments,
and again when you leave them, a copy of which is furnished
you. You, of course, are responsible for all loss, and for
damage beyond necessary wear and tear. To provide against
all imposition, you can examine the articles for yourself when
the inventory is taken.
Persons may live in a very elegant and expensive style in
this way, or they may live economically and yet neatly, tastefully and comfortably. All humors and tastes may be suited.
Small families and of moderate means, can, in this way, go to
housekeeping without the trouble of buying, owning or arranging any thing, and for a longer or shorter time, as suits
their convenience.  In fine, it is a state of things which
answers exactly to the wants and conditions of a great city.




240             LIVING  IN  PARIS.
It is to be hoped that in our city of New-York, apartments
may, ere long, be arranged and let out in the same way.
Could it become as general as it is in Paris, it might be done
with an approach to the same -economy.
It did not appear to me that articles of food were generally cheaper in Paris than in New-York. Many articles are
much dearer. Tea costs four times, coffee three times, and
sugar twice as much. Some things are cheaper, but I think
the average is nearly the same. House rent and servants'
wages are much cheaper. But there is a very exact calculation as to quantity, so that there is no waste. And herein
consists the great difference. In Paris you will have enough,
without superabundance, and every thing is appropriated and
turned to account.
On the ground floor at the foot of the stairs is a room occupied by the concierge, or porter, who has charge of the
outer gate, and an oversight of the whole building, and who
is always on duty.
We were no sooner established than we felt at home and
at our ease, and with an entire command of our time. Located near the Tuileries, a few steps brought us at any hour of
the day within its beautiful promenades. The Louvre was
just at hand, where I could devote any spare hour:-a most
extensive and magnificent gallery of art thrown open and free
of expense, and as accessible as if I myself had been the
owner of it. When I felt inclined I could stroll into the
Bibliotheque Nationale, seat myself at a table, call for a book,
and amuse myself as long as I pleased, and nothing to pay.
I was in the centre of Paris with every thing at my command.




PARIS IS THE  WORLD.                 241
When  we wished to drive out, in a few moments a neat carriage was at the door, for which the hire was two francs and
a half per hour. And so driving and walking were intermingled as we saw fit.
Paris is the world where you can see every thing, and
get every thing, where all the conveniences of life, and all the
means of culture are provided. It is a place too where those
who seek for pleasure can readily find it under every form.
The amount of dissipation in such a city must be enormous,
and yet it is so regulated and veiled as not to obtrude itself
grossly upon the public eye. The French in their pleasures
are finished epicures, who know how to prolong enjoyment
and to nourish the capacity for enjoyment to the last pulsation of existence.
Paris wears an air of refinement and cultivation which
meets you every where. The long, elegantly built, well paved,
and cleanly streets, and particularly the wide and airy boulevards which occupy the ground of the ancient ramparts demolished in the reign of Louis XIV., and which were once
planted with double rows of magnificent trees on either
side; the splendor of the public buildings, and particularly
the palaces with their extensive gardens adorned with statues; the triumphal arches and monumental columns; the
quays on the Seine giving the appearance of a river flowing
between massive and smoothly-built walls, with fiequent
wide stone stairs leading down to it; the bridges which connect the banks, and the view presented from them, up and
down the river, where, in one direction, are palaces and gardens, and, in another, tall dwellings of various descriptions;




242          THE  IMPERIAL  CITY.
the magnificence of the' shops, the very manners of the
shopkeepers-the mantuamaker and milliner-the tailorthe bootmaker-the servant who waits on you —the concierge-the poor fellow who lounges about public places,
and opens the door of your carriage in expectation of a sous
-the manners of every body, firom high to low-a sort of
polish, ease and readiness-a speech abounding in courteous
expressions, and graceful compliments; in fine, every thing,
and every person show the marks of the metropolitan citythe imperial city-the city of fashion, art and grace.
The imperial city-who can believe it is republican? On
the public buildings, on the churches, are the words Liberte',
7Egalite, Fraternite, but the buildings. and churches notwithstanding are imperial, and the words appear out of place. It
makes one smile to read them. Stand in the grand entrance
of the Tuileries, and look up through the wide avenue of the
gardens to the Place de la Concorde, where stands the obelisk
of Luxor, and beyond the avenue of the Champs Elysee to
the grand Are de l'Etoile-a view of two miles-and what
do you see but imperial grandeur?  On every side are
soldiers. The vast pile stretches right and left-a facade
of three hundred and thirty-six yards. Pass through the
main entrance to the court of the Tuileries on the east side,
and here you see the long and gorgeous wings of the palace
stretching out to meet the Louvre, forming an immense
square where an army can be reviewed, and where Napoleon was wont to review his troops. Here, too, is the Place
du Carrousel, where stands the Are de Triomphe, supported
by eight splendid Corinthian columns, with bases and capi



ARC  DE  L'ETOILE..               243
tals of bronze. It is surmounted by a triumphal car, and
four bronze horses, modelled after the famous horses of the
Piazza of St. Mark at Venice, which once stood here. The
arch is covered with representations of Napoleon's victories.
Next, walk from the Tuileries to the Are de l'Etoile, and
mark the splendid statuary as you pass through the gardens.
When you have ascended to the Place de la Concorde look
to the left, and you see beyond the Seine the Chamber of
Deputies, on the right the Madeleine-beautiful specimens of
Grecian architecture. In the Place are two magnificent
bronze fountains, where dolphins, and tritons, and nereids
are grouped around. Between the fountains stands the
obelisk. Here again are statues. And now you ascend the
broad avenue of the Champs Elysee to the Are de l'Etoilethe proudest monument erected by Napoleon; —its height,
one hundred and fifty-two feet; its breadth, one hundred and
thirty-seven feet; its depth, sixty-eight feet. Behold it ornamented with groups of figures wrought on the surface. There
is the Genius of War summoning the nations to battle: and
there they are arming and rushing together. There is victory crowning Napoleon: Fame and History are recording
his deeds, while conquered cities lie at his feet. The battles
of Napoleon, the forms of his generals are there. It is a
monumental history of his life. Within are recorded the
names of battles and victories. You can ascend the monument, and then the imperial city lies beneath you. And
towering aloft one hundred and thirty-five feet, in the Place
Vendome, is seen the Trajan-like column, covered with basreliefs in bronze, made from twelve hundred cannon taken




244        THE  IMPERIAL PRESTI GE.
from the Russians and Austrians, and representing that series
of victories which culminated in the battle of Austerlitz. The
palaces of kings and emperors-the monuments of war and
victory-the richness and magnificence, and elaborate finish
of every thing-the amplitude of the space occupied, and yet
the unity of design running through the whole-public, yet
private-free of access, and yet guarded by soldiers-belonging to the people, and yet belonging to some one higher than
the people-the sense of an imperial prestige —of what has
been, leaving its memories behind-of what may be again,
where all stand ready to receive it-what has all this to do with
a republic? The Louvre is, indeed, appropriated to the arts,
and Greek architecture and Greek sculpture are not the natural
symbols of despotism; the Chamber of Deputies is no longer
occupied, and a rude building has been temporarily erected
for the National Assembly; there is a President of the Republic, and he does not reside in the Tuileries.*  But all
this does not, remove the imperial prestige. The Tuileries
appears vacated, deserted, lonely. It claims an occupant.
These grand displays-these palaces, gardens, and triumphal
columns and arches need the echo of a commanding step,
and the glance of an eye of majesty. All that is now going
on is but an interlude; you feel that the true drama is yet
to appear.
Every part of Paris awakens the same impressions. The
Bibliotheque Nationale, the Palais National, are still the Bibliotheque du Roi, the Palais Royal. The change of names
* The author was in Paris in the autumn of 1851.




PANTHE ON-VERS AILLES.                  245
appears like a farce. The Luxembourg still contains the
Chamber of Peers, the Council-room with the throne, rooms of
paintings and statuary, among which are the forms of princes
and princesses, and the magnificent gardens adorned with
beautiful statues of the queens of France.
The Pantheon is consecrated to the memory of the great
men of France. But in its dQme is a painting containing
nearly four thousand square feet, where are represented the
forms of kings and queens in a sort of apotheosis.
The Palace of Versailles, with its two dependent palaces,
Le Grand Trianon and Le Petit Trianon, forms a royal town
-so immense are the buildings-so extensive and adorned
are the grounds. The statue of Louis XIV. first meets the
eye.  Every where are the forms and symbols of royalty.
The vast interior is filled with paintings and statues of kings
and queens, and of the great emperor, of princes and heroes;
paintings of battles ancient and modern, where royalty and
nobility fill the eye. The almost interminable apartments
are gorgeous with the monarchy of France.  Within and
without, it breathes only of princely grace and glory. And
so it is with all the palaces. Those which are situated in
localities removed from Paris, are still so connected with it
as to appear a part of it. Indeed, Paris is France.
You go to Notre Dame, and on the Pont Neuf you pass
the equestrian statue of Henry IV. And Notre Dame is the
place where monarchs were crowned. It is the Westminster Abbey of France.
In the church of the Hotel des Invalides they are building
the tomb of Napoleon. It has already cost more than five,




246   THE  OLD  WORLD AND  THE  NEW.
millions of francs. It is the tomb of the man in whom culminated all the royal power and dignity of France.
In Paris, how can the people escape from the symbols
and the pervading presence of monarchy? Whatever they
see and converse with, seems to predestine them to a monarchy.
The establishment of our republic was a widely different
affair from creating a republic out of a monarchy. Although
under the monarchy of England, here were no ancient signs
and symbols of monarchy. We were on the virgin soil of
nature, with the unchartered privileges of forests and prairies
and rivers. All objects around us called us back to natural
rights, instead of making us feel the weight of prescription.
We received direct from the hand of God what in the Old
World is received by inheritance, through forms of law, and
under the protection of ancient authorities.  There, government appeared omnipotent: in the wild woods of America God alone appeared omnipotent. There, government
was the work of former generations, and had its roots in the
mysteries of the venerable Past: here nothing was old but
nature, and government had to be planted by our own hands,
to grow up in our own sight, and to be perfected by our own
labors.  There, society like the cities, the roads and bridges,
and the works of art, was already made and fashioned, had its
grades, its moulds of thought, its forms of expression, its manneis, its laws, all established-all absolute: here society, like
cities, roads, and bridges, had yet to be made and fashioned;
and we went to work with the wild and joyous freedom of men
felling trees and setting the woods on fire, to make way for
green meadows and harvest fields.




