THE PURSUIT OF LETTERS

In Köhln, a town of monks and bones,And pavements fanged with murderous stones,And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;I counted two and seventy stenches,All well defined, and several stinks!5Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,The river Rhine, it is well known,Doth wash your city of Cologne;But tell me, Nymphs, what power divineShall henceforth wash the river Rhine?10

S. T. Coleridge.

The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute;But the English makeLettersstill more a pursuit;For a Cockney will go from the banks of the ThamesTo Cologne for anOand to Nassau for M's.

T. Hood.

Farewell, farewell! Before our prowLeaps in white foam the noisy channel;A tourist's cap is on my brow,My legs are cased in tourist's flannel:Around me gasp the invalids—5(The quantity to-night is fearful)I take a brace or so of weeds,And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful.The night wears on:—my thirst I quenchWith one imperial pint of porter;10Then drop upon a casual bench—(The bench is short, but I am shorter)—Place 'neath my head thehavre-sacWhich I have stored my little all in,And sleep, though moist about the back,15Serenely in an old tarpaulin.Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m.Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30,Tickets to Königswinter (mem.The seats objectionably dirty).20And onward through those dreary flatsWe move, with scanty space to sit on,Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats,And waists that paralyse a Briton;—By many a tidy little town,25Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting,(The men's pursuits are, lying down,Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;)And doze, and execrate the heat,And wonder how far off Cologne is,30And if we shall get aught to eat,Till we get there, save raw polonies;Until at last the 'grey old pile'Is seen, is past, and three hours laterWe're ordering steaks, and talking vile35Mock-German to an Austrian waiter.On, on the vessel steals;Round go the paddle wheels,And now the tourist feelsAs he should;40For king-like rolls the Rhine,And the scenery's divine,And the victuals and the wineRather good.From every crag we pass 'll45Rise up some hoar old castle;The hanging fir-groves tasselEvery slope;And the vine her lithe arm stretchesO'er peasants singing catches—50And you'll make no end of sketches,I should hope.We've a nun here (called Therèse),Two couriers out of place,One Yankee with a face55Like a ferret's:And three youths in scarlet capsDrinking chocolate and schnapps—A diet which perhapsHas its merits.60And day again declines:In shadow sleep the vines,And the last ray through the pinesFeebly glows,Then sinks behind yon ridge;65And the usual evening midgeIs settling on the bridgeOf my nose.And keen's the air and cold,And the sheep are in the fold,70And Night walks sable-stoledThrough the trees;And on the silent riverThe floating starbeams quiver;—And now, the saints deliver75Us from fleas.Avenues of broad white houses,Basking in the noontide glare;—Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from,As on hot plates shrinks the bear;—80Elsewhere lawns, and vistaed gardens,Statues white, and cool arcades,Where at eve the German warriorWinks upon the German maids;—Such is Munich:—broad and stately,85Rich of hue, and fair of form;But, towards the end of August,Unequivocallywarm.

Farewell, farewell! Before our prowLeaps in white foam the noisy channel;A tourist's cap is on my brow,My legs are cased in tourist's flannel:

Around me gasp the invalids—5(The quantity to-night is fearful)I take a brace or so of weeds,And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful.

The night wears on:—my thirst I quenchWith one imperial pint of porter;10Then drop upon a casual bench—(The bench is short, but I am shorter)—

Place 'neath my head thehavre-sacWhich I have stored my little all in,And sleep, though moist about the back,15Serenely in an old tarpaulin.

Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m.Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30,Tickets to Königswinter (mem.The seats objectionably dirty).20

And onward through those dreary flatsWe move, with scanty space to sit on,Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats,And waists that paralyse a Briton;—

By many a tidy little town,25Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting,(The men's pursuits are, lying down,Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;)

And doze, and execrate the heat,And wonder how far off Cologne is,30And if we shall get aught to eat,Till we get there, save raw polonies;

Until at last the 'grey old pile'Is seen, is past, and three hours laterWe're ordering steaks, and talking vile35Mock-German to an Austrian waiter.

