Chapter XV (2)

_June 6th._--Nothing written for a long time, and for the old reason, the Derby and the race-course.... I have been very slightly concerned in this great speculation, but larger sums have been wagered on it than ever were heard of before. George Bentinck backed a horse of his called Gaper (and not a good one), to win about 120,000_l._ On the morning of the race the people came to hedge with him, when he laid the odds against him to 7,000_l._; 47,000 to 7,000, I believe, in all. He had three bets with Kelburne[59] of unexampled amount. He laid Kelburne 13,000 to 7,000 on Cotherstone (the winner) against the British Yeoman, and Kelburne laid him 16,000 to 2,000 against Gaper. The result I believe was, to these two noble lords, that George Bentinck won about 9,000_l._ and the other lost 6,000_l._ or 7,000_l._ I have never much inclination to record racing details, though these particulars may not be unamusing or uninteresting many years hence. George Bentinck may eschew racing, and be found in his latter days addicted to some very different pursuit, and it may appear as strange to hear of his thousands lost and won, as it is to read of Wilberforce's gaming at the fashionable clubs, or to be told of the mild and respectable Tom Grenville heading the mob in the demolition of the Admiralty windows in the Keppel riots. Or times may change, and the value of money, or the usages and habits of the world. These sums may appear contemptibly small or alarmingly large. After all, when the letters and diaries with which the press now teems make their appearance, we always read with more or less interest the familiar details of the vices and follies, the amusements and pursuits of our forefathers; even their winnings and losings are attractive; so that if I chose to tell more stories of the turf, somebody would be found to read them in times remote; but I always feel so ashamed of the occupation, and a sort of consciousness of degradation and of deterioration from it, that my mind abhors the idea of writing about it; in fact, I often wonder at my own sentiments or sensations, and my own conduct about the business and the diversion of racing. It gives me at least as much of pain as pleasure, and yet so strong is the habit, such a lingering, lurking pleasure do I find in it, such a frequent stimulus does it apply to my general indifference and apathy, that I cannot give it entirely up. One effect of that sort of active concern with the turf, which is unavoidable during the spring campaign, is an almost complete suspension of attention to political matters, and to what is passing in the world: and as I have learnt nothing but what everybody else knows, I have not thought it worth while to waste pen and ink in making my own observations on passing events. I have been too idle and too busy for that. If I had been used to write in the common diarial form, I should have put down something of this sort: On Tuesday in Epsom week I went to Bingham Baring's at Addiscombe, with the Clanricardes, Damers, Ben Stanley, Levesons, Poodle Byng; very agreeable people, but the women brimful of ill-nature. Clanricarde and his wife excellent members of society; both of them extremely clever, quick, light in hand.

[Sidenote: STATE OF THE COUNTRY.]

The King of Hanover arrived on Friday, too late for the Royal christening, and all the world is asking why he did not arrive in time, or why they did not wait for him. The political world is all out of joint. Peel is become very unpopular. Ireland is in a flame. The whole country is full of distress, disquiet, and alarm. Religious feuds are rife. The Church and the Puseyites are at loggerheads here, and the Church and the Seceders in Scotland; and everybody says it is all very alarming, and God knows what will happen, and everybody goes on just the same, and nobody cares except those who can't get bread to eat. Somehow or other, it does seem very strange, that after thirty years of peace, a thing unprecedented, during which time all the elements of public prosperity have been in full activity and had ample scope, while we have been reforming and improving, and fancying that we have been getting wiser and better, we find ourselves to all appearance in as bad a condition, with as much difficulty for the present, and as much alarm for the future, as we have often been in. This is a great problem, which I cannot pretend to solve, and which it would task most men's philosophy satisfactorily to explain.

[Footnote 59: [Viscount Kelburne, afterwards fourth Earl of
Glasgow, was a distinguished patron of the Turf; he died in 1869.]]

[Sidenote: THE PRIVY COUNCIL REGISTERS.]

