in the expression of his opinions and feelings. I have then a page out of the great book of human nature the portrait of a particular mind; when that is fairly before me I have a standard by which to judge: I can draw my own inferences. Will you not allow that it is possible to visit Heidelberg, and to derive the most intense pleasure from its picturesque beauty, without dreaming over witches and warriors, palatines and princes? Can we not admire and appreciate the sculpture in the palace of Otho-Henry, without losing ourselves in vague, wondering reveries over the destinies of the sculptors?

ALDA.

Yes; but it is amusing, and not less instructive, to observe the manner in which the individual character and pursuits shall modify the impressions of external things; only we should be prepared for this, as the pilot makes allowance for the variation of the needle, and directs his course accordingly. It is a mistake to suppose that those who cannot see the imaginative aspect of things, see, therefore, the only true aspect; they only see one aspect of the truth. Vous étes orfévre, Monsieur Josse, is as applicable to travellers as to every other species of egotist.

VOL. I.

E

Once, in an excursion to the north, I fell into conversation with a Sussex farmer, one of that race of sturdy, rich, and independent English yeomen, of which I am afraid few specimens remain he was quite a character in his way. I must sketch him for you; but only Miss Mitford could do him justice. His coat was of the finest broad-cloth; his shirt-frill, in which was stuck a huge agate pin, and his neckcloth, were both white as the snow; his good beaver shone in all its pristine gloss, and an enormous bunch of gold seals adorned his watch chain; his voice was loud and dictatorial, and his language surprisingly good and flowing, though tinctured with a little coarseness and a few provincialisms. He had made up his mind about the Reform Bill-the Catholic Question-the Corn Laws-and about things in general, and things in particular; he had doubts about nothing: it was evident that he was accustomed to lay down the law in his own village that he was the tyrant of his own fireside that his wife 66 was his horse, his ox, his ass,

his

any thing," while his sons went to college, and his daughters played on the piano. London was to him merely a vast congregation of pestilential vapours-a receptacle of thieves, cut-throats and

profligates a place in which no sensible man, who had a care for his life, his health, or his pockets, would willingly set his foot; he thanked God that he never spent but two nights in the metropolis, and at intervals of twenty-seven years: the first night he had passed in the streets, in dread of fire and vermin; and on the last occasion, he had not ventured beyond Smithfield. What he did not know, was to him not worth knowing; and the word French, which comprised all that was foreign, he used as a term, expressing the most unbounded abhorrence, pity, and contempt. I should add, that though rustic, and arrogant, and prejudiced, he was not vulgar. We were at an inn, on the borders of Leicestershire, through which we had both recently travelled; my farmer was enthusiastic in his admiration of the country, "A fine country, madam-a beautiful countrya splendid country!"

"Do you call it a fine country?" said I absently, my head full of the Alps and Appenines, the Pyrenean, and the river Po.

"To be sure I do; and where would you see a finer?"

"I did not see any thing very picturesque," said I.

Picturesque !" he repeated with some contempt; "I don't know what you call picturesque ; but I say, give me a soil, that when you turn it up you have something for your pains; the fine soil makes the fine country, madam!"

77

SKETCHES OF ART, LITERATURE AND

CHARACTER.

II.

MEDON.

I OBSERVED the other evening, that in making a sort of imaginative bound from Coblentz to Heidelberg, you either skipped over Frankfort, or left it on one side.

ALDA.

Did I?-if I had done either, in my heart or my memory, I had been most ungrateful; but I thought you knew Frankfort well.

MEDON.

I was there for two days, on my way to Switzerland, and it rained the whole time from morning till night. I have a vision in my mind of dirty