in many cases, no doubt, irresistible. The objectionable portion of women's dress of all ranks is the shape of their shoes. Nothing can exceed the uncouthness and ugliness. The shoe presents just such an appearance as would be obtained if a lady dipped her foot slowly into a bason of blacking as high as the ankle,-took it out carefully, and allowed it to dry and cake.

It is impossible to pass over German cookery. Many of their dishes are excellent; and of their three hundred methods of dressing potatoes, a very desirable selection might be made. A great many of their soups also, for flavour, wholesomeness, and economy, are not to be surpassed. But for originality, for inventiveness, for the bringing together of the most apparently uncongenial and incongruous materials, they certainly exceed anything that an Englishman could imagine. The table d'hôte of a good hotel always presents an agreeable variety. Pea-soup with slices of raw beef in it, or followed by raw herrings (“cured” in some way, but not cooked); baked beef with preserved plums, and hot yellow goose-fat laid upon slices of brown bread or toast, may seem rather startling to delicate stomachs. Baked ducks stuffed with chestnuts and onions, and garnished with a sauce of pickled cherries or very sour brandy-cherries; potatoes fried with vinegar and sugar; turnips covered with cinnamon; and black pudding "assisted" by baked pears preserved in syrup; potatoes stewed with onions and sugar; French beans fried in brown sugar; and boiled salmon smothered in custard, or a light batter pudding;-all these may appear ingenious, if not generally seductive. After a great many dishes of this kind, the last that comes before the desert, is almost always hot baked mutton with a rich brown sauce, made "thick and slab." The following specimens of Koch-Kunst will also be found interesting :-a duck stuffed with almonds and apples; raw ham with pancakes and salad; potatoes and caraway comfits; a turnip sliced, and made delicious with rock-salt, pepper, and caraways to be eaten with coffee; a hare stuffed with chestnuts, &c. In the matter of poultry, the German cooks have need of all their art, as there is really very little flesh upon the bones of their fowls; and a goose is commonly a mere skeleton, with a gristle and a thick yellow fatty tough skin over it; in fact, an English friend has truly designated it when he said a German goose was just like "a little fiddle in a leathern bag.' The use of blood in many of their dishes is alarming to our notions of refinement, especially as it is made no secret of "the art," but is

openly carried in jugs and cups from slaughter-houses. The legs of mutton are also apt to be very muscular and pipy. The King of Prussia sends to Windsor for his mutton. How gladly would every Englishman in Prussia do the same.

The wines of the country are light, clear, wholesome, and very agreeable, when you get used to the peculiar flavour which most of the best possess. The red wines of Germany are commonly half the price of the white wines. Some of the former are really little better than a rough sort of red ink; others, however, are very good, and not without strength. The poorest of the white wines simply resemble bad vinegar, and a quantity of sugar is sometimes used in drinking it-not generally, though;the eternal pipe qualifies everything. The best of the white wines, whether the high-flavoured hock or Moselle wines, are by no means cheap, in fact the same price as Champagne. The finest of all these white wines costs the merchant himself six shillings a bottle on the very vineyard of its birth. The price of these wines varies, not merely with the district and aspect of its growth, but even with the part of the mountain. Thus, the grapes are not of so rich a quality in the vineyards at the top of the mountain as at its foot, nor at its foot so rich as in the centre. The sun remains longer there, and consequently those grapes contain the most sugar. They draw distinctions in this matter between vineyards that are within a few yards of each other, and apparently with The Schartzberger has by no means the same fine flavour as the Schartzhofberger, though both grow upon the same mountain. We have seen the whole course of the vintage season— wine-making and all-and feel convinced that the distinction is always well founded. Coffee in Germany is very good, and pretty well made; but the tea is always poor, if not detestable. The greatest portion of what is sold for tea, is not tea at all; we have often dried the leaves, and found them to be demonstrable hedge-row impostors. Besides, the water with which it is made does not properly boil; nor can you get really boiling water in Germany, unless you take out a tea-kettle (as they have none) and see to it yourself. The urn they bring you at the hotels never really boils.

reason.

Those hotels only which have been accustomed to the visits and residence of English people, are comfortably habitable to English people. This is the case now with all the principal hotels, and even those of the second class are now aware when they have got a troublesome customer. We would rather have

ten Germans than one Englishman in the house," is a common saying, with reference to the trouble given. No wonder we give trouble where nothing is comfortable or "fit," according to our habits. They say we ought to "conform," as Germans do when they go to England. Yes-well they may conform-it is easy to conform to a nest of clover, as they must surely find our houses after their windy abodes. But let us imagine an Englishman of the middle class, and accustomed-we will not say to the firstrate hotels, but to the best commercial hotels of his own country: let us merely imagine him entering his bed-room in a German inn, and discovering bare boards in the coldest weather, no sort of curtains or hangings to his bed, draughts from windows and crevices all round, a strong smell of stale tobacco-smoke, a towel the size of a shaving-cloth, and a jug and bason no bigger than a milk-jug and slop-bason-or else the water is contained in a winebottle, and to obtain more is of course one of the "troubles " given by an Englishman. Then the landlord and waiters place themselves at once on the most easy, familiar, and indifferent terms with you. We once called at an inn where a certain learned physician lodged. We met the landlord on the stairs. "Is Mr. Doctor L within ?" The landlord passed on, saying, as he disappeared through a door, "I haven't the least idea; you can go and look." Being very busily engaged one day in writing, we paid no attention to the entrance of the waiter, who came in to look after the stove, as it was a cold day at the latter end of autumn. He passed round behind our chair to do something or other, and we continued writing. Presently we began to feel horridly cold, and with a wind cutting into the back of our neck; when, looking round, there was my lord the waiter leaning out of the window, which he had opened for the purpose, laughing and chatting with a girl, who was leaning out of a window from the next house! These sorts of things are of daily occurrence. I allude to the regular German inns and ordinary hotels, which are the true versions of nationality in these respects. I do not allude to the hotels constantly frequented by English families and travellers, for these are "sophisticated." Yet these are all that are described by most of our tourists.

