Mount Avesaxa and joining the river. In every direction rose low hills, their bases covered with dwarf pines.

Our enjoyment of the view was so lessened by the increasing swarms of musquitoes that we gladly took refuge in the smoke of a huge fire kindled by our boatmen. The smoke of pine wood, impregnated strongly with the odor of tar, was not disagreeable to us, but the musquitoes were sore discomfited by it and soon vanquished. Our Swedish friends, who had brought a great store of provisions, now gave us punch and cake, and continued offering both, almost incessantly, the whole night.

Between admiring the prospect, brushing off musquitoes and taking asylum in the smoke, eating and drinking and laughing at the little Eric, who got excited by a glass of punch and went about turning our glassfuls into his till he sipped enough to turn his own little head, and making absurd attempts at conversation in bad

Swedish, we passed the time till near midnight.

And now the winged horses of the Sun, that had long hovered over the mountains, just grazed their summits and slowly drew their chariot along the horizon. They spurned with their heels the dark pine woods till past twelve. Then the fiery car was half buried, axle deep, behind an intervening peak. They dashed forth, poised themselves for a moment, and then springing from this dark Earth began anew to climb high Heaven.

The rising Sun was the signal for another little supper, and then, reversing the Sun's course, we commenced our descent.

That same day we began our journey southwards and were glad to welcome night again in lower latitudes.

Sleep is a blessing and darkness begets sleep, but still it is pleasant, around a winter's evening fireside, to recall to mind our three days visit to the Arctic zone and the thrice-seen MIDNIGHT SUN.

THE old, legitimate, delightful idea of

an Inn is becoming obsolete; like so many other traditional blessings, it has been sacrificed to the genius of locomotion. The rapidity with which distance is consumed obviates the need that so long existed, of by-way retreats and halting-pla

ces.

A hearty meal or a few hours' sleep caught between the arrival of the trains, is all the railway traveller requires; and the modern habit of moving in caravans, has infinitely lessened the romantic probabilities and comfortable realities of a journey: the rural alehouse, and picturesque hostel now exist chiefly in the domain of memory; crowds, haste, and ostentation triumph here over privacy and rational enjoyment, as in nearly all the arrangements of modern society. Old Walton would discover now but few of the secluded inns that refreshed him on his piscatorial excursions; the ancient ballads on the wall have given place to French paper; the scent of lavender no longer makes the linen fragrant; instead of the crackle of the open wood fire, we have the dingy coal-smoke, and exhalations of a stove; and green blinds usurp the place of the snowy curtains. Not only these material details, but the very social character of the

Shenstone.

Inn, is sadly changed. Few hosts can find time to gossip; the clubs have withdrawn the wits; the excitement of a stage coach arrival is no more; and a poet might travel a thousand leagues without finding a romantic "maid of the inn" such as Southey has immortalized. Jollity, freedom, and comfort, are no longer inevitably associated with the name; the world has become a vast procession that scorns to linger on its route, and has almost forgotten how to enjoy. Thanks, however, to the conservative spell of literature, we can yet appreciate, in imagination, at least, the good old English Inn. Goldsmith's Village Alehouse has daguerreotyped its humble species, while Dr. Johnson's evenings at the Mitre keep vivid the charm of its metropolitan fame. Indeed it is quite impossible to imagine what British authors would have done without the solace and inspiration of the inn. Addison fled thither from domestic annoyance; Dryden's chair at Will's was an oracular throne; when hard pressed, Steele and Savage sought refuge in a tavern and wrote pamphlets for a dinner; Farquhar found there his best comic material; Sterne opens his Sentimental Journey with his landlord, Monsieur Dessein, Čalais, and his inn

