LIEGE. O ye shades of Quintin and the fair Isabelle, how would ye be horrified if ye rose from your graves and viewed the transformations which have taken place since your glorious times. The roar of furnaces-the clatter of hammers-and the ring of anvils now are heard, where once the Hallelujahs rose.* Sooty, fire-dried artizans now parade the streets; peaceful indeed, but looking as like the brutal followers of the Boar of Ardennes a3 any Christian may. But the variety of manufacturing smells, the hissing of steam, and the tall chimneys disgorging black clouds, would puzzle the antiquated shades, and send them to their peaceful graves full of wonder at the noisy inventions of the nineteenth century.

We clambered up a long hill at the opposite side of the river, and rolled on in peace until we reached the Prussian frontier, a little hamlet called Henri Chapelle, where we stopped to get our passports. We had entered Belgium with Dutch passports, and had brought them to Brussels, where the authorities sent them on to this frontier, giving us Belgic papers in their place; all this arose from a jealousy lest we should cross the frontier into Holland. When we arrived at this station, we sent off a messenger for the precious documents, and we waited and waited until the patience of every body was nearly exhausted. The conducteur raved and swore in all jargons, and the soldiers of the guard laughed at him-the passengers were wild with hunger, and the whole party were out of temper, except ourselves and the horses. At last, a gossoon came along at a trot. We remounted the diligence, and journeyed on without further stop, until we met with an INCIDENT.

We were chatting with an old Prussian soldier, and laughing at and

with him, when our confabulation was disturbed, as well as ourselves, by a heavy roll, and a sickening lurch. We stood still-all was silent for a moment

and then a burst of voices in half a dozen different tongues-men, women, and children shouted for help, in as many various keys as there were passengers on board. One of our party popped his head through the window, and told us that we had best get out as fast as possible; but the only door opened from the outside, and there was no window above it, as in our carriages, the former being at the end, the latter at the sides. Our Prussian friend had possession of one of these, bellowing to some one to let us out-another, an English gentleman, had his head out of the other, shouting in French, mixed with his mother tongue : "Fermezpooh, confound it-ouvrez la portelet me out." "Sacre r-r-r," sung out the Prussian, and then a duet volley of oaths, until the cries reached the ears of some one on the road, who let us out; and in truth in good time, for we were very near an upset on a desperately steep hill, and surrounded by a dark, banditti-covering wood. The pole was shivered to pieces, and one of the wheelers lay as if dead, and the whole living cargo, disgorged from the various holes and corners, now stood on the sandy road. The national characters were speedily developed, each shewing their capabilities in sudden emergencies, and their various degrees of presence of mind. There were the representatives of five nations that day in the diligence-English, Belgians, French, Prussians, and German students. The former quickly found each other out, and set to work to splice the pole; which being voted impracticable, they doomed a young ash to the knife—for alas, we had no axe. The Belgians, amongst whom was the conducteur,

were paralyzed, and incapable of the smallest exertion-the French were just like magpies round a fallen nest; they ran to the driver, and hopped, and shrugged, and chattered, and then ran to us, and chattered, shrugged, and hopped, then spun round to the Prussians, who stood, pipe in mouth, as at an every day occurrence, and waiting 'till the conducteur should come to his senses. The Germans most phlegmatically swore Ter Tuyfel, and strode off to the city. We soon found that our endeavours were vain, so walked after our fellow passengers.

At Aix more amusement awaited us -as we strolled up the street we found a fellow countryman, looking for an hotel. L'Aigle Noir had been recommended to him, so when he got into the city he looked about for the sign, which having found, he walked in, and proceeded to take his ease-as Britons are wont to do at an house of public entertainment. He soon found himself uncomfortable, for the people seemed ready to die of laughing at him; still it appeared to be an hotel, a great one too, for all the coaches were unloading in the yard. Feeling insulted by the mirth of the attendants, he walked out, intending to look for another hotel presently he found another house with the same sign, which much confounded him; he could not speak a word of the barbarous jargon of the place, nor was his French of the purest. Our appearance, therefore, was most opportune-he led us to the first hotel, as he called it, which, on examination, we found to be the Post-office and Custom-house, with the diligences unloading in the yard, in order that the baggage might be searched. But the sign, he persisted, proved it to be an hotel, and he was not a little dumbfoundered, when he discovered that the "Aigle" was the royal symbol, and placed over the government offices, as the lion and the unicorn were at home: in fine, we put up at the Hotel de Rhine, which is simply mentioned in our log as "to be doubly cursed, for bad accommodation, infamous fare, and exorbitant charges."