ENGLAND  AND  FRANCE.                247
In the Old World, to create a republic is to mnake war
upon what the men before us have been doing for a thousand
years. To create our republic in the New World, was to
make war upon nothing, but to begin a happy existence
under the calm sunshine, and in the free air of heaven.
We are often unjust upon the men of the Old World; we
do not sufficiently consider their peculiar situation and difficulties. And when they rush into a revolution, and violence
and atrocity succeed, and the whole fabric of society is shaken
and falling to pieces, we do not always stop to reflect that
society in its old forms is like a superincumbent mass of rocks,
where the power which alone is adequate to remove them
is a power that will shatter them, and make for a time a
scene of desolation.
The condition of England is quite different from that of
France. England has never attempted a republican form of
government. Besides, her limited monarchy-her present
Constitution is a growth firom seeds sown in the time of her
Saxon kings, in her Saxon Witana-gemot.  These seeds
sprang up under the Norman kings. They put forth when
the Magna Charta was wrested fiom King John, and in the
succeeding reign, when an assembly of knights and burgesses
was called. They struggled into the light from age to age;
they grew more and more; planted in the English soil, they
were nourished by the sympathies and blood of English
hearts, until the day of their maturity arrived. There were
convulsions, and yet the work went on with the steadiness
of a law of nature.
France had no such blessed seeds sown in her early times.




2'48           THE  REFORMATION.
From the time of Hugh Capet down, she swelled out more
and more into a huge, ponderous, unrelenting despotism,
until she attained her grand climacteric, when Louis XIV.
proclaimed, " I am the State." The church in England had
much that was national in its spirit. The church in France
was Rome transplanted. The growth of the church kept
pace with the growth of the state, and they interwreathed
their branches, like two enormous gnarled oaks, supporting
each other. France had no people. She had kings and
princes, nobles, prelates and priests. The masses were hewers
of wood and drawers of water. Her national growth could
only be a ranker despotism in Church and State.
There indeed grew up a middle class of manufacturers,
artisans, and traders, and they went to constitute a people.
Then, Awhen the Reformation sent its breezes of freedom over
France, this middle class was quickened; and not only this
class, but there were nobles and men of high character who received the inspiration also. The old twofold despotism of
the Church and State now accomplished a deed perfectly in
character. It could not join in the new movement, nor could
it live in connection with it; it therefore determined to crush
it. This could be effected only by murder and expatriation.
The massacre of St. Bartholomew's, and the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes, were no half-way measures,-they were
effectual. The element of freedom was destroyed or expelled,
the growth of a people was checked, and all was again
reduced to the dead level of despotism.
It is impossible to estimate adequately the dread consequences of such measures upon the national vitality, charae



THE  HUGUENOTS.                  249
ter and prosperity. France was at once deprived of her most
intelligent, enterprising and skilful population. The consequences were not confined to that generation. Principles,
forms of character, and habits are propagated as well as features, complexion, and temperament. The virtuous and
thrifty families that would have welled out the streams of
life through succeeding centuries, were destroyed, or given
over to other countries-to England, to Holland, to the wilds
of America. France has never made good this loss; she is
suffering from it at this moment.
Had the Huguenots been retained and religious toleration
granted, the whole national character, and the character of
the government, would have undergone a change by a gradual and benignant action; and the atrocities of the Revolution
would never have appeared in history. But as the old despotism could not but be determined in its measures, so it
turned out that there was power to accomplish them.
And then, again, the despotism went on growing more
and more rank. The Church and the State became still
more absolute, and still more grossly corrupt. Ambitious
prelates, and gay and artful women-the royal mistressesnow governed the State. Pride and luxury and extravagance increased. We are amazed when we read the Court
Memoirs of these periods. It is difficult to conceive of such
men and women. We hardly know to what order of beings
to assign them. They evidently conceived themselves to
belong to a very superior order. They were not creatures
exempt from ordinary human frailties; on the contrary, they
had frailties above measure. But frailties in them ceased to
VOL. II.          11




250         COURT OF Louis XIV.
be such, according to a new code of morals: for they were
creatures made solely for splendor and pleasure, and whatever contributed to their ends became lawful. For them art,
grace, and magnificence were wedded to sensuality. The
former elevated and hallowed the latter: the latter inspired
the former. They lived in a world which they had created
for themselves-a world of palaces and gardens. It had its
own manners, modes of life, and laws. It was the magic
Paradise of Aloadin, described in Thalaba. It seemed, too,
to have the sanction of heaven, for the cardinal's hat and
the bishop's mitre were seen among them. The common
world was made but for their grosser uses. It contained their
butchers' stalls, their kitchen gardens, and their stables; and
furnished the slaves who served them, the husbandmen who
tilled the ground for them, the manufacturers and artisans
who wrought for them all precious jewels and stuffs, the seamen who brought in: all the rich commodities of other climes,
and the soldiers who fought in their defence, and made conquests to increase their wealth and glory. The king was the
magician who created and governed the whole; the god
whom all worshipped; whatever he took he had a right to;
those whom  he smiled upon were great and happy; his
frown was despair and death; the virtue of the fairest and
noblest women was then most honored when sacrificed to him.
It is a very curious thing to try to imagine what such a
man as Louis XIV. thought of himself. He had lived in this
splendid and obsequious world from the beginning. He had
always been treated as a god. All things had been possible
to him. What was it to him to lavish a thousand millions of




THE  KSNG, THE  STATE.               251
francs upon the palace and gardens of Versailles? The whole
kingdom was at his command; and other kingdoms were his
vassals. He never had had one experience of ordinary
humanity, how then could he have any sympathy with it?
Did not all praise and glorify him, and tremble before him?
Was not his will law?. Did not all live and move and have
their being through him? Was not all concentred in him?
How could he come to any other conviction than what he
uttered, "I am the State?"  With what a consciousness of
power must he have walked through his royal rooms, amid
the host of gay and highborn attendants! What a perfect self-complacency he must have had!  What a scorn
and ineffable indignation at any person, or nation even, who
would dare to think or act contrary to his will and pleasure!
Could such a man ever descend to regret, or penitence, or
prayer? Was not the language of his heart, I will take my
seat among the gods?
The king is the state, the state is Paris, Paris is France,
and France aims to be Europe. How is this immense centralization to be broken up? It will not commit suicide.
The destroying force must come from without. Or it must
lie somewhere in the lower strata of society, to tear up the:
smiling plains above by a dread convulsion. The masses
have been wronged and crushed for centuries; it will be a
rude, mighty and convulsive effort that will heave off the
accumulated load. The young Thalaba will tear up a sapling
by the roots, dash out the brains of the Enchanter, and the
gorgeous vision will depart in thunder and lightning and
earthquake. The French Revolution was this unavoidable




252       T H   ThREE Rr3VOLVT I IONS.
convulsion and violence. The king and the court, the velry
centre and mystery of the whole enchantment, will be dashed
to atoms. The palaces and gardens where the spells were
formed will be desolated.  All the forms of royalty and
ancient grandeur will become objects of intense disgust.
Religion which had allied itself to despotism will be repudiated. In the taste of deliverance and freedom, thought
and action will run wild. A  thousand theories will be
broached, and a thousand experiments tried. In the fierce
war upon old authority, sacred principles and laws will be
confounded with kingly and priestly abuses.
The English Revolution was the maturity of civil and
religious liberty under a limited monarchy, which had been
preparing and growing up for ages. The American Revolution was the creation of a republic untrammelled by prescription, and on the basis of natural rights. The French
Revolution was the terrible and ungovernable reaction of outraged humanity against tyranny.
The French people first of all aimed to establish a republic, for this was the farthest removed firom the old state
of things, which they abhorred and had destroyed. This
was natural. They failed in the experiment. They were
going through a process of education.  How could they be
ripened at once for the highest destiny of a nation, selfgovernment?
Now the nation was fast becoming the prey of demagogues and factions. Then arose a man of stupendous genius
and indomitable will. He scattered the demagogues and
factions, and collected the disjointed and warring elements




THE  BIRTH  OF THE  EMPIRE.              253
into a mighty empire. The majesty of France had never
before been so august and powerful. And now it was represented by a man of the people. He accomplished their will;
for he swept away almost the very memory of the old monarchy and nobility; he held the church within his grasp, and
made it but the instrument of his policy, while he proclaimed
religious toleration; he dashed to pieces the old stolid despotisms, and exploded the principle of legitimacy by setting
up new kings, and meting out new kingdoms. The people,
indeed, returned to a monarchy, but it appeared to them a
monarchy made by their own hands, the concentration of
their own energy, and the instrument of their revenge for the
wrongs of centuries. The French Revolution is not to be regarded as a hostile movement against monarchy as such. It
was an attempt to obtain redress: —it was, too, an act of revenge. It was directed against the government, and, consequently, against the king, nobles, and priests who constituted
that government. In its unbounded madness, it perhaps entertained the fanatical purpose of overthrowing all government, and returning to the freedom of nature; and when it
talked of a democracy, it was not under any just conception
of it as a rational and efficient government, but simply as
popular emancipation, and an agrarian overthrow of ancient
privileges. And when after passing through the Reign of
Terror, and plunging into the whirlpool of the Directory, it
becamne apparent that a strong government was needed, it
was natural for the nation to look to the monarchical form as
embodying to them the ideas of order and power.
Napoleon, therefore, was called to become the head of




254    THE  TRIUMPH  OF THE  PEOPLE.
the state by the necessity of events, and by the voice of the
people. He fulfilled the fixed idea of government, but relieved it of all the odious associations of the past. His elevation was the triumph of the people over their oppressors.
It was a new monarchy which their own hands had constructed.
In accordance with this sentiment, Napoleon raised to the
highest places in the army and in the state men taken from
the ranks of the people. He created a new nobility froth the
people. Legitimacy was gone, the old regime was gone,
talent and energy every where might now indulge in lofty
aspirations.)- The common soldier, if destined to remain always in the ranks, might hope to be enrolled in the Legion
of Honor.
France, then, did not become republican, but imperial.
Under Napoleon the whole country was a vast military
camp. The Leader of the Armies, and involved in perpetual
wars, his government had all the absoluteness belonging to
such a state of things. But there was, nevertheless, a popular element interfused in its constitution, of which the nation
had continually a sense, and which was destined to make
itself felt. Hence, when the Bourbons were restored, they
did not bring back the old absolutism, but really a constitutional monarchy: and the reappearance of the old spirit in
the administration of Charles X. led to his expulsion. In the
government of Louis Philippe, the popular element was still
more fully developed; and an attempt to restrain it led to
his expulsion. The Republic of Louis Napoleon is a momentary triumph of this element.
But who does not see in the whole history of the French




