A Steam-voyage to Constantinople, by the Rhine and Danube, in 1840-41, and to Portugal, Spain, &c. By the Marquis of Londonderry. In 2 vols. 8vo.

We have a very considerable respect for the writer of the Tour of which we are about to give extracts in the following pages. The Marquis of Londonderry is certainly no common person. We are perfectly aware that he has been uncommonly abused by the Whigs—which we regard as almost a necessary tribute to his name; that he has received an ultra share of libel from the Radicals—which we regard as equally to his honour; and that he is looked on by all the neutrals, of whatever colour, as a personage too straightforward to be managed by a bow and a smile. Yet, for all these things, we like him the better, and wish, as says the old song—

He is a straightforward, manly, and high-spirited noble, making up his mind without fee or reward, and speaking it with as little fear as he made it up; managing a large and turbulent population with that authority which derives its force from good intention; constant in his attendance on his parliamentary duty; plainspoken there, as he is every where; and possessing the influence which sincerity gives in every part of the world, however abounding in polish and place-hunting.

His early career, too, has been manly. He was a soldier, and a gallant one. His mission to the Allied armies, in the greatest campaign ever made in Europe, showed that he had the talents of council as well as of the field; and his appointment as ambassador to Vienna, gave a character of spirit, and even of splendour, to British diplomacy which it had seldom exhibited before, and which, it is to be hoped, it may recover with as little delay as possible.

We even like his employment of his superfluous time. Instead of giving way to the fooleries of fashionable life, the absurdities of galloping after hares and foxes, for months together, at Melton, or the patronage of those scenes of perpetual knavery which belong to the race-course, the Marquis has spent his vacations in making tours to the most remarkable parts of Europe. It is true that Englishmen are great travellers, and that our nobility are in the habit of wandering over the Continent. But the world knows no more of their discoveries, if they make such, or of their views of society and opinions of governments, if they ever take the trouble to form any upon the subject, than of their notions of the fixed stars. That there are many accomplished among them, many learned, and many even desirous to acquaint themselves with what Burke called "the mighty modifications of the human race," beginning with a land within fifteen miles of our shores, and spreading to the extremities of the earth, we have no doubt. But in the countless majority of instances, the nation reaps no more benefit from their travels than if they had been limited from Bond Street to Berkeley Square. This cannot be said of the Marquis of Londonderry. He travels with his eyes open, looking for objects of interest, and recording them. We are not now about to give him any idle panegyric on the occasion. We regret that his tours are so rapid, and his journals so brief. He passes by many objects which we should wish to see illustrated, and turns off from many topics on which we should desire to hear the opinions of a witness on the spot. But we thank him for what he has given; hope that he will spend his next autumn and many others as he has spent the former; and wish him only to write more at large, to give us more characters of the rank with which he naturally associates, draw more contrasts between the growing civilization of the European kingdoms and our own; and, adhering to his own straightforward conceptions, and telling them in his own sincere style, give us an annual volume as long as he lives.

Steam-boats and railways have produced one curious effect, which no one anticipated. Of all levellers they are the greatest. Their superiority to all other modes of travelling crowds them with the peer as well as the peasant. Cabinets, and even queens, now abandon their easy, but lazy, equipages for the bird-like flight of iron and fire, and though the "special train" still sounds exclusive, the principle of commixture is already there, and all ranks will sweep on together.

The Marquis, wisely adopting the bourgeois mode of travelling, set forth from the Tower Stairs, on a lovely morning at the close of August 1840. Fifty years ago, the idea of a general, an ambassador, and a peer, with his marchioness and suite, embarking on board the common conveyance of the common race of mankind, would have been regarded as an absolute impossibility; but the common sense of the world has now decided otherwise. Speed and safety are wisely judged to be valuable compensations for state and seclusion; and when we see majesty itself, after making the experiment of yachts and frigates, quietly and comfortably return to its palace on board a steamer, we may be the less surprised at finding the Marquis of Londonderry and his family making their way across the Channel in the steamer Giraffe. Yet it is to be remarked, that though nothing can be more miscellaneous than the passengers, consisting of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans, and Yankee; of Jews, Turks, and heretics; of tourists, physicians, smugglers, and all the other diversities of idling, business, and knavery; yet families who choose to pay for them, may have separate cabins, and enjoy as much privacy as is possible with specimens of all the world within half-an-inch of their abode.

The voyage was without incident; and after a thirty hours' passage, the Giraffe brought them to the Brill and Rotterdam. It has been an old observation that the Dutch clean every thing but themselves; and nothing can be more matter of fact than that the dirtiest thing in a house in Holland is generally the woman under whose direction all this scrubbing has been accomplished. The first aspect of Rotterdam is strongly in favour of the people. It exhibits very considerable neatness for a seaport—the Wapping of the kingdom; paint and even gilding is common on the outsides of the shops. The shipping, which here form a part of the town furniture, and are to be seen every where in the midst of the streets, are painted with every colour of the rainbow, and carved and ornamented according to such ideas of taste in sculpture as are prevalent among Dutchmen; and the whole exhibits a good specimen of a people who have as much to struggle with mud as if they had been born so many eels, and whose conceptions of the real colour of the sky are even a shade darker than our own.

The steam-boats also form a striking feature, which utterly eluded the wisdom of our ancestors. There are here, bearing all colours, from all the Rhenish towns, smoking and suffocating the Dutch, flying past their hard-working, slow-moving craft; and bringing down, and carrying away, cargoes of every species of mankind. The increase of Holland in wealth and activity since the separation from Belgium, the Marquis regards as remarkable; and evidently having no penchant for our cousin Leopold, he declares that Rotterdam is at this moment worth more solid money than Antwerp, Brussels, and, he believes, "all Leopold's kingdom together."

At Antwerp, he happened to arrive at the celebration of the fÊte in honour of Rubens. "To commemorate the painter may be all very well," he observes; "but it is not very well to see a large plaster-of-Paris statue erected on a lofty pedestal, and crowned with laurels, while the whole population of the town is called out for fourteen days together, to indulge in idleness and dissipation, merely to announce that Rubens was a famed Dutch painter in times long past." We think it lucky for the Marquis that he had left Antwerp before he called Rubens a Dutch painter. We are afraid that he would have hazarded a summary application of the Lynch law of the Flemish avengers of their country.

"If such celebrations," says the Marquis, "are proper, why not do equal honour to a Shakspeare, a Pitt, a Newton, or any of those illustrious men by whose superior intelligence society has so greatly profited?" The obvious truth is, that such "celebrations" are not to our taste, that there is something burlesque, to our ideas, in this useless honour; and that we think a bonfire, a discharge of squibs, or even a discharge of rhetoric, and a display of tinsel banners and buffoonery, does not supply the most natural way of reviving the memory of departed genius. At the same time, they have their use, where they do not create their ridicule. On the Continent, life is idle; and the idlers are more harmlessly employed going to those pageants, than in the gin-shop. The finery and the foolery together also attract strangers, the idlers of other towns; it makes money, it makes conversation, it makes amusement, and it kills time. Can it have better recommendations to ninety-nine hundredths of mankind?

In 1840, when this tour was written, all the politicians of the earth were deciding, in their various coffee-houses, what all the monarchs were to do with the Eastern question. Stopford and Napier were better employed, in battering down the fortifications of Acre, and the politicians were soon relieved from their care of the general concerns of Europe. England settled this matter as she had often done before, and by the means which she has always found more natural than protocols. But a curious question is raised by the Marquis, as to the side on which Belgium might be inclined to stand in case of an European struggle; his opinion being altogether for the English alliance.

"France could undoubtedly at first seize possession of a country so close to her empire as to be in fact a province. But still, with Antwerp and other fortresses, Holland in the rear, and Hanover and Germany at hand, and, above all, England, aiding perhaps with a British army, the independence of King Leopold's throne and kingdom might be more permanently secured by adhering to the Allies, than if he linked himself to Louis Philippe, in whose power alone, in case of non-resistance to France, he would ever afterwards remain; and far better would it be, in my opinion, for this founder of a Belgian monarchy, if he would achieve for his dynasty an honourable duration, to throw himself into the arms of the many, and reap advantages from all, than to place his destiny at the mercy of the future rulers of France."

No doubt this is sound advice; and if the decision were to depend on himself, there can be as little doubt that he would be wiser in accepting the honest aid of England, than throwing his crown at the feet of France. But he reigns over a priest-ridden kingdom, and Popery will settle the point for him on the first shock. His situation certainly is a singular one; as the uncle of the Queen of England, and the son-in-law of the King of France, he seems to have two anchors dropped out, either of which might secure a throne in ordinary times. But times that are not ordinary may soon arise, and then he must cut both cables and trust to his own steerage. If coldness is prudence, and neutrality strength, he may weather the storm; but it would require other qualities to preserve Belgium.