yard; Shenstone confessed he found "life's warmest welcome at an inn;" Sheridan's convivial brilliancy shone there with peculiar lustre; Hazlitt relished Congreve anew reading him in the shady windows of a village inn after a long walk; even an old Almanac, an Annual Register, will acquire an interest under such circumstances; and a dog-eared copy of the Seasons found in such a place induced Coleridge to exclaim, "this is fame!" while Byron exulted when informed that a wellthumbed volume of the English Bards had been seen soon after its publication at a little hostel in Albany. Elia's quaint anecdote of the Quakers when they all eat supper without paying for it, and Irving's "Stout Gentleman," are incidents which could only have been suggested by a country inn; and as to the novelists, from Smollett and Fielding to Scott and Dickens-the most characteristic scenes occur on this vantage ground, where the strict unities of life are temporarily discarded, and its zest miraculously quickened by fatigue, hunger, a kind of infinite possibility of events, a singular mood of adventure and pastime, nowhere else in civilized lands so readily induced. It is, therefore, from instinct that these enchanting chroniclers lead us thither. Gil Blas acquired his first lesson in a knowledge of the world, by his encounter with the parasite at the inn of Panafleur; and Don Quixote's enthusiasm always reaches a climax at these places of wayside sojourn. The "Black Bull," at Islington, is said to have been Sir Walter Raleigh's mansion; "Dolly's Chop House" is dear to authors for the sake of Goldsmith and his friends, who used to go there on their way to and from Paternoster Row. At the "Salutation and Cat," Smithfield Coleridge and Lamb held memorable converse; and Steele often dated his Tattlers from the "Trumpet." How appropriate for Voltaire to have lodged, in London, at the "White Peruke"! Spenser died at an inn in King St., Westminster, on his return from Ireland. At the "Red Horse," Stratford, is the "Irving room," precious to the American traveller; and how renowned have sweet Anne Page and jolly Falstaff made the very name of the "Garter Inn!" In the East a monastery, in the Desert a tent, on the Nile a boat, but in England an inn, is the pilgrim's home-and one not less characteristic.

In England and in towns of Anglo-Saxon origin, where the economies of life have a natural sway, we find inns representative; in London especially a glance at the parlor wall reveals the class to whose convenience the tavern is dedicated; in one the portraits of actors, in another

scenes in the ring and on the race-course; here the countenance of a leading merchant, and there a military effigy-suggest the vocation of those who chiefly frequent the inn; nor are local features less certain to find recognition; a view of the nearest nobleman's estate, or his portrait, ornaments the sitting-room; and the observant eye can always discover an historical hint at these public resorts.

The coffee-room of the best class of English inns, carpeted and curtained, the dark rich hue of the old mahogany, the ancient plate, the four-post bed, the sirloin or mutton joint, the tea, muffins, Cheshire and Stilton, the ale, the coal fire and the "Times," form an epitome of England; and it is only requisite to ponder well the associations and history of each of these items, to arrive at what is essential in English history and character. The impassable divisions of society are shown in the difference between the "commercial" and the "coffee-room; " the time-worn aspect of the furniture is eloquent of conservatism; the richness of the meats and strength of the ale explain the bone and sinew of the race; the tea is fragrant with Cowper's memory and suggestive of East India conquests; the cheese proclaims a thrifty agriculture; the bed and draperies comfort; the coal fire manufactures, while the "Times" is the chart of English enterprise, division of labor, wealth, selfesteem, politics, trade, court life, and bullyism.

The national subserviency to rank is as plainly evinced by the plates on chamber doors, at the provincial inns, setting forth that therein on a memorable night slept a certain scion of nobility. As an instance of the inappropriate, of that stolid insensibility to taste and tact which belongs to the nation, the English waiter is a striking proof. His costume is that of a clergyman or a gentleman dressed for company, and in ridiculous contrast with his menial obeisance; perhaps it is the self-importance nourished by this costume, which renders him such a machine, incapable of an idea beyond the routine of handing a dish and receiving a sixpence.

Clement's Inn was the scene of that memorable dialogue between Shallow and Sir John; at the "Cock" in Bond St. Sir Charles Sedley got scandalously drunk. Will's Coffee House was formerly called the "Rose;" hence the line

"Supper and friends expect me at the Rose."

Button's, so long frequented by the wits of Queen Anne's time, was kept by a former servant of Lady Warwick; and there the author of Cato fraternized with Garth, Armstrong, and other cotemporary

writers. Ben Jonson held his club at the Devil Tavern, and Shakspeare and Beaumont used to meet him at the Mermaid; the same inn is spoken of by Pope, and Swift writes Stella of his dinner there. The author of Peter Wilkins resided for a time at Clifford's Inn, and Dr. Johnson frequented all the taverns in Fleet St. Old Slaughter's coffee-house in St. Martin's lane was the favorite resort of Hogarth; and Prior's uncle kept an inn in London, where the poet was seen, when a boy, reading Horace. This incident is made use of by Johnson in his Lives of the Poets in a very caustic manner, for after relating it, he observes of Prior, that "in his private relaxations he revived the tavern, and in his amorous pedantry he exhibited the college."

