each draught, but violent exercise is to be avoided. The baths, also, should never be taken after eating, and during bathing a strict attention to diet is advisable. Tea, pastry, acids, vegetables, fruit, and cheese should be avoided, and but little should be eaten at each meal. Wine, if light, may be sparingly used; but the beer of the country, or Seltzer-water, are preferable beverages.

Those who travel in a party with the intention of repairing to any fashionable watering-place, in the height of the season, should not omit to write beforehand either to the keeper of some hotel, the bad-meister, or the physician, to secure rooms for them, if they wish to avoid the inconvenience of finding, on their arrival, that every bed and room in the place are engaged, an occurrence by no means unfrequent.

42. MUSIC.

"Music naturally makes too large a figure in the expectations of many pleasuretravellers to be passed over here; the more so because what they will find, and where they will find it, have not been stated with any completeness, fair comparison, or adequate knowledge of the subject since the days of Burney; and he wrote at a period when German music had hardly taken its peculiar form and colour.

"The tourist will find an Opera in almost every town; its prices of admission moderate, and its performances on the average very good as regards orchestra and chorus. The musical establishments of Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Brunswick, Frankfort, Cassel, and Hanover, are the most eminent among those within the range of this volume. Most of the above theatres are court-dependencies, presided over by composers of some note, and implying life-appointments for the principal artists engaged. Hence very mature vocalists are a phenomenon more common than engaging. Further, the preference of the general public for translated Italian or French musical dramas, and the limited number of classical German operas which keep the stage (a dozen at most), — add to this the admitted disregard of many among the classical composers for the refinements of vocal science, - have destroyed the possibility of a school of singing being formed; and kept that branch of art at a level, the lowness and unrefinement of which will strike ears used to Italian and French execution. One or two of the master-works of Gluck, Beethoven, Weber, Mozart, and Spohr, however, in most cases, form a nominal part of every theatrical repertory. The summer and autumn are generally the flat seasons of Opera in the large towns, - save in cases like the Frankfort and Leipzig fairs, where the managers endeavour to secure some great attraction to entertain the concourse of guests expected. The traveller, however, has always the chance of encountering some favourite singer or actor on a starring' excursion: or, as they phrase it in Germany, playing gastrollen. It was not thought strange in recent years for the fanatico who longed to hear any particular opera in the theatrical repertory of a given town to advertise his wishes in the local newspaper, of course in a complimentary fashion, — with a fair chance of their being acceded to within a few days.

"In orchestral music the Germans are generally far in advance of all other people. This pleasure too is more easily accessible than in any other country; - it is best to be enjoyed in the late autumn and winter, when the world of artists and audiences has come home from the baths.' The Symphonic Concerts of Berlin, and the subscription concerts at the Gewand Haus of Leipzig, will give the tourist the 'true reading' of the works of the great German symphonists, and afford him also a chance of hearing the best solo players, home and foreign. They are also of a wise brevity, as compared with our more cumbrous and costly entertainments. The high places' of chamber-music were recently Berlin, Leipzig, and Brunswick, each of which towns possessed a resident quartett of stringed instru

mentalists, possessing very high renown. But all periodical music is more or less interrupted by the fine weather, which tempts the world from home.

"From June till September the tourist has the chance of falling in with some celebration or festival, akin to our own provincial music meetings,' but different, inasmuch as the chorus mainly consists of amateurs. These meetings are, on the average, interesting in the music selected, excellent as regards execution, from the heartiness, zeal, and patience in co-operation which pervade it, and most pleasantly social. It is the fault of bad English manners, if any Englishman, having claims on the good society of his own country, finds himself a stranger amongst strangers' on these occasions;-a very slight introduction (and of course some power of communication) securing him a good-natured welcome. Those who winter in Berlin will of course make an effort to attend the meetings of the Sing Academie. This may be called the best and most renowned amateur vocal society in Europe, and its members occasionally, for purposes of charity, give public performances on a grand scale. Gentlemen, too, will do well to gain access to such meetings of the Lieder-tafel societies as may fall in their way. These are singing parties of gentlemen only, who execute the part-music of German composers with great spirit and energy; both the music and the execution calculated, by their difference of style, especially to interest those who care for glees and madrigals at home.

"The best orchestral inass, probably, now to be heard in Europe, is that performed in the cathedral at Cologne. - The organs in Dresden, in the Sophien Kirche, the Catholic Church, and one or two others- built by the Silbermanns, are well worth an effort to hear.