THE  MEMORY  OF  NAPOLEON.    255
people since the battle of Waterloo, their strong and deeplaid attachment to the memory of their great Emperor? It
was a remarkable acknowledgment of this fact, that the shrewd
policy of Louis Philippe sought to strengthen his hold upon
the throne of France, by bringing home the ashes of Napoleon,
celebrating his obsequies, and building his splendid monument
upon the banks of the Seine. It was a striking demonstration of
the same fact, that a man who, as yet, had acquired no distinction, was elected the president of the new republic, because
he had the imperial blood in his veins, and bore the imperial
name. Who will be surprised if under him the Empire shall
be restored?
The party of the Legitimists, in its worst influences, can
only serve to excite the activity and increase the energy of
the opposite pole of Red Republicanism; and in its best influence it can be only a conservative power. Red Republicanism
is the unextinguished spirit of the fiust revolution, which can
never be laid until the rights of the people are properly vindicated and secured; and even long after this, may remain an
instinctive and habitual restlessness. The imperial element
lies between the two. It can inhabit the palaces, and preserve the monuments; it can satisfy the taste of the people
for display and glory; it can make itself strong enough to
control the warring elements: and still it is capable of taking
the mould of a limited and constitutional monarchy. Against
it there are no national prejudices. On the contrary, the
French glory in the memories and monuments of the Empire.
And is Louis Napoleon the man who is to restore the Empire, under the form of a constitutional monarchy? Who




256             Louis  N A P OLEON.
knows l I have nothing to say in justification of the measures
by which he has virtually assumed imperial power. It will
now be but a small advance to exchange the title of President
for Emperor. It is, perhaps, his best policy to make this advance. If he should do so, he may in part amend the obliquity of the past, and make himself a benefactor of France,
by establishing a government which shall combine imperial
strength and dignity with a proper guaranty of popular rights.
Neither a mock republic nor an imperial tyranny can stand.
The imperial prestige about Paris certainly increases its
interest to a visitor; and in walking through the Tuilleries, he
feels that the actual presence of royalty is necessary to the
completeness of the scene.
The French have many striking and attractive points of
character. One of these, which every one feels at once, is
their exceeding polish and grace. The educated and well-bred
French are perfectly agreeable in the ordinary and daily intercourse of life. Their manners are easy and natural, and equally
removed from hauteur and affectation. You feel entirely at
home with them, and receive from them a thousand little attentions, which are paid without the least approach to condescension, and, indeed, in a way that would seem to say that
they are obliged to you for permitting them. This may all
be very superficial, but, then, what is ordinary intercourse but
a superficial exchange of civilities? To speak pleasantly, to
bow courteously, to oblige you with some necessary information, to accompany you to a public place, to converse with
you in a free and sprightly manner in a drawing-room, to notice some disorder in your dress in the street, and politely to




POLITENESS OF  THE  FRENCH.    257
call your attention to it,-all these are not to be despised, for
they throw a constant cheerfulness and sunshine around you.
They cost but little,'it is true, and yet where they are omitted
society becomes coarse and boorish.
But this courteous disposition prevails among all classes.
It is found among shop-keepers, operatives of all kinds, and
the blouses in the street. The whole people are pervaded by
a spirit of politeness. It is not servility, it is a touch of goodbreeding. I happened one morning to step out into the anteroom just as the little char-woman was delivering a basket of
coals to my servant; she was quite sooty fiom her employment, but, instead of slinking away, she turned to me with a
native ease, and as if wholly unconscious of her appearance,
made a graceful courtesy, and bade me good morning respectfully and properly.
They understand, also, how to turn their politeness to
account.  I was one day sauntering along the Seine in a
careless, absent mood, when I was surprised by a blouse
suddenly stepping before me, and gently laying hold of the
lappet of my coat, saying, with the most courteous air,
"Permit me, sir, permit me." He immediately applied a
sponge and:soap to remove certain spots, which he observed
as I was passing by. The thing was done before I could say
yes or no, and done so neatly and kindly that I could not be
offended. Indeed, I was amused, and could not help laughing at my queer position. Then he offered to sell me some
of the soap, extolling its qualities. I could not dispute the
good qualities, for he had given me a demonstration of it on
my own garment. And then he had done me a kindness, too.
voL. II.          11*




258      THlE  BLOUSE- AN  APOLO~ GY.
And there he was, a poor blouse who got his living by selling
the soap. And so I went away with five francs worth of it
stuffed in my pockets. I was conscious that he was soaping
me in a double sense, but as I could not get angry, I was
compelled to reward his friendly offices.
These people, too, always contrive to have a certain air of
neatness, when their employment does not absolutely forbid
it. They pay attention to dress under the consciousness that
their appearance is marked by others. The French certainly
live more for show than other people. Hence, when they are
walking or sitting in the gardens, they seem to enjoy both the
sunshine and their clothes. I was at the railway dep6t, getting
my luggage weighed, when I happened to fix my eyes rather
steadily upon the man who was weighing it. He immediately
turned to me and said, with quite an apologetic air, " O, sir,
you are looking at my clothes; I know I am dressed very
poorly, but I cannot afford to dress better, for I get but little
wages." I tried to comfort him, by assuring him that I had not
observed how he was dressed: but I doubt whether he believed me, for he continued his apologies.
Paris is the great Emporium of Fashion. Here the world
resorts for modes and shapes. Hats, boots, shoes, coats, pantaloons, vests, overalls, cravats-every thing that goes to fit out the
outer man of the man; bonnets, shoes, dresses, shawls-the
numberless and unnameable articles which go to furnish and
adorn beauty, in spite of the poet who says, that beauty when
unadorned is most adorned; household furniture, equipageswhatever makes up the splendor and style of life-all are invented, and made to undergo a thousand changes from season




THE  CENTRE  OF  FASHIO N.              259
to season-now discarded, and now renewed, in this gay and
lively city. What is here determined and adopted at once
becomes proper and graceful every where. A new style from
this grand centre flies through the world, and myriads of
hands are set at work copying and reproducing, until the
whole generation of old and young, of grave and gay, receive
a new appearance with more or less extravagance. No one
is independent of it'; all in some degree obey it. And it is a
proud distinction when some more watchful and enterprising
devotee to modes and shapes in some distant capital in Europe
or America, gets the start of all others, and appears, for at
least one summer day, in the lone novelty of the last Parisian
fashion.
Parisian-What a charm there is in that word, how
much it expresses, what authority it carries with it, what
grace, beauty and propriety it at once conveys!
And what has made Paris thus the centre of fashion?
Unquestionably much is to be attributed to the influence of
Louis XIV., when the unsurpassed elegance and splendoi of
his court united with the glory of his arms to give France a
predominance in Europe. French became the language of
courts, French writers the models of literary composition, and
French etiquette and fashions the standards of manners and taste.
But independently of this there is something in the natural genius of the French people which must make them the
arbiters of fashion. It is not because they excel all other nations in imagination and artistic capacity generally.  The
Italians and Germans both surpass them here.  The truth is,
fashion does not arise from the artistic power, although it can



260          ORI 0I oV FASHfIoN.
not exist without it.  If fashion were governed simply by
vesthetical principles, costume would soon become fixed, as
among the ancient Greeks; for the'idea of costume, beyond
mere utility, is to give effect to the proportions, symmetry, and
grace of the human person.
Fashion has its origin in three elements of human nature;
the desire of outward and palpable distinction, the love of
novelty, and the wish to conceal personal defects. The frequent introduction of new modes, and constant variations of
costume, for ever enable a particular class to maintain a distinction in outward appearance. Their position affords them
the opportunity to watch the changes of fashion, and even to
invite them, while they have the means, to meet the cost
which is involved. The love of novelty exerts its power over
all classes, and this together with the ambition of imitating
the upper ranks of society, serves sooner or later to diffuse a
fashion, and to create the necessity of new changes.
The wish to conceal personal defects can lead to new
fashions only under the authority of the great. Thackeray
has given an amusing representation of Louis XIV. as Rex,
Ludovicus and Ludovicus Rex, in which the little rotund
figure of five feet two inches is transformed, by means of highheeled shoes and a towering wig, into a majestic person of six
feet. Thus high-heeled shoes and towering wigs were made
the fashion. The mode must become general in the court that
the king may not appear singular. What the king and his
court adopt, becomes, by association, elegant and graceful.
The most grotesque costumes have thus come into vogue.
The power which creates these diversities is a lively and




AN  INVENTIVE  FANCY.                   261
inventive fancy-a power which does not bind itself by Uesthetical principles, but which produces its effects by departing
from them to a certain extent. To do this happily, zesthetical principles must be understood, and must be allowed to
prevail as far as possible; but the endless diversity is gained
by a felicitous violation of them. Now herein lies the art of
producing fashions. The Parisians have taste, are artistical in
their education and habitudes;. but, in addition to this, they
have beyond all other people a lively and inventive fancy.
With them it appears to amount to an idiocrasy, and fostered
from generation to generation, under the presence of a gay
a.d3 splendid court, it has reached a kind of perfection, and
given birth to a new and peculiar form of art.
How the changes are started is a sort of mystery which it
is difficult to penetrate. There is no formally constituted
board of fashion, and no solemn convocation of the fashionmongers.  A  common understanding springs up somehow
among the members of the several trades, and the new fashion
makes its appearance like a new comet in the heavens.
When a new fashion reaches us it is stereotyped; it has
one absolute form which all run after. In Paris it is not so.
The new fashion appears distinctly enough; but it appears
with a graceful freedom, and admits of a variety of styles,
where the differences are very nice and yet palpable.  This
peculiarity seems capable of existing only on the soil where
the fashion is born, and prevents the Parisian elegance from
ever being fully transplanted.
The influence of fashion upon manners and character,
upon manufactures and commerce, is a curious speculation




262        THE  WESLEYAN  CHAPEL.
which demands the attention both of the moralist and the
political economist. How much of human thought is employed, how much of human passion aroused, how much of
human industry and skill exercised by mere fashion! iDoes
it advance civilization, or does it produce a deterioration of
the social and national character? is it the parent of good or
of evil? or, is it of such a mixed nature, that while we deprecate its follies and evils, we are still compelled to admit
it as an element in the order of society which the imperfection of man renders necessary?
An opinion generally prevails in England and America
that the French are a fickle and uncertain nation, driven on
by impulse, and governed by whim. The same lively
fancy which makes them the arbiters of fashion must exert
an influence over their whole character, and over public
events. Two other facts are to be viewed in connection with
this; —that they have never recovered from  the terrible
reaction which produced the French Revolution, and that
their religious and spiritual development is defective.
I usually attended Divine service in the Wesleyan
Chapel, in the Rue de la Concorde. It is a small humble
place. The service is in English. I there heard holy
hymns, devout prayers, and gospel preaching.
The entrance to the Wesleyan Chapel is under the
shadow of the Madeleine. The Madeleine is a glorious thing
to look at. It is in form and proportions a Grecian Temple
of the Corinthian order, and of larger dimensions than the
Parthenon. It was begun in 1764, and finished during the
reign of Louis Philippe. Napoleon, at one time, during the




