Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845

The last outbreak of the Dalecarlians was less successful. On the 19th of June 1743, five thousand of these hardy and determined men appeared before Stockholm, bringing with them in fetters the governor of their province, and demanding the punishment of the nobles who had instigated a war with Russia, and a new election of an heir to the crown. They were not to be pacified by words; and even the next morning, when the old King Frederick, surrounded by his general and guards, rode out to harangue them, all he could obtain was the release of their prisoner. On the other hand, they seized three pieces of cannon, and dragged them to the square named after Gustavus Adolphus, where they posted themselves.

"There were eight thousand men of regular troops in Stockholm, but these were not all to be depended upon, and it was necessary to bring up some detachments of the guards. A company of Süderländers who had been ordered to cross the bridge, went right about face, as soon as they came in sight of the Dalecarlians, and did not halt till they reached the sluicegate, which had been drawn up, so that nobody might pass. It was now proclaimed with beat of drum, that those of the Dalecarlians who should not have left the city by five o'clock, would be dealt with as rebels and traitors. More than a thousand did leave, but the others stood firm. Counsellors and generals went to them, and exhorted them to obedience; but they cried out that they would make and unmake the king, according to their own good right and decree, and that if it was attempted to hinder them, the very child in the cradle should meet no mercy at their hands. To give greater weight to their words, they fired a cannon and a volley of musketry, by which a counsellor was killed.

"Orders were now given to the soldiers to fire, but they had pity on the poor peasants, and only aimed at the houses, shattering the glass in hundreds of windows. But the artillerymen were obliged to put match to touch-hole, and a murderous fire of canister did execution in the masses of the Dalecarlians. Many a white camisole was stained with the red heart's-blood of its wearer; fifty men fell dead upon the spot, eighty were wounded, and a crowd of others sprang into the Norderström, or sought to fly. The regiment of body-guards pursued them, and drove the discomfited boors into the artillery court. A severe investigation now took place, and these thirsters after liberty were punished by imprisonment and running the gauntlet. Their leader and five others were beheaded.

"The Dalecarlians are a tenacious and obstinate people, and their character is not likely to change; but God forbid that they should again deem it necessary to visit Stockholm. They were doubtless just as brave in the year 1743 as in 1521 and 1434; but though they had not altered, the times had. Civilization and cartridges are powerful checks upon undisciplined courage and an unbridled desire of liberty."

Returning from Dalecarlia to Stockholm, Mr Boas takes, not without regret, his final farewell of that city, and embarks for Gothenburg, passing through the Gotha canal, that splendid monument of Swedish industry and perseverance, which connects the Baltic with the North Sea. He passes the island of Mörkö, on which is Höningsholm Castle, where Marshal Banner was brought up. A window is pointed out in the third story of the castle, at which Banner, when a child, was once playing, when he overbalanced himself and fell out. The ground beneath was hard and rocky, but nevertheless he got up unhurt, ran into the house, and related how a gardener had saved him by catching him in his white apron. Enquiry was immediately made, but, far or near, no gardener was to be found. By an odd coincidence, Wallenstein, Banner's great opponent, when a page at Innspruck, also fell out of a high window without receiving the least injury.

On the first evening of the voyage, the steamer anchors for the night near Mem, a country-seat belonging to a certain Count Saltza, an eccentric old nobleman, who traces his descent from the time of Charles XII., and fancies himself a prophet and ghost-seer. His predictions relate usually to the royal family or country of Sweden, and are repeated from mouth to mouth throughout every province of the kingdom. And here we must retract an assertion we made some pages back, as to the possibility of our supposing this book to proceed from any other than a German pen. No one but a German would have thought it necessary or judicious to intrude his own insipid sentimentalities into a narrative of this description, and which was meant to be printed. But there is probably no conceivable subject on which a German could be set to write, in discussing which he would not manage to drag in, by neck and heels, a certain amount of sentiment or metaphysics, perhaps of both. Mr Boas, we are sorry to say, is guilty of this sin against good taste. The steamer comes to an anchor about ten o'clock, and he goes ashore with Baron K – , a friend he has picked up on board, to take a stroll in the Prophet's garden at Mem. There they encounter Mesdemoiselles Ebba and Ylfwa, lovely and romantic maidens, who sit in a bower of roses under the shadow of an umbrageous maple-tree, their arms intertwined, their eyes fixed upon a moonbeam, piping out Swedish melodies, which, to our two swains, prove seductive as the songs of a Siren. The moonbeam aforesaid is kind enough to convert into silver all the trees, bushes, leaves and twigs in the vicinity of the young ladies with the Thor-and-Odin names; whilst to complete this German vision, a white bird with a yellow tuft upon its head stands sentry upon a branch beside them, the said bird being, we presume, a filthy squealing cockatoo, although Mr Boas, gay deceiver that he is, evidently wishes us to infer that it was an indigenous volatile of the phœnix tribe. Sentinel Cockatoo, however, was caught napping, and the garrison of the bower had to run for it. And now commences a series of hopes and fears, and doubts and anxieties, and sighings and perplexities, which keep the tender heart of Boas in a state of agreeable palpitation, through four or five chapters; at the end of which he steps on board the steam-boat Christiana, blows in imagination a farewell kiss to Miss Ebba, of whom, by the bye, he has never obtained more than half a glimpse, and awaking, as he tells us, from his love-dream, which we should call his nightmare, sets sail for Copenhagen.