There is no city in Europe where an imaginative mood can be so indefinitely prolonged as at Venice; and, in the exly summer, the traveller, after gliding about all day in a gondola, and thinking of Barbarossa, Faliero, Titian, and the creations of Shakspeare, Otway, Byron, and Cooper, at evening, from under the arches of St. Mark's square, watches the picturesque, and sometimes mysterious, figures, and then, between moss-grown palaces and over lone canals, returns to his locanda to find its aspect perfectly in accordance with his reverie; at least such was my experience at the "Golden Lion." The immense salle a manger was dimly lighted, and the table for two or three guests, set in a corner and half-surrounded by a screen; when I raised my eyes from my first dinner there, they fell on a large painting of the Death of Seneca-a print of which had been familiar to my childhood; and thus memory was ever invoked in Venice, and her dissolving views reflected in the mirror of the mind, unbroken by the interruptions from passing life that elsewhere render them so brief. The mere fact of disembarking at the weedy steps, the utter silence of the canal invaded only by the plash of the gondolier's oar, or his warning cry at the angle, the tesselated pavement and quaintly carved furniture of the bedroom, and a certain noiseless step and secretive gravity observable in the attendants, render the Venetian inn memorable and distinct in reminiscence, and in perfect harmony with the place and its associations.

During the late revolutionary era in Europe, the inn tables of Germany afforded the most reliable index of political opinion; the free discussion which there was indulged, brought out every variety of sentiment and theory, as it included all classes with a due sprinkling of foreigners. From the old novel to the new farce, in

deed, the extremes of public opinion and the average tone of manners, the laughable contre-temps and the delightful adventure are made to reveal themselves at inns, so that political sects and all vocations are identified with them. To Rip Van Winkle the most astonishing change he discovered in his native village, after his long nap, was the substitution of Washington's likeness for that of George the Third, on the tavern sign.

The dark staircase, rising from the mule stable of a posada, the bare chambers, wool-knotted mattresses, odor of garlic, and vegetables swimming in oil, are items of the Spanish inn not likely to be forgotten by the epicurean traveller. In highly civilized lands, not only have inns a national but a professional character; the sign, the pictures on the wall, and the company, have a certain individualitymarine in sailors' inns, pugilistic in sporting ones, and picturesque in those haunted by artists; the lines of demarcation are as visible as those which separate newspapers and shops; in the grand division of labor that signalizes modern life, the inn also has thus become an organ and a symbol. Even their mottoes and symbols give traditional suggestions or emblazon phases of opinion: natural history has been exhausted in supplying effigies; mythology has yielded up all her deities and institutions, heroes and localities are kept fresh in the traveller's imagination by their association with "creature comforts." Thus he dreams of Cromwell at the "Tumble-down Dick," and of the Stuarts at the "King Charles in the Oak;" the days of chivalry at the "Star and Garter,” or the "Croix de Malta;" of brilliant campaigns at the "Wagram" and "Montmorency;" of woman's love at the "Petraque et Laura," and of man's at the "Freemason's tavern.'

My host at Ravenna had been Byron's purveyor during the poet's residence there; and he was never weary of descanting upon his character and the incidents of his sojourn; in fact, upon discovering my interest in the subject, he forgot the landlord in the cicerone, and gave no small part of a day to accompanying me to the haunts of the bard. Our first visit was to the Guiccioli Palace, and here he described his lordship's dinners, with the precision and enthusiasm of an antiquarian certifying a document or medal; then he took me to the Pine Forest, and pointed out the track where Byron used to wheel his horse at full gallop, and discharge his pistol at a bottle placed on a stump,exercises preparatory to his Grecian campaign. At a particular flag-stone, in the main street, my guide suddenly paused;

"Signore," said he, "just as mi-lord had reached this spot one evening, he heard the report of a musket, and saw an officer fall a few rods in advance; dismounting, he rushed to his side, and found him to be a familiar acquaintance, an agent of the government, who had thus become the victim to private vengeance. Byron had him conveyed to his own apartment and placed on a bed, where in half an hour he expired. This event made a deep impression on his mind, he was dispirited for a week, and wrote a description of death from a shot, which you will find in his poems, derived from this scene."