THE MADELEINE.                   263
height of his triumphs, contemplated consecrating it as a
Temple of Glory.  Here, on Sunday, one may witness
solemn and imposing ceremonies, and listen to delicious
music. Altogether it is a religious intoxication of the senses.
On the same Sunday I went into the Madeleine and the
Wesleyan Chapel. I remained in the former until the hour
of service began in the latter. All the shops in Paris were
open, and the out-door world was going on as usual. In the
afternoon some of the shops are closed. This is after the
hours for religious worship. Then the Sabbath is made a
day of recreation, and the gardens of the Tuilleries, and the
Champs Elysee, are crowded with people sitting, standing,
or walking about.
What then is the Sunday in Paris, and what is religious
worship? The Madeleine, in connection with the open
shops, and the thronged places of amusement, represents the
religion of the Parisians-ceremonial, elegant, magnificent,
mingled with business, gayety and pleasure. The humble
Wesleyan Chapel represents that worship which Christ spoke
of when he said, " Where two or three are gathered together
in my name, there am I in the midst of them."
The infidelity which prevailed in France during the Revolution was a rebellion of awakened intellect, unacquainted
with the true gospel, against'the monstrous superstitions,
united with priestly ambition and sensuality, which were
palmted upon men as Christianity. That infidelity has never
been eradicated; nor can it be, until the minds of the people
are brought in contact with the simple Christianity of the
gospel. The religious and moral condition of France is a




264      EDUCATION  AND SECLUSIO N.
compound of Romish superstition and sentimentalism, with
the remains of the frivolity and sensuality which existed
before the Revolution, and the remains of the infidelity which
characterized the Revolution itself.
If the ancient Huguenots could be restored, France would
be healed. She will be healed when a race like the HIuguenots reappears in the church and the state. The impulsiveness
of the French, their taste, fancy, and refinement, when invigorated and controlled by religious principles,, serve, in connection with their keen intellect, to mould the finest and most
attractive forms of character. France has now many men
of the noblest stamp, but they are not in the ascendency.
There is one thing which at once strikes an American in
walking about Paris;-young women of rank-I mean unmarried young women-are not met with in the streets, or on
the promenades. He will find, too, that they are not introduced into society. The period of education is one of seclusion. The tendency of this is to produce a higher refinement
of manners, and a more perfect education.
The intense activity which characterizes Americans appears in every relation of society, and causes us to jump to
our conclusions and results. We are in a hurry to do every
thing. We are in a hurry to be men and women, in a hurry
to complete our education, in a hurry to get married, in a
hurry to get rich, in a hurry to set up an establishment, and
plunge into the dissipation of society. Boys and girls are
disappearing from among us, the beautiful modesty and innocent pleasures of youth are fast becoming a mere legend of
the past, and our children go out from the nursery full-grown




THE   SACRED  HEART.                  265
men and women. Nothing can correct this but a higher
culture, creating a higher standard of manners and accomplishments.
I was invited by a friend to visit an educational establishment of the ladies of the Sacred Heart. They have the
palace, with its extensive and beautiful grounds, once belonging to one of the old nobility. The inmates of this establishment are high-bred and elegant women, who devote
themselves with great fidelity to the education of the young
ladies committed to them. All the arrangements are exceedingly neat, tasteful, and comfortable, without any
approach to tawdriness and display. The large rooms of the
palace, stripped of their mirrors and ancient finery, form airy
and pleasant school and lodging rooms. The grounds
planted with trees, shrubbery, and flowers, make a rural
scene in the midst of the city. They have also a country
establishment, to which the pupils are frequently taken for
recreation. The system of education, I believe, is thorough,
and the discipline mild and kindly, as well as efficient. As
a Protestant I would not be guilty of the inconsistency of
exposing a daughter to the unavoidable influences of a religion of which I disapprove; but to members of the Roman
Catholic Church it must afford, in many instances, a desirable opportunity of removing daughters from scenes of frivolity
and temptation, and of enabling them  to prosecute their
education under very favorable auspices.
It would be well for us could our schools be modelled after
a similar plan, so that girlhood might be cherished in a retirement affording the best opportunities for intellectual culture




266           HoME  EDUCATION.
and rational accomplishments. Nothing, however, can comrn
pensate for a proper home education, where parental affection is the sunshine in which young minds and hearts are
cherished and unfolded by the pleasant influence of a natural
law, without that tyranny, misnamed discipline, which
makes war upon the happy spontaneity of childhood and
youth, and transforms the most innocent period of human life
into a purgatory fit only for ripened criminals.




XVII.
-Bookls and  Worqk8 of Art-Th.e
BibliothLe qe Nationale-Tlbe
Lo uv re.
6 (7 (f(3& the Bibliotheque Nationale, the principal
libraries of Paris contain not less than twelve hundred
thousand volumes. Many of these are accessible to the publie. Among them may be named the Bibliotheque de Ste.
Genevieve, containing two hundred thousand volumes, and
the Bibliotheque de l'Arsenal, containing about the same
number. There are, also,. libraries of literary societies which
are numerous.
The great library-called, successively, the Bibliotheque
du Roi, Nationale, Imperiale, then du Roi again, and now,
once more, Nationale, and destined, perhaps, to become again
Imiperiale-is a wonderful and magnificent collection. The
department of printed books contains nearly a million and a




268      B I B L I O T H E U  A T I O N A LE.
half of volumes, including duplicates and pamphlets. The
arrangement is admirable, so that any volume may be obtained without delay. Nothing is necessary but to hand
one of the librarians a slip of paper with the title of the
volume written upon it.
This great library is open to students of both sexes during the whole year-with the exception of the month of
September, and a vacation of two weeks at Easter-and on
every day of the week except Sundays and holidays. - There
are two days of the week appropriated to promiscuous
visitors.
I visited it, for the first time, on the first day it was
opened after the September vacation. The long readinggallery was filled with the studious, who were seated at a
table extending from end to end. No whispering is allowed.
The same scene was repeated every day I visited it. Among
those who were reading I observed a blouse, and a woman
beside him, who appeared to be his wife.
There are four other departments of the Bibliotheque
Nationale: The Cabinet of Medals and Antiques, which
contains one hundred and fifty thousand specimens; the
Collection of Manuscripts, which contains one hundred and
twenty-five thousand volumes; the Collection of Engravings,
which contains nine or ten thousand volumes and portfolios,
comprising one million three hundred thousand plates, and
fills six rooms; and the Gallery of Ancient Sculpture, or
the Salle du Zodiaque, so called firom the Egyptian Zodiac of
Denderah, which is the most remarkable piece in the collection.




PALAIS  DE.L'INSTITUT.                269
The building which contains these collections was once
the princely palace of the Cardinal Mazarin. It is a huge
structure, five hundred and forty feet long, and one hundred
and thirty broad, and is built around a court three hundred
feet long and ninety broad.
The Cardinal also has given his name to a noble library
in the Palais de l'Institut, which originally was the library of
the college which he founded. This library now contains
one hundred and fifty thousand printed volumes, and nearly
four thousand manuscripts. It is open to the public daily
with the exception of a short vacation, and Sundays and
holidays.
The library of the Institute in the same building, which
contains one hundred thousand volumes, is designed particularly for the members, but others are introduced through
courtesy. Indeed, a student in Paris really has access, in
some way, to all the immense collections of learning which
are found here, and that without incurring any expense.
Side by side stand the collections of books and the
collections of art. When I look at Paris in this point of
view, the city appears almost built for the sole purpose of
accommodating and promoting learning and art. Paris is
itself every where adorned with works of art; and the
churches, the palaces, the gardens, and public institutions,
such as the Palais et Ecole des Beaux Arts, contain innumerable pieces of various degrees of merit. But as the Bibliotheque Nationale is the great collection of books, so the Louvre
is the great collection of paintings and statuary. The palace
of the'great cardinal is consecrated to books: the palace of
kings is consecrated to art.




2'70               T TE -LbUVRE.
The Louvre is in itself a magnificent piece of architecture, forming a perfect square around an open court, the
length of each side being four hundred and eight feet. The
staircases, halls, rooms, ceilings, and walls of the interior, are
finished in a style of great splendor and richness. But the
building is forgotten in what it contains. The first time I entered it, I visited only the Musge des Tableaux des Ecoles
Italiennes, Flamnandes, et Frannaise.  I stood here several
hours gazing at paintings without weariness, for I really became absorbed like a child looking at wonders.
There is first a large room filled with paintings of the old
masters-paintings by Titian, Raphael, Corregio, Poussin,
and others of the same stamp. This room opens into an
immense gallery-the Grand Salon, thirteen hundred and
thirty-two feet long, stretching between the Louvre and the
Tuilleries. I doubt whether a more magnificent and better
lighted gallery can be found in the world for the exhibition
of pictures. Here are four hundred and eighty paintings of
the Italian school; eight copies of ancient pictures; five hundred and forty paintings of the German and Flemish, among
which are many of Rubens; and three hundred and eighty
of the French. I might well stand several hours gazing
here, for here were objects enough to hold the attention and
form a study for an indefinite period. Now I had all the
great masters under my eye in one of the finest collections of
paintings in the world. There were many artists of both
sexes in the gallery making copies. There were many visitors walking about, but there was perfect order and silence,
and plenty of room for all.




THE  GRAND  SALON.                  271
Many paintings of great merit, and which would have
charmed me in any other place, I soon learned to pass by,
confining my attention to those great works, the like of
which I had never seen before. Upon entering the first
room, I was long held by a sleeping Venus of Corregio.
In the Grand Salon, I came upon the same subject by
Titian, and then I perceived the superiority of the latter in
coloring.  There were several portraits by Titian which
strikingly illustrated his grand excellence.  His faces are
alive, the eyes look out upon you, the glow of animation is upon the cheek, the lips are speaking, or about to
speak.
Titian, Raphael, and Rubens, were artists whom I particularly compared. My mind was full of Rubens from what
I had seen at Antwerp. Here was the same style of painting but in inferior subjects. I got at a certain theory of my
own, and I made my criticisms from my own instinct. Shall
I give out my thoughts? Perhaps artists and connoisseurs
will smile at me. Nevertheless I will be simple-hearted, and
speak out.
The Ideal does not violate or contradict nature, but it
carries out the principles of nature to a perfection beyond
the bare reality. God has made nature after the conceptions
of his own mind. He has made man after his own likeness,
and endowed him with ideas and conceptions like his own.
As God has submitted nature to be improved by man-the
agriculturist and mechanician, as his own instrument; so also
he has committed to man-the artist, to improve upon the
beauty of nature. God has not developed in nature all the