Of the various places visited by Mr Boas during his ramble, few seem to have pleased him better than Copenhagen, and he becomes quite enthusiastic when speaking of that city, and of what he saw there. The pleasure he had in meeting Thorwaldsen is perhaps in part the cause of his remembering the Danish capital with peculiar favour. He gives various details concerning that celebrated sculptor, his character and habits, and commences the chapter, which he styles, "A Fragment of Italy in the North," with a comparison between Sweden and Denmark, two countries which, both in trifling and important matters, but especially in the character of their inhabitants, are far more dissimilar than from their juxtaposition might have been supposed. Listen to Mr Boas.

"On meeting an interesting person for the first time, one frequently endeavours to trace a resemblance with some previous acquaintance or friend. I have a similar propensity when I visit interesting cities; but I had difficulty in calling to mind any place to which I could liken Copenhagen. Between Sweden and Denmark generally, there are more points of difference than of resemblance. Sweden is the land of rocks, and Denmark of forest. Oehlenschlägel calls the latter country, 'the fresh and grassy,' but he might also have added 'the cool and wooded.'

"The Swedish language is soft and melodious, the Danish sharp and accentuated. The former is better suited to lyrical, the latter to dramatic poetry.

"When a Swede laughs, he still looks more serious than a Dane who is out of humour. In Sweden, the people are quiet, even when indulging in the pleasures they love best; in Denmark there is no pleasure without noise. In a political point of view, the difference between the two nations is equally marked. Beyond the Sound, all demonstrations are made with fierce earnestness; on this side of it, satire and wit are the weapons employed. On the one hand shells and heavy artillery, on the other, light and brilliant rockets. The Swedes have much liberty of the press and very little humour; the Danes have a great deal of humour and small liberty of the press. As a people, the former are of a choleric and melancholy temperament, the latter of a sanguine and phlegmatic one.

"Whilst the Swedish national hatred is directed against Russia, that of Denmark takes England for its object. Finland and the fleet are not yet forgotten.

"The Swede is constantly taking off his hat; the Dane always shakes hands. The former is courteous and sly, the latter simple and honest.

"If Denmark has little similarity with its northern neighbour, neither has it any marked point of resemblance with its southern one. It always reminds me of the tongue of a balance, vibrating between Sweden and Germany, and inclining ever to that side on which the greatest weight lies. Thus its literary tendency is German, its political one Swedish.

"The best comparison that can be made of Denmark is with Italy; and to me, although I shall probably surprise the reader by saying so, Copenhagen appears like a part of Rome transplanted into the north. In some degree, perhaps, Thorwaldsen is answerable for this impression; for where he works and creates, one is apt to fancy oneself surrounded by that warm southern atmosphere in which nature and art best flourish. When he returned to Copenhagen, it was a festival day for the whole population of the city. A crew of gaily dressed sailors rowed him to land, and whilst they were doing so, a rainbow suddenly appeared in the heavens. The multitude assembled on the shore set up a shout of jubilation, to see that the sky itself assumed its brightest tints, to celebrate the return of their favourite.

"I had been told that I should not see Thorwaldsen, because he was staying with the Countess Stampe. This lady is about forty years of age, and possesses that blooming embonpoint which makes up in some women for the loss of youthful freshness. She became acquainted with the artist in Italy, and fascinated him to such a degree that he made her a present of the whole of his drawings, which are of immense artistical value. She excited much ill-will by accepting them, but at the same time it must in justice be owned, that Thorwaldsen is under great obligations to her. He had hardly arrived in Copenhagen, when innumerable invitations to breakfasts, dinners, and suppers were poured upon him. Every body wanted to have him; and, as he was known to love good living, the most sumptuous repasts were prepared for him. The sturdy old man, who had never been ill in his life, became pale and sickly, lost his taste for work, and was in a fair way to die of an indigestion, when the Countess Stampe stepped in to the rescue, carried him off to her country-seat, and there fitted him up a studio. His health speedily returned, and with it the energy for which he has always been remarkable, and he joyfully resumed the chisel and modelling stick.