_June 7th._--I forget if I have ever touched upon my squabble with the British Museum about one of our Council Books, and it is too much trouble to look back and see whether I have or not. Until I came into office very little attention had been paid to the old Council Registers, and though they are replete with curious matter, interesting to the historian, the antiquary, and persons engaged in almost every sort of literature, they were nearly inaccessible in consequence of the deficiency of indexes, or the very incomplete and imperfect character of those which there are. I therefore resolved to set about the great work of indexing these books, which I may call great, because it involves great labour and great expense, and because the utility and convenience of it are already found to be very great. I first employed a certain William Augustus Miles, who pretended to be a natural son of one of the Royal Family, I forget which, and who turned out a scamp and vagabond, and who cheated me. This man got into prison, and I lost sight of him. I then, by the advice of Amyot, employed Mr. Lemon, son of old Lemon of the State Paper Office, a very excellent and competent man, who has been at work on these indexes for several years; he is very intelligent, industrious, and well-informed, and has done his work in a very satisfactory way. It occurred to me in the progress of this design to ascertain whether any of the lost books could be found and recovered, and I learned that there was one in the State Paper Office, and another in the British Museum.[60] I wrote a letter to the Secretary of State, requesting he would order the book in the State Paper Office to be given up to the Clerk of the Council, with which request he immediately complied. On one or two occasions, when I went to the Museum, I told Sir Henry Ellis that I meant to have back that book, but which, I dare say, he regarded as a joke. However, at last I resolved to apply for it formally, and I wrote a letter to the Secretary, Mr. Forshall, in the name of the Lord President, demanding the book. I received no answer whatever; so, after the lapse of some weeks, I complained of having received none. Mr. Forshall then wrote to say the matter was under the consideration of the Trustees, and I should have an answer. At the expiration of three months I got a long letter (which I now hear the Trustees and their Secretary think a very fine production), setting forth all sorts of very poor reasons involved in a prodigious verbiage, why we should not insist on having our book, and why they should retain possession of it. To this I responded that the President of the Council considered that he had no option in the matter, that he was bound to insist on the restitution of the lost books of the Council, wherever he could find them, and that he was very sorry he could not comply with the request of the Trustees that he would desist from his claim. There the matter stands at the present moment. When I found that the Trustees were resolved to resist our demand, I asked the Attorney-General, whether we had or had not a right to enforce it; and he said most undoubtedly we had, that it was impossible for the British Museum to resist it, and that he, who was _ex officio_ a Trustee, should tell them so. These matters are always settled by a few active persons who take the lead and the trouble, and I fancy Hallam, William Hamilton, and one or two more, are the men who are fighting this battle. I wrote to Hamilton, begging him to mediate, and get the matter amicably settled; and he sent me a very absurd answer, the gist of which was that as we had done without this book for two hundred years we might do without it still, and that we had better send the rest of our books to the British Museum, instead of requiring the restoration of this one. The other night I spoke to Lord Ashburton, who is a very active Trustee, and though I found he had been fully consenting to Forshall's letter, and to the purpose of retaining the book, I believe I satisfied him that it ought to be given up.

[Footnote 60: [At the fire in Whitehall which occurred in 1618, the
volumes of the Council Register belonging to the preceding years
of the reign of James I. were lost in the confusion or possibly
destroyed in the fire. An Order in [Council was passed directing
the clerks of the Council to recover possession of these important
Records of State wherever they could be found. The volumes referred
to in the text are two of the missing registers, but that which
is in the British Museum has never been restored to the Council
Office. The remainder of the series from the last years of Henry
VIII. to the present date is perfect and complete.]]

_June 14th._--Yesterday at Ascot. A melancholy sight indeed, torrents of rain, no company; the Court had announced its intention not to be present, which was a heavy discouragement, and the miserable weather put a finishing stroke to the prosperity of the meeting. The determination of the Queen and Prince not to go is attributed by some to their dislike of all racing, and by others to the presence of the King of Hanover, who would have obliged her, if she had had the usual party at Windsor, to invite him there. Probably there is a mixture of both reasons in the matter. The King of Hanover must be rather astonished to find himself received as he has been here. Although supposed to be extremely unpopular, he is feasted, invited, and visited by all manner of men. Everybody seems to think it necessary to treat him with dinners and balls, and he is become the lion of the season with this foolish, inconsistent world.

The war between us and the British Museum still goes on. On Saturday I got Lord Wharncliffe to go there in person and demand the book, which he did in full conclave of the Trustees. I had drawn up a paper, which he caused to be read there, and gave it to the Archbishop. After the Lord President had departed they discussed the matter, and came to a resolution that they had not the power to give up the book, and this they communicated to me in an official letter yesterday.

[Sidenote: AFFAIRS OF AFGHANISTAN AND SCINDE.]

_June 15th._--Yesterday we sent a case to the Attorney-General for him and the Solicitor to report on about the Council book.

On Saturday I am going abroad, partly for health and partly in search of amusement, and to get away from the London season. Lord Wharncliffe said to me yesterday, 'You are going away, and I shall not see you for some time. You leave us in a strange state, with many difficulties around us. Our friends are angry because we don't do more and come down to Parliament about Ireland, but we have _no case_ to act upon. What can we do about O'Connell? He may go great lengths, and at some of these meetings may expose himself to a prosecution, but when would you find an Irish jury to convict him?' All this is true enough; the question of Ireland is very difficult, but the Government have done all they can do; they take precautions and are in readiness if anything happens. Lord Wharncliffe said that the dismissal of the Repeal magistrates had been done in concert with the Government here, but that Sugden[61] had done the mischief by writing such a foolish letter. Then he is very uneasy about Scinde, on which I must say that he told me, before Parliament met, that he was not afraid of the Afghanistan part of Ellenborough's conduct, but that he was afraid of the Scindian part, and he has proved in the right. He says that, though it is rendered palateable by the brilliant victories Napier has gained, the conduct of both Napier and Ellenborough has been to the last degree arbitrary and tyrannical, and such as nothing can justify. Add to these things the distress in this country, the Corn Law quarrels, and the religious dissensions both in Scotland and in England, and the cauldron is surely bubbling and fizzing as merrily as need be; yet we shall scramble through all these difficulties, as we have done so many before _pejora passi_.