272   TIlE  IDEAL-LINES AND  COLORS.
possible perfection of beauty contained in the idea of beauty,
but he has inspired artists, in different degrees, to make advances beyond the actual nature, and to make indefinite
approximations towards that perfection which perhaps no
created skill can ever reach. But by these efforts, more or
1ess successful, the artist becomes the great Teacher of the
Beautiful, and leads on humanity to those loftier and purer
tastes and conceptions, which besides adorning and elevating
the present life, may be a preparation for mingling with more
perfect forms of beauty in a future state.
Now, the artist produces his effects by lines and colors.
He follows the laws of proportion, symmetry, grace, and harmony. In statuary and bare drawing, lines alone are employed. In painting, there is added all the effect which arises
from gradation and harmony of colors.
In respect to color, no artist has ever reached, and probably never can reach, what Nature has done. No artist can
ever express fully the colors of the rising or setting sun, for
the gradations of color are constantly moving, while his work
must be stationary. Nor can any artist paint flowers and
foliage like Nature, for here the colors of Nature are developed through the agency of the ever-active power of life,
while he uses dead paints: just as no art can compound the
fragrance of flowers, the sweets of the honey-bee, nor crystallize the diamond, notwithstanding the analysis of the chemist.
In respect to form, the artist has more scope. Having
gained the laws of proportion, symmetry, and grace, he may
express them more perfectly than he finds them in any natural
subject. Hence the genius of a Phidias or a Thorwaldsen may




ID   AL  OF FORM  AND  CO01OR.              273
make a more perfect human form than the eye has ever
looked upon.  There are many influences which go to prevent the full development of human beauty, and to pervert
the tendencies of nature: these the artist may avoid, and
make man as he conceives of him fiesh from the hand of the
Creator.  The ideal of art, therefore, belongs to form rather
than to color.
The most that an artist can do in coloring is to make approximations to nature; and he that approaches nearest is
the greatest master of coloring.  In some departments of art
there is, however, an idealizing of colors. This appears in
producing certain effects by a peculiar combination of colors,
beyond what we ordinarily or ever see in nature.  Thus it
appears to me a certain magical sunlight is sometimes
thrown over a landscape which goes beyond ordinary nature.
Is there not, too, an idealized wildness and grandeur in the
light and shadow of Claude Lorraine? Now Titian when he
paints human flesh in some way idealizes color. There are
faces which he could not idealize, where he could only ap,
proach nature.  The fresh beauty of the face of a child is as
difficult to reach, as impossible to surpass, as an opening rosebud.  But it is not so with the rough faces of men. Here a
perfection of coloring may be imagined, in keeping with the
form and expression of the features, which might exist, but
which is marred and faded by the wear and tear of human
life. Sometimes the great aim of the artist will be to represent the effects of toil and suffering, and then he can idealize
the face, not by coloring, but by lines which give it intense
expressions.
vok. frf.S




2 74     T IT I         A N -  A  H A E L-R  u BE NK S.
According to the spirit of art, there are only certain countenances that ought to be painted.  It is as absurd to paint
any and every face as it would be to paint natural objects indiscriminately. A true subject of art is a face capable of
some striking expression. Such a face is capable of being
idealized, while common faces are capable only of being flattered.  The grand intellect, the noble soul, the great hero,
does not always look the same in the expressions of the
countenance and the attitudes of the form. The true artist
will seize upon the character, and make the face express it.
Now it is upon these principles that I compare Titian,
Raphael, and Rubens.  I have already spoken of Rubens as
giving the expression of reality. When his subject is great,
like the Crucifixion, and he makes it real before you, can you
be otherwise than overpowered? Here lies his great power.
He gives you form and color as it is.
Titian and Raphael are idealists. This is their distinction.
But wherein do they differ from each other?  In comparing
them, I felt that in something Titian was superior to Raphael:
and, also, that in something Raphael was superior to Titian.
I soon yielded to the common judgment that Titian is the
great master of coloring. I saw that Raphael did not equal
him here. But then, what forms of beauty, and what divine
expressions there were in Raphael's paintings! And so, I
said to myself, Raphael idealizes form, Titian idealizes color,
while Rubens paints form  and color as it is. Rubens has
been condemned for the grossness of his representations:
thus, the figure of his Christ in the Elevation of the Cross
has been objected to as clumsy and inelegant.  The criticisnl




SALLE  DES  Bijoux.                  275
is just.  He did not idealize.  Rubens, therefore, is inferior
to the other two.
There are many small pieces in this gallery of the Dutch
artists which' are perfect gems in their way. Their elaborate
and elegant finish surprised me. It were in vain to attempt
any thing like a description of this glorious gallery.  There
can be only a very crude conception formed of it from the
best description that could be given. I visited it frequently,
and it alone convinced me how much time it was necessary
to spend in Paris to form any tolerable acquaintance with the
treasures which this metropolis contains.  As I returned from
it, I felt a strong sentiment of gratitude to the French nation,
to the kings, to the Emperor, to all who had contributed to
open this collection to the world, and that, too, gratuitously;
and I was constrained to acknowledge that the people who
had done this must be great and noble. And the great artists
who had produced these works, were not they, beyond the
nation, the kings, and the Emperor, the benefactors of mankind a  Immortal men! ye were often poor yourselves, but
ye have enriched generations of men.
The entrance to the Grand Salon is made through the
Salle des Bijoeux, which contains a rare collection of cups,
vases, porcelain, jewels, and other curious and precious objects
of the middle ages,  The works of Benvenuto Cellini particularly interested me, both on account of the remarkable
workmanship, and the character of the artist himself, which
is drawn with so much naivete in his autobiography.
My next visit was paid to the.Musee des.Antiques, which
occupies a series of apartments on the ground floor of the




2:i6         M    MUSEE  D)ES ANTIQUES.
Louvle.  This was called the M-us'e Ncaoleon when it was
opened in 1803, and contained all the spoils of Italian galleries
of art. At the same time, the Louvre was filled with all the
great paintings of Europe. One could wish that, for the sake
of convenience, the grand collection could have remained undisturbed in Paris.  It was, however, an act of justice on the
part of the Allies to restore them to the nations from whom
they had been taken. Napoleon probably thought that the
magnificent capital of his vast empire claimed this tribute
from the subjugated cities. Conquerors have always had
their own code of morals.  Rome once collected within herself all the riches and glory of the world. Napoleon aimed
to make Paris the capital of a modern Western Empire.
But the Musee des Antiques is still a rich and remarkable
collection.  Here are two hundred and forty statues; two
hundred and thirty busts and heads; two hundred and fifteen
bas-reliefs; and two hundred and thirty-five vases, candelabras,
altars, &c. Marred and mutilated as these antiques are by
the accidents of time, they nevertheless afford a very clear
idea of the perfection and glory of ancient art. What can
we moderns do beyond copying them? Are not all the
qualities of proportion, symmetry and grace here fully developed?
In giving a representation of natural scenery, coloring, or, at
least, light and shade, are necessary; but, in. form and expression, what more is required than lines? The marble statue
conveys not only the form, but the expressions of life, thought,
and passion. The solid material passes out of our thoughts,
and pure form and expression seem floating in the air before




TE   EN U S.                     277
us.  it is a wonderful art! After my first visit to the Louvre,
I never entered it without taking a turn through the Musee
des Antiques. And there is one statue in particular before
which I always paused and gazed long and earnestly. It is a
Venus partly robed, of more than natural size, the arms broken
off, and the whole figure marred.  It was found in Asia Minor
about thirty years ago. The perfection of the form, the grace
of the attitude, the beauty of the countenance, are still there.
There is nothing sensual about it; it is a pure and divine loveliness.  To my eye there is nothing in the collection superior
to it.  If I ever see the Venus at Florence, I shall then have
a standard with which to compare it.
So vast is the extent of the Louvre that to walk through
it is like walking through a city of the fine arts. There are
nine rooms appropriated to the Galerie Franfaise, the ceilings
of which are painted with historical subjects, and the walls
covered with the works of the French artists.  The Musee des
D)essins contains an immense collection of drawings.  There
are more than seven hundred of the Italian school alone.
Then there is the XMusee Grec et Romain, comprising three
rooms filled with Etrurian and Greek antiquities; the Muse'e
Egyptien, containing most of the antiquities collected by the
French researches in Egypt.  The Galerie Assyrienne is not
as rich as the collection made by Layard, in the British Museum; but the two winged sphinxes, or winged bulls with
human heads, dug up at Nineveh by M. Botta, are of far
greater magnitude, and more remarkable than the similar
figures of Layard, placed in the vestibule of the Museum.
The Louvre, in addition to all its other treasures, contains a




2'78       GOBELINE  MANUF ACTORY.
library-the Bibliotheque du Louvre-once the private library
of Louis Philippe. It consists of fourteen rooms, in which are
collected eighty-five thousand volumes.  A mere enumeration
of the different departments of the Louvre would occupy a
considerable space. Indeed, this vast building is filled with
works of art and antiquities.
All the rooms, with a few exceptions, are thrown open to
strangers every day, who are admitted upon showing their passports and entering their names in a book.  On Sundays the
Louvre is thrown open to thle population.
In noticing works of art in Paris, I cannot well avoid adverting to the Gobeline tapestry and carpet manufactory. This,
as well as all other works of art, is shown gratuitously.  In
London, and, indeed, every where in England, the shilling is
perpetually demanded.  In Paris there is a noble generosity
in this respect. Those who attend upon public places in England have the air of men who are watching for an opportunity.
In Paris they have an uncalculating, easy, and polite air.  In
one country you ifeel that you are continually under the screw;
in the other, you visit the exhibitions of art, and enjoy yourself, with freedom.
The Gobeline manufactory, named after Jean Gobeline, a
celebrated wool-dyer of the fifteenth century, belongs to the,
government.  The tapestries and carpets are manufactured
only for the royal palaces, and for royal presents.  The process
is very slow. It sometimes takes from five to ten years to
mlake a single carpet.  The texture and designs are perfect.
The tapestries hanging up in the exhibition rooms nmight be
mistaken for paintings.  Indeed, in several instances I was for




To MB  OF' NAP   Lo E  N              279
nome imoments at a stand to determine whetfler the piece before me was the painting which served as a model, or the
tapestry wrought after it.
It is very curious to notice the workmen engaged on pieces
where portions of a figure are finished, while the rest is an
entire blank.  In a painting, the whole outline is drawn upon
the canvas, and the artist goes over the whole, and brings it
forward by gradations.  But in the tapestry, every part is
completed as the work advances, and you see a beautiful arm
without the hand, or an angel with only one wing fledged.
Slowly does the workman. proceed, adding thread to thread
with the nicest adjustment of the shades of color, until he
weaves out the whole picture.
Among the monuments of Paris there will, at no distant
day, be offered to the public view, in the Church of the Hotel
des Invalides, the tomb of Napoleon, which is now in progress.
We gained admission through the card of M. de Tocqueville.  Under the dome of the church an immense circular
crypt is dug, in which the sarcophagus containing the remains
is to be placed. The platform for the sarcophagus was not
yet completed.  There is a gallery running around the crypt,
whiich is to be paved with rich mosaic, and to be adorned
with bas-reliefs, representing the principal events of the Emperor's life. One of these was in progress, in which the figure
of Napoleon was conspicuous, but it was not sufficiently advanced to enable me to decipher the design.
The twelve colossal caryatides in white marible, and which
support an upper gallery, were finished.  They are noble figures, the woork of different artists, and represent War, Legis