"I had scarcely set foot in the streets of Copenhagen, when I saw Thorwaldsen coming towards me. I was sure that I was not mistaken, for no one who has ever looked upon that fine benevolent countenance, that long silver hair, clear, high forehead and gently smiling mouth – no one who has ever gazed into those divine blue orbs, wherein creative power seems so sweetly to repose, could ever forget them again. I went up and spoke to him. He remembered me immediately, shook my hand with that captivating joviality of manner which is peculiar to him, and invited me into his house. He inhabits the Charlottenburg, an old chateau on the Königsneumarkt, by crossing the inner court of which one reaches his studio. My most delightful moments in Copenhagen were passed there, looking on whilst he worked at the statues of deities and heroes – he himself more illustrious than them all. There they stand, those lifelike and immortal groups, displaying the most wonderful variety of form and attitude, and yet, strange to say, Thorwaldsen scarcely ever makes use of a model. His most recently commenced works were two gigantic allegorical figures, Samson and Æsculapius. The first was already completed, and I myself saw the bearded physiognomy of Æsculapius growing each day more distinct and perfect beneath the cunning hand of the master. The statues represent Strength and Health."

In his house, and as a private individual, Thorwaldsen is as amiable and estimable as in his studio. In the centre of one of his rooms is a four-sided sofa, which was embroidered expressly for him by the fair hands of the Copenhagen ladies. The walls are covered with pictures, some of them very good, others of a less degree of merit. They were not all bought on account of their excellence; Thorwaldsen purchased many of them to assist young artists who were living, poor and in difficulties, at Rome. Dressed in his blue linen blouse, he explained to his visitor the subjects of these pictures, without the slightest tinge of vanity in his manner or words. None of the dignities or honours that have been showered upon him, have in the slightest degree turned his head. Affable, cheerful, and even-tempered, he appears to have preserved, to his present age of sixty, much of the joyous lightheartedness of youth. With great glee he related to Mr Boas the trick he had played the architects of the church of Our Lady at Copenhagen.

"Architects are obstinate people," said he, "and one must know how to manage them. Thank God, that is a knowledge which I possess in a tolerable degree. When the church of Our Lady was built, the architect left six niches on either side of the interior, and these were to contain the twelve apostles. In vain did I represent to them that statues were meant to be looked at on all sides, and that nobody could see through a stone wall; I implored, I coaxed them, it was all in vain. Then thought I to myself, he is best served who serves himself, and thereupon I made the statues a good half-foot higher than the niches. You should have seen the length of the architects' faces when they found this out. But they could not help themselves; the infernal sentry-boxes were bricked up, and my apostles stand out upon their pedestals, as you may have seen when you visited the church."

Thorwaldsen is devotedly attached to Copenhagen, and has made a present to the city of all his works and collections, upon condition that a fitting locality should be prepared for their reception, and that the museum should bear his name. The king gave a wing of the Christiansburg for this purpose, the call for subscriptions was enthusiastically responded to, and the building is now well advanced. Its style of architecture is unostentatious, and its rows of large windows will admit a broad decided light upon the marble groups. Pending its completion, the majority of the statues and pictures are lodged in the palace.

Mr Boas appears bent upon establishing his parallel between Denmark and Italy. He traces it in the fondness of the Danes for art, poetry, and music, in their gay and joyous character, and in their dress. He even discovers an Italian punchinello figuring in a Danish puppet-show; and as it was during the month of August that he found himself in Denmark, the weather was not such as to dispel his illusions.

"It would be erroneous," he says, "to suppose that Danish costumes weaken or obliterate the idea of a southern region conveyed by this country. A Bolognese professor would not think of covering his head with the red cap of a Lazzarone, and Roman marchesas dress themselves, like Danish countesses, according to the Journal des Modes. National costumes in all countries have taken refuge in villages, and the peasants in the environs of Copenhagen have no reason to be ashamed of their garb, which is both showy and picturesque. The men wear round hats and dark-blue jackets, lined with scarlet and adorned with long glittering rows of bullet-shaped buttons. The women are very tasteful in their attire. Their dark-green gowns, with variegated borders, reach down to their heels, and the shoulder-strap of the closely fitting boddice is a band of gold lace. The chief pains are bestowed upon the head-dress, which is various in its fashion, sometimes composed of clear white stuff, with an embroidered lappet, falling down upon the neck; sometimes of a cap of many colours, heavily embroidered with gold, and having broad ribands of a red purple, which flutter over the shoulders. One meets every where with this original sort of costume; for the peasant women repair in great numbers to the festivals at the various towns, and in Copenhagen they are employed as nurses to the children of the higher classes.

"During my sojourn in the Danish capital, the weather was so obliging as in no way to interfere with my Cisalpine illusions. The sky continued a spotless dome of lapis-lazuli, out of which the sun beamed like a huge diamond; and if now and then a little cloud appeared, it was no bigger than a white dove flitting across the blue expanse. The days were hot, a bath in the lukewarm sea scarcely cooled me, and at night a soft dreamy sort of vapour spread itself over the earth. I only remember one single moment when the peculiarities of a northern climate made themselves obvious. It was in the evening, and I was returning with my friend Holst from the delightful forest-park of Friedrichsberg. The sky was one immense blue prairie, across which the moon was solitarily wandering, when suddenly the atmosphere became illuminated with a bright and fiery light; a large flaming meteor rushed through the air, and, bursting with a loud report, divided itself into a hundred dazzling balls of fire. These disappeared, and immediately afterwards a white mist seemed to rise out of the earth, and the stars shone more dimly than before. Over stream and meadow rolled the fog, in strange fantastical shapes, floating like a silver gauze among the tree-stems and foliage, till it gradually wove itself into one close and impervious veil. To such appearances as these must legends of elves and fairies owe their origin."