Brussels was full of English. The Marquis naturally talks in the style of one accustomed to large expenditure. The chief part of the English residents in Brussels, are families "who live there on three or four thousand a-year—far better as to luxuries and education than they could in England for half as much more." He evidently thinks of three or four thousand a-year, as others might think of as many hundreds. But if any families, possessed of thousands a-year, are living abroad for the mere sake of cheaper luxuries and cheaper education, we say, more shame for them. We even can conceive nothing more selfish and more contemptible. Every rational luxury is to be procured in England by such an income. Every advantage of education is to be procured by the same means. We can perfectly comprehend the advantages offered by the cheapness of the Continent to large families with narrow incomes; but that the opulent should abandon their country, their natural station, and their duties, simply to drink champagne at a lower rate, and have cheaper dancing-masters, we must always regard as a scandalous dereliction of the services which every man of wealth and rank owes to his tenantry, his neighbours, and his nation. Of course, we except the traveller for curiosity; the man of science, whose object is to enlarge his knowledge; and even the man of rank, who desires to improve the minds of his children by a view of continental wonders. Our reprobation is, of the habit of living abroad, and living there for the vulgar and unmanly purpose of self-indulgence or paltry avarice. Those absentees have their reward in profligate sons, and foreignized daughters, in giving them manners ridiculous to the people of the Continent, and disgusting to their countrymen—morals adopting the grossness of continental life, and general habits rendered utterly unfit for a return to their country, and, of course, for any rational and meritorious conduct, until they sink into the grave.

The Marquis, who in every instance submitted to the rough work of the road, took the common conveyance by railroad to Liege. It has been a good deal the custom of our late tourists to applaud the superior excellence of the continental railroads. Our noble traveller gives all this praise the strongest contradiction. He found their inferiority quite remarkable. The materials, all of an inadequate nature, commencing with their uncouth engine, and ending with their ill-contrived double seats and carriages for passengers. The attempts made at order and regularity in the arrangements altogether failed. Every body seemed in confusion. The carriages are of two sorts—the first class, and the char-À-banc. The latter are all open; the people sit back to back, and face to face, as they like, and get at their places by scrambling, squeezing, and altercation. Even the Marquis had a hard fight to preserve the seats which he had taken for his family. At Malines, the train changes carriages. Here a curious scene occurred. An inundation of priests poured into all the carriages. They came so thick that they were literally thrown back by their attempt to squeeze themselves in; "and their cocked hats and black flowing robes gave them the appearance of ravens with their wide-spreading wings, hovering over their prey in the vehicles."

Travelling, like poverty, brings one acquainted with strange companions; and, accustomed as the Marquis was to foreign life, one railway traveller evidently much amused him. This was a personage who stretched himself at full length on a seat opposite the ladies, "his two huge legs and thighs clothed in light blue, with long Spanish boots, and heavy silver spurs, formed the foreground of his extended body. A black satin waistcoat, overlaid with gold chains, a black velvet Spanish cloak and hat, red beard and whiskers, and a face resembling the Saracen's on Snow-Hill, completed his ensemble." He was probably some travelling mountebank apeing the Spanish grandee.

Aix-la-Chapelle exhibited a decided improvement on the City of the Congress five-and-twenty years ago. The principal streets were now paved, with fine trottoirs, the buildings had become large and handsome, and the hotels had undergone the same advantageous change. From Liege to Cologne the country exhibited one boundless harvest. The vast cathedral of Cologne at last came in sight, still unfinished, though the process of building has gone on for some hundred years. The extraordinary attempt which has been made, within the last few months, to unite Protestantism with Popery, in the completion of this gigantic building, will give it a new and unfortunate character in history. The union is impossible, though the confusion is easy, and the very attempt to reconcile them only shows to what absurdities men may be betrayed by political theories, and to what trivial and temporary objects the highest interests of our nature may be sacrificed. Cologne, too, is rapidly improving. The free navigation of the Rhine has done something of this, but the free passage of the English has done a great deal more. A perpetual stream of British travellers, flowing through Germany, benefits it, not merely by their expenditure, but by their habits. Where they reside for any length of time, they naturally introduce the improvements and conveniences of English life. Even where they but pass along, they demand comforts, without which the native would have plodded on for ever. The hotels are gradually provided with carpets, fire-places, and a multitude of other matters essential to the civilized life of England; for if civilization depends on bringing the highest quantity of rational enjoyment within the reach of general society, England is wholly superior in civilization to the shivering splendours of the Continent. Foreigners are beginning to learn this; and those who are most disposed to scoff at our taste, are the readiest to follow our example.

The streets of Cologne, formerly dirty and narrow, and the houses, old and tumbling down, have given way to wide spaces, handsome edifices, and attractive shops. The railway, which we have lent to the Continent, will shortly unite Brussels, Liege, and Cologne, and the three cities will be thereby rapidly augmented in wealth, numbers, and civilization.

The steam-boats on the Rhine are in general of a good description. The arrangements are convenient, considering that at times there are two hundred passengers, and that among foreigners the filthy habit of smoking, with all its filthy consequences, is universal; but, below decks, the party, especially if they take the pavillion to themselves, may escape this abomination. The Rhine has been too often described to require a record here; but the rapturous nonsense which the Germans pour forth whenever they write about the national river, offends truth as much as it does taste. The larger extent of this famous stream is absolutely as dull as a Dutch pond. The whole run from the sea to Cologne is flat and fenny. As it approaches the hill country it becomes picturesque, and its wanderings among the fine declivities of the Rheingate exhibit beautiful scenery. The hills, occasionally topped with ruins, all of which have some original (or invented) legend of love or murder attached to them, indulge the romance of which there is a fragment or a fibre in every bosom; and the general aspect of the country, as the steam-boat breasts the upward stream, is various and luxuriant. But the German architecture is fatal to beauty. Nothing can be more barbarian (with one or two exceptions) than the whole range of buildings, public and private, along the Rhine; gloomy, huge, and heavy—whether palace, convent, or chateau, they have all a prison-look; and if some English philanthropist, in pity to the Teutonic taste, would erect one or two "English villas" on the banks of the Rhine, to give the Germans some idea of what architecture ought to be, he would render them a national service, scarcely inferior to the introduction of carpets and coal-fires.

Johannisberg naturally attracts the eye of the English traveller, whose cellar has contributed so largely to its cultivation. This mountain-vineyard had been given by Napoleon to Kellerman; but Napoleon's gifts were as precarious as himself, and the Johannisberg fell into hands that better deserved it. At the peace of 1814 it was presented by the Emperor Francis to the great statesman who had taught his sovereign to set his foot on the neck of the conqueror of Vienna. The mountain is terraced, clothed with vineyards, and forms a very gay object to those who look up to it from the river. The view from the summit of the hill is commanding and beautiful, but its grape is unique. The chief portion of the produce goes amongst the principalities and powers of the Continent; yet as the Englishman must have his share of all the good things of the earth, the Johannisberg wine finds its way across the Channel, and John Bull satisfies himself that he shares the luxury of Emperors.

The next lion is Ehrenbreitstein, lying on the right bank of the Rhine, the most famous fortress of Germany, and more frequently battered, bruised, and demolished, than any other work of nature or man on the face of the globe. It has been always the first object of attack in the French invasions, and, with all its fortifications, has always been taken. The Prussians are now laying out immense sums upon it, and evidently intend to make it an indigestible morsel to the all-swallowing ambition of their neighbours; but it is to be hoped that nations are growing wiser—a consummation to which they are daily arriving by growing poorer. Happily for Europe, there is not a nation on the Continent which would not be bankrupt in a single campaign, provided England closed her purse. In the last war she was the general paymaster: but that system is at an end; and if she is wise, she will never suffer another shilling of hers to drop into the pocket of the foreigner.