[Footnote 61: [Sir Edward Sugden was Lord Chancellor of Ireland.]]

_Liège, Monday, June 19th._--I set off at eleven o'clock, on Saturday morning, from London Bridge, by the 'Earl of Liverpool' steamer, which was loaded with passengers and machinery, and a slow bad boat, so that we were seventeen and a half hours crossing over. The weather was fine, and it was pleasant enough going down the river. All the people were very merry and very hungry during this part of the voyage, but most of them very sad and very sick when they got out to sea. It was ludicrous to see the disappearance of their hilarity and to contrast it with their woebegone faces when they were heaved about in the Channel. Having secured what is called the state cabin (a box with two beds in it, one over the other), I turned in and slept very comfortably. On each side of this apartment were the men's and the women's rooms, and as the doors of both were left open for air, I saw them, all lying huddled together, in every variety of attitude and costume, as thick as plums in a box, without any appearance of motion or life. It was a foggy, misty night, but suddenly at break of day the fog was drawn up like a curtain, and we ran into Ostend harbour on a fine morning at half-past four o'clock. The people at the Custom House were very civil and expeditious, and we found a tolerable hotel, though not so good as it ought to be for such a place as Ostend, which is now become a flourishing town on account of the great number of people who flock to it as a bathing-place, not only from Belgium, but Germany. The sands are excellent, and there is a magnificent promenade overlooking the sea, half a mile long. We started at eleven o'clock on the railroad and came to Liège. The carriages and arrangements are superior to ours, and much cheaper as to fare, but very dear in the article of luggage. For example, my fare was fifteen francs, and the charge for my baggage was fourteen.

_Cologne._--I was obliged to leave off, to set out in a hired carriage, which took us to Aix-la-Chapelle in six and a half hours. I saw nothing at Liège but the vast building which was once the palace of the Prince Bishop, and must have been exceedingly grand. It reminded me of Venice with its superb colonnade and richly carved pillars. The road is extremely pretty (by Chaude Fontaine) from Liège to Aix, and exhibits every appearance of prosperity. It keeps almost constantly in sight of the new railroad--a stupendous work--making its way along a country which is all hill, valley, and stream. The difficulty, the labour, and the cost must all be enormous; vast tunnels and magnificent viaducts present themselves at every turn, and I doubt if there is a similar work in any part of Europe to be compared with this. We only stopped to dine at Aix-la-Chapelle, and while dinner was getting ready I walked up to look at the Hôtel de Ville and the outside of the Cathedral, and in the evening we came on to this place, where we arrived just as it was dark. On the whole, my expedition has answered perfectly as far as it has gone. The weather has been delightful, the travelling neither tedious nor disagreeable, no difficulties nor discomforts, and though I have not seen much, I have been well amused with the aspect of the country through which I have passed, and with the glimpses of the curious old towns.

[Sidenote: COLOGNE CATHEDRAL.]

_Coblentz, June 20th._--This morning went to see the Cathedral at Cologne, which it is useless to describe. I was greatly struck with its grandeur, but do not like the quantity of painting and gilding which deface the choir, nor do I think the frescoes which are now being painted on the walls suitable to a Gothic church. They are doing a great deal, but it is out of the question to think of finishing such a building.[62] Afterwards to two or three churches, all of which were tawdry, service going on in all of them, and some were very full. Set off at half-past ten in the steamboat. The morning was grey and cold, and it soon began to rain heavily, but by the time we reached Bonn, where the beauties of the Rhine open, it became fine, and the day continued to improve, only with occasional showers, till in the afternoon the weather was beautiful. Certainly nothing can be more agreeable than this voyage on the Rhine. The boats spacious and comfortable, an excellent dinner very cheap, and the people very civil and obliging. With regard to the scenery, I was disappointed in particular spots, but very well pleased on the whole. The beauties of the Rhine are not near so striking as I fancied they were; the scenery of the Wye is infinitely finer; in fact, there is not a single object of grandeur, but it is all excessively pretty; the river itself is noble, and the constant succession of towns, villages, palaces, ruins, and the various objects which the Rhine presents, renders the voyage very interesting and enjoyable. The approach to Coblentz is beautiful, and it was set off by all the effulgence of a magnificent sunset. The inns here are so crowded that it was with the greatest difficulty we found apartments in the largest of them. On the whole I am delighted with the expedition and with all I have seen, though the banks of the Rhine are not to be compared to the scenery of Monmouthshire or North Wales. 'The castled Crag of Drachenfels' is not so striking a ruin as the castle of Dinas Bran; Dover Castle is much more imposing than Ehrenbreitstein; but then there is the Rhine instead of the Wye--the grandest of rivers instead of a slimy streamlet. It is an intolerable bore not being able to speak German, for though waiters and innkeepers speak French and English almost universally, the mass of the people only speak German, and one feels miserably stupid and helpless at hearing a language clattering around one in every direction without being able to comprehend a word of it. I am much struck with the gaiety of the people and a certain style of joyous familiarity they have among one another; all the people on board the steamer (belonging to it), from the man in authority down to the cabin boy, seeming so free and easy with each other, and though very civil and particularly obliging, they have a certain air more of independence than familiarity with the passengers.