It is something rather new for an author to introduce into his book a criticism of another work on the same subject. This, Mr Boas, who appears to be a bold man, tolerably confident in his own capabilities and acquirements, has done, and in a very amusing, although not altogether an unobjectionable manner. He must be sanguine, however, if he expects his readers to place implicit faith in his impartiality. Under the title of "A Tour in the North," he devotes a long chapter to a bitter attack on the Countess Hahn-Hahn's book of that name. Here is its commencement: —

"A year previously to myself, Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn, had visited Sweden, and the fruit of her journey was, as is infallible with that lady, a book. When I arrived at Stockholm, people were just reading it, and I found them highly indignant at the nonsense and misrepresentations it contains. When a German goes to Sweden he is received as a brother, with a warmth and heartiness which should make a doubly pleasing impression, if we reflect how important it is in our days to preserve a mutual confidence and good-will between nations. When meddling persons make the perfidious attempt to embitter a friendly people by scoffing and abuse, there should be an end to forbearance, and it becomes a duty to strike in with soothing words. We must show the Swedes how such scribblings are appreciated in Germany, lest they should think we take a pleasure in ridiculing what is noble and good."

And thereupon, Mr Boas does "strike in," as he calls it; but however soothing his words may prove to his ill-used Swedish friends, we have considerable doubts as to their emollient effect upon the Countess, supposing always that she condescends to read them. He hits that lady some very hard knocks, not all of them, perhaps, entirely undeserved; makes out an excellent case for the Swedes, and proves, much more satisfactorily to himself than to us, that Madame Hahn-Hahn is of a very inferior grade of bookmaking tourists.

"In the first place" he says, "I declare that her work on Sweden is no original, but a dull imitation of Gustavus Nicolai's notorious book, 'Italy, as it really is.' Like that author, the Countess labours assiduously to collect together all the darkest shades and least favourable points of the country and people she visits; exaggerates them when she finds them, and invents them when she does not. For the beauties of the country she has neither eye nor feeling; she intentionally avoids speaking of them, and her book is meant, like that of Nicolai, to operate as a warning, and scare away travellers. The good lady says this very explicitly. 'Travellers are beginning to turn their attention a good deal to the north, for the south is becoming insufficient to gratify that universal rage for rambling, with which I myself, as a true child of the century, am also infected. But the north is so little known – I, for my part, only knew it through Dahl's poetical landscapes – that one feels involuntarily disposed to deck it with the colours of the south, because the south is beautiful, and the north is said also to be so. Thus one is apt to set out with a delusion, and I think it will therefore be an act of kindness to those who may visit Sweden after me, if I say exactly how I found it.' Uncommonly good, Gustavus the second. But it would be unfair to Nicolai to assert that his book is as dull and nonsensical as that of the Countess Hahn-Hahn. He went to Italy with the idea that it never rained there, and that oranges grew on the hedges, as sloes do with us. This was childish, and one could not help laughing at it. But when his imitatress perpetually laments and complains, because on the Maeler lake, under the 59th degree of latitude, she does not find the sultry southern climate – it becomes worse than childish, and one is compelled to pity her. The Countess chanced to hit upon a cool rainy month for her visit – I am wrong, she was not a month in Scandinavia altogether – and thereupon she cries out as if she were drowning, and despises both country and people."

It is easy to understand that there can be little sympathy between the Countess Hahn-Hahn, an imaginative and somewhat capricious fine lady, with strong aristocratic and exclusive tendencies, and such a matter-of-fact person as Mr Boas, who, in spite of his sentimentality, which is a sort of national infirmity, and although he informs us in one part of his book that he is a poet, leans much more to the practical and positive than to the imaginative and dreamy, and we moreover suspect is a bit of a democrat. Having, however, taken the Countess en grippe, as the French call it, he shows her no mercy, and, it must be owned, displays some cleverness in hitting off and illustrating the weak points of her character and writings.

"Hardly," he resumes, "has the female Nicolai reached Stockholm, when she begins with her insipid comparisons. 'The golden brilliancy of Naples and the magic spell of Venice are here entirely wanting.' Is it possible? Only see what striking remarks this witty and travelled dame does make! In the next page she says: – 'Upon this very day, exactly one year since, I was in Barcelona; but here there is nothing that will bear comparison with the land of the aloe and the orange. Three years ago I was on the Lake of Como, in that fairy garden beyond the Alps! Five years ago in Vienna, amongst the rose-groves of Laxenburg;' &c. Who cares in what places the Countess has been? Surely it is enough that she has written long wearisome books about them. Every possible corner of Italy, Spain, and Switzerland is dragged laboriously in, to furnish forth comparisons; and soon, no doubt, a similar use will be made of Egypt, Syria, and Mesopotamia. These comparisons are invariably shown to be to the disadvantage of Sweden; and although the lady is oftentimes compelled to confess to the beauty of a Swedish landscape, she never forgets to qualify the admission, by observing how much more beautiful such or such a place was. For example, she is standing one night at her window, looking out on the Maeler lake. 'I wrapped my mantilla shiveringly around me, stepped back from the window, shut it, and said with a slight sigh: In Venice the moonlight nights were very different.' Really this would be hardly credible, did any other than a countess assure us of it."

