46

LIMITED MONARCHY.

determined in respect to the supposed rights of royal houses; for they have no rights that can claim a sacrifice of the rights of the people. The people are not for them, but they for the people. The opposite doctrine is the great heresy of despotism. Where a limited monarchy already exists, like that of England, the people possess the cardinal rights of representation, freedom of conscience and opinion, and trial by jury. Whatever abuses exist, can be corrected constitutionally, and without the convulsion of a revolution. The monarch is a hereditary chief representing the sovereignty of the state, but through the Commons dependent upon the people. It is a form of government upheld by old custom, and use, and yet one under which the people are free. Why then disturb it? Where despotic monarchies now exist, it would be expedient to have them wisely and quietly slide into constitutional monarchies, to prevent the violence and uproar and confusion of civil war. It might be expedient to choose this form of government, even where it could be determined by simple choice when the exposed position of a country, or the mixed character of its inhabitants, as in Hungary, or other circumstances, might require at once a more concentrated executive power. In the present state of Europe, it is expedient to aim to establish popular freedom by constitutional guarantees, without making the form an essential question. It is infinitely to be desired that princes and people would unite in the wise and unbloody work of remodelling the governments upon the basis of rational liberty. The princes still have it in their power to do so, and thus to bind the people to themselves by everlasting ties of gratitude. But the day may come unex

STORM AND SUNSHINE.

47

Then there will be dark-
Conceive of the French

pectedly when it will be too late. ness, dismay, and scenes of woe. Revolution falling upon the whole continent of Europe. But when the thrones are all overturned, the atmosphere will at length become clear again, the institutions of freedom will arise under a more glorious sunlight, and humanity will vindicate its capacity for self-government.

III.

Cologne and its Cathedral.

ROM Düsseldorf we proceeded to Cologne by the

From

railroad. The Roman Colonia of the Emperor Claudius and his wife Agrippina is here still in the modern Cologne. You seem at once to plunge into the bosom of antiquity. The marks of the Roman survive in ancient walls, altars, inscriptions, and coins; in the names of the streets, and in the very features and complexions of the inhabitants.

From Deutz we crossed the bridge of boats in an omnibus, with the great cathedral in full view. And then we rattled along through the crooked and narrow streets, between tall houses, and ever and anon in front of some old time-worn church.

Every thing speaks of the past; even the air seems heavy and murky with the dust of ages. Coleridge has put every traveller upon the scent, in entering Cologne, by his lines:

COLOGNE AND NEW-YORK.

"Ye nymphs who rule o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,

Doth wash your city of Cologne:

But tell me, nymphs, what power divine

Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine ?"

49

I, however, was agreeably disappointed in this respect; partly because the city is admitted to have improved in cleanliness since Coleridge wrote his lines, and partly too, I am constrained to confess, because long accustomed to the streets of New-York. The streets of New-York are wider than those of Cologne, and are visited by the sea-breeze; but the latter city, independently of these circumstances, must yield the palm to the former. With water all around us, and washed almost by the ocean itself, with fountains in every street, so abundantly fed that we might well nigh turn our pavements into the beds of rivers, in wet weather we have black, nauseous compost mud to wade through, and in dry weather our houses, our shops, our clothes, our ears, noses, eyes, mouths and lungs are filled with the same compost triturated to a fine powder, and blown about in every direction. And then, oh happy city of Cologne! thou hast thy fragrant Eau de Cologne to hide thy smells and comfort thy inhabitants. Between twenty and thirty manufactories are constantly engaged in producing this article. We have our fountains of Croton which we do not use, but every man, woman, and child in Cologne may carry about a bottle of the Eau as a corrective of the evil which the poet celebrates. Nay, the very sight of the shops, all professing by huge signboards painted with large characters to be the genuine successors

50

EAU DE E COLOGNE.

and heirs of the far-famed Jean Marie Farina, is refreshing. In truth, the manufacturers of the Eau de Cologne are engaged in the good work of creating an odoriferous atmosphere over a spot where sewers and charnel-houses have for many centuries taken the place of the virgin freshness of nature.

It would be very difficult, if not impossible, for a stranger to collate all the authorities, so as to determine satisfactorily who is the genuine successor of the great Farina. Our coachman drove us to a shop which in his judgment was the true fountain of excellence. But the ladies, upon consulting Murray, decided that it was a counterfeit; and so, turning our backs abruptly upon the plausible shopkeeper and his thousand and one arguments, and rebuking the coachman for deceiving us, off we drove for the establishment opposite Jülichs Platz. Here, the proprietor spoke in scornful indignation of the pretensions of his rivals, affirming that they bribed the coachmen to lead strangers astray; and produced, as a conclusive testimony that he alone possessed the mystic art by due inheritance, a biographical sketch of Jean Marie Farina, with a history of the invention and its transmission from generation to generation. The air of triumph with which he produced this document, together with a plentiful sprinkling of the cambric handkerchiefs of the ladies from a bottle kept ready for the purpose, was absolutely overpowering. The ladies have ever persisted in believing that this is the best Eau de Cologne they have ever met with. I for my part, while I am quite ready to grant that there is none better, am inclined to suspect that the supposed superiority is imaginary, and that the other shops furnished very much the same article. However,