280   Louis  NAPOLEON  AND  KOSSUTH.
lation, the Arts and Sciences. Before the tomb, is a magnificent altar of black marble with white veins, the canopy of
which is supported by columns of the same material. This
appeared to be nearly completed.
Thus does France cherish and honor the memory of the
man who most truly represented her spirit, and who, if the
hearts of the people are to be consulted, was her most legitimate monarch.
I do not believe the French people will ever return to the
old doctrine of legitimacy. And nothing will serve more to
strengthen Louis Napoleon than any demonstration on the
part of Russia, Austria and Prussia against him. An alliance
with these powers can bring nothing to him but weakless. A
conflict with them will make him at once the hero of the
French people, and enlist in his behalf the sympathies of the
world, It is by no means impossible, that Louis Napoleon
may be driven to stand side by side with Mazzini and IKossuth
in the great battle for the liberties of Europe. A conflict between France and the three despotic powers would open an
opportunity for Italy and Hungary.  Louis Napoleon has,
certainly, given indications of extraordinary qualities, showing
the presence of the Napoleonic self-reliance and energy.
Like Maurice of Saxony, he may come in at last as a main
support of the cause which he at first deserted.  Whether he
consults fame, or the stability of his power, this is the only
course which lies open before him.
I visited Versailles twice. It is about three quarters of an
hour distant from Paris by railroad. The first time, I went
out to breakfast with M. de Tocqueville, who has a pleasant




M~ DE  TOCQUEVILLE.                    281
country residence in the suburbs.  I spent two or three hours
very agreeably with him and his accomplished wife, who is
English by birth, although, I believe, she has resided most of
her life in Franrce.  M. de Tocqueville is well known to
Americans by his admirable work upon our country, the result of a visit he made to the United States about twenty
years since.  lie is one of the noblest and purest characters
in France, a finished scholar, and a profound statesman.  As
a writer he holds the highest rank. He is of middle stature,
rather slightly made, of a fine intellectual cast of features,
with a grave, meditative expression.  His manners are very
quiet, simple, and refined, and calculated to win respect and
confidence. IHis conversation was easy and discursive. Little
was said about the state of France, a subject which delicacy
forbade me to introduce; but we talked a good deal about
America, (and on literary subjects.
I adverted to the fact that so many literary men entered
into political life in France, while in our country they are apt
to be excluded.  He replied, that in France men of literary
distinction entered into political life as a natural consequence
of their position, if they chose to do so. - He said, also, that
he lad remarked the fact I mentioned that in our country the
most distinguished men did not generally occupy offices under
the government. On referring to his book I find the same
observation recorded there.  While exceedingly liberal, and
even democratic in his opinions and tendencies, he has an intellect too acute and calm not to perceive the incidental evils
of our institutions.
It is to be deprecated that public honors cannot be cerVOL. II.             12*




282           VISIT TO  VERSAILL6s,
tainly looked forward to as a reward of great talents and attainments in our country. One stimulus to intellectual exertion is thus removed. Besides, the country must itself suffer
when the policy and tact of the demagogue supplant the
gifts of mind, and scholarlike preparations.  It is an evil
which can be remedied only by the creation of those great
institutions of learning, which, like the University of Paris, and
the French Institute, both multiply the number of scholars
and collect them in associations where they can co-work together, sustain each other, and make their legitimate power
and influence to be felt.
I subsequently received several very polite and valuable
attentions from M. de Toccqueville, among which was an introduction to the Institute, on occasion of a meeting of the
Academie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, of which he is
the president.
After leaving M. de Tocqueville on the morning above
alluded to, I walked to the Palace of Versailles, about a mile
distant. On the way I was caught in a shower and thoroughly
soaked. I entered the palace of kings with that very meek
air which one always gains — fiom such an accident, with all
my feathers laid and dripping.  It occupied me four hours
and a half to walk through all the rooms-a walk estimated
at seven miles-and I fairly walked myself dry.'The magnificence of this palace is inconceivable without
visiting it. It is like the gorgeous descriptions of the Arabian
tales. Every spot on the walls and ceilings is adorned with
carving, painting, marble, or gilding.
It is filled with statues, portraits, and historical paintings.




PLAY-H o u s E  AND  P L A Y -G         N.   283
The paintings cannot be extolled in general as works of art,
but are to be regarded simply as representations of the leading
events of French history.  Napoleon, unquestionably, holds
the most conspicuous place. His portraits abound; and all
the grand passages in his life, his victories, coronation, &c.,
are displayed on immense fields of canvas.
On a second visit, we extended our observations to the
Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, walking through the
gardens where fountains, and lakes, and trees, and flowers, are.
contrived to make a scene of formal beauty and magnificence,
variegated by artificial wildernesses, where rocks, and grottoes,'
and waterfalls are fashioned elaborately into an imitation of
what nature does so easily and gracefully.  It is well done,
considered as man's work, but it is plain enough that the
hand of God is not there.
And this Versailles was the grand play-house and playground of kings and queens.  It cost only two hundred millions of dollars! Does not such a thing as this sow the seeds
of Red Republicanism and Socialism in the hearts of the people?
Agrarianism, Fourierism, Socialism —there are some grains of
truth scattered through these theories, after all: they ale a wild
protest of the people against oppression and starvation. The
country, say they, is filled with abundance, the fruit of our hard
labors;-must there not be something wrong in the state, something wrong in human society, when a few grasp it all,-grasp
more than they can use —grasp to waste-while we are ground
down into the dust by poverty and anxiety?  Let all workthat is right; but let work have sufficient wages.  While
horses are luxuriously stabled, and fed to fatness; and dogs are




284   FEELING  IS  THE  NAKED  TRUTH.
klennelled, and live on butcher's meat; why may not human
beings be clothed and fed, and have a comfortable place to
sleep in? Is this God's decree, or is it man's abuse.? Now
when men talk so under the shadow of Versailles, it will not
do to laugh at them; and when they beconme, too, turbulent,
to answer them with bullets and bayonets..Feeling is the
naked truth; hunger and nakedness are something which
men feel. Do not expect these rude masses to reason; they
can only feel. Oh, ye statesmen and rulers! ye are the men
to reason, when the people thus feel.




XVJJL
tih6    in'ivee      i yq-_ Th/  e  iSorrbonl    e —
1The Co I I g eye of Fr a ce -The Institite  of  France.
ad(   University of France must not be confounded with
the University of Paris. The first relates to the great
system of Public Instruction established by Napoleon, and is
distributed into three grades: Instruction Suiprieuire, comprising the faculties; Instrtuction Secondaire, comprising
Lyceums and Communal Colleges; and Instruction Primaire,
comprising elementary schools. The University of Paris is
the ancient University founded in the twelfth century.
The Sorbonne is the title given to a theological school
founded by Robert de Sorbonne, an ecclesiastic of the thirteenth century. The Sorbonne and the University are now
really one institution, included in the Acadenmie Universitaire




286              TH E  FACULTIE S.
of Paris.  In the buildings of the Sorbonne the three faculties of Theology, Science, and Letters, deliver their lectures.
The Faculty of Law is established at the Ecole de.Droit,
Place de Pantheon.  The Faculty of Medicine is established
at the Place de l'Ecole de Medicine.
Lectures on Mineralogy are given at the Ecole des 2aiines.
Lectures on Botany, Zoology, and Comparative Physiology,
at the Jardin des Plantes.
The Faculty of Science is composed of eighteen professors; the Faculty of Letters, eighteen professors also; the
Faculty of Law, seventeen professors, and eight assistant professors; the Faculty of Medicine twenty-six professors.  The
exact number of Theological professors I have not ascertained.
There are three thousand students who attend the lectures
of the Faculty of Medicine; about the same number attend
the lectures of the Faculty of Law; and fifteen hundred
attend the lectures of the Faculty of Science. To these are
to be added the students under the Faculties of Theology and
of Letters.
The Colldge National de Fr2ance, founded by Francis I.,
is in its character a University, also, where twenty-eight professors give public and gratuitous lectures in almost every
department of learning. No enumeration can here be attempted of the numhber of students, for the doors of the
lecture-room are thrown open to all who please to attend.
The Musde N'ational d'Histoire Natutrelle in the Jardin
des Plantes, again is, virtually, a University organization,
where fifteen professors lecture on the various subjects of
Natural History.




EECOLE  AND  BEAUX  ARTS.                 287
The.Ecole des Beaux Arts consists of two departments;painting and sculpture, and architeture..Twenty professors
deliver lectures gratuitously on the whole range of subjects
connected with the arts. Annual prizes are distributed. The
highest prizes confer the privilege of studying at Rome at the
expense of the state, and of passing four months at Athens.
There is a very extensive collection of works of art connected
with the school. To this the public are admitted on certain
days. I of course availed myself of the privilege.
The Conservcttoire des Arts et Metiers is an institution
designed for manufacturers, mechanics, agriculturists, and
indeed for every branch of industry.  Here are fourteen
professorships.
The.Ecole Normale educates young men who propose to
become candidates for professorships.
Many other special schools might be named. My object
in naming the above is to give to those who have not made
themselves acquainted with the system of education in Paris
some conception of the preparations here made for every
branch of learning.
The Institut de France is a society of learned men, who
are not associated for the purpose of giving instruction, but
for the purpose of advancing every department of learning by
original investigations, by the publication of discoveries, and
by correspondence with learned societies, and learned men in
other countries.
It is distributed into five academies: the Academie
Frangais, consisting of forty members; the Academie des
Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, consisting of forty members; the




288       How  PARIS  IS  GOVERNED..Academnie des Sciences, consisting of sixty-five members; the
Acaddenie des Beaux Arts, consisting of forty-one members;
and the Acadermie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, consisting of thirty members.
The members receive a salary of fifteen hundred francs
each, and the secretaries of six thousand fiancs each.
Paris has more than a million of inhabitants.  An immense congregation, this, of human beings. To control these
there is first, the power of the law executed by a well-organized police. And then there is in human beings a sense
of duty-the force of religious obligation which is more powerful than all. Those whom God and the conscience really
govern, the state need not govern. But there is a good conduct
induced by cultivation simply, appearing in the control which
a sound and enlightened judgment, a sense of propriety, a
pride of character and position, a conviction of the necessity
of obedience to law and the rules of morality in order to seculre the common weal, exercise over human beings in all
the relations of life. On the one hand, if the police were the
sole power to be relied upon, they would be impotent to
control such a combination of physical strength, cunning, audacity, and savage ferociousness as the multitudes of Paris
would present. On the other hand, if religious and moral
principle were relied upon, it would be found to permeate so
small a number as to be quite inadequate to secure public
order. But this third element-the result of education, of
civilization, is the great source of strength and safety in the
present imperfect condition of human society. The farther
the influence of pure religion extends the more secure and




EDUCATION  AND  ORDER,-'                289
happy a state becomes. A divine government-a moral selfgovernment, go to supersede the necessity of all other government.  But even religious and moral culture would direct
and appropriate, and by no means dispense with, the power
found in education and refinement.
Take the highest forms of education, first, as an illustration
of the regulating power found here.  All perceive, at once,
that men of science and letters, and artists, and mechanicians, as the direct effect of their intellectual cultivation must
be men of order and propriety. They can judge of society
as an organism, a work of art, or a machinery, and through
their most familiar ideas see all the necessities of law and
order. Then cultivation necessarily begets a love of order and
decency, and society is regulated by a sense of tasteful proprieties. The same faculties and tastes which would pry into
the laws and harmonies of nature, which would make discourses upon philosophy, which in art would make statues and
build temples, which in letters would write poems, which in
the public improvements would open streets, make roads,
institute commerce, agriculture, and the useful arts-in fine,
the same faculties and tastes which would elevate and improve our human condition, would, evidently, go, on similar
principles, to institute and enforce good laws, and be in themselves a power of social order and harmony. The Greeks
and Romans had very little in their religion calculated to
build up moral and social order.  But they had manly
judgments of propriety, they had clear perceptions of social
necessities, they had artistic tastes which could not but pervade every thing, and thus their society grew up and was
sustained.