[Footnote 62: [Some thirty years later the edifice was completed.]]

_Frankfort, June 23rd._--I left Coblentz by the ten o'clock steamer on Wednesday morning. The scenery from thence to Bingen is by far the finest and certainly very beautiful and interesting, not that there is anything on either bank so grand or romantic as in Italy, Switzerland, or Wales, but altogether it is very charming, and the attention is never allowed to flag. The Rhine is noble, and its turnings and windings exhibit a perpetual variety of prospect, the same objects being presented in so many different aspects. It would be ridiculous to attempt to describe what has been already described by a hundred tourists and artists. A man in the steamboat, who was evidently concocting a journal, very sensibly copied out what he wanted to describe from Murray's handbook; probably he could not do better.

[Sidenote: MAYENCE.]

The Princes of Prussia have caused two of the ruined castles on the left bank to be repaired, and have made residences of them; but the destroyers of castles have done more for the picturesque than the restorers, for the ruins are out of all comparison more romantic objects than the perfect buildings. The amazing solidity with which they are built is proved by the facility with which they have been restored, besides which there is one that has continued perfect, and another which was allowed to go to decay only a few years ago, when the roof was taken off to save the expense of keeping it in repair.

We reached Mayence about nine o'clock. The next morning early I sallied forth, as usual, and poked about the town. I went into the cathedral, where there are a vast number of monuments, not very remarkable, of the Archbishops of Mayence--great men in their time. There was one tomb with which I was struck. It represents in the upper part the whole history of Christ, or at least, of His sufferings and death, in bas-relief, and underneath He is lying in His tomb, with figures at the head, the feet, and on one side, all as large as life, and by no means ill-done. A bronze statue of Gutenberg (for whom the invention of printing is claimed) was raised a few years ago by the town of Mayence; a fine figure enough, but they have inscribed upon the pedestal four of the most execrable Latin lines that ever were written, and if these are the best verses Mayence can produce, poets must be scarce in the town. If Gutenberg could come to life again he would be ashamed to see his types employed in recording such poetry as they have written in his praise. At eleven o'clock the railroad brought me in an hour to this place. This is an extremely pretty town; gay and prosperous in appearance, the streets are so wide, houses so handsome, and shops so smart. I soon found Francis Molyneux, with whom I dined. Mr. Koch, the Consul and banker, gave me a card which admitted me to a club, and I amused myself very well, looking about the town and gardens, and in the Bohemian glass shop. This morning I consulted Dr. Kop, a physician who lives at Hanau, and has a reputation in the country, about the waters. He advised me not to go to Wiesbaden, which he said was too strong for such a case as mine, but to drink the waters of Wildbad in Würtemberg. I had, however, already pretty well made up my mind not to drink any waters at present, but merely to hear what the medical authorities said on the subject, and reserve them for a future occasion.

_Frankfort, June 24th._--Walked about the town, and went into the shops, where I cannot resist buying prints, Bohemian glass, and the deer's-horn things. Went to Mr. Bethmann's garden to see Dannecker's Ariadne, which is one of the great sights of this place. We (Francis Molyneux and I) found a French family, father, mother, and extremely pretty young daughter about sixteen, wanting to get in, and not able to make themselves understood, not speaking German. Francis Molyneux got the custos to come, and we entered. The first _salle_ is furnished with a number of casts of gladiators and Apollos, which, however, so terrified the young innocent, who, it seems, has not been long out of a convent, that she started back, and nothing could get her into the museum. We passed on to the sanctum in which the Ariadne is placed, and the father went off to try and get his girl to pass through these formidable statues, but all in vain. I was amused with the _naïveté_ with which he said, shrugging up his shoulders, 'Non, ma fille ne veut pas venir. Le fait est qu'elle n'a jamais rien vu de pareil.' The Ariadne statue is fine, the attitude easy and graceful, but the face is deficient in expression, and it has an impudent look.

[Sidenote: FRANKFORT.]

