Chapter XCVIII

"You leave us." Some one is going on the very route which the friends had traversed together, and will reach "that City," Vienna, where Hallam died. All its splendour is to the Poet,

"No livelier than the wisp[71] that gleams
On Lethe in the eyes of death;"

so great is his aversion to the place, on account of the loss he had sustained there; and he charges it with all manner of ill.

But Hallam had given him a very different description; saying that in no other metropolis--"mother town"--had he seen such stately carriages of the rich pass to and fro; and such a contented crowd enjoying themselves with dance and song, amidst a display of coloured fireworks.