LETTERS from England! O, what do they contain. I have heard and experienced much of the wonderful power of the Drama, of the Epic, of the Ballad, and of the Romance, in startling the passions and awakening the sympathies of human nature; but I know not the Tragedy, however powerful, or the Novel or the Poem, however pathetic, that possesses the spell of that little sheet, with its waxen lock, called a Letter. There is a noble passage in Shirley's Cardinal, where the Duchess Rosaura is opening a letter in the presence of an attendant,-whose painful truth too many of us can testify. [opens the letter. "Duchess. Wait at some more distance, My heart, that call'd my blood and spirits to Defend it from the invasion of my Fears, Must keep a guard about it still, lest this [reads. Strange and too mighty Joy crush it to nothing!" No Gem is there, however precious, privy to such passions, such reverses, such mysteries as the Seal. Not the Cabalistic jewels of King Solomon boasted more dark sayings than the various sigillary impresses, that, with their mystic motto or device, form at once the clasp and frontispiece to this volume of a single sheet. What joys and loves-what upbraidings and endearments do we find at once poured forth by the permission of this painted Portcullis. The virgin's secret sigh-the anguish of the neglected wife-the child's affection, the mother's care-the dependent's just remonstrance-the patron's protracted evasions;-the guilty flame of the seducer-the calculating greediness of the usurer-the glad summons to hospitality-the harsh menaces of a gaol. The advice of those we love, given but to be slighted-the anger of those we fear, inflicted to be defied the betrayal of secrets-the detection of crimes—the warning, the disgust, and the final abandonment—the tidings of death, or (worse!) of sins that are the sting of death,-are among the million stirring topics of a Letter! And the productions of the sublimest or most pathetic Genius that ever wasted the midnight lamp in devising incidents of pity, of horror, or of marvel, are outdone by these unpremeditated effusions. While their prodigies task the toil of months or years, these spring forth, the spontaneous produce of every day, nay, every hour, but, breathing ages of anguish in a sentence, and committing guilt and ruin, the very thunderbolts of the Soul to the governance of that pretty smooth innocent looking piece of Wax! THE DISMAL DAWN. 219 Fair Bee! that singest in thy three piled livery of black and tawny velvet, thou lover of the bright hour, thou Artisan of the Garden!-who does not rejoice that, in spite of dear Imogen's blessing upon thy toils, thou art not the manufacturer of a material which imprisons the earthquake and lets loose the whirlwind! Who does not felicitate thy delicious labour-pursued in the straw hive under its yew hedge with thyme and lavender and marigold beneath, by the calm cottage at the forest side-that it has never been made the Warder of tidings that plunge the Palace in dismay and fill the Prison house with unheard groans. Würtzburg, 17th November, 1844. AFTER a midnight departure from Frankfurt, which resembled the weird Steeple-chase of Lenora and Wilhelm, in all but its preternatural speed, we embarked, (Diligence, Passengers, Luggage, and all) upon the Main, just as the faint colours of day succeeded to the dim and spectral dawn. Daughter of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old Negro's darksome womb, Which, when it saw the lovely child, The melancholy mass put on smooth looks and smiled.' Cowley's Hymn to Light. But oh! such a dismal country, under such a canopy of rain, such withered downs, such leafless trees, such an absence of "Human Life," as not even Rogers could remedy-need I say more?—if any one has known a rainy day at the close of Autumn, between that Augustine Monastery of Triefenstein, now secularised into the unwieldy Schloss of a German Prince, as well whitewashed as if it had just taken advantage of the Insolvent Act;-and the equally desecrated Nunnery of Zell, with its abandoned Grange, and a height of garden wall worthy of Danae herself— such a one will imagine that it was only the opportunity of "Cold submersion, razor, rope, or lead,”* that was wanting to the catastrophe. Protected by that mountain of the celebrated Franconian vintage, with its tall and lonely Fire tower, on the one hand, and that armorial assemblage of lordly piles, the Citadel, on the other, Würtzburg is, I think in its situation, the most felicitous for pictorial effect I ever beheld, and its arrogance of Towers and Spires perfectly astonishing. The old Serpent too, who loves all Edens, has taken the opportunity to wind around her his most fascinating embrace, in the shape of the meandering Main. * Cowper's Poems. You descend the hill, and enter the City over its broad River, by its ramparts, its bridge, its meadows, and its black mill wheels; and you have the Palace, that kingly rival of Versailles, you have its aisles of avenues; and, above all, you have the outline, the detail, the Decorated portals, whose stony foliage seems to flutter in the breeze, the Gloriettes, the slender windows of that Favourite of Design, the Marienkirche. You have, moreover, the noble Market-place, of which this beauteous Temple is the boast, and there you must be content: Nuremberg, October 18, 1844. BEHOLD us then, my dear P, after a journey of twelve hours, comfortably domiciled at the Baierischer Hof in Nuremberg. Yes, we are at home, in that majestic and most ancient Citythe illustrious leader of an illustrious Band, the Free Imperial Towns-the Fortress of Freedom, the Palace of Monarchy, the Asylum of Art, the Emporium of Commerce, the Championess of Religion, the dread Antagonist of Violence and Fraud, |