naturally cool, clear, white brain of man,-it is quite astonishing that these Germans, who can act so sensibly during so many hours of the day, should not have strength of mind enough to trample their tobacco bags under their feet, throw their reeking sooty pipes behind them, and learn (I will not say from the English, but from every bird and animal in a state of nature) to be clean; though certainly, whatever faults there may be in our manners, our cleanliness is a virtue which, above every nation I have ever visited, preeminently distinguishes us in the world. During the time which was spent in this stinking vice, I observed that people neither interrupted each other nor did they very much like to be interrupted,-in short, it was a sort of siesta with the eyes open, and with smoke coming out of the mouth. Sometimes, gazing out of the window of his hof, we saw a German baron in a tawdry dressing-gown and scull-cap, (with an immense ring on his dirty fore-finger,) smoking, and pretending to be thinking; sometimes we winded a creature, who, in a similar attitude, was seated on the shady benches near the Stahl brunnen; but these were exceptions to the general rule, for most of the males had vanished, we knew not where, to convert themselves into automatons which had all the smoky nuisance of the steam-engine without its power.'-Bubbles, pp. 216-219. Our author says pretty truly, that man is the only unclean animal-perhaps no unsubdued living creature is ever happy for a moment when not perfectly clean. He is also quite right in saying that the use of tobacco is carried to a most disgusting and unhealthy extent in Germany; but no such counterblast as the above 'bubble' will produce any abatement of the nuisance. The universal answer will be, The gentleman does not smoke—so much the worse for him. He prefers his bottle of port and his snuff-box to Johannesberg and a Meerschaum. De gustibus non disputandum.' As regards ourselves, we have only one remark to offer; and that is, that we heartily wish the regulation, which almost all over Germany forbids smoking in the streets, were introduced in England. At certain times of every day Regent Street, so well entitled to form the principal promenade of London, is rendered intolerable to all decent persons by the eternal whiffing and spitting of Spanish Patriots and shopboys in fine waistcoats. About half-past five or six o'clock "the world" began to come to life again; in a short time the walks to the three brunnens in general, and to the Pauline in particular, were once more thronged with people; and as slowly and very slowly they walked backwards and forwards, we again saw German society in its most amiable and delightful point of view. A few of the ladies, particularly those who had young children, were occasionally accompanied through the day by a nice, steady, healthy-looking young woman, whose dress (being without cap or bonnet, with a plain cloth shawl thrown over a dark cotton gown) at once denoted that she was a ser vant vant. The distinction in her dress was marked in the extreme, yet it was pleasing to see that there was no necessity to carry it farther, the woman appearing to be so well behaved that there was little fear of her giving offence. Whenever her mistress stopped to talk to any of her friends, this attendant became a harmless listener to the conversation; and when a couple of families, seated on a bank, were amusing each other with jokes and anecdotes, one saw by the countenances of these quiet-looking young people, who were also permitted to sit down, that they were enjoying the story quite as much as the rest. In England fine people would of course be shocked at the idea of thus associating with, or rather sitting in society with their servants, and on account of the manners of our servants it certainly would not be agreeable, however, if we had but one code, instead of having fifty thousand, (for I quite forgot to insert in my long list the manners of a fashionable lady's maid,) this would not be the case, for then English servants, like German servants, would learn to sit in the presence of their superiors without giving any offence at all. But besides observing how harmlessly these German menials conducted themselves, I must own I could not help reflecting what an advantage it was, not only to them, but to the humble home to which, when they married, they would probably return,-in short to society, that they should thus have had an opportunity of witnessing the conduct and listening to the conversation of quiet, sensible, moral people, who had had the advantages of a good education. Of course, if these young creatures were put upon high wages,— tricked out, moreover, with all the cast-off finery of their mistressesand, if laden with these elements of corruption, and hopelessly banished from the presence of their superiors, they were day after day, and night after night, to be stewed up together with stewards, butlers, &c., in the devil's frying pan-I mean that den of iniquity a housekeeper's room, of course these