392 University of Bonn. Q 



ferring you to a diligence, and setting you down at Brussels at nine 

 o'clock-#5 miles ; the third day carries you, to your utter astonish- 

 ment, by an accelerated diligence, through Louvain and Maestricht to 

 Aix-la-Chapelle 91 miles ; and, on the fourth, you are received into 

 this seat of science by means of the Prussian diligences, and after a two 

 hours' rest at Cologne, which breaks the day's journey of 50 miles. 



Whilst I am upon the Prussian diligences, I may here, once for all, 

 express my approbation of their neatness, punctuality, and system of 

 regulation. The passenger having taken his numerical place, and paid 

 his passagiergeldj is thereupon warranted free from impositions by coach- 

 men and guards. A printed billet is put into his hand, containing the 

 thirteen rules ordained by his Prussian majesty in regard to the dili- 

 gences. The ninth and tenth rules prove the laudable care of the king 

 for the health and comfort of his subjects, though they make an English- 

 man smile : " Rule 9. Sick persons, especially the epilechi, and those 

 afflicted with eruptions and humours, as also children under four years 

 old, are not allowed to travel. Rule 10. The conducteur and travellers 

 are forbidden to smoke tobacco, or to have large dogs with them." The 

 ordinance touching smoking is, indeed, more honoured in the breach than 

 in the observance as every man that enters brings a pipe with him, and 

 civilly presumes you have no objection to tobacco. It certainly does 

 not suit a traveller in Germany to have any such objections ; and I 

 accordingly make a practice of dissembling my utter dislike to the herb 

 and its abominable appurtenances. 



There are few places where I could have had better opportunities of 

 mixing in good German society ; for so I call the company of the 

 eminent men that adorn this university. I have become acquainted also 

 with many of the students from distant parts of the kingdom, and, in 

 my rambles to the neighbouring villages, have seen something of the 

 country people ; and since my raptures at the wide and swelling Rhine, 

 at the green island of Rolandswert, and the castled tower of Drachenfells, 

 are beginning to tranquillize, you will, I dare say, be glad to receive a 

 sober sketch of the attractions that this town contains within itself. 



Bonn is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Rhine, at that point 

 where the scenery changes from mountains to the plain, and where the 

 father river quits its narrow course through castellated rocks, to expand 

 its surface as it approaches the manufacturing country near Cologne, 

 Dusseldorf and Elberfeld, and the flats of Holland. The houses are 

 of white stone, arid slated: there are about 1,200 of them, and 10,000 

 inhabitants, including the University. I entered by a long avenue of 

 trees on the Cologne side, and crossed the moat, which still remains, 

 though of the fortifications little is now left scarcely enough to remind 

 you of Julian the Apostate, who founded Bonnensia Caslia, as our friend 

 Tacitus says. The situation of the place has made it famous for treaties, 

 councils, coronations, sieges, and other events in European history ; and 

 it was not without a feeling of national pride that I was informed it had 

 surrendered to Maryborough in 1703. Our vanity is now so wholly 

 absorbed in Waterloo, that the numberless places of glorious memory in 

 the Netherlands and this part of Germany are not even thought of, by 

 the passers by, as worthy of either honour to the brave, or a sigh for 

 poor human nature. If it were part of the law of nations, that, on the 

 field of every action, a stone shoidd be erected, stating the number of 