The Prussians have formed an entrenched camp under cover of this great fortress, capable of containing 120,000 men. They are obviously right in keeping the French as far from Berlin as they can; but those enormous fortresses and entrenched camps are out of date. They belonged to the times when 30,000 men were an army, and when campaigns were spent in sieges. Napoleon changed all this, yet it was only in imitation of Marlborough, a hundred years before. The great duke's march to Bavaria, leaving all the fortresses behind him, was the true tactic for conquest. He beat the army in the field, and then let the fortresses drop one by one into his hands. The change of things has helped this bold system. Formerly there was but one road through a province—it led through the principal fortress—all the rest was mire and desolation. Thus the fortress must be taken before a gun or a waggon could move. Now, there are a dozen roads through every province—the fortress may be passed out of gun-shot in all quarters—and the "grand army" of a hundred and fifty thousand men marches direct on the capital. The tÊtes-du-pont on the Niemen, and the entrenched camp which it had cost Russia two years to fortify, were turned in the first march of the French; and the futility of the whole costly and rather timorous system was exhibited in the fact, that the crowning battle was fought within hearing of Moscow.

Beyond Mayence the Rhine reverts to its former flatness, the hills vanish, the shores are level, but the southern influence is felt, and the landscape is rich.

Wisbaden is the next stage of the English—a stage at which too many stop, and from which not a few are glad to escape on any terms. The Duke of Nassau has done all in his power to make his watering-place handsome and popular, and he has succeeded in both. The Great Square, containing the assembly-room, is a very showy specimen of ducal taste. Its colonnades and shops are striking, and its baths are in the highest order. Music, dancing, and promenading form the enjoyment of the crowd, and the gardens and surrounding country give ample indulgence for the lovers of air and exercise. The vice of the place, as of all continental scenes of amusement, is gambling. Both sexes, and all ages, are busy at all times in the mysteries of the gaming-table. Dollars and florins are constantly changing hands. The bloated German, the meagre Frenchman, the sallow Russian, and even the placid Dutchman, hurry to those tables, and continue at them from morning till night, and often from night till morning. The fair sex are often as eager and miserable as the rest. It is impossible to doubt that this passion is fatal to more than the purse. Money becomes the price of every thing; and, without meaning to go into discussion on such topics, nothing can be clearer than that the female gambler, in this frenzy of avarice, inevitably forfeits the self-respect which forms at least the outwork of female virtue. Though the ancient architecture of Germany is altogether dungeon-like, yet they can make pretty imitations. The summer palace of the duke at Biberach might be adopted in lieu of the enormous fabrics which have cost such inordinate sums in our island. "The circular room in the centre of the building is ornamented with magnificent marble pillars. The floor is also of marble. The galleries are stuccoed, with gold ornaments encrusted upon them. From the middle compartment of the great hall there are varied prospects of the Rhine, which becomes studded here with small islands: and the multitudinous orange, myrtle, cedar, and cypress trees on all sides render Biberach a most enchanting abode."

The Marquis makes some shrewd remarks on the evident attention of the Great Powers to establish an interest among the little sovereignties of Germany. Thus, Russia has married "her eldest daughter to an adopted Bavarian. The Cesarowitch is married to a princess of Darmstadt," &c. He might have added Louis Philippe, who is an indefatigable advocate of marrying and giving in marriage. Austria is extending her olive branches as far as she can; and all princes, now having nothing better to do, are following her example.

Yet, we altogether doubt that family alliances have much weight in times of trouble. Of course, in times of peace, they may facilitate the common business of politics. But, when powerful interests appear on the stage, the matrimonial tie is of slender importance; kindred put on their coats-of-mail, and, like Francis of Austria and his son-in-law Napoleon, they throw shot and shell at each other without any ceremony. It is only in poetry that Cupid is more powerful than either Mammon or Mars.

The next lion is Frankfort—a very old lion, 'tis true, but one of the noblest cities of Germany, connected with high recollections, and doing honour, by its fame, to the spirit of commerce. Frankfort has been always a striking object to the traveller; but it has shared, or rather led the way to the general improvement. Its shops, streets, and public buildings all exhibit that march, which is so much superior to the "march of mind," panegyrised by our rabble orators—the march of industry, activity, and invention; Frankfort is one of the liveliest and pleasantest of continental residences.

But the Marquis is discontented with the inns; which, undoubtedly, are places of importance to the sojourner—perhaps of much more importance than the palaces. He reckons them by a "sliding scale;" which, however, is a descending one—Holland bad, Belgium worse, Germany the third degree of comparison. Some of the inns in the great towns are stately; but it unluckily happens that the masters and mistresses of those inns are to the full as stately, and that, after a bow or curtsey at the door to their arriving guests, all their part is at an end. The master and mistress thenceforth transact their affairs by deputy. They are sovereigns, and responsible for nothing. The garÇons are the cabinet, and responsible for every thing; but they, like superior personages, shift their responsibility upon any one inclined to take it up; and all is naturally discontent, disturbance, and discomfort. We wonder that the Marquis has not mentioned the German table-d'hÔte among his annoyances; for he dined at it. Nothing, in general, can be more adverse to the quiet, the ease, or the good-sense of English manners. The table-d'hÔte is essentially vulgar; and no excellence of cuisine, or completeness of equipment, can prevent it from exhibiting proof of its original purpose, namely—to give a cheap dinner to a miscellaneous rabble.

German posting is on a par with German inns, which is as much as to say that it is detestable, even if the roads were good. The roughness, mire, and continual ascents and descents of the roads, try the traveller's patience. The only resource is sleep; but even that is denied by the continual groanings of a miserable French horn, with which the postilion announces his approach to every village.

The best chance of getting a tolerable meal in the majority of these roadside houses, is, to take one's own provisions, carry a cook, if we can, and, if not, turn cooks ourselves; but the grand hotels are too "grand" for this, and they insist on supplying the dinner, for which the general name is cochonerrie, and with perfect justice.

On the 12th of September, the Marquis and his family arrived at Nuremberg, where the Bavarian court were assembled, in order to be present at a Camp of Exercise. To the eye of an officer who had been in the habit of seeing the armies of the late war, the military spectacle could not be a matter of much importance, for the camp consisted of but 1800 men. But he had been a comrade of the king, when prince-royal, during the campaigns of 1814 and 1815; and, as such, had helped (and not slightly) to keep the tottering crown on the brow of Bavaria. He now sent to request the opportunity of paying his respects; but Germany, absurd in many things, is especially so in point of etiquette. Those miraculous productions of Providence, the little German sovereigns, live on etiquette, never abate an atom of their opportunities of convincing inferior mortals that they are of a super-eminent breed; and, in part, seem to have strangely forgotten that salutary lesson which Napoleon and his captains taught them, in the days when a republican brigadier, or an imperial aid-de-camp, though the son of a tailor, treated their "Serene Highnesses" and "High Mightinesses" with as little ceremony as the thoroughly beaten deserved from the conquerors. In the present instance, the little king did not choose to receive the gallant soldier, whom, in days of difficulty, he had been rejoiced to find at his side; and the ground assigned was, that the monarch received none but in uniform; the Marquis having mentioned, that he must appear in plain clothes, in consequence of dispatching his uniform to Munich, doubtless under the idea of attending the court there in his proper rank of a general officer.

The Marquis was angry, and the fragment of his reply which we give, was probably as unpalatable a missive as the little king had received since the days of Napoleon.

"My intention was, to express my respect for his majesty, in taking this opportunity to pay my court to him, in the interesting recollection of the kindly feelings which he deigned to exhibit to me and my brother at Vienna, when Prince Royal of Bavaria.

"I had flattered myself, that as the companion-in-arms of the excellent Marshal Wrede in the campaigns of 1814 and 1815, his majesty would have granted this much of remembrance to an individual, without regard to uniform; or, at least, would have done me the honour of a private audience. I find, however, that I have been mistaken, and I have now only to offer my apologies to his majesty.

"The flattering reception which I have enjoyed in other courts, and the idea that this was connected with the name and services of the individual, and not dependent on the uniform, was the cause of my indiscretion. As my profound respect for his majesty was the sole feeling which led me towards Munich, I shall not delay a moment in quitting his majesty's territory."

If his majesty had been aware that this Parthian arrow would have been shot at him, he would have been well advised in relaxing his etiquette.

In the vicinity where this trifling transaction occurred, is the locale of an undertaking which will probably outlast all the little diadems of all the little kings. This is the canal by which it is proposed to unite the Rhine, the Mayne, and the Danube; in other words, to make the longest water communication in the world, through the heart of Europe; by which the Englishman embarking at London-bridge, may arrive at Constantinople in a travelling palace, with all the comforts—nay, all the luxuries of life, round him; his books, pictures, furniture, music, and society; and all this, while sweeping through some of the most magnificent scenery of the earth, safe from surge or storm, sheltered from winter's cold and summer's sun, rushing along at the rate of a couple of hundred miles a-day, until he finds himself in the Bosphorus, with all the glories of the City of the Sultans glittering before him.