strong, bony, useful servants would very soon dress as finely as heart could wish, and give themselves all those narrow-minded airs for which an English lady's-maid is so celebrated even in her own country; but in Germany, good sense and honesty have as yet firmly and rigidly prescribed not only the dress which is to distinguish servants from their masters, but that, with every rational indulgence, with every liberal opportunity of raising themselves in their own estimation, they shall be fed and treated in a manner and according to a scale, which still bear a due relation to the humble station and simple habits in which they were born and bred. Of course, servants trained in this manner cost very little; but I suspect they lay by in proportion a much larger share of their earnings than ours do. They are certainly not, like them, clothed in satin, fine linen, and superfine cloth,-nor, like Dives himself, do they fare sumptuously every day,-but I believe they are all the happier, and more at their ease, for being kept to their natural station in life, instead of being permitted to ape an appearance for which their education has not fitted them, and to repeat fine sentiments which they do not understand.'-Bubbles, pp. 223-6. We 6 We are happy to say that we have, in various instances, observed the relation between master and man, and more frequently between mistress and maid, in England, in as healthy a state as any admirer of the Germans, even our sarcastic author himself, could wish to discover it. Nevertheless, in the greater and graver part of the above-quoted, as well as in the following observations, we are obliged reluctantly to concur. • But,' says the traveller, our servants are quite right to receive high wages -wear veils, kid-gloves, and superfine cloth-give themselves. airs-mock the manners of their lords and ladies-and to farcify below stairs the comedy of errors which they catch an occasional glimpse of above; in short, to do as little, consume as much, and be as expensive and troublesome as possible. No liberal person can blame them; it is, I fear, upon our heads that all their follies must rest; we have no one but ourselves to blame; and until a few of the principal families in England, for the character and welfare of the country, agree together to lower the style and habits of their servants, and, by "a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together," to break the horrid system which at present prevails, the distinction between the honest ploughman who whistles along the fallow, and his white-faced, powder-headed, silver-laced, scarlet-breeched, golden-gartered brother in London, must be as strikingly ridiculous as ever.' If once the system were to be blown up, thousands of honest, well-meaning servants would, I believe, rejoice; and while the wealthiest classes would in fact be served at least as well as ever, the middle ranks, and especially all people of small incomes, would be relieved beyond description by the removal of an unnatural and unnecessary burden, which but too often embitters all their little domestic arrangements. There are no points of contrast between Germany and England more remarkable than that, in the one country, people of all incomes are supported and relieved in proportion to the number of their servants, while, in the other, they are tormented and oppressed; again, that in the one country servants humbly drest, and humbly fed, live in a sort of exalted and honourable intercourse with their masters, while, in the other, servants highly powdered, and grossly fed, are treated de haut en bas in a manner which is not to be seen on the continent. The enormous wealth of England is the wonder of the world; yet every man who looks at our debt, at our poor-rates, at the immense fortunes of individuals, and at the levelling unprincipled radical spirit of the age, must see that there exist among us elements which may possibly, some day or other, be thrown into furious collision. The great country may yet live to see distress; and, in the storm, our commercial integrity, like an overweighted vessel, may, for aught we know, founder and go down stern foremost. I therefore most earnestly say, should this calamity ever befall us, let not foreigners be entitled, in preaching preaching over our graves, to pronounce that we were a people who did not know how to enjoy prosperity-that our money, like our blood, flew to our heads-that our riches corrupted our minds-and that it was absolutely our enormous wealth which sunk us.'—p. 228. Let us once more return to the promenade of simple Langenschwalbach : : In constantly passing the people on the promenade, one occasionally heard a party talking French. During the military dominion of Napoleon that language, of course, flooded the high duchy of Nassau as deeply as almost all the rest of Europe; a strong ebb or reaction, however, has of late years taken place, and in Prussia, for instance, the common people do not like even to hear the language pronounced. On the other hand, thanks to Scott, Byron, Crabbe, and other victims of M. Galignani, not yet, like them, resting in their graves, our language is beginning to make an honest progress, and even in France it is becoming fashionable to display, in literary society, a flower or two from the jardin Anglais. As a passing stranger, the word I heard pronounced on the promenade the oftenest was "Ja, ja!"