1831.]] Reflections on a liamble in Germaiiii. 627 



tered him on the following morning on the staircase. The appearance 

 of Constantine was striking, and one that will for ever live in the 

 memory. He had the face of a demon, with the figure of a god. All 

 the worst and most turbulent passions of our nature were broadly marked 

 on his flat Tartar countenance ; while his figure was the beau-ideal of 

 manly beauty and martial elegance. His amiable consort, the Princess 

 LoAvietz, was hanging on his arm — that consort for whom he had sacri- 

 ficed empire, and whose gentleness could, in its fiercest moments, subdue 

 his haughty nature. There was, in the appearance of Madame de Low- 

 ietz, a mild dignity and feminine softness ; on her countenance a mixture 

 of sweetness and melancholy, that went immediately to the heart. Over 

 the abdication of Constantine there hangs a veil of mj'stery which, in a 

 future age, will excite as much curiosity and conjecture as the history of 

 the celebrated " JMasque de Fer." To obtain a clear view of contem- 

 porary history is always difficult: thus, though the vices of this prince 

 may have been exaggerated by the pen of factious malignity, his greatest 

 enemies must allow him the meed of a brave and gallant soldier. 



In travelling on the continent, he who would avoid a constant collision 

 with objects long familiar to his organs of vision, must beAvare of taking 

 any of what are called the fashionable tours ; for, at stated periods of the 

 year he will inevitably meet, sporting their moustachios on the Prater 

 at Vienna — affecting the dilleianti at the theatre of La Scala — playing 

 the Pygmalion before the Venus at Florence — Byronizing by moonlight 

 amid the ruins of the Coliseum, or scrambling up Vesuvius, merely to 

 say " they have been there" — shoals of the same beings, whose eccentri- 

 cities or fooleries daily amused or disgusted us during the preceding 

 season in town. On leaving Frankfort, I resolved to trace my steps back 

 to the banks of the Lahnn to Wetzlar, from whence I intended making 

 a pedestrian tour into Westphalia, in company with a German professor 

 of that town, and his son, a student at the university of Jena. Turning 

 out of the direct road to Mayence, at the small town of Hockst, remark- 

 able for the splendid palace of the Italian snuiF-maker, Bolingaro (I 

 recommend the reader to try a pinch of the '• Bolingaro" — he will get 

 it good at Gliddon's Divan, in King-street), I ascended the range of the 

 Taunus mountains. The prospect that suddenly burst on the enraptured 

 vision was truly magnificent. Far as the eye could reach, it embraced 

 one luxuriant plain, watered by the Rhine, the Maine, and the Neckar, 

 and studded with beautiful towns and villages. I halted two days at 

 Wetzlar, to make the necessary arrangements for our trip, and, on the 

 third morning, started in light marching order with my two companions. 

 The season was already far advanced, the trees were fast losing their 

 foliage, the bare branches creaked responsive to the blast of winter, while 

 the cris])ed, dried leaves crackled beneath our feet. The sun's blood-red 

 disk sunk beneath the frosty haze of twilight, and imparted an air of 

 desolation to the scc^nery. As we advanced into Westphalia, the face 

 both of nature and man underwent a change. The country assumed 

 more of the forest, and witli its elevated beech-clad ridges and deep 

 morasses, recalled to the memory tlie ancient descripticm of the country 

 of the Chorusci. The peasantry are a tall, athletic race, with a stolid 

 expression of countenance. They still retain their old German costume 

 — their long, light hair escaping from beneath their flat-crowned hats. 

 ^ly friend, the student, culled my attention to this feature, as a proof of 



