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any omission of the several things to be done" in the course of their round, often outwears the tenement of clay, and sends them back exhausted spectres, only to be recruited by the more genial and less corroding excitements of the Stock Exchange and the Shipping List. One rather melancholy instance of the dutiful susceptibility of this class of men now arises in my recollection. In the course of conversation at table, just after he had finished his tour of Northern Germany, some casual remark awakened him to the consciousness of the appalling fact that, when at Potsdam, among the crowd of other claims on his notice which he had to discharge within a very limited period, he had omitted to visit the mill of the litigious meal-grinder of Sans Souci. In fact, the fountains being in solemn squirt, he was so much delighted with them that for once he enjoyed himself and neglected his duty. I saw him tremble and change colour, and from certain circumstances connected with my own travels, at once recognised the cause. He cast an imploring glance at me, which, more eloquently than words, besought me to keep his secret-and I did so. For some time he was like "a man forbid"-given to extreme depression of spirits, and a sickness of all the joys of life, which could not fail to awaken a lively anxiety within the circle of his family and close friends.

At length he disappeared mysteriously for about five days, and the alarm of his family was agreeably dissipated by his rejoining them an altered man, endowed with all his old geniality and serenity. He began immediately, in a matter-ofcourse manner, to speak of the SansSouci windmill; and as he was a man of perfect probity, I knew that he had seen it, having made a special pilgrimage for the purpose. It was accomplished of course with considerable rapidity, since the pilgrim's course was not burdened with duties at any other shrine but

this special one; and never have I known an instance of a journey proving in its results so well worthy of its cost. He seemed, indeed, very desirous to obtain exact value for his money, for his talk about the mill bore much about the same proportion to his conversation on all other topics, as the time spent in the second journey to Potsdam bore to the rest of his travels. He became ingenious in leading the conversation in that direction. If republicanism, despotism, the aristocracy, the Habeas Corpus Act, or any other political topic were on the carpet, it was easy to discuss the story of Frederic and the miller as a constitutional precedent. Anything said about law of course led to it directly. Political economy led to it through the progress of machinery back to the days of mere wind and water power, and manufactures took the same course, while agriculture found an easy way to the mill as connected with agrarian husbandry.

But while standing up for the right of private judgment, it would be signal ingratitude in myself or any other wayfarer to say a word in disparagement of Mr Murray's red books. It is a pity that we have none such for Britain, and that we can go over all the rest of the tourable world with a certainty and precision entirely wanting to us in our own land. Our information about that great essential of travel-inns -is especially indistinct, insomuch so that I know a very distinguished person, a clever man in every practical sense, and well acquainted with the world, who, pedestrianising in Argyleshire, and looking out for a likely terminus to his day's jour ney, was so far deceived by the mistiness of the guide-books, that he selected "Rest and be thankful" as an inn having a good name, and likely to prove an acceptable place of refreshment and repose. So there he arrived about 11 o'clock at night, to find himself in one of the wildest glens in Scotland, many miles distant from any inn and

noted in the maps merely for its possession of a stone seat for the wayfarer it was literally an instance of desiring bread and obtaining a stone. Perhaps it would be injudicious to bestow on places of entertainment in our own country the frank character given to those abroad. Actions of damages might be rife. Nay, it is wonderful that some of the people over the water have not sought redress in our courts; for the words "bad and dear," or the like, are a fatal blow. To the numerous class who are passively obedient to the tourist code, they are, of course, the denunciation of an inspired prophet. It happened to me once to bear witness to the influence of such condemnations, from being one of a party who made up their minds to go systematically to the inns condemned by 'Murray.' It was a very fortunate idea. These establishments, poor things, had evidently, when too late, resolved to turn over a new leaf. While the characteristic faults had been amended, there was none of the crowding and bustle of the approved inns; and it was delightful to find people so thoroughly glad to see you, and so amiably attentive to all your wants, as their afflicted landlords.

So let us use the redbook as a servant or assistant, not a master. Above all things, let us not be bound to go exactly to the same places and see exactly the same things which are there set down for our doing. Of course to the worshipper there is no use of reasoning, for, like the pilgrims to Jerusalem or Mecca, the performance of the vow is only rendered more acceptable and precious by the labours, the anxieties, and privations attending its fulfilment. But let those who are not devotees, but mere casual indolent followers, doing as they see others do, just consider for a moment what a wretched affair that "I can say I have seen "is. Does it not mean this that your seeing has been specially characterised by the absence of any lesson taught you, or

VOL. XCII.-NO. DLXI.

impression made on you, which leaves consciousness of that which you have seen, or even a knowledge that you have seen it, beyond that knowledge which arises from your having formed the intention of doing so, and taken the proper steps to put this intention in execution?

