wait for it? No, no, I cannot; so off by the railway to Biberich; and there by the banks I walked with as much composure as I could assume, till, rising in the horizon, a little column of smoke is seen, which grows taller and denser till the Cologne steamer heaves in view; and, bearing proudly down, it stops just opposite the Palace. Yet I feared to go on board, I remember, lest my hopes might be disappointed, so reconnoitred over the shoulders of the crowd. Yes, there they were he who is now a sainted spirit-and thou, too, dear companion of life's varied journey-they who, when we have left this scene, will rise up and talk of us! One look more to reassure me, and then a bound!..........Suffice it, we were a happy and a loving party, and in half an hour we were installed in our quarters at Maintz. Few places on the Rhine please me more. To the advantages of a large town is united that of pretty country in the neighbourhood; and then the broad sweep of the silvery Rhine is here unrivalled. Like the rapid current of the river, too, every thing is ever changing. Steamers come and go, leaving and carrying off strangers, and for a time altering the character of the place. Do you want variety too? Take an hour's trip to Frankfort; or, if that be too bustling, half an hour's run by railway or steamer will place you amidst the quiet retreat of Bingen. Resting here two or three days, and visiting Frankfort, Wiesbaden and Homburg, we proceeded on to Mannheim, walked through its clean, well-built, quiet, well-ordered, monotonous, lifeless streets, and then hurried on to Heidelberg. I do not like Mannheim; it is as prim as a dry Quaker. Heidelberg is the Castle, and the Castle is Heidelberg-one can think of nothing else at Heidelberg but the Castle. How grand it rises, like some mighty spirit of the Past, shrouded in trees! The ascent to it is long and toilsome, and one cannot fail to remark the immense strength of the position, especially in a time when artillery was as yet unknown. One or two portions of it are fitted up for the custodes; and in a large open space, where formerly might have figured the pride of German nobility, mysterious studentswere drinking and smoking and shouting. Ill it harmonized with the associations which the place awakens; but the traveller who expects to find every thing arranged to his peculiar taste will be wofully mistaken. It is but a few hours' distance from Baden-Baden; and the next morning, accordingly, we set off, arriving just in time for table d'hote-the great event of German domestic life, the meridian from which all measurements of time are made, the first thought in the morning and the last at night. Never are you asked, on alighting at a German inn, if you take coffee or breakfast or a bed, but, Does Monsieur take table d'hote? For my part, I think that it is taken for granted in Germany that a man never ought to breakfast or sleep, never do any thing but take table d'hote. Baden-Baden was all in a bustle, then, when we arrived; bells were ringing in all directions, and a dozen waiters, with their hair in the last style-such interesting creatures!-and each with a napkin under his arm, rushed out, exclaiming at the very top of their voices, Do Messieurs et Mesdames take table d'hote? Table d'hote, indeed! I had had enough before beginning. Not a word of rooms or water; and I verily believe we might have stopped in the omnibus all day had we only consented to take table d'hote.-Now a word for Baden-Baden. I never was in a place which struck me as so well deserving the hack

neyed title of the world in miniature. Every variety of scene and life here presents itself. Enter the Casino or the surrounding gardens in the evening, and what a brilliant coup d'œil you have! The gay and beautiful from every region under heaven are there assembled; all the blandishments of music delight the ear, and the luxuries fitted to a summer's evening gratify your taste. Sit on the steps of the Casino and look about you; watch the various acts and expressions of the travelled mob, and listen to the Babel of strange sounds; it is as diverting as a comedy. Or do you find the night chilly? Then walk into the Casino. What a blaze of light and beauty meets the eye! It is like some place of Oriental fascination. Some are parading up and down, and some are seated round the salle, whilst others form a dense circle in the centre of the room; and, gliding in between, you see long green tables, running half way down the room, at which are seated two cold, lifeless, bloodless looking men, armed with little shovels, with which they every moment draw in the hopes of many a desperate man, and the sustenance of many a wife and child, to increase the glittering piles which lie before them. Judging from their expressionless features, one might imagine that the most indifferent affairs in the world were being transacted; but mark the clenched hand of the poor fellow who has desperately staked his last piece-see the wide-stretched nostril of his neighbour, and listen to his half-suppressed breathing. And those pretty faces of my own sweet countrywomen-how flushed and agitated they are! Ah! fie upon you, the Hon. Misses and the Misses and