"Lastly, for those who search less scientifically than the traveller to whom the above hints are addressed, most attractive cheap music abounds in Germany. Almost every town has its Casino or private subscription club:-its pleasure garden, and other public resorts, to which every one is admitted; where a good band, often of wind-instruments alone, may be heard to play good music to good company, for a very small price of entrance. And these unpretending concerts (the very absence of pretension of which is an evidence of popular taste, as distinct from fashion) are sometimes diversified by very fair quartett singing. For the chiaracteristic of German musical execution is, that generally every one occupied in its production takes pains in its production because he likes it. In most of the above matters the traveller has better chance of gaining available and precise information from the landlord of his hotel than in the place where he would naturally seek it at the music-shop. The want of accuracy and backwardness as regards the amusements of the day, to be complained of on the part of those managing the latter establishments, will often puzzle and inconvenience a prompt and impatient Englishman." - II. F. C.

43. GERMAN TOWNS.

Fire-watch. — The highest tower or steeple of a German town is usually occupied by sentinels, who are continually on the look-out, night and day, to discover and give the alarm of fire as soon as it breaks out in any quarter. These guardians of the public safety are called the Fire-watch; and this police regulation prevails almost all over Germany, where, from the general use of wood as a building material, fires are both more frequent and more destructive than in England; where, however, some such provision is highly desirable. The destruction of a whole town or village by conflagration is no uncommon occurrence in Germany; witness the fearful conflagration of Hamburg in 1842. In 1834, the town of Wienerisch-Neustadt was totally consumed; out of 400

houses, 14 alone escaped being reduced to ashes. The intelligence of a fire is conveyed to the town by the firing of cannon, and the quarter is indicated by holding out a flag by day, or a lantern at night, in the direction in which it has been seen. The following account of the proceedings on the occasion of a fire breaking out in a German town (Salzburg) is extracted from the note-book of a traveller.

"After dinner, as we were sitting quietly in our room, T writing his journal, I listening to the thunder, which, with the rain that accompanied it, had had the effect of detaining us within doors, when on a sudden we were startled by the louder and nearer report of 2 cannon shots, the signal of a fire in the suburbs, beyond the river. We seized our hats and rushed out; the smoke had hardly curled off from the cannon (those invariable ornaments of almost every Austrian town) in the Grand Place, where our hotel stands; yet we found every one already in motion, scampering to and fro, in the house and out of the house; some were getting out the engine, others were dragging towards it a pair of horses which had been ready harnessed for a vetturino's carriage, and those not so employed, both male and female, were hurrying forward to the spot. Some bore leather buckets, others carried little tubs fastened to the end of a pole, so as to form a kind of ladle on a large scale, in their hands, in compliance with the regulations of the police, which compels all the townspeople, high and low, to render assistance on such occasions, either personally, or, in the case of the rich, by sending their servants and horses. We joined the throng of shopkeepers and labourers, who, having quitted their various occupations, were hastening to the scene of the conflagration: it was about 2 miles off, and the streets leading to it were so narrow that a wheelbarrow would almost suffice to block them up. Every now and then the clattering of hoofs and rattling of wheels announced the approach of an engine, and sent the crowd flying right and left; those who were not so fortunate as to squeeze themselves into some hole or corner ran the risk at least of having their toes run over. Several officers also passed us at full gallop, showing their zeal by hastening to the spot without their cloaks, in spite of the rain; and one or two companies of infantry and cavalry followed them as fast as their horses or their feet could carry them. After them came the commandant of the town himself, who, though a general officer of high rank, directed the operations, with the minuteness of an officer of police."

Besides the precaution of the fire-guardian posted on the steeple, the streets are constantly perambulated at night by a watchman, who chants in a doleful tore a few admonitory couplets of doggrel, addressed to all fathers of families, whether sleeping or waking, recommending them to be on their guard against fire, and ending with a caution to look sharp after their wives and daughters.

The Woodcutters. · "In walking the streets of a German town, a provoking circumstance is, that frequently a third part, or even a half of the street, is rendered useless by heaps of wood, the fuel of the inhabitants. The wood is brought into the city in large pieces, from 3 to 4 feet long. A waggon load of these logs is laid down in the street, at the door of the purchaser, to be sawn and split into smaller pieces, before being deposited in his cellar. When this occurs, as it often does, at every third or fourth door, the street just loses so much of its breadth. Nothing remains but the centre, and that is constantly swarming with carriages, and carts, and barrows. The pedestrian must either wind himself through among their wheels, or clamber over successive piles of wood, or patiently wait till the centre of the street becomes passable for a few yards. To think of doubling the wooden promontory without this precaution is far from being safe. You have scarcely, by a sudden spring, saved your shoulders from the pole of a carriage, when a wheelbarrow makes a similar

attack on your legs. You make spring the second, and, in all probability, your head comes in contact with the uplifted hatchet of a woodcutter. The wheel. barrows seem to be the best off. They fill such a middle rank between bipeds and quadrupeds, that they lay claim to the privileges of both, and hold on their way rejoicing, commanding respect equally from men and horses.". RUSSEL'S Tour.