With

such local anecdotes my Byronic host entertained me so well, that the departed bard ever since has seemed to live in my remembrance rather than my fancy.

The pedestrian in Wales sometimes encounters a snug and beautifully situated hostel, where five minutes beside the parlor fire, and a chat with the landlady or her pretty daughter, gives him so complete a home feeling, that it is with painful reluctance he again straps on his knapsack; at liberty to muse by the ever-singing teakettle, if the weather is unpropitious, stroll out in view of a noble mountain or a fairy lake in the warm sunset, or hear the news from the last wayfarer in the travellers' room; and here is thus mingled a sense of personal independence, comfort and solitude, which is rarely experienced even in the most favored domain of hospitality. An equally winsome but more romantic charm holds the roaming artist who stops at Albano or Volterra, where the dreamy campagna or Etruscan ruins alternate with groups of sunburnt contadini, lighted up by the charcoal's glow in a way to fascinate Salvator, before his contented gaze; his portfolio fills up with miraculous rapidity; and the still-life is agreeably varied with the scenic costumes and figures which gave the vintage or a festa. Some humble Champolion could easily add to the curiosities of literature, by a volume gleaned among inn inscriptions-from the marble tablet announcing the sojourn of a royal personage, to the rude caricature on the whitewashed wall, and the sentimental couplet on the window pane; to say nothing of the albums which enshrine so many tributes to Etna and the White Mountains-the heir-looms of Abbate, the famous padrone of Catania, and Crawford of the Notch.

Sicily is famous for the absence of inns and the intolerable discomfort of those that do exist; but mine host of Catania, -may his shadow never be less!-is the prince of landlords; a fine specimen of manly beauty, and with the manners of a

gentleman, he seems to think his guests entitled to all the courtesy which should follow an invitation; he makes formal calls upon them, and gives sage advice as to the best way to pass the time; fits them out with hospitable skill, and experienced counsels, for the ascent of Etna. and brings home choice game from his hunting excursions, as a present to the "stranger within his gates;" his discourse, too, is of the most bland and entertaining description; he is "a fellow of infinite wit, of most excellent fancy;" and these ministrations derive a memorable charm from a certain gracefulness and winsome cordiality; no wonder his scrapbook is filled with eulogiums, and that the traveller in Sicily, by the mere force of contrast, records in hyperboles the merits of the Corona d'Oro.

The waxed floor, light curtains, and gay paper of a Parisian bedroom, however cheerful, are the reverse of snug; but in the provincial inns of the Continent, with less of comfort there is often more historical interest than in those of England; the stone staircases and floors, and the scanty furniture are forlorn; and the exuberance of the host's civility is often in ludicrous contrast with the poverty of his larder. It is not uncommon to find ourselves in a friar's dormitory, the large hotels in the minor towns having frequently been erected as convents; and in Italy, such an inn as that of Terracina, with its legends of banditti and its romantic site, the waves of the Mediterranean moaning under its lofty windows, infallibly recall Mrs. Radcliffe. In the cities many of the hotels are palaces, where noble families have dwelt for centuries, and about them are perceptible the traces of decayed magnificence and the spell of traditional glory and crime. To an imaginative traveller, these fanciful attractions often compensate for the absence of substantial merit, and there is something mysterious and winsome in the obsolete architecture and fallen grandeur of these edifices;-huge shadows glide along the high cornices, the mouldy frescoes look as if they had witnessed strange vicissitudes, and the imagination readily wanders through a series of wonderful experience of which these old palazzi have been the scene. Here as elsewhere in the land, it is the romantic element, the charm of antiquity, that is the redeeming feature. For picturesque beauty of situation, neatness and rural comfort, some of the inns of Switzerland are the most delightful on the Continent, inviting the stranger to linger amid the clear, fresh, and glorious landscape, and relish the sweet butter, white bread, and unrivalled honey and eggs, served so neatly

every morning by a fair mountaineer with snowy cap and gay bodice.