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Every one has heard of that simple notable Englishwoman from the circuit of Bow-bells, whose remark on Rome was, that no doubt it was a fine city, but many of the public buildings were sadly out of repair. A like single-minded person, being by profession a housepainter, and understanding that Italy was renowned for painting, went thither to acquire a wrinkle or two," and returned with the conviction that it was all nonsense, and he could turn out better plain colouring, and graining too, than any he saw in those dirty rambling houses. For such persons, there is no occasion to entertain any feeling of respectful admiration. Yet, in following unaffectedly the dictates of their own prosaic natures, they are more respectable than that dreary drudge who, having no more knowledge or consciousness of art than he has of porisms, sets himself doggedly to commit to memory a conglomerate catalogue containing Niobe, the Laocoon, terra cotta, pietra dura, verde antique, cinq cente, romanesque, first-pointed, flamboyant, and so forth, yet whose footing on the dizzy steep of connoisseurship is so uncertain, that he probably topples down from it at once in an allusion to the simple beauty of the Dying Aligator in the Vatican, or to the majestic grandeur of the statue of the Marquis Aurelius in the Capitol. Surely the remedy for all these self-tortures is a very simple one. Let people travel not for show and reputation, but for enjoyment. Let them cease to identify travel with the French travail. The eye knows the food that agrees with it as well as the palate, and forcing on it what it does not seek produces

B

æsthetic indigestion. If a man has no eye for art, let him confess it to himself at least, if he do not spread it abroad to the world, and let him select the pursuit that will give him most enjoyment, instead of wearing out his eyesight, his patience, and his legs, by rushing through long stretches of picture and statue galleries. If he can only enjoy a good field of beans, and a meadow with a prize-ox in it, why should he render himself miserable among cataracts and precipices? A man of no small celebrity, whose chosen field of inquiry and enjoyment was among animals, when he arrived at Rome, went forthwith to the pig-market, and was not only able to see something new and interesting to himself, but also to impart some fresh unhackneyed sketches to the world. I know a man much interested in manufactures, an able and benevolent man, who has done a deal towards the civilisation and education of the manufacturing population. He travelled in Switzerland once, carefully avoiding all the grand scenery, but examining with minute interest the turkey-red calico works, and the manufactory schools. You might have supposed from his talk when he returned, that Switzerland was a flat uninteresting country, conspicuous chiefly from its manufactures and its educational establishments. So that honest Cockney, Captain Burt, flatly confesses his utter disgust of mountain scenery, and wishes he were away from the rugged banks of Loch Ness, and back to dear Richmond Hill, with its green fields and gentle slopes.

These are not the most interesting type of humanity, but they are genuine, and we know their value. They seek out and appreciate that which is congenial to their natures, and content themselves with the satisfaction of their own plain æsthetic appetites. They are even more to be respected than the man of taste and culture, who, thinking he is thus getting the value of his money, looks at more than he

can master and enjoy. For any such to sweep through memorable edifices and great collections of art as the tourists do, is only to expose himself to the vexation of continued unsatisfied longings and sharp disappointments. He is in worse case than the starving man surrounded by abundance, since he has the consciousness that he has himself summoned up the array of luxuries which he is forbidden to enjoy. Better far, though it may be done with a sigh, to abandon the sights that cannot be fully enjoyed. And it is the same with scenery. The true lover of nature must be in it-must become familiar with its inner recesses-must handle it, as it were, to derive from it thorough enjoyment. Better not see that panorama of the Alps from the Righi, or the range of Mont Blanc from the Col de Balme, if the sight is to be all, and you are to have no rambling and scrambling and climbing, with the fatigues, the little dangers and privations, and all that rich variety of sensations which attend the wanderer in the wilderness. And now having, I hope, said enough to prevent the common tourist from looking to me as a temporary guide to his path, I propose to set off and wander over my note-book, just as I have wandered over hill and dale, at my own sweet will.

One who has been many years a stranger to Germany, is at once struck with the progress which the English language has made there during his absence. A quarter of a century ago, that French-polish which Frederic the Great and his literary coterie had spread so widely, had disappeared from German literature. The Patriotic school drove it out. But it still continued to be the Lingua Franca in which all strangers unprovided with German were to be addressed. English may be now said to have nearly altogether superseded it for this purpose, in the north at least. In fact, ambitious travellers who desire to show their own acquaintance

with the German-and others less ambitious, who want to supplement their schooling by a little practice -are amazed to find how far they have to travel before they can get rid of the presence of their own native tongue.

