stantly tell you that Europe has been a battle field for ages, and that her princes and potentates perpetually stand upon their guard for the moment when it shall become so again. Would not a being who had never heard of war, nor of its munitions, nor of the passions that ministered to it--who saw himself surrounded at every step with citadels and battlements, and guns and swords, and men clothed in the panoply of battle-would he not think he was travelling through a country of demons? If he were acquainted with the spirit of Christianity, moreover, how would he be astonished to find these were called Christian countries, and their kings "most Christian majesties !"

The drive from Liege to Aix la Chapelle presents nothing of interest, but the surprising change from immense open fields, without any enclosures, which have surrounded us all the way from Calais, to a country very much resembling England; full of closes and hedges in all directions. It seems to me that these sudden changes in passing through the same country, from one mode of cultivation, building, and living, to another, from one set of usages and fashions to another, from one form and character of countenances to another, must show that there is by no means so free an intercourse nor so active an intelligence abroad among the

people, as in our country. And indeed the people generally appear to me to have rather a stolid aspect. They generally look more contented than our people. It would seem from appearances as if there could not be much want among them; and yet there are many beggars. There is not the sentiment of shame about begging that there would be with us. Beggar boys and girls, very comfortably clad, too, will join the carriage and run along, singing out in a plaintive tone, "Un sous, monsieur, pour charité;" apparently calculating that importunity will succeed, though all other appeals fail. There is certainly something very touching in the tones of the French tongue. I have seldom felt anything of this sort more than the plea of a poor fellow I met in Lichfield (Eng.) I said to him, for he was a young man, "You look as if you could work." He seemed to understand my objection, and I am sure he annihilated it, as, the tears coming to his eyes, he said, "Je suis etranger, pauvre, malade." And yet what to do, one knows not; for this indiscriminate giving must be bad; and this unscrupulous asking and clamorous importunity are shocking.

AIX LA CHAPELLE, the birth and burial place of Charlemagne, the coronation city of fifty-five emperors, the scene of important treaties, and of

congresses of nations, is indebted for its chief interest with the stranger to historical associations; for the town is not at all agreeable; the streets are narrow and the houses generally ordinary. There is a fine promenade, however, on the road coming towards Cologne. The cathedral was commenced by Charlemagne. The Town House, originally a palace, and Charlemagne's birthplace, is built on the ruins of an old Roman castle, and has one tower standing, called Granus, which appears to be of Roman origin.

The celebrated springs here are so strongly impregnated with sulphur, which quality derives an increased pungency from their heat, that I found it would take more than one day to learn to drink them. Bathing in them is much more practicable and altogether pleasant. The whole air of the city is tainted with the smell of brimstone, at times; it was so on the morning when we came out. Aix la Chapelle has thirty-three thousand inhabitants.

COLOGNE from Colonia Agrippina, a Roman colony-is quite superior to most of the second rate continental towns of Europe. The remains of the Roman power are spread through all this country.

The church of St. Mary of the Capital was

built by Plectrude, wife of Pepin, and mother of Charles Martel; and in the convent adjoining and belonging to it, Mary de Medici passed in misery the last moments of her life. The house where she died is shown. It is the same in which Rubens was born.

In the church of St. Peters is a painting of the Crucifixion of Peter by Rubens, which is considered as one of his masterpieces, and is certainly very expressive. The countenance of Peter, crucified according to tradition, with his head downward, expresses extreme agony. The faces of the executioners-of one driving the nail through the foot, full of intense and mostly malignant emotion; of another looking up with the air of a connoisseur at the operation, as if it were only nailing one piece of wood to another-and so of the others, are very characteristic and powerfully drawn.

But nothing here has struck me so much as the cathedral, planned by Archbishop Engelberg, and commenced in 1248. It is yet unfinished, though the work is going forward. It is a Gothic building of immense size, larger and higher than the York Minster; and were the proportions as perfect, it would, when finished, surpass the minster. But it seemed to me that the columns were too small for the height, and I should doubt if the width

were sufficient to make a just proportion. This, however, does not apply to the towers, of which the one that is highest, though not completed, is a thing so glorious and beautiful, that it makes one sigh to gaze upon it.

BONN, AUGUST 30-a pleasant town of twelve thousand inhabitants. We visited the university, saw the library-of ninety thousand volumes—and the museum of antiquities. The most interesting are the Roman antiquities; lamps, culinary vessels, funereal tablets, urns-with the ashes and bones yet in them; and altars, dug up on the banks of the Rhine, and chiefly in the vicinity of Cologne and Bonn. Little glass vials were shown us, said to be used by the Roman ladies to receive the tears of their lamentation for the dead. The inscriptions upon many of the tablets are very distinct, though from the abbreviations used in such cases, it would require some time to spell them out. Thus has the sheltering bosom of mother earth protected monumental inscriptions and records, which wind and rain would have worn out and erased ages ago; and after eighteen centuries, the names which those who loved them strove to perpetuate, are read by the inhabitants of a then unknown world. Indeed the Roman power has driven its ploughshare through the whole valley of