This is the finest speculation that was ever born of this generation of wonders, steam; and if once realized, must be a most prolific source of good to mankind. But the Germans are an intolerably tardy race in every thing, but the use of the tongue. They harangue, and mystify, and magnify, but they will not act; and this incomparable design, which, in England, would join the whole power of the nation in one unanimous effort, languishes among the philosophists and prognosticators of Germany, finds no favour in the eyes of its formal courts, and threatens to be lost in the smoke of a tobacco-saturated and slumber-loving people.

But the chief monument of Bavaria is the Val Halla, a modern temple designed to receive memorials of all the great names of Germany. The idea is kingly, and so is the temple; but it is built on the model of the Parthenon—evidently a formidable blunder in a land whose history, habits, and genius, are of the north. A Gothic temple or palace would have been a much more suitable, and therefore a finer conception. The combination of the palatial, the cathedral, and the fortress style, would have given scope to superb invention, if invention was to be found in the land; and in such an edifice, for such a purpose, Germany would have found a truer point of union, than it will ever find in the absurd attempt to mix opposing faiths, or in the nonsense of a rebel Gazette, and clamorous Gazetteers.

Still the Bavarian monarch deserves the credit of an unrivalled zeal to decorate his country. He is a great builder, he has filled Munich with fine edifices, and called in the aid of talents from every part of Europe, to stir up the flame, if it is to be found among his drowsy nation.

The Val Halla is on a pinnacle of rising ground, about a hundred yards from the Danube, from whose bank the ascent is by a stupendous marble staircase, to the grand portico. The columns are of the finest white stone, and the interior is completely lined with German marbles. Busts of the distinguished warriors, poets, statesmen, and scholars, are to be placed in niches round the walls, but not till they are dead. A curious arrangement is adopted with respect to the living: Persons of any public note may send their busts, while living, to the Val Halla, where they are deposited in a certain chamber, a kind of marble purgatory or limbo. When they die, a jury is to sit upon them, and if they are fortunate enough to have a verdict in their favour, they take their place amongst these marble immortals. As the process does not occur until the parties are beyond the reach of human disappointment, they cannot feel the worse in case of failure; but the vanity which tempts a man thus to declare himself deserving of perpetual renown, by the act of sending his bust as a candidate, is perfectly foreign, and must be continually ridiculous.

The temple has been inaugurated or consecrated by the king in person, within the last month. He has made a speech, and dedicated it to German fame for ever. He certainly has had the merit of doing what ought to have been long since done in every kingdom of Europe; what a slight retrenchment in every royal expenditure would have enabled every sovereign to set on foot; and what could be done most magnificently, would be most deserved, and ought to be done without delay, in England.

At Ratisbon, the steam navigation on the Danube begins, taking passengers and carriages to Linz, where the Austrian steam navigation commences, completing the course down the mighty river. The former land-journey from Ratisbon to Vienna generally occupied six days. By the steam-boat, it is now accomplished in forty-eight hours, a prodigious saving of space and time. The Bavarian boats are smaller than those on the Rhine, owing to the shallows on the upper part of the river, but they are well managed and comfortable. The steamer is, in fact, a floating hotel, where every thing is provided on board, and the general arrangements are exact and convenient. The scenery in this portion of the river is highly exciting.—"The Rhine, with its hanging woods and multitudinous inhabited castles, affords a more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river its barren banks."

The steam-boats stop at Neudorf, a German mile from Vienna. On his arrival, the Marquis found the servants and carriages of Prince Esterhazy waiting for him, and quarters provided at the Swan Hotel, until one of the prince's palaces could be prepared for his reception. The importance of getting private quarters on arriving at Vienna is great, the inns being all indifferent and noisy. They have another disqualification not less important—they seem to be intolerably dear. The Marquis's accommodations, though on a third story of the Swan, cost him eight pounds sterling a-day. This he justly characterizes as extravagant, and says he was glad to remove on the third day, there being an additional annoyance, in a club of the young nobles at the Swan, which prevented a moment's quiet. The cuisine, however, was particularly good, and the house, though a formidable affair for a family, is represented as desirable for a "bachelor"—we presume, a rich one.

Vienna has had her share in the general improvement of the Continent. She has become commercial, and her streets exhibit shops with gilding, plate-glass, and showy sign-boards, in place of the very old, very barbarous, and very squalid, displays of the last century. War is a rough teacher, but it is evidently the only one for the Continent. The foreigner is as bigoted to his original dinginess and discomfort, as the Turk to the Koran. Nothing but fear or force ever changes him. The French invasions were desperate things, but they swept away a prodigious quantity of the cobwebs which grow over the heads of nations who will not use the broom for themselves. Feudalities and follies a thousand years old were trampled down by the foot of the conscript; and the only glimpses of common-sense which have visited three-fourths of Europe in our day, were let in through chinks made by the French bayonet. The French were the grand improvers of every thing, though only for their own objects. They made high roads for their own troops, and left them to the Germans; they cleared the cities of streets loaded with nuisances of all kinds, and taught the natives to live without the constant dread of pestilence; they compelled, for example the Portuguese to wash their clothes, and the Spaniards to wash their hands. They proved to the German that his ponderous fortifications only brought bombardments on his cities, and thus induced him to throw down his crumbling walls, fill up his muddy ditches, turn his barren glacis into a public walk, and open his wretched streets to the light and air of heaven. Thus Hamburgh, and a hundred other towns, have put on a new face, and almost begun a new existence. Thus Vienna is now thrown open to its suburbs, and its suburbs are spread into the country.

The first days were given up to dinner at the British ambassador's, (Lord Beauvale's,) at the Prussian ambassador's, and at Prince Metternich's. Lord Beauvale's was "nearly private He lived on a second floor, in a fine house, of which, however, the lower part was understood to be still unfurnished. His lordship sees but few people, and seldom gives any grand receptions, his indifferent health being the reason for living privately." However, on this point the Marquis has his own conceptions, which he gives with a plainness perfectly characteristic, and very well worth being remembered.

"I think," says he, "that an ambassador of England, at an imperial court, with eleven thousand pounds per annum! should not live as a private gentleman, nor consult solely his own ease, unmindful of the sovereign he represents. A habit has stolen in among them of adopting a spare menage, to augment private fortune when recalled! This is wrong. And when France and Russia, and even Prussia, entertain constantly and very handsomely; our embassies and legations, generally speaking, are niggardly and shut up."

However the Lord Beauvale and his class may relish this honesty of opinion, we are satisfied that the British public will perfectly agree with the Marquis. A man who receives L. 11,000 a-year to show hospitality and exhibit state, ought to do both. But there is another and a much more important point for the nation to consider. Why should eleven thousand pounds a-year be given to any ambassador at Vienna, or at any other court of the earth? Cannot his actual diplomatic functions be amply served for a tenth of the money? Or what is the actual result, but to furnish, in nine instances out of ten, a splendid sinecure to some man of powerful interest, without any, or but slight, reference to his faculties? Or is there any necessity for endowing an embassy with an enormous income of this order, to provide dinners, and balls, and a central spot for the crowd of loungers who visit their residences; or to do actual mischief by alluring those idlers to remain absentees from their own country? We see no possible reason why the whole ambassadorial establishment might not be cut down to salaries of fifteen hundred a-year. Thus, men of business would be employed, instead of the relatives of our cabinets; dinner-giving would not be an essential of diplomacy; the ambassador's house would not be a centre for all the ramblers and triflers who preferred a silly and lavish life abroad to doing their duty at home; and a sum of much more than a hundred thousand pounds a-year would be saved to the country. Jonathan acts the only rational part on the subject. He gives his ambassador a sum on which a private gentleman can live, and no more. He has not the slightest sense of giving superb feasts, furnishing huge palaces, supplying all the rambling Jonathans with balls and suppers, or astonishing John Bull by the tinsel of his appointments. Yet he is at least as well served as others. His man is a man of business; his embassy is no showy sinecure; his ambassador is no showy sinecurist. The office is an understood step to distinction at home; and the man who exhibits ability here, is sure of eminence on his return. We have not found that the American diplomacy is consigned to mean hands, or inefficient, or despised in any country.

The relative value of money, too, makes the folly still more extravagant. In Vienna, L. 11,000 a-year is equal to twice the sum in England. We thus virtually pay L. 22,000 a-year for Austrian diplomacy. In France about the same proportion exists. But in Spain, the dollar goes as far as the pound in England. There L. 10,000 sterling would be equivalent to L. 40,000 here. How long is this waste to go on? We remember a strong and true exposÉ, made by Sir James Graham, on the subject, a few years ago; and we are convinced that, if he were to take up the topic again, he would render the country a service of remarkable value; and, moreover, that if he does not, it will be taken up by more strenuous, but more dangerous hands. The whole system is one of lavish absurdity.