"Every thing in Sweden is disagreeable and adverse to her; roads, houses, food, people, and money; rocks, trees, rivers and flowers; but especially sun, sky, and air. She talks without ceasing of heavy clouds and pouring rains, but even this abundance of water is insufficient to mitigate the dryness of her book."

"I am always sorry," says a witty French writer, "when a woman becomes an author: I would much rather she remained a woman." Does Mr Boas, perchance, partake this implied opinion, that authorship unsexes; and is it therefore that he allows himself to deal out such hard measure to the Countess Ida? Even if we agreed with his criticisms, we should quarrel with his want of gallantry. But it is tolerably evident that if Madame Hahn-Hahn, finding herself on the shores of the Baltic, in a July that might have answered to December in the sunny climes she had so recently left, allowed her account of Swedes and Sweden to be shaded a little en noir by her own physical discomforts; it is evident, we say, that on the other hand, our present author, either more favoured by the season, or less susceptible of its influence, sins equally in the contrary extreme, and throws a rosy tint over all that he portrays. Though equally likely to induce into error, it is the pleasanter fault to those persons who merely read the tour for amusement, without proposing to follow in the footsteps of the tourist. Your complaining, grumbling travellers are bores, whether on paper or in a post-chaise; and, truth to tell, we have noticed in others of the Countess's books a disposition to look on the dark side of things. But this is not always the case, and, when she gets on congenial ground, she shines forth as a writer of a very high order. Witness her Italian tour, and her book upon Turkey and Syria, with which latter, English readers have recently been made acquainted through an admirable translation, by the accomplished author of Caleb Stukely. She has her little conceits, and her little fancies; rather an overweening pride of caste, and contempt for the plebeian multitude, and an addiction to filling too many pages of her books with small personal and egotistical details about herself, and her sensations, and what dresses she wears, and how thin she is, and so on. But with all her faults, she is unquestionably a very accomplished and clever writer. Her criticisms on subjects relating to art, and especially her original and sparkling remarks on painting and architecture, although qualified by Mr Boas as twaddle, stamp her at once as a woman of no common order. She has profound and poetical conceptions of Beauty, and at times a felicity of expression in presenting the effects of nature and art upon her own mind, that strikes and startles by its novelty and power. As a delineator of men and manners, she is remarkable for shrewdness, subtle perception, and truthfulness that cannot be mistaken. Should our readers doubt our statements, or haply Mr Boas turn up his nose at the eulogium, we would simply refer them and him to the last work that has fallen from her pen, the Letters from the Orient, and bid them open it at the page which brings them to a Bedouin encampment – a scene described with the vigour that belongs to a masculine understanding, and all the fascination which a feminine mind can bestow.

Still we are free to confess that the Countess has written perhaps rather too much for the time she has been about it, and thus laid herself open to an accusation of bookmaking, the prevailing vice of the present race of authors. The incorrigible and merciless Mr Boas does not let this pass.

"The question now remains to be asked," says he; "Why did Ida Hahn-Hahn, upon leaving a country in which she had passed a couple of weeks – a country of the language of which she confesses herself ignorant, and with which she was in every respect thoroughly displeased, deem it incumbent on her forthwith to write a thick book concerning it? The answer is this: her pretended impulse to authorship is merely feigned, otherwise she would not have troubled herself any further about such a wearisome country as Sweden. Through three hundred and fifty pages does she drag herself, grumbling as she goes; a single day must often fill a score of pages, for travelling costs money, and the honorarium is not to be despised. If I thus accuse the Countess of bookmaking, I also feel that such an accusation should be supported by abundant proof, and such proof am I ready to give."

Oh fye, Boas! How can you be so ruthless? Besides the impolicy of exposing the tricks of your trade, all this is very spiteful indeed. You would almost tempt us, were it worth while, to take up the cudgels in earnest in defence of the calumniated Countess, and to give you a crack on the pate, which, as Maga is regularly translated into German for the benefit and improvement of your countrymen, would entirely finish your career, whether as poet, tour-writer, or any thing else. But seeing that your conceits and lucubrations have afforded us one or two good laughs, and considering, moreover, that you are of the number of those small fry with which it is almost condescension for us to meddle, we will let you off, and close this notice of your book, if not with entire approbation, at least with a moderate meed of praise.