The manners of the Germans are polite, pleasant, cordial, and very ceremonious; not in all respects refined (the contrary in respect of "smoking and spitting," and in some habits at table &c.), but for the most part obliging, and without any of those airs of

pride and superciliousness with which Englishmen are so constantly and so justly taxed. A German, of whatever rank, is pretty sure to return a civil answer to any decent person who addresses him. They converse freely with strangers, and are never averse to begin the conversation, except with an Englishman, because they say, and very truly, that whenever a stranger, (his own countrymen included) speaks first to an Englishman, the "great man" immediately thinks the speaker wants to be acquainted with him, and therefore he will not encourage such familiarity! The German manners may be regarded on the whole as frank, unreserved, and pleasing; but we must except the ladies of the middle class, who are all rather reserved, and "out of doors " abominably so. The style in which a lady of this class receives a salutation from any gentleman in the streets, of whatever country, is like the most chilling and repelling "cut." This is not intended; it is merely thought good style, especially in all small, and therefore scandal-talking towns. As for the younger girls, they pass you in the streets with faces as hard as if carved in wood, and even in cases where the wearers of these faces are well known in the town to belong to no such unimpressible and impregnable fortresses as they would have you believe.

The question of a nation's "morals " is rather a nice subjectin fact, it is always rendered a ticklish matter to discuss “morals" in our own country, by reason of the vulgar limitation of the sense of the term-which vulgarity has now become universal among us. It refers to just one thing. Justice, honour, truthfulness, fair dealing, charitableness, sincerity of feeling-none of these qualities are included. The one thing always meant by "morals is the legal or illegal commerce of the two sexes. Now, with respect to justice and even-handedness among the Germans, we should say that, as a national characteristic, they are more prevalent than in most nations; and the same may be said of honour and truthfulness; but it will be understood by all who have read the previous papers of this series, that we by no means include the Prussian government or its bureaucratical officers in this compliment.* Of

*

A gentleman named Brooks (in all probability an Englishman), had written some account of the Prussian soldiery. He was accused of treachery; seized, tried, and acquitted at Aix. The minister Kamptz (this was during the reign of the present king's father) said he was astonished at such a verdict; had him again seized and brought before the court at Magdeburg, which found him guilty, and he was imprisoned for more than a twelvemonth! But worse than all (as an insult to Justice and a free court), the minister ordered the court at Aix to reverse its decision,-which it was obliged to do!

their fair-dealing in matters of trade we confess we have had very few and slight opportunities of judging. The Germans have the reputation of making clever bargains, and are often said to take unfair advantage when they can safely do so. In the majority of instances, however, we think this accusation will be found to hold good only with the Jews, of whom there are an abundance in Germany. As for making the English "pay double" for many things in the shops, that is not much to be wondered at; and, though it is not right in any case, yet the temptation is hardly to be resisted, because John Bull has such a swaggering way with him-is so determined to have the thing he wants, at any priceis so suspicious of being cheated, which commonly provokes cheating and is, moreover, known to bring over money for the sole purpose of spending it. The Germans are in general very charitable, sincere, and extremely hospitable. If you have a sufficient introduction to a German family, they are pretty sure to welcome you at once, and if they do so afterwards, you may be satisfied that they sincerely mean it. In the matter of "morals," as the term is exclusively understood in England, the greatest hypocrisy prevails in many parts of Germany, and undoubtedly in all small towns, especially small university towns. It is true that the young men, and men in general, are far less licentious than in France, Spain, Italy, and England-for has not the German his pipe? But, notwithstanding this national "sedative and soothing abstraction," there are instances and occasions enough, in which his peccadilloes might be brought to light, to the utter confusion of the grave and denying countenance which is habitually assumed, with reference to all such lawless doings. Nevertheless, there are in the larger cities houses of ill fame regularly licensed-and therefore the "lawless " in morality becomes "lawful" in civic regulations. But the grave offender regards it all as beneath his high character, and has no toleration for it in others who are discovered so to forget their philosophic dignity. We overheard a German gentleman lecture a friend in these words :-"You have lost your character. I don't care how the fact stands; but why did you suffer your folly to be known?" This is a bad condition of morals, it must be admitted; but what nation shall cast "the first stone?" Verily, the world needs a vast deal of rational purification, and the first step to it must be― not a stone-but Truth.

The amusements in Germany are not numerous, nor of an ex