At three o'clock I got on the railroad, and went over to Mayence, to hear the military bands, which play every Friday. This is a great lounge, attended by all the people of the town, and many from Frankfort and Wiesbaden. I was delighted. The music is really magnificent. It was an Austrian band, about sixty or seventy in number, admirably conducted. The garden in which they play, just beyond the fortifications of the town, is very pretty, and the people sit at tables drinking chocolate or eating ice; the men mostly walking about and almost all smoking. There I fell in with Lord Westmoreland and Frederick FitzClarence from Wiesbaden, and we dined together afterwards, and at half-past eight returned home by railroad. This morning I have been wandering about and exploring. It is a fine town, and remarkable for the frequent intermixture of handsome modern houses with buildings of a very antique but generally decayed appearance; the place has a great look of well-doing, and one sees no beggars, and no miserable objects. I understand that there is a good system of relief for the poor, and no pauperism of the miserable and degraded character that shocks one so in England. Frankfort is not very gay or amusing. There is very little society; the rich people here live very quietly, and only display their wealth in occasional banquets, which are splendid, but long and tiresome. The old mother of the Rothschilds, the grandmother of the present generation, is here, living in the Jews' quarter in the old home of the family, which she will not be persuaded to quit. It is miserable-looking on the outside, but is said to be very different within. The old woman, who is ninety-four years old, drives about and goes constantly to the opera or play. The greatest man of the place is Count Münch-Bellinghausen, who has been for many years President of the Diet, and who, some think, will be one day Metternich's successor.

_Wiesbaden, Monday, June 26th._--I dined with Strangways,[63] on Saturday; drove after dinner round the town and into the forest. Yesterday afternoon came here by railroad, very ugly country, but very pretty town. The weather was very fine, and a gayer sight I never saw than the crowd of people--eating, drinking, smoking, walking, listening to the band in the garden in front of the gambling palace (for such it is). I dined with Lord and Lady Frederick FitzClarence and Lord Westmoreland, and went to the Casino, or whatever they call it, in the evening. There play was going on (with crowds at the tables), as it does from morning till night, but the stakes appeared to be very small. The Grand Duke is residing here, and I saw his equipages returning from taking him and his suite to the theatre, evidently intended for an imitation of an English turn-out, but very poor and ridiculous. He is the richest of all the small German Sovereigns, and has got a very pretty territory. It is impossible not to be struck with the great appearance of ease and comfort in all these parts. I have seen no beggars, or hardly any, no miserable objects or wretched hovels. I asked Garg, the Master of the Hôtel de Russie at Frankfort, and a very intelligent man, and he told me the town was not so flourishing as it had been before they joined the Prussian League. However, all these places thrive without doubt by the immense number of travellers, especially English, who come to them. The inns are everywhere very superior to ours. Instead of the dirty, vulgar, noisy houses that most of our inns and hotels are, they are generally great and fine establishments, very clean, very well furnished, the service much better performed and incomparably cheaper. The town of Frankfort is divided between Protestants and Catholics, but the only religious squabbles or dissensions seem to have arisen among the English residents and the English clergyman. The dispute began about the management of the funds. A feud arose, two parties were formed, duels were fought, every sort of violence exhibited, volumes written on either side, and no end of trouble given to the legation here and the Foreign Office at home.

[Footnote 63: [The Hon. William Fox Strangways, afterwards Earl
of Ilchester, was at this time British Minister accredited to the
German Diet at Frankfort.]]

_Wiesbaden, Wednesday, June 28th._--Lord Westmoreland agreed to go with me to Baden-Baden, if I would wait a day or two, so I agreed to do so. We went to the play on Monday evening, and found an extremely pretty theatre; a Mdlle. Herz, or some such name, the best actress at Berlin, appeared; the house was very thin. She reminded me of Rachel, and I should think she must be a very good actress, but as I did not understand a word, I can't pronounce confidently on her merits. I only know that her voice is sweet and expressive, her action graceful, her manner excellent; she is rather good-looking, and though I did not comprehend what was said, I got sufficiently interested in the action of the piece to sit out five acts without fatigue, which I have often not been able to do at pieces I do understand. Yesterday in the morning I followed a long walk through the garden, and through shrubberies and fields, to a village and ruined castle, about a mile and a half or two miles off. After breakfast went with Westmoreland and his son, and G. Berkeley, to the Duke's hunting-place at the top of a hill three miles off. A tolerable house, fitted up with memorials of the chase, and all over stags' horns. A grand view from it of the Rhine, and all the country as far as Darmstadt. Two magnificent bronze stags at the entrance.

[Sidenote: THE MOTHER OF THE ROTHSCHILDS.]