I am a lover of the woods, and sometimes cross the bay, with a friend, to Long Island, and pass a few hours in the strip of forest that protected our fugitive army at the battle of Flatbush; there are devious and shadowy paths intersecting it, and in spring and autumn the wild flowers, radiant leaves, and balmy stillness, cheer the mind and senses fresh from the dirt and bustle of the city. Often after one of these woodland excursions we have emerged upon a quiet road, with farm-houses at long intervals and orchards and grain fields adjacent, and followed its course to a village, whose gable-roofed domicile and ancient grave-yard indicate an old settlement; and here is a little inn which recalls our idea of the primitive English alehouse. It has a little Dutch porch, a sunny garden; the liquor is served from the square bottles of Holland; the back parlor is retired and neat, and the landlady sits all day in the window at her sewing, and, when a little acquainted, will tell you all about the love-affairs of the village ;the cheese and sour-krout at dinner prove a Flemish origin.

The old sign that hangs at the roadside was brought to this country by an English publican, when the fine arts were supposed to be at so low a stage as to furnish no Dick Tinto equal to such an achievement. It represents the arms of Great Britain, and doubtless beguiled many a trooper of his majesty when Long Island was occupied by the English; no sooner however had they retreated, than the republican villagers forced the landlord to have an American eagle painted above the king's escutcheon. Indeed, it is characteristic of inns that they perpetuate local associations; put your head into an Italian boarding-house in New-York, and the garlic, maccaroni and red wine lead you to think yourself at Naples; the snuff, dominoes and gazettes mark a French café all the world over; in Montreal you wake up in a room like that you occupied at Marseilles; and at Halifax the malt-liquor is as English as the currency.

On first entering an inn at Havre de Grace, I found the landlady taking leave of the captain of an American packet ship; he had paid his bill, not without some remonstrance, and his smiling hostess, with true French tact, was now in the act of bidding so pleasing a farewell as would lure him to take up his quarters there on the return voyage. She had purchased at the market a handsome bouquet and tied it up jauntily with ribbons. The ruddy sea-dog face of the captain was half

He

turned aside with a look of impatience at the idea of being inveigled into good nature after her extortion, but she, not a whit discouraged, held her, flowers up to him, and smiling, with her fair hand on his rough dread-nought overcoat, turned full to his eye a sprig of yellow blossom. and with irresistible naïveté whispered"Mon cher Capitaine, c'est immortel comme mon attachment pour vous." It was a little scene worthy of Sterne, and brought the agreeableness and the imposition of the innkeepers of the Continent at once before me. One evening in Florence I was sent for by a countryman who lodged at the most famous hotel in the city, and found him perambulating his apartment under strong excitement of mind. told me, with much emotion, that the last time he had visited Florence was twenty years before with his young and beautiful wife. The belle of the season that winter was the Marchesa She gave a magnificent ball, and in the midst of the festivities took the young American couple into her boudoir and sung to them with her harp; her vocal talent was celebrated, but it was a rare favor to hear her, and this attention was prized accordingly. "You know," added my friend, "that I came abroad to recover the health which grief at my wife's death so seriously impaired; and you know how unavailing has proved the experiment. On my arrival here, I inquired for the best inn, and was directed hither; upon entering this chamber which was assigned me, something in the frescoes and tiles struck me as familiar; they awoke the most vivid associations, and at last I remembered that this is the very room to which the beautiful Marchesa brought us to hear her sing on that memorable evening; the family are dispersed and her palace is rented for a hotel; hence this coincidence."

Not only the vicissitudes but the present fortunes of European towns are indicated by the inns. I arrived at the ancient Syracuse at sunset on a spring afternoon, and dismounted at an inn that looked like an episcopal residence or government house, so lofty and broad were the dimensions of the edifice; but not a person was visible in the spacious court, and as I wandered up the staircases and along the corridors, no sound but the echo of my steps was audible. At length a meagre attendant emerged from an obscure chamber and explained that this grand pile was erected in anticipation of the American squadron in the Mediterranean making their winter quarters in the harbor of Syracuse; a project abandoned at the earnest request of the King of Naples, who dreaded the example of a