The Russian ambassador's dinner "was of a different description. Perfection in cuisine, wine, and attendance. Sumptuousness in liveries and lights; the company, about thirty, the Élite of Vienna."

But the most interesting of those banquets, from the character of the distinguished giver, was Prince Meternich's. The prince was residing at his "Garten," (villa) two miles out of town. He had enlarged his house of late years, and it now consisted of three, one for his children, another for his own residence, and a third for his guests. This last was "really a fairy edifice, so contrived with reflecting mirrors, as to give the idea of being transparent." It was ornamented with rare malachite, prophyry, jasper, and other vases, presents from the sovereigns of Europe, besides statues, and copies of the most celebrated works of Italy.

The Marquis had not seen this eminent person since 1823, and time had played its part with his countenance; the smile was more languid, the eye less illumined, the person more slight than formerly, the hair of a more silvery hue, the features of his expressive face more distinctly marked; the erect posture was still maintained, but the gait had become more solemn; and when he rose from his chair, he had no longer his wonted elasticity.

But this inevitable change of the exterior seems to have no effect on the "inner man." "In the Prince's conversation I found the same talent, the unrivalled esprit. The fluency and elocution, so entirely his own, were as graceful, and the memory was as perfect, as at any former period."

This memorable man is fond of matrimony; his present wife, a daughter of Count Zichy Ferraris, being his third. A son of the second marriage is his heir, and he has by his present princess two boys and a girl. The Princess seems to have alarmed her guest by her vivacity; for he describes her in the awful language with which the world speaks of a confirmed blue:—"Though not so handsome as her predecessor, she combines a very spirited expression of countenance, with a clever conversation, a versatility of genius, and a wit rather satirical than humorous, which makes her somewhat formidable to her acquaintance." We dare say that she is a very showy tigress.

The Marquis found Vienna less gay than it was on his former visit. It is true that he then saw it in the height of the Congress, flushed with conquest, glittering with all kinds of festivity; and not an individual in bad spirits in Europe, but Napoleon himself. Yet in later times the court has changed; "the Emperor keeps singularly aloof from society; the splendid court-days are no more; the families are withdrawing into coteries; the beauties of former years have lost much of their brilliancy, and a new generation equal to them has not yet appeared."

This is certainly not the language of a young marquis; but it is probably not far from the estimate which every admirer of the sex makes, after a five-and-twenty years' absence. But he gallantly defends them against the sneer of the cleverest of her sex, Lady Wortley Montagu, a hundred years ago; her verdict being, "That their costume disfigured the natural ugliness with which Heaven had been pleased to endow them." He contends, however, that speaking within the last twenty (he probably means five-and-twenty) years, "Vienna has produced some of the handsomest women in the world: and in frequenting the public walks, the Prater, and places of amusement, you meet as many bewitching countenances, especially as to eyes, hair, and tournure, as in any other capital whatever."

We think the Marquis fortunate; for we must acknowledge, that in our occasional rambles on the Continent, we never saw beauty in a German visage. The rotundity of the countenance, the coarse colours, the stunted nose, and the thick lip, which constitute the general mould of the native physiognomy, are to us the very antipodes of beauty. Dress, diamonds, rouge, and lively manners, may go far, and the ball-room may help the deception; but we strongly suspect that where beauty casually appears in society, we must look for its existence only among foreigners to Teutchland. The general state of intercourse, even among the highest circles, is dull. There are few houses of rank where strangers are received; the animation of former times is gone. The ambassadors live retired. The monarch's state of health makes him averse to society. Prince Metternich's house is the only one constantly open; "but while he remains at his Garten, to trudge there for a couple of hours' general conversation, is not very alluring." Still, for a family which can go so far to look for cheap playhouses and cheap living, Vienna is a convenient capital.

But Austria has one quality, which shows her common sense in a striking point of view. She abhors change. She has not a radical in her whole dominions, except in jail—the only place fit for him. The agitations and vexations of other governments stop at the Austrian frontier. The people have not made the grand discovery, that universal suffrage is meat and drink, and annual parliaments lodging and clothing. They labour, and live by their labour; yet they have as much dancing as the French, and better music. They are probably the richest and most comfortable population of Europe at this hour. Their country has risen to be the protector of Southern Europe; and they are making admirable highways, laying down railroads, and building steam-boats, ten times as fast as the French, with all their regicide plots, and a revolution threatened once-a-month by the calendar of patriotism. "Like the great Danube, which rolls through the centre of her dominions, the course of her ministry and its tributary branches continue, without any deviation from its accustomed channel." The comparison is a good one, and what can be more fortunate than such tranquillity?

The two leading ministers, the government in effect, are Metternich and Kollowrath; the former the Foreign Minister, the latter the Minister of the Interior. They are understood to be of different principles; the latter leaning to the "Movement," or, more probably, allowing himself to be thought to do so, for the sake of popularity. But Metternich is the true head. A Conservative from the beginning, sagacious enough to see through the dupery of the pretended friends of the human race, and firm enough to crush their hypocrisy—Metternich is one of those statesmen, of whom men of sense never could have had two opinions—a mind which stamped itself from the beginning as a leader, compelled by circumstances often to yield, but never suffering even the most desperate circumstances to make it despair. He saw where the strength of Europe lay, from the commencement of the Revolutionary war; and, guided by the example of Pitt, he laboured for a general European alliance. When he failed there, he husbanded the strength of Austria for the day of struggle, which he knew would come; and when it came, his genius raised his country at once from a defeated dependency of France, into the arbiter of Europe. While this great man lives, he ought to be supreme in the affairs of his country. But in case of his death, General Fiquelmont, the late ambassador to Russia, has been regarded as his probable successor. He is a man of ability and experience, and his appointment to the court of St Petersburg was probably intended to complete that experience, in the quarter to which Austria, by her new relations, and especially by her new navigation of the Danube, must look with the most vigilant anxiety.

The Austrian army is kept up in very fine condition; but nearly all the officers distinguished in the war are dead, and its present leaders have to acquire a name. It is only to be hoped that they will never have the opportunity. The regimental officers are generally from a higher class than those of the other German armies.

After remaining for a fortnight at Vienna, the Marquis paid a visit to his friend Prince Esterhazy.

This nobleman, long known and much-esteemed in England, is equally well known to be a kind of monarch in Hungary. Whatever novelist shall write the "Troubles of rank and riches," should take the prince for his hero. He has eight or nine princely mansions scattered over the empire, and in each of them it is expected, by his subjects of the soil, that his highness should reside.

The Marquis made a round of the principal of those mansions. The first visit was to a castle in the neighbourhood of Vienna, which the prince has modernized into a magnificent villa. Here all is constructed to the taste of a statesman only eager to escape the tumult of the capital, and pining to refresh himself with cooling shades and crystal streams. All is verdure, trout streams, leafy walks, water blue as the sky above it, and the most profound privacy and seclusion.

After a "most exquisite entertainment" here, the Marquis and his family set out early next morning to visit Falkenstein. Every castle in this part of the world is historical, and derives its honours from a Turkish siege. Falkenstein, crowning the summit of a mountain of granite, up which no carriage can be dragged but by the stout Hungarian horses trained to the work, has been handsomely bruised by the Turkish balls in its day; but it is now converted into a superb mansion; very grand, and still more curious than grand; for it is full of relics of the olden time, portraits of the old warriors of Hungary, armour and arms, and all the other odd and pompous things which turn an age of barbarism into an age of romance. The prince and princess are hailed and received at the castle as king and queen. A guard of soldiers of the family, which the Esterhazy have the sovereign right to maintain, form the garrison of this palatial fortress, and it has a whole establishment of salaried officials within. The next expedition was to two more of those mansions—Esterhazy, built by one of the richest princes of the house, and Eisenstadt. The former resembles the imperial palace at Schonbrun, but smaller. The prince is fitting it up gorgeously in the Louis XIV.th style. Here he has his principal studs for breeding horses; but Eisenstadt outshone all the chateaus of this superb possessor. The splendours here were regal: Two hundred chambers for guests—a saloon capable of dining a thousand people—a battalion of the "Esterhazy Guard" at the principal entrances; all paid from the estate. To this all the ornamental part was proportioned—conservatory and greenhouses on the most unrivalled scale—three or four hundred orange-trees alone, throwing the Duke of Northumberland's gardens into eclipse, and stimulating his Grace of Devonshire even to add new greens and glories to Chatsworth.