COLOGNE-famous for St. Ursula and her maidens, the three kings, and its scents both good and bad. Faugh! such another unsavoury town does not exist on the face of the earth. One would

think that Jean Marie Farina extracted all the sweets from earth, air, and water, to form the celebrated eau, for all and each of these elements are totally devoid of anything which at home would be reckoned pleasing. The air is various—fish fresh from the sea-only a few hundred miles--now and then something like a tan-yardhere redolent of heaps of manure, there an apothecary's shop-the water fermenting in the kennels was green, the earth either dusty, or saturated with the water, and all rising, steaming, fermenting, and poisoning, under a glare of sun of about 90° degrees of Fahrenheit. We much doubt whether the 30,000 bottles of scents manufactured here annually, would be able to subdue the stenches for a single hour. We set up our staff at the grand Rhineberg-capital quarters, where we luxuriated after a hot drive, on sofas at open windows, looking over the broad bosom of this superb riversinging,

The Rhine-the Rhine-
Our blessings on the Rhine
Whose rich and fruitful banks produce
This cheering wine-

and suiting the action to the word by quaffing off goblets of Johanisberg and seltzer-water, mantling and creaming like champagne, by the addition of sugar. You may talk of beefsteaks and brown stout for a starving man, but mention it not in the same year with Rhenish and sugar on a hot daydrink it not by bottles-leave such stinty measure for the fiery wines of the south; swallow all the tribes of these wines, from Leifroumilch and Peisporter, to Johanisberg and Hochheimer, by the gallon, swill the waters by oceans, 'at each gulp the flavour increasing, until you finish the last bottle and creutz, in the firm belief that nectar was but Rhine wine and sugar, and Hebe and Ganymede the celestial prototypes of a steam-boat steward and his wife.

We took an observation of the tower of the cathedral, and proceeded to examine this exquisite specimen of architecture. The only drawback from complete satisfaction is, that it is utterly unfinished; a pretty good hindrance you may say, to complete satisfaction. But still there is enough finished to

Gaping with ghastly grin-the glittering gems Glancing and glowing in their gaudy girth.”

Any one who is foolish or pious enough to pay a few Thalers may be admitted to the interior of the strong room, which contains the tomb, and there edify himself with the view of precious metals, blazing in the radiance of lamps, and set about with all sorts of coloured glass, which the verger would fain have us to believe are "veritable"- Credat Judæus.' The sacristy has some excellent carvings in ivory, from the best paintings of the Dutch school, and a grand stock of relics, feathers of St. Peter's cock, in juxta position with the parings of St. Albert's toe nails, a few inches of the rod of Moses, some of the stones which completed the defeat of the Amorites in the time of Joshua, with others, to believe in which would be blasphemy, but which are, in their titles and connexions, too holy to be lightly written. I have remarked that Popery, in continental Roman Catholic countries, seems to be more theoretical than with us. In this priestridden land, Popery, the moral enslavement of the people, extends to the utter subversion of social order-to the contempt of all laws, divine as well as human-in a word, to the well known practice of that creed. While on the continent, the present purposes of that church are gained by the continued darkness, and the superstitions and bigotry of the people, the theory and grammar of that system which may at any time be advanced to the practical state under which we now live.

66

Off at six next morning, per « Princess Marianne," for Coblentz, with eyes and ears agape to swallow the picturesque ! "The Seven Mountains." The cabin re-echoes with the sound,

"The castled crag of Drachenfels

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine."

Paper rustles, knives glance, and a whole broadside of sketchers are ready

to set down the "Drachenfels" with as much eagerness as if nobody had ever seen it before! But steam boats wait for no man, and before the "slow uns" have half done, the whole scene vanishes from their sight; then comes as heavy and dull a sail as ever hunter after the beautiful was cursed with; and with a semi-groan, semi-growl, the whole set of peoples betake themselves to dinner.

The Scenery. But wherefore do I presume to write aught concerning these things. The "Childe" was fain to pass this track, with the notice of a few stanzas, and shall I, a mere scribbler in Maga, a retailer of stale chat, a go-cart in the travelling line-shall I presume to write these things? Forbid it Leigh Hunt-forbid it Alfred Tennyson-yea, forbid it Alfred Tennyson and Lady Morgan.