HOUSE-HUNTING IN WALES

"Change of air! change of air!" Every body was in the same story. "Medicine is of no use," said the doctor; "a little change of scene will set all to rights again." I looked in the child's face – she was certainly very pale. "And how long do you think she should stay away from home?" "Two or three months will stock her with health for a whole year." Two or three months! – oh, what a century of time that is, now that we have railroads all over the world, and steam to the Pyramids – where in all the wide earth are we to go? So we got maps of all countries, and took advice from every one we saw. We shall certainly go among hills, wherever we go; beautiful scenery if we can – but hills and fresh air at all events. We heard of fine open downs, and an occasional tempest, in the neighbourhood of Rouen. A steamer goes from Portsmouth to Havre, and another delightful little river-boat up the Seine. For a whole day we had determined on a visit to the burial-place of William the Norman – the death-place of Joan of Arc; we had devised little tours and detours all over the mysterious land that sent forth the conquerors of England; but soon there cane "a frost, a nipping frost," – are we to be boxed up in an hotel in a French town the whole time? No, we must go somewhere, where we can get a country-house – a place on the swelling side of some romantic hill, where we can trot about all day upon ponies, or ramble through fields and meadows at our own sweet will. So we gave up all thoughts of Rouen. "I'll tell you what, sir," said a sympathizing neighbour: "when I came home on my three years' leave, I left the prettiest thing you ever saw, a perfect paradise, and a bungalow that was the envy of every man in the district." "Well?" I said with an enquiring look. "It's among the Neilgherries; and as for bracing air, there isn't such a place in the whole world. I merely mention it, you know; it's a little too far off, perhaps; but if you like it, it is quite at your service, I assure you." It was very tempting, but three months was scarcely long enough. So we were at a nonplus. Scotland we thought of; and the Cumberland lakes; and the Malvern hills; and the Peak of Derbyshire; and where we might finally have fixed can never be known, for our plans were decided by the advice of a friend, which was rendered irresistible by being backed by his own experience. "Go to Wales," he said. "I lived in such a beautiful place there three or four years ago – in the Vale of Glasbury – a lovely open space, with hills all round it – admirable accommodation at the Three Cocks, and the most civil and obliging landlord that ever offered good entertainment for man and beast." Out came the maps again; the route was carefully studied; and one day at the end of May, we found ourselves, eight people in all, viz., four children and two maids, in a railway coach at Gosport, fizzing up to Basingstoke. There is such a feeling of life and earnestness about a railway carriage; – the perpetual shake, and the continual swing, swing, on and on, without a moment's pause, with the quick, bustling, breathless sort of tramp of the engine – all these things, and forty others, put me in such a state of intense activity that I felt as if I kept a shop – or was a prodigious man upon 'Change – or was flying up to make a fortune – or had suddenly been called to form an administration – or had become a member of the prize ring, and was going up to fight white-headed Bob. However, on this occasion I was not called upon either to overthrow white-headed Bob of the ring, or long-headed Bob of the administration; and at Basingstoke we suddenly found ourselves, bag and baggage, wife, maids, and children, standing in a forlorn and disconsolate manner, at the door of the station-house; while the train pursued its course, and had already disappeared like a dream, or rather like a nightmare. There were at least half-a-dozen little carriages, each with one horse; and the drivers had, each and all of then, the audacity to offer to convey us – luggage and all – sixteen miles across, to Reading. Why, there was not a vehicle there that would have held the two trunks; and as to conveying us all, it would have taken the united energies of all the Flies in Basingstoke, with the help of the Industrious Fleas to boot, to get us to our destination within a week. While in this perplexing situation, wondering what people could possibly want with such an array of boxes and bags, a quiet-looking man, who had stood by, chewing the lash of a driving-whip in a very philosophical manner, said, "Please sir, I'll take you all." "My good friend, have you seen the whole party?" "Oh yes, sir, I brought a bigger nor yourn for this here train – we have a fly on purpose." What a sensible man he must have been who devised a vehicle so much required by unhappy sires that are ordered to remove their Lares for change of air! "Bring round the ark," we cried; and in a minute came two very handsome horses to the door, drawing a thing that was an aggravated likeness of the old hackney coaches, with a slight cross of an omnibus in its breed. It held seven inside with perfect ease, and would have held as many more as might be required; and it carried all the luggage on the top with an air of as much ease as if it had only been a bonnet, and it was rather proud than otherwise of its head-dress. The driving seat was as capacious as the other parts of the machine, and we had much interesting conversation with the Jehu – whose epithets, we are sorry to say, as applied to railroads, were of that class of adjectives called the emphatic. There is to be a cross line very shortly between Basingstoke and Reading, uniting the South-Western and Great Western Railways – and then, what is to become of the tremendous vehicle and its driver? The coach, to be sure, may be retained as a specimen of Brobdignaggian fly, but my friend Jehu must appear in the character of Othello, and confess that "his occupation's gone." Thank heaven! people wear boots, and many of them like to have them cleaned, so, with the help of Day and Martin, you may live. "That's the Duke's gate, sir," he said, pointing with his whip to a plain lodge and entrance on the left hand. "The lodge-keeper was his top groom at the time Waterloo was – and a very nice place he has." This was Strathfieldsaye: there were miles and miles of the most beautiful plantations, all the fences in excellent order, the cottages along the road clean and comfortable, and every symptom of a good landlord to be seen as far as the eye could reach.

