PEARLS FROM POPISH PLACES.

BY A SERIOUS PARTY.

LETTER V.-To MRS. RUSTLER.

Cologne, -th, 1846.

FOR the pause which has elapsed since last this throbbing heart claimed the sympathy of friendship, I could offer countless elucidations, were it needful. Perpetually has Mr. Pecker been extending his urgency that your Diana should devote herself, while on this interesting ramble, exclusively to the arena of the public. Tinglebury, he asserted, waited to pronounce its judgment on The Rhine, until we had taken an ample survey. Then, there was "The Fiery Furnace" on tiptoe for the real truth as regarded that sink of superstitious splendours, the Cathedral at Cologne; the collection of appalling facts to be brought forward on the Fifth of November having been committed-like the bowstring and the scimitar of the Secret Tribunals of Bessarabia (vide "Cross on the Crescent")-to my feeble hands; which, believe me, shrunk before its weightiness! For, my love, it is but the Sluggard who declines to discover duties in the running brooks and the stones of the tourist's field of research. Nor has private incident been wanting to support Public Duty in the destruction of that leisure which Tenderness loves to consecrate to distant Amity! If many, by the grace of * * * *, be led to remember the Autumn, when the Peckers and my humble self assumed the staff: ourselves are not the individuals who are likely to forget the epoch. Again and again have I said, while Vicissitude has been ramifying its approaches, and Trial poising above us, "This 'tis to live!" This, "Those emanations to know,

Which link us to Th' Immortal!"

But cease, fond prelude! Let me record events in their due procession!

Hardly had we arrived at Cologne, when the nervous attack, on the verge of which Mrs. Pecker had been vibrating ever since we quitted Albion's snowy cliffs, burst forth with preternatural vehemence the occasion, this. Our Brother's scientific eagerness

is no secret; nor the original grasp with which he manages to lay hold on every subject-throwing light into obscure chasms and corners undreamed of by pristine inventors. Occupied, as he has been, throughout the whole of his honourable career, in thwarting the materialists, you are aware-are you not, beloved Mrs. Rustler? of his idea with regard to the Prophetic Writings. Successively has he deduced from ****, the use of Tobacco and the Silkworm--the discovery of the Potato-clear visions of gas, balloons, the latter-day encroachments of Steam, et ceteris. I, who have been allowed to bear humble and suggestive company with him through these mysteries, can assert, that when his work is done, the theme will be closed-scoffers silenced, and * * * *. It is no idea of yesterday, with him, that the universal acceptation of Cotton has a deep pregnancy; being especially referred to ****. "Who can doubt, indeed," he has often said, "that Manchester is a Bottomless Pit; the existence of which is permitted as a hissing and a humiliation?" ***. Is it for nothing," he will ask another day, "that the strong frame of our Constitution has been broken in pieces by the rotatory Jenny ?-that it is among Calicos, that the conspiracy was hatched, which has deprived Britain's isle of her bulwarks in the Corn Laws-and delivering her bound into the hands of Cobden, made the way easy for Latitudinarian Triumph or Roman insidiosity-since, the balance taken away, what stable hope is left us?" Call this not visionary join not the Podds in accusing us of irreverence! We are not alone in our defence of The Ark. Remarkable is the time ****. You will judge, then, of the thrilling solemnity with which, thus far advanced, Mr. Pecker learned the new discovery by which the plant he deems destined to play such a wondrous part, is converted from a vehicle of clothing, into an engine of War's Artillery. "This Cottonpowder," said he, "Sister Rill, is a precious link in the chain of interpretation. The Destroying Angel" ****. But the

66

* Here, more largely than elsewhere, has the Editor thought it fit to suppress certain passages. There is no topic on which Miss Rill and her friends are more ingenious and triumphant than the interpretation of the Prophecies; but the subject is too serious, and their speculations too sublime for these pages. The zeal and familiarity with which every modern incident and circumstance is "improved," however welcome to those of "The Fiery Furnace," will strike others "further from the oven," as more startling than reverent. Nay, they (and not Miss Rill's playmates) may this time accuse the Editor of interpolating exaggerations not her own; so flagrant must such presumption seem to all save those who have "graduated." Yet,

burst of these new and awful views, proved too much for his less elevated partner. Once convinced of the capacity of the veget able for explosion, there was, for her, little more security! In vain I endeavoured to administer the strengthenings of Reason; to explain to her, that until the production had undergone the pyroligneous process, its integrity was unchanged-and even, after, required a percussion, it is not in the nature of common chances to administer, ere peril was to be apprehended. In vain did Mr. Pecker propose a system of experiments to afford her visual proof of the unsubstantiality of her imaginary terrors. To divest herself and party, of every filament of the obnoxious material, became her ruling and instantaneous desire. Our interior wardrobes (Delicacy precluding greater explicitude) must needs be ransacked then and there. Imbued with a conviction of the malice of the Nibletts, "how did we know," she said, "to what extent they might not have tampered with any Calico article passing through the wash enough to annoy, if not to extinguish life? No, she could never endure the thought of Cotton coming near her, in any shape, again!"