-it really seemed to me that German women, to all questions, answer in the affirmative, for "Ja, ja," was repeated by them, I know, from morning till night, and, for aught I know, from night till morning. 'As I looked at the various figures and faces, I could not help feeling that it was quite impossible for the Goddess Pauline to cure them all. There is a tall, gaunt, brown, hard-featured, lantern-jawed officer, à demi solde the sort of fellow that the French call"un gros maigre" -drinking by the side of a red-faced, stuffy, dumpy, stunted little man, who seems framed on purpose to demonstrate that the human figure, like the telescope, can be made portable. What in the whole world can be the matter with that very nice, fresh, healthy-looking widow? or what does that huge, unwieldy man, in a broad-brimmed hat, require from the Pauline? (surely he is already about as full as he can hold!) That poor, sick girl has just borrowed the glass from her aunt. Can the same prescription be good both for her and her withered, wrinkled, skinny, scraggy duenna? A couple of nicely-dressed children are extending their little glasses to drink the water with milk; and see! that gang of countrymen, who have stopped their carts on the upper road, are racing and chasing each other down the bank to crowd round the brunnen! Is it not strange that in such a state of perspiration they can drink such deadly cold water with impunity? But this really is the case; whether it be burning hot or raining a deluge, this simple medicine is always agreeable, and no sooner is it swallowed than, like the fire in the grate, it begins to warm its new mansion. 'Such was the scene daily witnessed. All the drinkers seemed to be satisfied with the water, which can have only one virtue-that of strengthening the stomach-yet it is this solitary quality which has made it a remedy for almost every possible disorder of body and mind; for for though people with an ancle resting on a knee, sometimes mysteriously point to their toes, and sometimes very solemnly lay their hands upon their foreheads, yet I firmly believe that almost every malady of the poor human frame is, either by highways or byways, connected with the stomach : - "The woes of every other member Are founded on your belly-timber;" and I must own I never see a fashionable physician mysteriously consulting the pulse of his patient, or, with a silver spoon on his tongue, importantly peering down his throat, but I feel a desire to exclaim "Why not tell the poor gentleman at once, Sir, you've eaten too much, you've drunk too much, and you've not taken exercise enough?" That these are the real causes of every one's illness, there can be no greater proof than that those savage nations who live actively and temperately have only one disorder-death! The human frame was not created imperfect-it is we ourselves who have made it so there exists no donkey in creation so overladen as our stomachs, and it is because they groan under the weight so cruelly imposed upon them, that we are seen driving them before us in such herds to one little brunnen.' The above reminds us of Voltaire's definition :- A physician is an unfortunate gentleman who is every day requested to perform a miracle-namely, to reconcile health with intemperance.' At this time there were twelve hundred visiters at Schwalbach -an immense number for so small a town. Still the habits of the people were so quiet, that it did not at all bear the appearance of an English watering-place; and our traveller says, he never before existed in a society where people were left so completely to go their own ways. Whether he strolled on the promenade or about the town-whether he mounted the hills or rambled into distant villages-no one seemed to notice him any more than if he had been born there; and yet, out of the twelve hundred strangers, he happened to be, for some time, the only specimen of old England.' We must now present our readers with a chapter of natural history. Perhaps, for a busy man, the most salutary feature in a short residence at any of these health-springs,' is neither more nor less than the temptation it forces upon him to occupy his mind with the observation and gentle consideration of matters out of his own habitual sphere. Every morning, at half-past five o'clock, I hear, as I am dressing, the sudden blast of an immense, long wooden horn, from which always proceed the same four notes. I have got quite accustomed to this wild reveillée; and the vibration has scarcely subsided--it is still ringing among the distant hills-when, leisurely proceeding from almost every door in the street, behold-a pig! Some, from their jaded, care-worn, dragged appearance, are evidently leaving behind them |