On his return to Vienna, the Marquis was honoured with a private interview by the emperor—a remarkable distinction, as the ambassador was informed "that the emperor was too well acquainted with the Marquis's services to require any presentation, and desired that he might come alone." He was received with great politeness and condescension. Next day he had an interview with Prince Metternich, who, with graceful familiarity, took him over his house in Vienna, to show him its improvements since the days of Congress. He remarks it as a strange point in the character of this celebrated statesman, how minutely he sometimes interests himself in mere trifles, especially where art and mechanism are concerned. He had seen him one evening remain for half an hour studiously examining the construction of a musical clock. The Prince then showed his cabinet de travail, which he had retained unchanged. "Here," said he, "is a spot which is exactly as it was the last day you saw it." Its identity had been rigidly preserved, down to the placing of its paper and pencils. All was in the same order. The Prince evidently, and justly, looked on those days as the glory of his life.

We regret that the conversation of so eminent a person could not be more largely given; for Metternich is less a statesman than statemanship itself. But one remark was at once singularly philosophical and practical. In evident allusion to the miserable tergiversations of our Whig policy a couple of years since, he said, "that throughout life, he had always acted on the plan of adopting the best determination on all important subjects. That to this point of view he had steadfastly adhered; and that, in the indescribable workings of time and circumstances, it had always happened to him that matters were brought round to the very spot, from which, owing to the folly of misguided notions or inexperienced men, they had for a time taken their departure." This was in 1840, when the Whigs ruled us; it must be an admirable maxim for honest men, but it must be perpetually thwarting the oblique. To form a view on principle, and to adhere to it under all difficulties, is the palpable way to attain great ultimate success; but the paltry and the selfish, the hollow and the intriguing, have neither power nor will to look beyond the moment; they are not steering the vessel to a harbour; they have no other object than to keep possession of the ship as long as they can, and let her roll wherever the gale may carry her.

After all, one grows weary of every thing that is to be had for the mere act of wishing. Difficulty is essential to enjoyment. High life is as likely to tire on one's hands as any other. The Marquis, giving all the praise of manners and agreeability to Vienna, sums up all in one prodigious yawn. "The same evenings at Metternich's, the same lounges for making purchases and visits on a morning, the same idleness and fatigue at night, the searching and arid climate, and the clouds of execrable fine dust"—all conspiring to tell the great of the earth that they can escape ennui no more than the little.

On leaving Vienna, he wrote a note of farewell to the Prince, who returned an answer, of remarkable elegance—a mixture of the pathetic and the playful. His note says that he has no chance of going to see any body, for he is like a coral fixed to a rock—both must move together. He touches lightly on their share in the great war, "which is now becoming a part of those times which history itself names heroic;" and concludes by recommending him on his journey to the care of an officer of rank, on a mission to Turkey—"Car il sÇait le Turc, aussi bien que nous deux ne le sÇavons pas." With this Voltairism he finishes, and gives his "Dieu protÈge."

We now come to the Austrian steam passage. This is the boldest effort which Austria has ever made, and its effects will be felt through every generation of her mighty empire. The honour of originating this great design is due to Count Etienne Zecheny, a Hungarian nobleman, distinguished for every quality which can make a man a benefactor to his country. The plan of this steam-navigation is now about ten years old. The Marquis justly observes, that nothing more patriotic was ever projected; and it is mainly owing to this high-spirited nobleman that the great advantage is now enjoyed of performing, in ten or twelve days, the journey to the capital of Turkey, which some years ago could be achieved only by riding the whole way, and occupying, by couriers, two or three weeks. The chief direction of the company is at Vienna. It had, at the time of the tour, eighteen boats, varying from sixty to one hundred horse-power, and twenty-four more were to be added within the year. Some of these were to be of iron.

But the poverty of all foreign countries is a formidable obstacle to the progress of magnificent speculations like those. The shares have continued low, the company has had financial difficulties to encounter, and the popular purse is tardy. However, the prospect is improving, the profits have increased; and the Austrian archdukes and many of the great nobles having lately taken shares, the steam-boats will probably become as favourite as they are necessary. But all this takes time; and as by degrees the "disagreeables" of the voyage down the Danube will be changed into agreeables, we shall allude no more to the noble traveller's voyage, than to say, that on the 4th of November, a day of more than autumnal beauty, his steamer anchored in the Bosphorus.

Here we were prepared for a burst of description. But the present describer is a matter-of-fact personage; and though he makes no attempt at poetic fame, has the faculty of telling what he saw, with very sufficient distinctness. "I never experienced more disappointment," is his phrase, "than in my first view of the Ottoman capital. I was bold enough at once to come to the conclusion, that what I had heard or read was overcharged. The most eminent of the describers, I think, could never have been on the spot." Such is the plain language of the last authority.

"The entrance of the Tagus, the Bay of Naples, the splendid approach to the grand quays of St Petersburg, the Kremlin, and view of Moscow, all struck me as far preferable to the scene at the entrance of the Bosphorus."

He admits, that in the advance to the city up this famous channel, there are many pretty views, that there is a line of handsome residences in some parts, and that the whole has a good deal the look of a "drop-scene in a theatre;" still he thinks it poor in comparison of its descriptions, the outline low, feeble, and rugged, and that the less it is examined, probably the more it may be admired. Even the famous capital fares not much better. "In point of fine architectural features, monuments of art, and magnificent structures, (excepting only the great Mosques,) the chisel of the mason, the marble, the granite, Constantinople is more destitute than any other great capital. But then, you are told that these objects are not in the style and taste of the people. Be it so; but then do not let the minds of those who cannot see for themselves be led away by high-wrought and fallacious descriptions of things which do not exist." The maxim is a valuable one, and we hope that the rebuke will save the reading public from a heap of those "picturesque" labours, which really much more resemble the heaviest brush of the scene-painter, than the truth of nature.

But if art has done little, nature has done wonders for Constantinople. The site contains some of the noblest elements of beauty and grandeur; mountain, plain, forest, waters; its position is obviously the key of Europe and Asia Minor—even of more, it is the point at which the north and south meet; by the Bosphorus it commands the communication of the Black Sea, and with it, of all the boundless region, once Scythia, and now Russia and Tartary; by the Dardanelles, it has the most immediate command over the Mediterranean, the most important sea in the world. Russia, doubtless, may be the paramount power of the Black Sea; the European nations may divide the power of the Mediterranean; but Constantinople, once under the authority of a monarch, or a government, adequate to its natural faculties, would be more directly the sovereign of both seas, than Russia, with its state machinery in St Petersburg, a thousand miles off, or France a thousand miles, or England more nearly two thousand miles. This dominion will never be exercised by the ignorant, profligate, and unprincipled Turk; but if an independent Christian power should be established there, in that spot lie the materials of empire. In the fullest sense, Constantinople, uniting all the high-roads between east and west, north and south, is the centre of the living world. We are by no means to be reckoned among the theorists who calculate day by day on the fall of Turkey. In ancient times the fall of guilty empires was sudden, and connected with marked evidences of guilt. But those events were so nearly connected with the fortunes of the Jewish people, that the suddenness of the catastrophe was essential to the lesson. The same necessity exists no longer, the Chosen People are now beyond the lesson, and nations undergo suffering, and approach dissolution, by laws not unlike those of the decadence of the human frame; the disease makes progress, but the evidence scarcely strikes the eye, and the seat of the distemper is almost beyond human investigation. The jealousy of the European powers, too, protects the Turk. But he must go down—Mahometanism is already decaying. Stamboul, its headquarters, will not survive its fall; and a future generation will inevitably see Constantinople the seat of a Christian empire, and that empire, not improbably, only the forerunner of an empire of Palestine.

The general view of Constantinople is superb. A bridge has been thrown across the "Golden Horn," connecting its shores; and from this the city, or rather the four cities, spread out in lengthened stateliness before the eye. From this point are seen, to the most striking advantage, the two mountainous elevations on which Constantinople and Pera are built, and other heights surrounding. A communication subsists across the "Golden Horn," not only by water and the bridge, but also by the road, which by the land is a distance of five or six miles. Viewing Constantinople as a whole, it strikes one as larger by far than Paris or London, but they are both larger. The reason of the deception being, that here the eye embraces a larger space.