44. CLUBS AND READING-ROOMS.

In all the principal German towns, Societies corresponding nearly with a London club, and known by such names as the Casino, Museum, Harmonie, or the like, are to be found. "They are very rational establishments, fitted up with a commodious elegance, which make their resources doubly attractive. The reading-rooms are stocked with a profusion of journals, reviews, and pamphlets, literary and political, from all parts of Germany; besides the French, and sometimes English and Italian newspapers. There is often a library of books of reference, and a conversation-room, where talkative quidnunes may be relieved from the silence prescribed in the reading-rooms, besides billiard-tables and card-rooms, and sometimes a good table-d'hôte provided by a restaurateur of the establishment. The assembly-rooms, which form part of the edifice, are only open on occasions of balls, concerts, and evening societies: to these ladies are admitted, and they are kept sacred from the fumes of tobacco, which frequently perfume and tinge the other handsome apartments. The casinos are supported by subscriptions, - noblesse and bourgeoisie, including common tradesmen, being alike members. A foreign traveller obtains easy access to them by means of his banker, and very often through the landlord of his hotel, and finds much sociable respectability, as well as convenience and resources in them.” - Autumn near the Rhine.

45. GERMAN BURIAL-GROUNDS.

One of the peculiarities which distinguish Germany from England is the different light in which the abodes of the dead are regarded by the living. Before a traveller completes his survey of a German town, it will not be unprofitable or uninteresting to visit the public burial-ground - the "court of peace," or "God's Acre," to give the German names literally translated. In England, the churchyard is generally a small space in the precincts of the church, which is regarded as little else than a passage leading to it; or where it is separated, as it happens in many of our populous cities, it is a large enclosure overgrown with weeds and rank grass, which would indicate that it was "by the world forgot," except for the high walls, which serve the double purpose of keeping out nightly depredators (almost the only class who take an interest in its contents), and of screening the hateful object from the sight of the rest of the world. The French appear to introduce the national frivolity even into their burial-grounds, and have given to Père-la-Chaise the air of a cimetière ornée which is hardly befitting the silent city of the dead. In Germany the public cemetery is a spot in which the community seems to take much interest. It is a place of public resort at all hours, -its gates stand always open. It is planted with a few trees, so that its aspect may not be altogether cheerless; but it is more thickly planted with crosses, gravestones, and monuments congregated together, thick as a forest, slowly advancing foot by foot, year after year, to occupy all the vacant space. The inventions of the mason and carpenter in fashioning a tombstone rarely go beyond a cross or an urn, a broken pillar or stone sarcophagus; the grave of the soldier is sometimes marked by a sword or helmet ;

but there are other tokens of honour and respect which show a continuance of attention on the part of the living. Gravestones of various shapes, with lengthy epitaphs, are common among us: here, however, the more touching and trustworthy symptoms of continued recollection are every where observed in the fresh chaplet or nosegay, the little border of flowers newly dug, the basin of holy water, all placed by the side of the funereal hillock.

At one end of the enclosure is usually a cloister or arcade, under which repose, beneath more sumptuous monuments, the rich and the noble. Communicating with it also is generally a building where the bodies of the dead are placed, in conformity with a police regulation adopted in most German towns, within 12 hours after death. At the appointed time the dead-cart calls at the door of high or low; and the only distinction made is, that the former repose in an apartment better fitted, hung with black, and lighted by a dismal lamp.

In this gloomy chamber, the dead bodies, deposited in their coffins, await the time appointed for interment. In many places, particularly at Frankfurt, a peculiar precaution is adopted to guard against the accident of burial in cases of suspended animation. The fingers of the prostrate corpse are placed in the loops of a string or bell-rope attached to an alarm clock, which is fixed in the apartment of an attendant appointed to be on the watch. The least pulsation in the body would give the alarm, and medical aid would instantly be called in.

It is melancholy, but impressive, to walk round the Friedhof until you come to the spot where the ground has been fresh turned up; for every inch is disposed of systematically, and the vacant space is encroached on only as it is needed. Here may be seen the fresh-painted, newly-gilt monument; then the grave on which the turf has been replaced, and has not united; beyond it the heap of bare mould, the grave of yesterday; and last of all, the open chasm with boards at its sides, gaping in readiness for those who are lying stiff hard by.