"If it wasn't for all this here luggage," said Jehu in a confidential whisper, with a backward jerk of his head towards the moving pyramid behind us; "we might go through the park. The Duke gives permission to gentlemen's carriages."

So the poor man deluded himself with the thought, that if it wer'n't for the bandboxes, we might pass muster as fresh from the hands of Cork and Spain.

"That's very kind of the Duke."

"Oh, he's the best of gentlemen – I hears the best of characters of him from his tenants, and all the poor folks round about." Now here was our driver – rather ragged than otherwise, and as poor as need be – bearing evidence to the character of the greatest man in these degenerate days, on points that are perhaps more important than some that will be dwelt on by his biographers. The best of characters from his tenants and the poor; – well, glorious Duke, I shall always think of this when I read about your victories, and all your great doings in peace and war; and when people call you the Iron Duke, and the great soldier, and the hero of Waterloo, I shall think of you as the hero of Strathfieldsaye, and the best of characters among your tenants and the poor folks round about.

"Does the Duke often come to Reading?"

"No; very seldom."

"I should have thought he would come by the Great Western, and drive across."

"He!" exclaimed the driver, giving a cut to the near horse by way of italicising his observation. "He never comes by none of their rails. He don't like 'em. He posts every step of the way. He's a reg'lar gentleman, he is, the Duke."

And in the midst of conversation like this, we got to Reading. Through some wretched streets we drove, and then through some tolerable ones; and at last pulled up at the Great Western Hotel, a large handsome house, very near the Railway station; and in a few minutes were as comfortably settled as if we had travelled with a couple of outriders, and had ordered our rooms for a month. The sitting-room had three or four windows, of which two looked out upon the terminus. At these the whole party were soon happily stationed, watching the different trains that came sweeping up and down every few minutes; long luggage trains, pursuing their heavy way with a business-like solidity worthy of their great weight and respectability; short dapper trains, that seemed to take a spurt up the road as if to try their wind and condition; and occasionally a mysterious engine, squeaking, and hissing, and roaring, and then, with a succession of curious jumps and pantings, backing itself half a mile or so down the course, and then spluttering and dashing out of sight as if madly intent upon suicide, and in search of a stone wall to run its head upon. As to feeling surprise at the number of accidents, the only wonder a sensible man can entertain on the subject is, that there is any thing but accidents from morning to night. And yet, when you look a little closer into it, every thing seems so admirably managed, that the chances are thousands to one against any misfortune occurring. Every engine seems to know its place as accurately as a cavalry charger; the language also of the signals seems very intelligible to the iron ears of the Lucifers and Beelzebubs, and the other evil spirits, who seem on every line to be the active agents of locomotion. Why can't the directors have more Christianlike names for their moving power? What connexion is there between a beautiful new engine, shining in all its finery – the personification of obedient and beneficent strength – with the "Infernal," or the "Phlegethon," or the "Styx?" Are they aware what a disagreeable association of ideas is produced in the students of Lemprière's classical dictionary by the two last names? or the Charon or Atropos? Let these things be mended, and let them be called by some more inviting appellations – Nelson, St Vincent, Rodney, Watt, Arkwright, Stephenson, Milton, Shakspeare, Scott; – but leave heathen mythology and diabolic geography alone. As night began to close, the sights and sounds grew more strange and awful. A great flaming eye made its appearance at a distance; the gradual boom of its approach grew louder and louder, and its look became redder and redder; and then we watched it roll off into the darkness again, on the other side of the station, on its way to Bath – till, tearing up at the rate of forty miles an hour, came another red-eyed monster, breathing horrible flame, and seeming to burn its way through the sable livery of the night with the strength and straightness of a red-hot cannon-ball. And then we called for candles and went to bed.

The train was to pass on its way to Bristol at half-past eleven, so we had plenty of time to see the lions of Reading – if there had been any animals of the kind in the neighbourhood – but after a short detour in the street, and a glimpse into the country, we found ourselves irresistibly attracted to the railway. The scene here was the same as on the previous night, and we were more and more confirmed in our opinion, that, next to the sea or a navigable river, a railway is the pleasantest object in a rural view. As to the impostors who extort thousands of pounds from the unhappy shareholders, on the pretext that the line will be injurious to their estates, they ought at once to be sent to Brixton for obtaining money under false pretences. It gives a greatly increased value to their lands, as may be seen by the superior rents they can obtain for the farms along the line; and as to the picturesqueness of the landscape, it is only because the eye is not yet accustomed to it, nor the mind embued with railway associations, that it is not considered a finer "object" than the level greenery of a park, or the hedgerows of a cultivated farm. Painters have already begun to see the grandeur of a tempestuous sea ridden over by steamers; and before the end of the next war, some black "queller of the ocean flood," with short funnel and smoke-blackened sails, will be thought as fit a theme for poetry and romance, as the Victory or the Shannon.