The Turks never improve anything. The distinction between them and the Europeans is, that the latter think of conveniences, the former only of luxuries. The Turks, for example, build handsome pavilions, plant showy gardens, and erect marble fountains to cool them in marble halls. But they never mend a high-road—they never even make one. Now and then a bridge is forced on them by the necessity of having one, or being drowned; but they never repair that bridge, nor sweep away the accumulated abomination of their streets, nor do any thing that it is possible to leave undone.

Pera is the quarter in which all the Christians even of the highest rank live; the intercourse between it and Constantinople is, of course, perpetual, yet perhaps a stone has not been smoothed in the road since the siege of the city. From Pera were the most harassing trips down rugged declivities on horseback, besides the awkwardness of the passage in boats.

One extraordinary circumstance strikes the stranger, that but one sex seems to exist. The dress of the women gives no idea of the female form, and the whole population seems to be male.

The masses of people are dense, and among them the utmost silence in general prevails. About seven or eight at night the streets are cleared, and their only tenants are whole hosts of growling, hideous dogs; or a few Turks gliding about with paper lanterns; these, too, being the only lights in the streets, if streets they are to be called, which are only narrow passes, through which the vehicles can scarcely move.

The dogs are curious animals. It is probable that civilization does as much injury to the lower tribes of creation, as it does good to man. If it polishes our faculties, it enfeebles their instincts. The Turkish dog, living nearly as he would have done in the wilderness, exhibits the same sagacity, amounting to something of government. For instance, the Turkish dogs divide the capital into quarters, and each set has its own; if an adventurous or an ambitious dog enters the quarters of his neighbours, the whole pack in possession set upon him at once, and he is expelled by hue and cry. They also know how to conduct themselves according to times and seasons. In the daytime, they ramble about, and suffer themselves to be kicked with impunity; but at night the case is different: they are the majority—they know their strength, and insist on their privileges. They howl and growl then at their own discretion, fly at the accidental stranger with open mouth, attack him singly, charge him en masse, and nothing but a stout bludgeon, wielded by a strong arm, can save the passenger from feeling that he is in the kingdom of his four-footed masters.

The Marquis arrived during the Ramazan, when no Turk eats, drinks, or even smokes, from sunrise to sunset. Thus the Turk is a harder faster than the papist. The moment the sun goes down, the Turk rushes to his meal and his pipe, "not eating but devouring, not inhaling but wallowing in smoke." At the Bajazet colonnade, where the principal Turks rush to enjoy the night, the lighted coffee-houses, the varieties of costume, the eager crowd, and the illumination of myriads of paper lanterns, make a scene that revives the memory of Oriental tales.

Every thing in Turkey is unlike any thing in Europe. In the bazar, instead of the rapid sale and dismissal in our places of traffic, the Turkish dealer, in any case of value, invites his applicant into his shop, makes him sit down, gives him a pipe, smokes him into familiarity—hands him a cup of coffee, and drinks him into confidence; in short, treats him as if they were a pair of ambassadors appointed to dine and bribe each other—converses with, and cheats him.

But the Marquis regards the bazars as contemptible places, says that they are not to be compared with similar establishments at Petersburg or Moscow, and recommends whatever purchases are made, to be made at one's own quarters, "where you escape being jostled, harangued, smoked, and poisoned with insufferable smells."

One of the curious features of the sojourn at Constantinople, is the presentation to the Ministers and the Sultan. Redschid Pasha appointed to see the Marquis at three o'clock, À la Turque—which, as those Orientals always count from the sunset, means eight o'clock in the evening.

He was led in a kind of procession to the Minister, received in the customary manner, and had the customary conversation on Constantinople, England, the war, &c. Then, a dozen slaves entered, and universal smoking began. "When the cabinet was so full of smoke that one could hardly see," the attendants returned, and carried away the pipes. Then came a dropping fire of conversation, then coffee; then sherbet, which the guest pronounced good, and "thought the most agreeable part of the ceremonial." The Minister spoke French fluently, and, after an hour's visit, the ceremony ended—the pasha politely attending his visiter through the rooms. The next visit was to Achmet Pasha, who had been in England at the time of the Coronation—had been ambassador at Vienna for some years—spoke French fluently—was a great friend of Prince and Princess Metternich, and, besides all this, had married one of the Sultan's sisters. The last honour was said to be due to his immense wealth. It seems that the "course of true love" does not run more smoothly in Turkey than elsewhere—for the young lady was stated to be in love with the commander-in-chief, an older man, but possessing more character. Achmet was now Minister of Commerce, and in high favour. He kept his young wife at his country house, and she had not been seen since her marriage. When asked permission for ladies to visit her, he always deferred it "till next spring, when," said he, "she will be civilized." The third nocturnal interview was more picturesque—it was with the young Sultana's flame, the Seraskier, (commander-in-chief.) His residence is at the Porte, where he has one of the splendid palaces.

"You enter an immense court, with his stables on one side and his harem on the other. A regiment of guards was drawn up at the entrance, and two companies were stationed at the lower court. The staircase was filled with soldiers, slaves, and attendants of different nations. I saw Greeks, Armenians, Sclavonians, Georgians, all in their native costume; and dark as were the corridors and entrance, by the flashes of my flambeaux through the mist, the scene struck me as much more grand and imposing than the others. The Seraskier is a robust, soldier-like man, with a fierce look and beard, and an agreeable smile." The Minister was peculiarly polite, and showed him through the rooms and the war department, exhibiting, amongst the rest, his military council, composed of twenty-four officers, sitting at that moment. They were of all ranks, and chosen, as it was said, without any reference as to qualification, but simply by favour. The Turks still act as oddly as ever. A friend of the Marquis told him, that he had lately applied to the Seraskier to promote a young Turkish officer. A few days after, the officer came to thank him, and said, that though the Seraskier had not given him the command of a regiment, he had given him "the command of a ship." The true wonder is, that the Turks have either ships or regiments. But there is a fine quantity of patronage in this department—the number of clerks alone being reckoned at between seven and eight hundred.

The opinions of the Marquis on Mediterranean politics are worth regarding, because he has had much political experience in the highest ranks of foreign life—because from that experience he is enabled to give the opinions of many men of high name and living influence, and because he is an honest man, speaking sincerely, and speaking intelligibly. He regards the preservation of Turkey as the first principle of all English diplomacy in the east of Europe, and considers our successive attempts to make a Greek kingdom, and our sufferance of an Egyptian dynasty, as sins against the common peace of the world. Thus, within a few years, Greece has been taken away; Egypt has not merely been taken away, but rendered dangerous to the Porte; the great Danubian provinces, Moldavia and Wallachia, have been taken away, and thus Russia has been brought to the banks of the Danube. Servia, a vast and powerful province, has followed, and is now more Russian than Turkish; and while those limbs have been torn from the great trunk, and that trunk is still bleeding from the wounds of the late war, it is forced to more exhausting efforts, the less power it retains. But, with respect to Russia, he does not look upon her force and her ambition with the alarm generally entertained of that encroaching and immense power. He even thinks that, even if she possessed Constantinople, she could not long retain it. As all this is future, and of course conjectural, we may legitimately express our doubts of any authority on the subject. That Russia does not think with the Marquis is evident, for all her real movements for the last fifty years have been but preliminaries to the seizure of Turkey. Her exhibitions in all other quarters have been mere disguises. She at one time displays a large fleet in the Baltic, or at another sends an army across Tartary; but she never attempts any thing with either, except the excitement of alarm. But it is in the direction of Turkey that all the solid advances are made. There she always finishes her hostility by making some solid acquisition. She is now carrying on a wasteful war in the Caucasus; its difficulty has probably surprised herself, but she still carries it on; and let the loss of life and the expenditure of money be what they will, she will think them well encountered if they end in giving her the full possession of the northern road into Asia Minor. Russia, in possession of Constantinople, would have the power of inflicting dreadful injuries on Europe. If she possessed a responsible government, her ambition might be restrained by public opinion; or the necessity of appealing to the national representatives for money—of all checks on war the most powerful, and in fact the grand operative check, at this moment, on the most restless of European governments, France. But with her whole power, her revenues, and her military means completely at the disposal of a single mind, her movements, for either good or evil, are wholly dependent on the caprice, the ambition, or the absurdity of the individual on the throne. The idea that Russia would weaken her power by the possession of Constantinople, seems to us utterly incapable of proof. She has been able to maintain her power at once on the Black Sea, seven hundred miles from her capital; on the Danube, at nearly the same distance, and on the Vistula, pressing on the Prussian frontier. In Constantinople she would have the most magnificent fortress in the world, the command of the head of the Mediterranean, Syria, and inevitably Egypt. By the Dardanelles, she would be wholly inaccessible; for no fleet could pass, if the batteries on shore were well manned. The Black Sea would be simply her wet-dock, in which she might build ships while there was oak or iron in the north, and build them in complete security from all disturbance; for all the fleets of Europe could not reach them through the Bosphorus, even if they had forced the Dardanelles—that must be the operation of an army in the field. On the north, Russia is almost wholly invulnerable. The Czar might retreat until his pursuers perished of fatigue and hunger. The unquestionable result of the whole is, that Russia is the real terror of Europe. France is dangerous, and madly prone to hostilities; but France is open on every side, and experience shows that she never can resist the combined power of England and Germany. It is strong evidence of our position, that she has never ultimately triumphed in any war against England; and the experience of the last war, which showed her, with all the advantages of her great military chief, her whole population thrown into the current of war, and her banner followed by vassal kings, only the more consummately overthrown, should be a lesson to her for all ages. But Russia has never been effectually checked since the reign of Peter the Great, when she first began to move. Even disastrous wars have only hastened her advance; keen intrigue has assisted military violence, and when we see even the destruction of Moscow followed by the final subjugation of Poland, we may estimate the sudden and fearful superiority which she would be enabled to assume, with her foot standing on Constantinople, and her arm stretching at will over Europe and Asia. Against this tremendous result there are but two checks, the preservation of the Osmanli government by the jealousy of the European states, and the establishment of a Greek empire at Constantinople: the former, the only expedient which can be adopted for the moment, but in its nature temporary, imperfect, and liable to intrigue: the latter, natural, secure, and lasting. It is to this event that all the rational hopes of European politicians should be finally directed. Yet, while the Turk retains possession we must adhere to him; for treaties must be rigidly observed, and no policy is safe that is not strictly honest. But if the dynasty should fail, or any of those unexpected changes occur which leave great questions open, the formation of a Greek empire ought to be contemplated as the true, and the only, mode of effectually rescuing Europe from the most formidable struggle that she has ever seen. But the first measure, even of temporary defence, ought to be the fortification of Constantinople. It is computed that the expense would not exceed a million and a half sterling.