_Mannheim, June 29th._--I went to Frankfort yesterday; went to see the Jews' street, the most curious part of the town. It is very narrow, the houses all of great antiquity, and not one new or modern in the whole street. This street exhibits a perfect specimen of a town of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The houses are very lofty, a good deal ornamented, but they look dark and dirty, and as if their interior had undergone as little alteration as the exterior. Strange figures were loitering about the street, standing in the doorways or looking out of the windows. There was a man who might have presented himself on the stage in the character of Shylock, with the gaberdine and the beard; and old crones of the most miserable and squalid, but strange aspect. We had the good luck to see the old mother of the Rothschilds, and a curious contrast she presented. The house she inhabits appears not a bit better than any of the others; it is the same dark and decayed mansion. In this narrow gloomy street, and before this wretched tenement, a smart _calèche_ was standing, fitted up with blue silk, and a footman in blue livery was at the door. Presently the door opened, and the old woman was seen descending a dark, narrow staircase, supported by her grand-daughter, the Baroness Charles Rothschild, whose carriage was also in waiting at the end of the street. Two footmen and some maids were in attendance to help the old lady into the carriage, and a number of the inhabitants collected opposite to see her get in. A more curious and striking contrast I never saw than the dress of the ladies, both the old and the young one, and their equipages and liveries, with the dilapidated locality in which the old woman persists in remaining. The family allow her 4,000_l._ a year, and they say she never in her life has been out of Frankfort, and never inhabited any other house than this, in which she is resolved to die. The street was formerly closed at both ends, and the Jews were confined to that quarter. The French took away the gates and they have never been replaced. The Jews now live in any part of the town they please. The Rothschilds, of whom there are several residing at Frankfort, are said to do a great deal of good both to Christians and Jews. There was very near being an _émeute_ the other day, in consequence of the high price of corn; the poor people are starving, and can't buy bread at the price it now fetches. The Government is obliged to assist them; to buy wheat or bread, and sell it to the people at half-price.

I left Frankfort at half-past eleven, and got to Mayence just in time to dine at the _table-d'hôte_ at the Hôtel d'Angleterre: one long table, half of which was occupied by the Austrian officers, who kept up an incessant fire of talk; the other half by casual visitors, not one of whom said a word. The jabber of the military men sounded strangely in my ears, and as the formidable gutturals jostled each other, I fancied it must have been very like the confusion of Babel, when every man began to speak in a different tongue. The oddest part of the dinner business was the master of the hotel sitting down to table with us, with an air of perfect, but not impudent familiarity; and at the same time acting the part of host by constantly getting up from his seat, going to inspect the dishes, and occasionally serving some of them himself. At half-past two the steamboat arrived, I went on board, and got here at half-past eight. The Rhine is very uninteresting in this part of its course, the banks flat, and the river often very narrow. The only town of any importance we passed was Worms, which is interesting from the historical recollections associated with it; but it has miserably fallen from the days when Charles V. and Luther met within its walls, while all Germany, in the highest state of excitement, was watching the progress of the conflict that was producing such mighty results. It is amusing, on board the steamer, to stop and exchange passengers, and we gave up some odds and ends of people at Worms, and got a whole school in return, some twenty specimens of the rising youth of Germany, and not bad ones on the whole--stout, active, intelligent-looking boys, with caps on their heads, very long hair, and satchels on their backs.

[Sidenote: HEIDELBERG.]

_Baden-Baden, July 2nd._--I set off from Mannheim by railroad on Friday morning about ten, and got to Heidelberg in an hour. It began to rain as soon as we started, and poured torrents almost the whole day. I sat very disconsolately in my inn, hearing the rain pattering down, till a momentary cessation took place, of which I instantly availed myself, and set forth to the Castle. I went all over the ruins under the usual guidance, and then made the tour of the adjoining grounds, but the rain again fell in torrents and the opposite hills and surrounding country were immersed in dense masses of vapour. After braving the rain for some time, I descended, but had hardly got down before it cleared up, on which I crossed the bridge, and strolled down the road on the banks of the Neckar, and thence had a variety of views of the Castle from different points as well as of the course of the river, which is very pretty. Yesterday morning it was fine, so I went early up to the Castle, and wandered about for an hour or two in all directions. The statues of the Electors in the building in the inner court, the facade of which is nearly perfect, are very curious, and it is surprising how some of them have resisted such rude assaults of time and weather as they must have been exposed to. The town is swarming with students, wild-looking creatures, with long hair, open collars, and every variety of beard in cut, colour, and length. Their practice of duelling, though forbidden, still goes on, but the combats don't seem to be very dangerous, as the first wound or scratch decides it. They told me that serious mischief rarely occurred. I went to see nothing but the Castle. The library is, I believe, fine and curious, but it is mere waste of time to look at the outside of books, or hear their titles enumerated.