Knowledge, which we are every where told is now advancing at railway speed, is still confined within very narrow limits, we are sorry to say, among railway clerks and other officials. They still seem to measure the sphere of their studies by distance, and not by time; for instance, not one of the employés at Reading could give us more information about Bristol than if it had been three days' journey removed from him. Three hours conveys us from one to the other – and yet they did not know the name or situation of a single inn, nor where the boats to Chepstow sailed from, nor whether there were any boats to Chepstow at all. In ancient times such ignorance might be excusable, when the towns were really as distant as London and York now are; but when three hours is the utmost limit, and every half hour the communication is kept up between them, it struck us as something unaccountable that Bristol should be such a complete terra incognita to at least a dozen smart-looking individuals, who stamp off the tickets, and chuck the money into a drawer, with an easy negligence very gratifying to the beholder. Remembering the recommendation of the Royal Western Hotel given us by a friend, with the whispered information that the turtle was inimitable, and only three-and-sixpence a basin; we stowed away the greater portion of the party in a first-class carriage, and betook ourselves in economical seclusion to a vehicle of the second rank. And a first-rate vehicle it was – better in the absence of stuffing on that warm day, than its more aristocratic companion; and in less than three minutes we were all spinning down the road – a line of human and other baggage, at least a quarter of a mile in length.

At Swindon we were allowed ten minutes for refreshment. The great lunching-room is a very splendid apartment – and hungry passengers rushed in at both doors, and in a moment clustered round the counters, and were busy in the demolition of pies and sandwiches. Under a noble arch the counters are placed; the attendants occupying a space between them, so that one set attend to the gormandizers who enter by one of the doors, and the rest on the others. It has exactly the effect of a majestic mirror – and so completely was this my impression, that it was with the utmost difficulty I persuaded myself that the crowd on the other side of the arch was not the reflection of the company upon this. Exactly opposite the place where I stood – in the act of enjoying a glass of sherry and a biscuit – I discovered what I took of course to be the counterfeit presentment of myself. What an extraordinary mirror, I thought! – for I saw a prodigious man, with enormous whiskers, ramming a large veal pie into his mouth with one hand, and holding in the other a tumbler of porter. I looked at the glass of sherry, and gave the biscuit a more vigorous bite – alas! it had none of the flavour of the veal and porter; so I discovered that the law of optics was unchanged, and that I had escaped the infliction of so voracious a double-ganger.

The country round Chippenham is as beautiful as can be conceived; all the fruit-trees were in full blossom, and we swept through long tracts of the richest and prettiest orchards we ever saw. Hall and farm, and moated grange, passed in rapid succession; and at last the fair city of Bath rose like the queen of all the land, and looked down from her palaces and towers on the fairest champaign that ever queen looked upon before. Seen from the railway, the upper part of the town seems to rise up from the very midst of orchards and gardens; terrace above terrace, but still with a great flush of foliage between; it is a pity it ever grew into a fashionable watering-place; though, even now, it is not too late to amend. Like some cynosure of neighbouring eyes, fed from her gentle youth upon all the sights and sounds of rural life, she is too beautiful to put on the airs and graces of a belle of the court. Let her go back to her country ways – her walks in the village lanes – her scampers across the fields; she will be more really captivating than if she was redolent of Park Lane, and never missed a drawing-room or Almack's. But here we are at Bristol, and must leave our exhortations to Bath to a future opportunity.

It is amazing how rapidly the passengers disperse. By the time our trunks and boxes were all collected, the station was deserted, the empty carriages had wheeled themselves away, and we began to have involuntary reminiscences of Campbell's Last Man. Earth's cities had no sound nor tread – so it was with no slight gratification that we beheld the cad of an omnibus beckoning us to take our place on the outside of his buss. The luggage had been swung down in a lump through a hole in the floor, and by the time we reached the same level, by the periphrasis of a stair, every thing had been stowed away on the roof, where in a few moments we joined it; and careered through the streets of Bristol, for the first time in our lives. "Do you go to any hotel near the quay where the Chepstow steamers start from?" was our first enquiry; but before the charioteer had time to remove the tobacco from his cheek, to let forth the words of song, a gentleman who sat behind us very kindly interfered. "The York Hotel, sir, is quite near the river, in a nice quiet square, and the most comfortable house I ever was in. If they can give you accommodation, you can't be in better quarters." Next to the praiseworthiness of a good Samaritan, who takes care of the houseless and the stranger, is the merit of the benevolent individual who tells you the good Samaritan's address. We made up our minds at once to go on to the York Hotel.

"For Chepstow, sir?" said the stranger – "a beautiful place, but by no means equal to Linton in North Devon. Do you go to Chepstow straight?"