290      INFLUENCE  OF  INSTITUTIONS.
When great institutions of learning, and learned societies,
and schools of art, and large libraries, and collections in natural history, and models and works of art are all brought to
exist together as in Paris, there is a public taste and determination necessarily produced in the direction of learning and
arts and social refinement.  It appears in the number of
youth who are drawn to seek intellectual and artistic cultivation; in the rank and influence naturally attained by authors
and artists; in the general intelligence, refinement and literary
spirit diffused through society, and strongly expressed in the
higher circles, so that education becomes a necessary qualification of rank and high-breeding; in the absence of grossness
even in folly and vice, so that pleasure and dissipation lose
the form of debauch and hide themselves under the aspect of
epicurean art; in the dress, equipages, fashions, modes and
manners of the higher classes; nay, it appears in all classesthe whole people are cultivated in different degrees, exhibit a
certain refinement and elegance, and are brought to observe
tasteful proprieties, and come under restraints, which if not
moral, still have a moral result by preventing public indecencies and disorders.
That there are rough and fierce degrees of society in
Paris, that there are violent elements in Parisian character,
is evident enough when a coup d'etat or a revolution takes
place, and men pile up the barricades. Then what does the
power of the police amount to?  Even the soldiery have been
swept away.  But this vast populace, ordinarily, is composed,
and Paris is the seat of elegance and pleasure.  Religious restraints certainly are, here, very weak.  The power which




T3E  AESTIIETICAL CONSCIENCE.   291
ordinarily holds them, guides them, and thus preserves the
public weal, is a law of order springing out of that cultivation
which is carried to such high perfection in large numboe   of
the citizens, and which sends its waves through every grade
of society. Paris is governed by an esthetical conscience.
The people in the public gardens, on the public promenades, in the presence of beautiful buildings and monuments, in
the Louvre, in the Bibliotheque Nationale, in the Pantheon, the
Madeleine, the Jardin des Planltes, amid all those objects of
taste which meet their eyes every day, in all those institutions
of a higher cultivation which they may visit at least, and fiom
whose privileges they are not debarred, gain one form of
character, a common taste, and come under the control of the
same law.
Now, these are important facts, and are not to be neglected by any great city whatever.  As a citizen of New-Yolrk
I cannot avoid applying them  to our condition.  We are
hastening on to the magnitudcle of Paris.  We bid fair to
reach even the magnitude of London. It is not given to us
to see where the limits of our growth shall be drawn.  We
are filling up with a promiscuous popuLlation ~from all nations
of the world.
To secure public decency and order, we shall need every
appliance possible.  It has been sufficiently demonstrated
that a police cannot be a sole reliance in any great city; and in
our city far less than in any other, since the city magistracy
are elected by the people.  We are trying the power of common school education, and the restraints of morality and religion. These we cannot press too far.  These influences are




292   INFLUENCE  OF  TASTE  IN  CITIES.
unquestionably paramount and mighty. But the principle of
education, and the laws of religion and morality, all enjoin the
multiplication of the means of cultivation, so that man, created
after the image of God; may cultivate powers and tastes
which were not given to lie dormant, and experience the force
of laws lying in every part of his being, and reach a development in which all the lines of his heavenly original may appeal. Man was designed to be governed by the laws of the
state as well as the laws of God: this all will admit. But on
the same principle, he was designed to be governed by the
laws of taste, propriety and elegance, as well as by moral
laws. A good citizen, he is not the less a good Christian. A
man of taste, he is not the less a man of virtue. Indeed, all
the various laws of our being go mutually to sustain each
other. Hence, a good citizen will be the better Christian; a
man of taste, a manll of purer virtue; and religion and morality
properly -carried out will demand all the excellencies which
belong to our proper humanity.
But the point which I designed here chiefly to bring
under consideration is one of mere necessity and prudence.
Men congregated in a large city are exposed to more corrupting influences than when scattered through the country, and
are tempted by greater opportunities of crime. They will
therefore tend to become more ferocious and ungovernable.
Mob power and violence, exhibiting as it does the worst features of human nature, belongs to great cities. IHence we
need here more powerful influences of civilization and refinement: we need art and culture like a constant presencebreathing in the air, beaming in the sunlight.  New-York




THI E 1:  CILASSES.                 293
will need in a still higher degree than Parlis the humanizing, softening, genial, and subduing power lwhich is found
in great institutions of learning and art.  It is far easier
to mould one people, than a congregation of peoples, tongues
and languages like that which constitutes our population.
New-York must have an vesthetical conscience, also.  It will
be a great and difficult work to create it.
Among our population may be found three classes:
Those who are governed merely by the spirit of gain —the
inordinate and insatiable passion for accumulation; those
who are straining after splendor and display without being
permeated by just ideas of taste, and without having attained
to any high cultivation; and that promiscuous multitude
where all the elements of humanity are thrown wildly togeth er.
How large a proportion of our population is embraced by
these classes I shall not take upon me to estimate, or even
conjecture. Let every one judge for himself. Enough, however, will be apparent to every reflecting person to convince
him that there is more for us to imitate in Paris than Paris
fashions.
There is probably no place in the world where an individual bent on culture would enjoy equal opportunities. A
man of principle can as easily avoid temptations in Paris as
in any other great city; and the invitations to study in every
department of learning are so strong, and are enforced by
such splendid examples, that it would appear easy to think
of Paris as containing the haunts of Plato, and the studio of
Phidias, rather than obscene mysteries and the orgies of
Bacchus.




2904           M. VICTOR  COUsIN.
There is an individual in Paris who forims one of these
splendid examples whom I felt desirous of seeing.  I had on
several occasions received friendly messages from him, and I
had long felt so strong an admiration for his genius, and so
genial a sympathy with the spirit of his writings, that I did
not look upon myself as utterly a stranger to him.  I refer to
M. Victor Cousin. At the season I was in:Paris it was vacation in the University, and the literary men were scattered,
some travelling, and some in country retreats about Paris. I
inquired for M. Cousin, but he too was gone, and I could not
find out the place of his retreat.  After I had been in Paris
a -fortnight, I sent a note to his rooms at the Sorbonne at a
venture.  In a few days he called on me.  Unfortunately, I
was out; but he left his card, and wrote on it an appointment
to meet at the Sorbonne.
M. de Tocqueville had informed me that he conversed
only in French. My own powers of French conversation being
limited, I took my young daughter with me to act as an interpreter.  I drove to the Sorbonne, and sent up my name.
M. Cousin received us in the anteroom in a most cordial
manner. I told him I had brought my daughter to help us
in our conversation.  He appeared delighted with the contrivance; seated us in two chairs in his library side by side,
and took another in front of us, and, grasping my hands between his, began to talk in that agreeable manner which is
native to the French, and which in him has received all the
grace of the highest cultivation.  I understood his French
generally well enough, and he appeared to understand my
English, for each talked in his own language, and when any




AGREEABLE  INTERVIEW.                    295
misunderstandcing occurred on either side, my daughter made
the way smooth again.  He has a large and  admirably
selected library, comprising the choice literature of different
languages. The philosophical department is ample. Among'
the rest, I found here quite a full collection of American
authors on philosophical subjects.
M. Cousin may be about sixty years of age, but he has
all the vigor and vivacity of middle life. His head is sprinkled
with gray, as if his crown of glory Were beginning to form:
his eye is bright and expressive: the cast of his features exceedingly fine, indicating thought, refinement, and great
kindliness of disposition.  He is remarkable for his powers of
conversation.  His habit of lecturing extempore, united to
his careful cultivation of style as a writer, has given his conversation a certain loftiness and elegance of diction, while it
flows on as easily as if he were talking in the most careless
way, and on the most trivial subjects.  He conducted us
through his library, which fills one large and two smaller
rooms.
He appeared to anticipate political difficulties, and spoke
playfully, and yet, perhaps, half in earnest, of being compelled
to go to America.  "But," said he, smiling, "how could I
leave my books?  These are my wife and daughter."
"Oh," replied my daughter, "my father will share his
library with you."  At this his eye kindled, and he smiled
with a grateful expression; he seemed touched with the enthusiasm of a young heart.
I spent about two hours with him. I saw him once more
when he called to bid me good-bye, beforle I left for America,




296         F'IRE x C 1-l P H I 10 LOS  P H HE  S.
Ordinary leaders experience a feeling of repulsion, if not
of horror, when French philosophers are spoken of.  Their
thoughts are prone to recur to Voltaire-once the great master
of French philosophers-and to his infidel doctrines.  When
thinking of Voltaire and his associates, we ought always to
temper our abhorrence by the recollection that they were
really engaged in a conflict with a corrupted and tyrannical
church, and that their opposition to Christianity was more incidental than direct, and' carried on under an almost total
ignorance of the Gospel of Christ, and the writings of his apostles. But it is true that there has been a great deal of false
and dangerous philosophy in France.
M. Cousin belongs to a very different school from the old
French philosophers. He has arrayed himself on the side of
Christianity and morality.
This is not the place for philosophical criticism, a thing
that can be well done only when fully and thoroughly done.
But the spirit of this man is genial to the system he has cultivated.  He is eclectic; he proposes to examine all philosophies, to disintegrate the truths, to eliminate the errors, and to
bring together all truth, wherever found, into one harmonious
system. He is not, therefore, to be awed by authority, nor to be
swayed by bigotry. Of course, he must find some standard of
criticism, or he cannot carry on his process of eclecticism. And
it is just here that his philosophy puts on a positive aspect. The
last authority is the reason itself in its spontaneous, necessary,
absolute development. He, therefore, separates himself from
the sensual school of the former French philosophers utterly, and
takes his resting-place in the region of the spiritual —the Divine,