At eleven o'clock the railroad took me to Carlsruhe, where I was obliged to hire a carriage to bring me here. Nothing could exceed the indignation of my servant at seeing the deplorable old rattle-trap which was produced for my use. It seemed to be dropping to pieces, and could not have been cleaned, within or without, for many years. Such as it was, I was forced to take it, and at the next stage I was shifted into another of precisely the same description. At Rastadt, the last stage, Thomas implored me to demand a more presentable vehicle, and piteously remonstrated on the disgrace it would be to make my entry into Baden in such an equipage. The Fates, however, had decreed that this disgrace should befall me, for there was no carriage better or worse to be had in Rastadt, and I was obliged to come on with the same, horse and all; and, to fill the cup to overflowing, I arrived at the hotel door in presence of a numerous assemblage of smart people who were just going to dinner at the _table-d'hôte_. The figure I must have cut was certainly not brilliant, but I could not help being amused at it, and especially at the despair of my faithful valet, who felt much more for my dignity than I did myself. There was no room whatever at the hotel I stopped at, so I went to look for a lodging elsewhere, and addressed myself to the Hôtel de l'Europe, a grand-looking establishment. I asked if they had rooms, and they said yes; but I suppose my appearance was not prepossessing (what would they have thought if they had seen my carriage?) for they took me to some miserable looking apartments in an adjoining outhouse. I rejected these with indignation, and said I would look elsewhere, when they ran after me, and offered me others; but I said, as they had not chosen to do so at first, I would have nothing to say to them, and I went on to the Hôtel de Russie, where I got very good rooms. In the evening I went to the promenade and the gaming rooms, which are as fine as the saloons in any palace I know of, and splendidly fitted up, but the amount of play, which is to defray the expense, seemed to me very small. It is, however, a very bad season, the long continuance of bad weather having diminished the number of visitors. I did not see one individual I knew, except a Colonel O'Meara whom I had known a little in England, and who volunteered to be my cicerone, and was very civil and obliging. This morning I walked before breakfast through a delightful shady avenue to a village about a mile and a half off, stopping to drink some water at a famous spring; then came home and wrote my letters, and started to walk up to the old Castle, which, after losing my way just outside the town, I successfully accomplished, and a most glorious view it is from the top. I certainly have never seen a more lovely landscape, and am rejoiced to have seen it, to feed my memory with for the future.

[Sidenote: LIFE AT GERMAN BATHS.]

_July 3rd._--Dining at the _table-d'hôte_ with just half a dozen people whom I don't know, with whom I have no conversation or communication, and not knowing whether they are French, Russians, or what, is a bore. I have done this twice, but will have no more of it. After dinner yesterday went to the usual place of resort, which, being Sunday, was crowded with people. There was a concert in the great room, and the whole thing was gay and amusing. It is totally unlike anything that can be seen in England, or I suppose anywhere but at some of these Baths. The society is extremely promiscuous, and completely democratic in its character, nevertheless perfectly respectable in appearance and behaviour. The locality is charming, the open booths round the garden exhibiting every variety of merchandise, and the numerous tables in the open air round which little parties are sitting, talking, drinking, eating, and smoking, while others are parading up and down, present a scene of remarkable gaiety, and when the concert began all the world flocked into the magnificent rooms, where everybody ranges about from high to low without paying anything. The early hour admits of children being there, and the little wretches are scampering about in great numbers. All the time the _rouge-et-noir_ and _roulette_ are going on, with crowds round the tables, but not much money staked. I found at last some people I knew, the two Hannah Colmans (the youngest now Madame de Porbeck and wife to a Baden officer), Mrs. Herbert with Sir Francis Vincent and her daughter Lady Vincent. It is wonderful how glad one is to see anybody in such a solitude of unknown faces, and how people who scarcely ever notice each other at home strike up a sudden but brief intimacy under circumstances productive of a momentary attraction. Sometimes these accidental associations lead to permanent intimacies, and sometimes one discovers in a moment that people whom one has been acquainted with all one's life, without knowing anything of them, are full of merits of which one had no sort of notion.

_July 4th._--Madame de Porbeck, who is gay, good-natured, and agreeable, proposed to me to go to Eberstein Castle, one of the most celebrated excursions from hence, which I gladly accepted, and we went after dinner. I have no talent for description of scenery, and, if I had, it would be superfluous, to describe these noted spots. Suffice to say that I never was so enchanted in my life as with this Castle and the panorama it commands. I cannot figure to myself anything more lovely, and it wants nothing to make it perfect. There is a mixture of everything that can interest, astonish, and delight; the magnificent pine forests, feathering up the sides of the mountains; the vast chaos of hills cast into every variety of form; the river winding, rushing, sparkling, and murmuring in its course; the innumerable villages with which the banks are studded; the patches of cultivation striping the hill-sides, so curiously subdivided, diversified between corn-fields, potatoes, and vineyards, looking so minute in the vast space; the bridges; the curling smoke; the moving objects, like Lilliputians, in the distance; the sounds and the smells wafted by the air--altogether make a combination which affords inexpressible pleasure. Above all, I must not forget the lights and shadows, and the glorious effects of the setting sun in the calm and clear evening. The afternoon is the time for visiting such spots as these, when the noonday heats are past, and the blaze of the sun is softened and harmonised into a milder but a clearer light; and as the shadows lengthen and produce constant variety of shape, and draw fresh outlines on the opposite hills and in the valleys, and colours bright and changing like those of a rainbow dye the whole horizon, lighting up the course of the Rhine, and painting with purple hues the mountains of the Vosges, I looked and thought that nothing on earth could surpass this in beauty, and I thanked God for the faculty of enjoying it so much as I do. We went over the Castle, from which the views are charming. It is perched like an eagle's nest on the top of a conical hill; it was once a fortress of a feudal lord, and is now a small hunting-lodge, the new part curiously grafted on the old, and the interior prettily and comfortably arranged, but with hardly any accommodation. The Grand Duke comes here sometimes for a little while to shoot in the forest. The road up to it is like the Simplon, and has been recently made by the town. As we descended, we overtook some of the huge pines, which looked as if they were hewn 'to be the mast of some great ammiral.' They are put upon wheels at a great distance from each other, and drawn by oxen, and the way in which they contrive to get them round the turnings is really wonderful. We came on one at the turn, and it so completely barred the way, and seemed itself at such _a fix_, that I thought no one would have been able to pass; but by shifting, and moving, and dragging, between the men and the oxen, they managed it, I can hardly tell how. These are the vast pines that are floated down the Rhine; but those that we fell in with are used for domestic purposes.