I had scarcely left the British shore when I found a testimony to this phenomenon in the person of a fellow-traveller, whose course of business led him into continual and intimate dealings with the Germans, but who yet knew not a word of their language. He boasted, indeed, with so much vehemence, of his utter ignorance of any language but his own, as to make one suspect him of entertaining a confused notion, that to possess but one language had something in it of the merit and distinction of being its sole possessor. When asked whether it had ever occurred to him that there might come occasions in which it were as well that he should know the tongue of the people with whom he transacted so much business, he stood on his dignity, and in the ordinary British formula, dedicated his soul to eternal perdition, in the event of his ever so far forgetting his position as to articulate "the vile gutturals of the low dirty Germans." As he had acquired from continual communication with the people the inevitable "So," and had a good deal of the unwashed, full-bodyness which used to be the traditional characteristics of the German, I was constrained to make the cruel remark, that I had mistaken him for a Deutscher. I last saw him in a public office in one of the Hanse towns, full of mercantile men and clerks. He stood erect and aloof, his hands pocketed, and addressed his mercantile commands to those around him, much like a conqueror dictating terms to the representatives of a captured city. He seemed still to consider his possession of the sole English language (which he confused with sole possession of the English langauge) to place him in a sphere quite above that of the people around him, whose command

of his own tongue he looked upon in no other light than as an act of personal homage. I cannot help believing, however, that the law of the market applies to this accomplishment as to other commodities, and that it is not given by its possessor for nothing, but must be paid for by him who has it not. And if our commercial classes were to note the large number of Germans and other foreigners who settle and make fortunes in Lancashire and other busy districts, they might come to the conclusion that it will even pay to teach their sons something more than book-keeping by double-entry, and the three R's" of Sir William Curtis.

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The lapse of above twenty years, with a great social convulsion in the heart of them, has naturally removed or mitigated many of those German characteristics which surprised and somewhat annoyed the English traveller. Everything has certainly still an easy-going appearance there; but the railways are much more akin to ours than the old eilwagen," which you walked on ahead of if you were in a hurry, was to our smart stage-coaches. Perhaps the Germans would still be as slow, were it not that they have committed locomotion to a separate self-supplying power. Boiling a kettle does not require much rapidity and energy, and if it boil sufficiently the train moves on, let those in charge of it be ever so lazy. The officers are evidently, however, becoming more smart in the transaction of the preliminary and collateral business, which has power to cause delay, however hotly the kettle may boil. The English collector snaps your ticket from you as if it were property of his own you are surreptitiously carrying off. The German or Belgian officer, when railways first came into use with him, used to examine the document you handed to him with the minute attention of an antiquary dealing with an interesting but obscure piece of palæography; but experience has now taught him

to be quicker. Nor is it now necessary to be at the station a full half hour before the starting time to get your luggage weighed. Few things were more provoking to the English traveller, determined to crush as much sight-seeing as he could into limited time, than that precaution; and I have seen such a person, when arriving twenty minutes before the starting time, left behind, sitting upon the apex of his pyramid of boxes like Marius in the ruins of Carthage, with the difference that his sensations were not mournful, but wrathful, and exploded in frequent use of the "damn"-all which would be witnessed by a large band of pipe-smoking railway officers, standing round in good-humoured imperturbable listlessness, waiting until the departure of the train should give them some little piece of business to do.

There used to be something approaching the sublime in the steady resistance maintained by the calm traditional habits of German life, to the impatient impetuosity and the ready expenditure of British travellers. It seemed as if the people had tacitly resolved that neither to force nor to bribery would they yield up their cherished habits; and their persistency might, from their own solemn placidity, and the dire irritation which it spread around, have been likened to the rock which continues to stand aloft and serene over the thousand wild waves at its feet. I remember a petty but significant instance of this pertinacity in Wirtemberg. There was a large crowded eilwagen, filled entirely with English and Scotch-not a single German in it. According to established custom, it stopped at a wayside inn for dinner at 12 o'clock noon. No one partook of that meal save the driver, who sat alone and enjoyed his five courses. The spot was the most unavailable that could be for doing a morsel of touring-a grassy, corny flat, without even the interest of waste or fen, and destitute, as so many German districts are, of the

hedgerows or other fences which abound in our cultivated districts, and afford one the interest of looking on the other side to see if there be any variety there. The travellers could do nothing with themselves, save wander round and round the edifice like spell-bound ghosts, varying the process by an occasional peep through the window at their brother-in-law, as by the courtesy of the road he was for the time being. To a mind capable of deriving pure enjoyment from contemplating the felicity of others, the sight might have been highly satisfactory; but the cause of truth compels me to admit that the verbal indications of sentiment on the occasion were of an entirely opposite character. At length the brother-in-law came forth, wiping his mouth, and his countenance the while beaming with inward satisfaction, cast a benignant glance at each scowling Briton to see that they were all present, and mounted his rostrum, to carry them onward at the rate of four miles an hour.

Such national characteristics have undergone a further alteration than the substitution of the train for the waggon. Although it is true that our countrymen, in their efforts to kick against national usages, were individually defeated, yet their pertinacity seems in the end to have brought about at least a compromise. In those days it was barely possible to get a bit of food, save at the common table at twelve or one o'clock; if it did not suit you to dine then, that was your own affair entirely, and if you expected that you could prevail on any son of Herman to remedy the consequences of the omission, you found yourself mistaken. Now, however, in the considerable inns there are common tables at four or five, and, both before and afterwards, you can feed à la carte (as the Germans as well as the French term it) in the public room, in the open air, or in your own chamber, which serves for bedroom and sitting-room. The uninitiated, to be sure, in using this document,