COUSIN's  PHILOSOPHY.                   297
At the close of the first lecture of his Introduction to the
History of Philosophy, delivered nearly a quarter of a century ago, there is the following beautiful passage, which expresses very decisively the character of his aims and researches:
"Young men, you who propose to attend these lectures,
love every thing that is good, every thing that is beautiful,
every thing that is honest; for this is the foundation of all
philosophy. Adding itself to every thing, philosophy communicates to every thing its own form; it destroys nothing.
Follow the general movement of physical sciences and the
arts; contemplate the instructive spectacle of human intelligence and freedom advancing day by day, to the conquest
and dominion of the sensible world; study the laws of our
great country; drink in, at the source of arts and letters, enthusiasm for all that is beautiful; nourished at the bosom of
Christianity, prepared by her noble instructions for philosophy, and having thus reached the full accomplishment of your
earlier studies, you will find, in true philosophy, together with
the understanding and explanation of all things, a peace elevated and unchangeable."
VOL. II.             13




XIX,
From Pari8 to Hacvre —Honeward
B omnd.
oe route from Paris to Havre-a distance of about
one hundred and thirty miles-embraces a very in
teresting country. Taking it leisurely in a private carriage,
a traveller might find great entertainment in examining the
remains of old ecclesiastical edifices in Normandy. At Rouen
one ought to stop, if it were only for the purpose of examining
the cathedral. We had laid our plans to spend two or three
days there; but, at the last, circumstances made it necessary
for us to hasten on. We, however, caught a very good view
of the old city and the cathedral with its beautiful spires.
Many parts of the country through which we passed were
very pleasing and even picturesque. Sometimes we were on
the bank of the Seine, and then we shot away again, for no
railroad will consent to follow its sinuosities.




AT HAVRE- SOUNDS FROM  HO M E.  299
The night had set in when we arrived at Havre. An
omnibus took us up with our luggage. We ordered the
coachman to set us down at the Frascati. It appeared an
interminable drive. We soon perceived there was a contrivance on foot to divert us from the Frascati. There was an
excuse made for stopping at several other hotels, and we were
assured again and again that the Frascati was shut up for the
season, inasmuch as it was a mere watering-place. The courtesies were overacted, and we persisted in our first determination. Finally we arrived at the Frascati, and the summer
visitors being gone we had our choice of rooms.
From the windows we caught a dim view of the Atlantic,
and all night we heard the murmurs of its waves, which
seemed to us like "sounds from home."  There our path lay,
and we had only to step on board the steamer, put out from
the shore, and endure or enjoy a few days, as the case might
be, and then we would be sailing up the harbor of NewYork, and see again the old familiar objects. A few months
before, we were dreaming of the Old World, now, we were
dreaming of the New: we had taken our step one way, now
we were about to step back again.
Our emotions were naturally of a mixed character. We
had not been long enough absent to grow tired of travelling.
On the contrary, we had only increased our taste for if.
Many beautiful parts of Europe remained to be seen. Alnd
we said to ourselves, When shall we come back again?
Then, on the other hand, it was pleasant to anticipate meeting with those from whom we had parted months ago, and
sitting down in our own home, to collect our thoughts quietly,




300        CONFLICTING  FEELINGS.
and live over again, in happy talk, the scenes we had gone
through. We felt deeply grateful, too, to that kind Providence which had protected and blessed us; and we looked
forward with hope to a prosperous voyage home.
That we should at this very moment be calculating upon
future travels through Europe will not appear strange to those
who have been abroad; for Europe embraces the most beautiful parts of the world, is full of every thing to gratify taste,
to nourish thought, and to revive one's interest in all that he
has been reading about from his first reading years; and,
therefore, those who like ourselves have as yet only made
a step there and back again, will hardly rest content until
they have returned to complete what is both a rational study,
and an exquisite enjoyment.
In the morning the town of Havre was revealed to us, our
own locality outside of the town upon the sea-shore, and the
good steamer Franklin in which we were to sail home. It
was Sunday. We attended church in the Americans' Seaman's Chapel, where we heard a good sermon from an
American preacher, in tones that sounded like echoes from
the hills of New-England.
The two following days were employed in making those
little arrangements which all are familiar with who have made
a sea voyage, and in seeing what was to be seen in Havre.
In general, not much is to be seen in Havre. There
occurred, however, while we were there, an Annual Fair, like
those which once were common in Europe, but which now
have almost passed away. It appeared to me like a waif of
the past, like an old tale acted out, and interested me exceedingiy.




THE  FAIR.                   301
It was held in an open space just in the suburbs. The
booths were arranged in long lines so as to form streets. It
had the appearance of a little town. Every imaginable
article was offered for sale. The goods were generally of a
coarse description, and evidently intended for the common
people. Before some of the booths the trader was standing
and holding forth on the excellencies of his commodities, and
offering them for sale. Of a man who had prints for sale, I
purchased a view of the Staubbach, and of a woman who
sold fruit I bought some fine ripe pears. And these were the
amount of my purchases.
In the evening a curious scene was presented. On one
side of the encampment was a street appropriated to shows
of various kinds. Before one sat a stout elderly man with a
grizzly beard, who had grown hoarse with his vociferations.
Htis exhibition professed to be of a scientific character, consisting of various wonderful phenomena. Before another,
which was labelled a Museum of Natural History, a man was
describing the curiosities it contained with a wonderful
fluency of diction; but I soon found that his oration uniformly pursued one stream of thought and language, and
that he ended where he began, and began where he ended.
Before another a stage was erected, on which stood a man
with a speaking-trumpet, and surrounded by a dozen boys
in grotesque masks. The boys were making strange antics,
while he from his trumpet poured forth an oration whose
thundering intonations were intended to drown the efforts of all
his competitors. Before another, on a similar stage, was a
troop of dancing-boys, and a man dressed in petticoats enacting the part of a female clown. Here, too, was an orator.




302             THE P A N TOMIME.
This outside parade was intended to attract persons to
the inside shows and performances. The street was filled
with men and women of the lower classes. All was goodhumor among them. There was no quarrelling or indecency. No strong drinks were any where offered for sale.
But at many places women were sitting frying cakes, which
seemed to be in great request.
Finally my friend and I concluded to enter one of
the show booths to see what was going on. What the exhibition was to be we could not exactly make out: it professed to be something about Christianity and Heathenism,
and therefore offered some extraordinary attraction. We
were ushered into a place of considerable extent, where seats
were arranged, and a stage with machinery and scenic decorations prepared similar to a theatre. We were seated in a
sort of parquette, where there were only a few persons besides
ourselves. Behind were ruder seats where the multitude
were collected. On the stage there was an exhibition of
gymnastics and tumbling going on.
After this, a pantomime was acted. A beautiful boy of
about fifteen, and two pretty little girls of ten or twelve years
of age came on the stage. There was a heathen altar before
which the girls worshipped, and on which they threw votive
offerings of flowers.
The boy represented the Christian hero; he interposed:
one of the girls became' a convert; the altar was thrown down
and the cross erected.
Then, borne on the shoulders of four boys, there appeared
coming down a wild pass in the mountains, a grim-looking
fellow, with a beard and moustache. He represented the




THE  PANTO MIME.                  303
Heathen hero.  When he saw the cross, he rushed forward
in indignation, and tore it down. Then follows a battle, in
which the Heathen is disarmed. But in the confusion, he
succeeds in piercing the bosom of the beautiful convert, who
falls down and dies, preserving her cheeks as red as roses.
The Christian hero, in pantomime, laments over her. Then,
suddenly, a lurid light breaks out, devils rush upon the stage,
the stage opens, flames burst up, and they drag the Heathen
down to the bottomless pit.
The Christian hero now lifts up the dead body, and lays it
carefully upon a ledge of rocks, which, however, shake and
look very much like pasteboard.  Then he plants a cross beside her, which her hand contrives to hold up. Suddenly a
heavenly light breaks out, the dead comes to life, the heavens
open, Christ and the angels appear above-all looking very
much like pasteboard —and the beautiful saint, smiling rapturously, ascends higher and higher, until the curtain falls, and
lenders any further ascent unnecessary.  The crowd were
thrown into perfect raptures. The exhibition closed with some
very good dissolving views. The manager, before each performance, appeared on the stage and made a speech, setting
forth what he was about to exhibit. He was quaintly dressed.
His face was very bad, but very expressive. He showed
plainly enough that he was master of his trade. But I pitied
the poor girls and boys whose master he was also. The pantomime being of a religious character, reminded me of the Mysteries which, in past ages, were exhibited in churches. When
we came out into the street, the orators there were still holding forth, the man with the grizzly beard was hoarser than




304         AT SEA-HOME  AGAIN.
ever, and the women were frying the cakes as fast as they
could, to meet the constant applications of the merry crowd.
Tuesday evening we went on board the Franklin. Early
on the following morning we got out to sea. Just as we sat
down to dinner we entered the harbor of Cowes. The Isle of
Wight was still verdant, but instead of the bright sun of June,
there was the hazy atmosphere of October fast running into
November.
The same evening we got out to sea again. We had a
large number of passengers. The voyage was a prosperous
one. And, but for losing a poor fellow overboard the day
before we arrived, was attended with no unpleasant circumstances. Every effort was made to save him, but in vain.
We arrived at noon, on Sunday. As we drove home, the
people were coming out of church. The other day we were
in Paris, and here we were in New-York again. Every object looked just as we had left it. We almost doubted whether
we had been away.  Then, when we drove up to our own
door, I touched the bell-handle with a trembling hand. Are
all well? Has nothing happened? The door opens —all are
well. Here is my library; here is the chair in which I am
wont to sit. It is the old, pleasant home still. We have
stepped back again.
THE END.




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RAILWAY NOVELS.
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DRAMA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.
HOWARD THE PHILANTHROPIST.
ROBERT SOUTHEY.
THE AMOURS OF DEAN SWIFT.
REMINISCENCES OF COLERIDGE AND SOUTHEY BY COTTLE.
J6OHN KEATS.
SPORTING IN AFRICA.
FRANCIS CHANTREY.
ANCIENT EGYPT.
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EPISTLES TO THE LITERATI.
The Yellowplush Papers, a work at the foundation of Mr. Thackeray s
fame as a writer, appeared in a London edition in 1841, collected from the
pages of Fraser's Magaztine. An imperfect collection, long since out of
print, had previously been published in Philadelphia.
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critic, that "notwithstanding the bad spelling and mustard-colored unmentionables of Mr. Yellowplush, he is fifty times more of a gentleman
than most of his masters."