The Marquis, by a fortunate chance for a looker-on, happened to be in the Turkish capital at the time when the populace were all exulting at the capture of Acre. It was admitted that the British squadron had done more in rapidity of action, and in effect of firing, than it was supposed possible for ships to accomplish, and all was popular admiration and ministerial gratitude. In addition to the lighting of the mosques for the Ramazan, Pera and Constantinople were lighted up, and the whole scene was brilliant. Constant salvoes were fired from the ships and batteries during the day, and at night, of course, all was splendour on the seven hills of the great city.

On the "Seraskier's Square," two of the Egyptian regiments taken at Beyrout defiled before the commander-in-chief. The Turkish bands in garrison moved at their head. The prisoners marched in file; and, having but just landed from their prison-ships, looked wretchedly. Having a red woollen bonnet, white jackets, and large white trowsers, they looked like an assemblage of "cricketers." The men were universally young, slight made, and active, with sallow cheeks, many nearly yellow, orange, and even black; still, if well fed and clothed, they would make by no means bad light troops. The Turks armed and clothed then forthwith, and scattered them among their regiments; a proceeding which shows that even the Turk is sharing the general improvement of mankind. Once he would have thrown them all into the Bosphorus.

From this professional display, the Marquis adjourned to the "Grand Promenade," where the sultanas see the world, unseen themselves, in their carriages. "Though," as he writes, "I never had an opportunity of verifying any thing like Miss Pardoe's anecdote of the 'sentries being ordered to face about when presenting arms,' rather than be permitted to gaze on the tempting and forbidden fruit; but, on the contrary, witnessed soldiers escorting all the sultanas' carriages: it is nevertheless true, that a gruff attendant attacked and found fault with me for daring to raise my eyes to a beautiful Turkish woman, whom it was quite impossible I could admire beyond her forehead and two large black eyes, eyebrows, and lashes, which glanced from under her yashmack." But the Marquis has no mercy on the performances of poor Miss Pardoe.

The sultana-mother was a personage of high importance at this time, from her supposed influence over her son. Her equipage was somewhat European—a chariot, with hammer-cloth, (apparently lately received from Long-Acre.) The coachman drove four large bay horses, with a plurality of reins. There were attendants, running Turks, and guards before to clear the way. Two open barouches, ornamented after the manner of the country, followed, and the rear of the sultanas' procession was closed by arebas (or covered and gilded vans) full of women and slaves.

But the most characteristic display of all is the "Cabinet." "On the side of this drive is a long colonnade of shops; and, at the bottom of it, a barber's, in which all the ministers of the divan and the pasha assemble! They sit on cushions in grand conclave and conference; and, while affecting to discuss the affairs of the state, the direction of their eyes, and their signs to the recumbent houris in the carriages, show their thoughts to be directed to other objects."

What should we think of the chancellor, the premier, and the three secretaries of state, sitting in council at a fruiterer's in Regent Street, and nodding to the ladies as they pass? But this is not all. The sultan, in his kiosk, sits at one end of the drive, inspecting the whole panorama. Still, it is not yet complete; at the lower end of the colonnade there is a woman-market, where each slave, attended by a duenna, passes and parades, casting her languishing eyes through the files of lounging officers and merchants, who crowd this part of the promenade. All this is essentially Turkish, and probably without any thing like it in the world besides.

The beauty of the Turkish women is still a matter of dispute. When beauty is an object of unlimited purchase, its frequency will be probably found a safe admission. But Turkish women occasionally unveil, and it is then generally discovered that the veil is one of their principal charms. They have even been described as merely good-humoured looking "fatties"—a sufficiently humble panegyric. Lord Londonderry gives it as his opinion, that they are "not generally handsome, but all well-built and well-grown, strong, and apparently healthy. Their eyes and eyebrows are invariably fine and expressive; and their hair is, beyond measure, superior to that of other nations. The thickness of its braidings and plaits, and the masses that are occasionally to be seen, leave no doubt of this."

Long and luxuriant tresses belong to all the southern nations of Europe, and seem to be the results of heat of climate; and there are few facts in physiology more singular than the sudden check given to this luxuriance on the confines of Negroland. There, with all predisposing causes for its growth, it is coarse, curled, and never attains to length or fineness of any kind. The Georgians and Circassians were once the boast of the harem; but the war and the predominance of the Russian power in the Caucasus, have much restricted this detestable national traffic—a circumstance said to be much to the regret of both parents and daughters; the former losing the price, and the latter losing the preferment, to which the young beauties looked forward as to a certain fortune. But later experience has told the world, that the charms of those Armidas were desperately exaggerated by Turkish romance and European credulity; that the general style of Circassian features, though fair, is Tartarish, and that the Georgian is frequently coarse and of the deepest brown, though with larger eyes than the Circassian, which are small, and like those of the Chinese. The accounts written by ladies visiting the harems are to be taken with the allowance due to showy dress, jewels, cosmetics, and the general effect of a prepared exhibition, scarcely less than theatrical. It is scarcely possible that either the human face or form can long preserve symmetry of any kind in a life almost wholly destitute of exercise, in the confined air of their prison, and in the full indulgence of their meals. Activity, animation, and grace—the great constituents of all true beauty—must soon perish in the harem.

The Marquis (an excellent judge of a horse) did not much admire the steeds of the pashas. On a visit to the Seraskier's stables, the head groom brought out fourteen, with light Tartars on them to show their points. Their stables were miserable. The horses were without stalls or litter, in a dark, ill-paved barn. They were heavily covered with rugs. Three or four were very fine Arabs; but the rest were of Turkish blood, with large heads, lopped ears, and thick necks, of indifferent action, and by no means desirable in any shape.

The interview with the Sultan was the last, and was interesting and characteristic. The Marquis had naturally expected to find him in the midst of pomp. Instead of all this, on entering a common French carpeted room, he perceived, on an ordinary little French sofa, the sovereign crosslegged, and alone; two small sofas, half-a-dozen chairs, and several wax-lights, were all the ornaments of this very plain saloon. But the Sultan was diamonded all over, and fully made amends for the plainness of his reception-room. As to his person, Abdul-Mehjid is a tall sallow youth of nineteen or twenty, with a long visage, but possessing fine eyes and eyebrows, so that, when his face is lighted up, it is agreeable and spiritual.

We must now close our sketch of those diversified and pleasant volumes. We regret to hear that their distinguished and active author has lately met with a severe accident in following the sports of his country; but we are gratified with the hope of his recovery, and the hope, too, of seeing him undertake more excursions, and narrate them with equal interest, truth, and animation.