[Sidenote: THE CASTLE OF EBERSTEIN.]

_July 5th._--Yesterday went to dine at Gersbach, a small village just below the Castle of Eberstein. Went by the circuitous but flat road that leads through the valley of the Murg; but the beauties of the valley only begin at Gersbach itself, so that there was not much good got by taking this broiling roundabout route. There we met a party of people I never saw before, and after dinner we sat by the side of the river enjoying the fine weather and fine scenery in luxurious repose. Returned by a new and beautiful road over the mountain. My companion in the carriage, Mr. de Porbeck, an officer in the Baden army, a well-conditioned and intelligent man, gave me some scraps of information about what may be called German politics, some of which I was not prepared for. I asked him about the Chambers of his Grand-Duchy, and he told me they exercised a very real and effectual control over the finances and internal administration generally; that they sat long, debated a good deal, and there are some men of great ability and very good speakers in them. The particulars of the discussions of a Baden Parliament are not very interesting, but he told me that there is a great and growing desire on the part of the smaller States to form one nation with one or other of the great Powers, and that before long they would all be thus absorbed by their own desire. I said surely none of them could desire to belong to Austria. He said this feeling was more prevalent in the north, and he thought eventually all the Rhenish and Protestant States, Baden, Nassau, Würtemberg, Saxony, would be united to Prussia; that the first war which broke out would produce this revolution; that the fate of the Catholic parts of Germany might be different: that Bavaria might survive and possibly unite other provinces to herself. But as to Austria, he was convinced that the death of Metternich would be the signal for a great movement in that country; that everything was preparing for it, and that event would bring the projects which were spreading more and more every day to maturity. While this desire to make Germany a nation, or to merge the petty independencies in one or two great German Powers, is, according to him, becoming strong and general, there is also a great wish to have colonies and a navy, all of which he deems feasible, and says Prussia is already beginning to build ships of war. Whether there is truth in all this, or these are my friend's reveries, I know not; but as I had never before heard of such aspirations, I was struck by what he told me. We had a great deal of talk besides, about the condition of the people, and he expressed with some pride his satisfaction that while they had nothing of the grandeur of English opulence to boast of, they had not the afflicting spectacle of English misery and destitution. The subdivision of land (the effects of which I saw in the minute stripes of cultivated land on the hill-sides) caused all the agricultural population--much the greatest part of Baden--to be removed above want, and he assured me that the whole of the people are tolerably educated. No soldier, for instance, is allowed to enlist without being able to read and write. I remarked that on Sunday, though all the shops were shut in the town, labour was going on in the fields--that is, haymaking; I won't answer for any other. There is certainly a degree of social equality which is very foreign to our habits, and yet it is not subversive of the respect which is due from persons in one station to those in another. To me it has nothing offensive. I see it as a trait of national character and manners. At the _table-d'hôte_ here the master of the hotel did not sit down as at Mayence, but he conversed with the guests. Both he and all the waiters, who are very obliging and attentive, talk to me continually when I go out or come in. There is something of independence mixed with kindness in their way of doing these things, which quite reconciles me to what anybody, thoroughly imbued with English customs and prejudices, would probably be affronted or provoked at. As far as I can ascertain, nothing can go on more harmoniously than the Catholics and Protestants do here. Two-thirds of the people are Catholics, the reigning family Protestants; clergy of both persuasions paid by the State, education in common, and the schools open to teachers who give separate religious instruction. Go where one will, it seems to me that one finds a more satisfactory and harmonious state of things with regard to religion than in England. There is more intolerance, bigotry, obstinacy, and _déraison_ at home than in all the world besides. In what I have written here I am well aware that there is very little but the merest superficial view of the condition of the country, picked up in one or two casual conversations, and I value it at no more than it is worth. With regard to what De Porbeck told me of the German movement, it is not to be suspected as proceeding from an enemy of the Court, for he is on very good terms with the Royal Family, and appears to be something of a favourite.

[Sidenote: CONDITION OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE.]