Mrs. -! These are not the scenes nor occupations for Englishwomen. Your modest virtues have no kindred here. "But, dear me, sir, surely you must be mistaken," says some pure, upright, goodhearted old lady at home. Not at all, my dear madam, I assure you; I saw them with my own eyes, and, though with regret, not with much surprise; for I regard the license which my countrymen and women allow themselves abroad, as the necessary result of their education at home, it being as true of a nation as of a family, that where the strings are pulled a little too tight, recovered liberty often degenerates into licentiousness. At the back of the gambling-rooms opened the ballroom, and close at hand was the theatre; but I was tired of all this empty show and worse; so leaving the throng and winding by a narrow pathway at the back of the Casino, I gained the heights, and, sitting beneath a tree, looked down on the scene below me. Here the air was cooler and the fever of excitement was passing away; but still, as from a distant air, the hum of voices blending with the music came upon the ear, reminding one too strongly of the turmoil below. Such were the scenes into which we had plunged on coming down from the lovely hilly country which surrounds Baden-Baden. The country! oh, how beautiful it is!-the very word has a charm for me. I associate with it all that is pure in taste and feeling, and here I see visions and dream dreams of such fairy loveliness as never come to me within the confines of a city. And the country about Baden-Baden is singularly lovely. Up, up you mount, let us say towards the Castle, your horizon extending at every step, and disclosing the most enchanting views. There at your foot lies Baden-Baden, embosomed in wood, and the Neckar, I think, winding its narrow course along, and the Black Forest, and, in another direction, the Rhine; it is excessively beautiful; and with

such scenes around me, were I a resident here, little should I mingle in the gay and noisy crowds which throng the Casino. Mais chacun a son gout; and as in the days of Horace some delighted in the dust and turmoil of a race-course, and others in bending o'er some gentle stream -some in war and some in wine-so is it now; and many, I doubt not, are they at Baden-Baden whom it would need a good strong effort to pull up to the Castle. Yet what a view it offers, and in itself how creative it is of thought! Crumbling into ruins and overgrown with ivy, it has a page for the moralist, whilst, rearing its massive proportions amidst the surrounding wood, as if in defiance of time, it is a landmark to aid and guide the historian.

The next morning we started by railway to Strasburg, or rather Kiel, built on a mud bank, where a friend of mine some time since domiciled himself for the summer. Strasburg has much to interest the traveller, of which Murray will tell you all-its spire, its monuments, its fortifications: there is one thing, however, which must strike the traveller without any effort on his part, and that is the mixed character of the population, half German and half French. In one quarter you hear them mincing French, and in another jabbering German; one shop is fitted up in a style of elegance imitative of Paris, and another is the very image of what you might find in any German town on the Rhine. French tournure and German homeliness, French politesse and German bonhommie, jostle one another, and give a remarkable aspect to the town. A six hours' trip takes one down to Basle, an old, steady, substantial town (the richest, perhaps, in Switzerland), where half a day may be well devoted to the cathedral and a lounge on the bridge. But if ever you pass that way, patronize the Cicogne, for its landlord was on one occasion the Good Samaritan to me, not exactly binding up my wounds, but supplying me with the means of getting on to London after having been robbed of every thing on Mount St. Gothard. It is a remarkably beautiful ride from Basle to Berne, and, seated on the capacious, sofa-like roof of the diligence, I never remember to have enjoyed a day more thoroughly. To extreme fertility of soil and great luxuriance of wood, was added sometimes a savage grandeur which formed a striking contrast, whilst towards the afternoon the higher Alps began to open on the view. To those of the party who had never seen them before, it was the realization of a long and delicious dream. Blending with and losing themselves in the skies, one might doubt whether they were of earth or heaven. And in a few days we shall be amongst them-what an exciting thought! On, on we dashed, as fast as a Swiss dilly can or will dash, with our eyes ever fixed on those silvery pyramids, and our thoughts and wishes travelling infinitely faster than our heavy Swiss horses. But patience-patience! Nothing in Germany or Switzerland will move one jot the faster to please you. So bide your time. Besides, the night is now shrouding every thing from view, and in another hour we shall be all in Berne.

HENRY W

THE last No. of the C. R. contains a letter from Dr. Rees, partly in reply to some strictures made on his Sketch in vindication of the Regium Donum and its distributors. These strictures appeared in the Inquirer of the 7th and 14th of October; to the letters themselves I beg to call the attention of those who wish fully to examine the question at issue between Dr. Rees and the author of those letters, the writer of the present. My reasons for adopting any other signature than my own, beyond that assigned-of earnestly desiring a discussion of the question upon its merits, do not concern the public. In order, however, to avoid all possible misconstruction, I think it due to myself, in making a rejoinder to Dr. Rees' tardy communication, to subscribe my name, and to take the full responsibility of the former letters, a responsibility in fact already well known to the parties concerned. I shall, moreover, endeavour to be brief, having referred your readers to the letters themselves, and confine my remarks to the latter portion of Dr. Rees' communication, leaving the earlier portion to those whom it may concern.

The papers in the Inquirer were called forth by a letter, published by Mr. Tagart, in the Examiner, in which he alleges on his own part, as one of the distributors, that, "in fact, the Regium Donum was in its origin, and is now, as pure a charity as the knowledge of life had brought him acquainted with." This matter has been frequently the subject of consideration and of resolutions by other bodies of English Dissenters; it has been repudiated and denounced by the Congregationalists times and ways without number; the distributors as a body have remained mute; and the defence and maintenance both of its principle and mode, with the exception of some letters from Dr. Pye Smith, have been allowed to devolve chiefly upon the distributors of the Presbyterian denomination, and this denomination is alleged to have given at least a silent approval by its long acquiescence. As an individual, I have not acquiesced, but the contrary; and I felt called upon, other reasons apart, to state freely the grounds of my dissent, and to furnish to others an opportunity of expressing their views on a question for which they were thus indirectly made responsible. The signature of Presbyter indicated as much.