Yet, without touching on this forbidden ground, I may record some few facts; and first, of that

"Small and simple Pyramid"

erected near Coblentz to the memory of Marceau, with whose bones rests also the kindred dust of Hoche. If any of our readers ever travel this way by land, they would do well to pay a visit to this tomb as well as to that erected to Hoche, near Andernach, if it were only to contrast the simplicity of the inscription on the latter" THE

ARMY OF THE MEUSE AND SOMBRE TO ITS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, HOCHE❞— with the long and laboured panegyric on Marceau, at Coblentz. After many hours sail, tedious enough, lo, Ehrenbreistein (a long word to write in one breath,) breaks upon the view. This long word signifies "the broad stone of honour;" and, in sooth, it was an honour to the monarch who possessed it. During the last war it was reckoned one of the strongest fortresses in Europe, and fell, after a tremendous siege, by famine. The French dismantled and blew up the works; but they have since been renewed and greatly improved.

It was at the peace of Leoben that this monument of human skill fell into

the hands of the invaders

When peace destroyed what war could never hlight,

And laid those proud roofs bare to summer's rain, On which the iron shower for years had poured in vain."

The height of this fortress is 487 feet, to the very top of which we went up. A commandant's order is necessary, which the commissionaire of the hotel will obtain, and any soldier will willingly serve as guide. We were fortunate enough to get a fine looking non-commissioned Prussian officer, who paraded us up stairs and down stairs, and if not "to my lady's chamber," at least to the sleeping-rooms of the men. These chambers hold about twenty beds, which by day are piled on each other in pairs, and by night are spread over the room at the end is generally an embrasure for cannon, and commanding the country. The whole was like a part of the gun deck of a ship, as if it boarded off by bulkheads between each gun. The present garrison is small, only 1000 men, exclusive of various gangs of convicts who work on the fortifications. Some officers are also confined here, chiefly for duelling. We passed many who were sentenced to imprisonment for various periods, up to ten years. This seems an excellent plan, and in our opinion is better far than cashiering or turning such fellows loose on society. It is a virtual deprivation of profession. The criminal is a warning to each successive garrison how they follow his steps, just as a crow hung in a tree will excite qualms in the breast of some hungry brother or-or any other savoury simile; but the best is, that the pugnacious hero is by this confinement effectually debarred from hurting himself or any one else by his fiery valour. The officers in question seemed to be deprived of rank, for they passed the very privates without receiving that military acknowledgment of authority which is in every garrison rendered to whom it is due. returned down the hill, the guide lifted a trap door, which he said communicated with the commandant's house, hundreds of feet below, through which this officer could at any time enter the port without warning or disturbing the guards. There is also a steep slide, like a patent slip, which runs from the top of the fortress to the river side, up which the heaviest guns could with ease be hoisted.

As we

We returned to our hotel-the Three Swiss-after a brilliant sunset, such as Claude has given to us from

his magic pencil, but of which realities we are, alas, ignorant of in this beerproducing, foggy land. Although it was late, yet the evening was so warm that we kept our windows open, listening to the merry voices below us. Presently the bugle for evening parade sounded in the fortress immediately opposite: the sound came from the commandant's house. Another bugle at the top of the castle caught up the tone, and far beyond, the fort of Wellington re-echoed the sweet music. For a moment all was still, and then the four out posts repeated the signal, each fainter than the last, until the blast died away imperceptibly over the gentle waters of Father Rhine. We rushed to the window, almost doubting our senses, but all seemed hushed for the night; and we were turning away when the fairy call was repeated, rising and falling with the breath of the wind; now fully pealing on the ear, now stretching the hearing to the utmost to catch the sound, which seemed to melt away as a vision of the night. Oh, it was most beautiful; and then the sober twilight, the lights springing into lustre as the hour advanced, the merry laugh of the peasant, the forms half seen in the duskall combined to distil a most pleasing sensation over our souls. In this happy state was I almost wishing that I could live in this land for ever, when a friend sang in my ear, "come, come, it's too cold, shut the window, here's metal more attractive"-and forthwith he withdrew the long cork from No 7. The report sounding in my ears effectually dissipated my dream, and a stone bottle of wasser made me again in peace and charity with the wretch who had disturbed me.

There is little worth recording in our log until we reached Frankfort, where we put up at an hotel, which, for comfort, or even luxury, may challenge the world. This Hotel de Russié was the palace of a noble family; and, like too many such in our own city, has become a refuge for the weary, provided they have the wherewithal. We came to this thrice renowned city on purpose to see the statue of Ariadne, by Dannaker, which, in spite of being called "ignorant," I shall take the liberty to call BEAUTIFUL. Hang the scientific blockheads