*

There was no smiling at this morbidity of fancy. "A spider," as Dr. Johnson has observed, " may become a camel, apprehensiveness permitting;" and a thread-simple utensil of a sempstress-the train by which a Faux prosecutes his daring inquiries. The Electrical Telegraph," she continued, "was bad enough: though she hoped the earthquakes it must ultimately diffuse would not happen in her time!"* * But this new appliance of the Destroying Angel came yet nearer to all of us **** and how to cope with it, baffled precaution. Thus precipitously her fears did hurry her on-suggesting moreen sheets-the perpetual use of bandanna next the skin-napkins of flannel (since three parts of the linen made, she is sure, ever since O'Connell got the upper hand in Ireland, is Cotton)—and a thousand other expedients. Never have I known her nocturnal vigilancy so active, conjointly with discomfiture originating from Teutonic cookery-where the sour and the sweet and the savoury are alternated with an insensate disregard for all legitimate sequence. Her excited imagination,

Mr. Pecker's "pleasant freedoms" with Holy Writ are, surely, slight, compared with others recently put forth :-to go no further, than the sermon delivered at Liverpool by the Rev. H. McNeile, on the occasion of the visit of H. R. H. The Prince Albert ; and since published, "by desire."

in short, only needed “the last feather" to take the form of active malady: and this was supplied by the arrival, at our Hotel, of the German Professor, who has converted the contents of the Transatlantic pod from innocent clothing into a weapon of Death. Unluckily our sister was acquainted with this when we were abroad, taking notes on the Cathedral, with a view to the formation of a Suspension Society, which shall put a stop to the unhallowed work going on. An officious waiter, under pretext of the beguilement of solitary leisure, informed Mrs. Pecker that the Great Philosopher was in the next room, with his pockets full of the substance-nay, proudly produced a piece, solicited for her peculiar entertainment. The nail was struck: the chord rent. Terror asserted its sway-hysteries supervened-wailings of a most distressing order; and several days of fever-not the last, Mr. Pecker says, which will follow the outpourings of the Viol. Unlike your Diana, to whom the Martyr's crown were welcome as a garniture, too gentle is she to partake of the unfolding of momentous mysteries. Openly does she confess her repinings for Tinglebury, and her aversion of a land, which, under Science's severe mask, has produced a scourge so condign-turning the bulrush of the plain into the destroyer of myriads. The task of pacification was long and weary: perplexed by the efforts of our attendant Sophie, whose appealings to reason, maliciously reiterated, had all the distastefulness certain to be communicated by her peculiar opinions, * and served

merely to exasperate. Even Mr. Pecker's experiments into the real nature and properties of Eau de Cologne (which in happier days had so rivetted her) failed to divert the apprehensive current. The bare mention of an experiment was sure to originate the anxious question: "Will it blow up?"-followed by tears, the rejection of food, and a sleepless night.

You will hardly believe, however penetrated by the ingratitude of those holding her fatal opinions, that this was the moment selected by the attendant of our bounty to heap on us the insult of departure from our service! So it was, however. In spite of Sophie's manifest inutility, and the retrograde progress in French made by Mr. Pecker and myself, it was our intention to admit her attentions so far as Frankfort. Our sister's refusal to comfort herself, without the presence of an attendant of resolute wakefulness, was not to be met by any steps on my part. After the fatiguing services of the day, enjoined upon me by the important responsibilities with

of

*

which Mr. Peeker had solemnly charged me, the downy pillow became essential. For Cologne, you know, is the head-quarters "clearly pointed out," says Mr. Pecker, in Nor was the visit of Britannia's Sovereign an apple fortuitously falling to the ground. Connect H.M.'s call (on the arm of H. R. H. the Prince) to the Bishop of Bonn with the irruptions of the Papistical Spirit which have decimated our own Universities; nor forget, in addition to these portents, the new engine of death elicited by German Science; and you will judge of the complexity of our field, and the accuracy of observation required by those determined on unmasking the Jesuit, and dispersing his machinery to the winds. With that intention, we are drawing up a cheap resumption of the History of this devoted place; to appear contemporaneously with Mrs. Jameson's Memoirs of St. Ursula and the Wise Virgins. Not a fact will be left unnoticed the crane hoisted on the building by the Magi; the eleven thousand massacred by the Roman Prætor, whose ashes strewed the Rhine, during which time a perpetual cloud (as of blood) obscured the face of Nature. **** Long ago, in one of his sportive moments, did Mr. Henry Blackadder foretel that your poor friend would take the initiative among the authoresses of the gentler sex. Had they not left Wailford (you said, lured by our example to a Continental Excursion) I would have begged you to remind him of his prophecy and its impending fulfilment. Who knows but we may meet by the banks of the Rhenish river? My thoughts, believe me, cling to old friends.

Apart from divarication, however, the ill-concealed complaints of Sophie had for some days given us serious uneasiness. Dissimulating, too, she assumed a debility, which she warned us must put an end to nocturnal attendances. Mr. Pecker proposed snuff as an incentive to vigilance; but even the consequences of that, however slightly explosive, were more than the timorous nerves of his partner could bear. The knot was cut otherwise. Returning home the day before yesterday, after a visit to the Museum, where Bendemann's magic pencil exalts the soul, and the Antique Medusa's head thrills the gaze with perspiring horror, we were aware of an unusual bustle in the hall of the Hotel Royal. Arrivals being always interesting to the Exile, Mr. Pecker and myself loitered on the skirts of this, as usual! Imagine, dearest Mrs. Rustler, my sentiments on perceiving our attendant-in the midst of a miscellaneous company of porters, packages, waiters