My allegations in substance were, that instead of being pure in its origin, the Regium Donum was a political job,-that it was so regarded at the time, so used by the distributors, and so treated by successive administrations, that it has been distributed on a principle liable to, and almost necessarily involving, serious abuse, and, finally, that the Sketch (the sole vindication of the distributors) is a partisan defence, with commissions and omissions, which render it, with all its strength of language, a statement of the case undeserving of credit.

Those convictions, so far from being weakened, are materially strengthened by Dr. Rees' letter; and I have to express my thanks to him for directing attention to former notices of the subject, with which I was previously unacquainted. For the benefit of future inquirers, I supply the locus quo, which he has omitted to do,-Congregational Magazine, March, 1837, and Eclectic Review, January, 1844. Let me just add, that my information has been only very partially anticipated even by them, and that in addition to the Narrative to which the reviewer in the Congregational refers, I have given the titles and dates of two other pamphlets unnoticed by either of them. I call attention to this point, because, in a case of this kind, it is important to shew that there was not only one, but several attacks from the press within ten years after the first grant of the money in 1723, and which ought to have been known to any diligent inquirer, and to Dr. Rees in particular. These and other pamphlets relating to or bearing on the very question at issue, may be seen in a volume

of Dissenting pamphlets in Dr. Williams' Library (cl. 9, sh. Q*, b. 12). The writers of these Reviews have, as Dr. Rees observes, subjected his historical statements to a severe and searching scrutiny; and, seeing that my own inquiries have led me almost on every point to the same results, I feel my positions greatly strengthened, if not by their additional documents, at least by their conclusive arguments. The author of the Sketch thought them unworthy of notice or reply, and seeing what the reply is, I should have been little surprised if he had still preserved the same silence.

As Dr. Rees does not furnish the readers of his Vindication with the sources from which he has drawn his historical materials, nor did I know (no doubt from ignorance) where to find them, I found it impossible, in reading the Sketch along with the Narrative and the other contemporary pamphlets in the volume referred to, to avoid coming to the conclusion, from external and internal evidence, that those publications had been most carefully consulted, and furnished a great part of the historical materials for the Sketch. As the public is now informed by Dr. Rees that his attention was first called to the Ñarrative by one of his former reviewers, and the pamphlets themselves were then found where they might have been found before, I am at least entitled, from the similarity of the common contents of the Sketch and the Narrative and others, to claim for the latter the full historical value of the authorities, whatsoever they may have been, from whence Dr. Rees drew his materials. The reasons are obvious why the author of the SKETCH, and the writers of the NARRATIVE and OTHER PAMPHLETS, should have given a different colouring to the same materials. The latter, however, must be allowed to have possessed the advantage of living at the very time of the events, of being actors on the stage, personally acquainted with the parties, and liable, if wrong, to instant correction (and there are contemporary pamphlets bearing on the point); whereas the former writes a century later, for a specific purpose, and without any of those aids to a correct judgment. This advantage determines my mind as to the authority of the parties; if others prefer the speculations of the late historian in the Vindication, so it must be. Those who come to this conclusion will probably also as easily believe that George I.-pious king!—and Sir Robert Walpole-conscientious minister!-were so deeply concerned, as a pure charity necessarily implies, for the lack of the poor Dissenting ministers, as to contrive, by a crooked path and a secret instrumentality, to put a small token of the royal regard in the way of the poor Dissenting ministers "till something better could be done." They were no doubt equally sincere with Charles II., when he assured Dr. Owen of his regard for liberty of conscience, and of his deep sense of the injuries done to his Dissenting subjects, and seasoned his assurance by requesting the Dr. to accept, on behalf of his brethren, of one thousand guineas. One must believe the declarations of kings and ministers of state in opposition to all historical proof.

It is very true that, in the letters signed Presbyter, I have preferred a charge of unfairness against the author of the Sketch, in quoting what merely suited his purpose from the pamphlet which he makes such a laborious effort to refute, and leaving altogether unnoticed what was favourable to the writer's views. I repeat the accusation: Dr. Rees denies it, and alleges that "it was his anxious endeavour to adduce and to meet, as far as he could, every allegation of that writer which appeared to his judgment of the least weight, and he omitted none willingly which he thought entitled to a moment's consideration." Here we are fairly and avowedly at issue. Now, what has Dr. Rees omitted to quote? The whole and sole object of the Sketch was to vindicate the grant against all taint of corruption in its origin, and the distributors, early and late, against all political subserviency in their conduct. On his part, the writer alleges "that Dr. Chandler was so sensible of the baneful influence of the Regium Donum on this occasion (from 1732 till 1736), and the hostile operations of the ministers who maintained this connection with the Exchequer against the Bill for the relief of the Test and Corporation Acts, and against