On, on the vessel steals;Round go the paddle wheels,And now the tourist feelsAs he should;40

For king-like rolls the Rhine,And the scenery's divine,And the victuals and the wineRather good.

From every crag we pass 'll45Rise up some hoar old castle;The hanging fir-groves tasselEvery slope;And the vine her lithe arm stretchesO'er peasants singing catches—50And you'll make no end of sketches,I should hope.

We've a nun here (called Therèse),Two couriers out of place,One Yankee with a face55Like a ferret's:And three youths in scarlet capsDrinking chocolate and schnapps—A diet which perhapsHas its merits.60

And day again declines:In shadow sleep the vines,And the last ray through the pinesFeebly glows,Then sinks behind yon ridge;65And the usual evening midgeIs settling on the bridgeOf my nose.

And keen's the air and cold,And the sheep are in the fold,70And Night walks sable-stoledThrough the trees;And on the silent riverThe floating starbeams quiver;—And now, the saints deliver75Us from fleas.

Avenues of broad white houses,Basking in the noontide glare;—Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from,As on hot plates shrinks the bear;—80

Elsewhere lawns, and vistaed gardens,Statues white, and cool arcades,Where at eve the German warriorWinks upon the German maids;—

Such is Munich:—broad and stately,85Rich of hue, and fair of form;But, towards the end of August,Unequivocallywarm.

C. S. Calverley.

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-landsRise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,5Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;10On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic daysSat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,15By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.20Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.Emigravitis the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;25Dead he is not, but departed,—for the artist never dies.Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.30From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom35In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;40Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye45Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:50Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,The nobility of labour,—the long pedigree of toil.

In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-landsRise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.

Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:

Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,5Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;

And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.

In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;10

On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic daysSat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.

Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;

And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,15By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.

In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;

In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air.20

Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,Lived and laboured Albrecht Dürer, the Evangelist of Art;

Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.

Emigravitis the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;25Dead he is not, but departed,—for the artist never dies.

Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!

Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and dismal lanes,Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains.30

From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.

As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;

Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom35In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.

Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.

But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;40

Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.

And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.

Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye45Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.

Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;But thy painter, Albrecht Dürer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.

Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:50

Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,The nobility of labour,—the long pedigree of toil.

H. W. Longfellow.

I have known cities with the strong-armed RhineClasping their mouldered quays in lordly sweep;And lingered where the Maine's low waters shineThrough Tyrian Frankfort; and been fain to weep'Mid the green cliffs where pale Mosella laves5That Roman sepulchre, imperial Treves.Ghent boasts her street, and Bruges her moonlight square;And holy Mechlin, Rome of Flanders, stands,Like a queen-mother, on her spacious lands;And Antwerp shoots her glowing spire in air.10Yet have I seen no place, by inland brook,Hill-top, or plain, or trim arcaded bowers,That carries age so nobly in its look,As Oxford with the sun upon her towers.

F. W. Faber.

The Spirit of Antiquity—enshrinedIn sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,In picture, speaking with heroic tongue,And with devout solemnities entwined—Mounts to the seat of grace within the mind:5Hence Forms that glide with swan-like ease along,Hence motions, even amid the vulgar throng,To an harmonious decency confined:As if the streets were consecrated ground,The city one vast temple, dedicate10To mutual respect in thought and deed;To leisure, to forbearances sedate;To social cares from jarring passions freed;A deeper peace than that in deserts found!

W. Wordsworth.

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,5Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,Wreaths of snow-white smoke ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.10From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,With their strange unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;15And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;All the Foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.20I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;25I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;30Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,35'I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!'Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roarChased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.40

In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.

As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of widowhood.

Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapours gray,5Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape lay.

At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and there,Wreaths of snow-white smoke ascending, vanished, ghost-like, into air.

Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.10

From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high;And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky.

Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,With their strange unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,

Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir;15And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar.

Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;

All the Foresters of Flanders,—mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.20

I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece of Gold.

Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.

I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;25I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;

And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the queen,And the armèd guard around them, and the sword unsheathed between.

I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;30

Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.

And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;

Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,35'I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!'

Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roarChased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more.

Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.40

H. W. Longfellow.

At Antwerp, there is a low wallBinding the city, and a moatBeneath, that the wind keeps afloat.You pass the gates in a slow drawlOf wheels. If it is warm at all5The Carillon will give you thought.I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,What time the urgent weight of soundAt sunset seems to heave it round.Far up, the Carillon did search10The wind; and the birds came to perchFar under, where the gables wound.In Antwerp harbour on the ScheldtI stood along, a certain spaceOf night. The mist was near my face:15Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.The Carillon kept pause, and dweltIn music through the silent place.At Bruges, when you leave the train,—A singing numbness in your ears,—20The Carillon's first sound appearsOnly the inner moil. AgainA little minute though—your brainTakes quiet, and the whole sense hears.John Memmeling and John Van Eyck25Hold state at Bruges. In sore shameI scanned the works that keep their name.The Carillon, which then did strikeMine ears, was heard of theirs alike;It set me closer unto them.30I climbed at Bruges all the flightThe Belfry has of ancient stone.For leagues I saw the east wind blown:The earth was grey, the sky was white.I stood so near upon the height35That my flesh left the Carillon.

At Antwerp, there is a low wallBinding the city, and a moatBeneath, that the wind keeps afloat.You pass the gates in a slow drawlOf wheels. If it is warm at all5The Carillon will give you thought.

I climbed the stair in Antwerp church,What time the urgent weight of soundAt sunset seems to heave it round.Far up, the Carillon did search10The wind; and the birds came to perchFar under, where the gables wound.

In Antwerp harbour on the ScheldtI stood along, a certain spaceOf night. The mist was near my face:15Deep on, the flow was heard and felt.The Carillon kept pause, and dweltIn music through the silent place.

At Bruges, when you leave the train,—A singing numbness in your ears,—20The Carillon's first sound appearsOnly the inner moil. AgainA little minute though—your brainTakes quiet, and the whole sense hears.

John Memmeling and John Van Eyck25Hold state at Bruges. In sore shameI scanned the works that keep their name.The Carillon, which then did strikeMine ears, was heard of theirs alike;It set me closer unto them.30

I climbed at Bruges all the flightThe Belfry has of ancient stone.For leagues I saw the east wind blown:The earth was grey, the sky was white.I stood so near upon the height35That my flesh left the Carillon.

D. G. Rossetti.

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land,As but the off-scouring of the British sand;And so much earth as was contributedBy English pilots when they heaved the lead;Or what by the ocean's slow alluvion fell,5Of shipwrecked cockle and the mussel-shell;This indigested vomit of the seaFell to the Dutch by just propriety.Glad then, as miners who have found the ore,They, with mad labour, fished the land to shore:And dived as desperately for each piece11Of earth, as if 't had been of ambergris;Collecting anxiously small loads of clay,Less than what building swallows bear away;Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll15Transfusing into them their dunghill soul!How did they rivet, with gigantic piles,Thorough the centre their new-catchèd miles;And to the stake a struggling country bound,Where barking waves still bait the forcèd ground;Building their watery Babel far more high21To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky.Yet still his claim the injured ocean laid,And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples played;As if on purpose it on land had come25To shew them what's theirmare liberum,A daily deluge over them does boil;The earth and water play at level-coil.The fish oft-times the burgher dispossessed,And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest;30And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, sawWhole shoals of Dutch served up for Cabillau;Or, as they over the new level ranged,For pickled herring, pickled heeren changed.

Andrew Marvell.

While with labour assiduous due pleasure I mix,And in one day atone for the business of six,In a little Dutch chaise, on a Saturday night,On my left hand my Horace, a nymph on my right;No memoirs to compose, and no post-boy to move,That on Sunday may hinder the softness of love.6For her neither visits nor parties at tea,Nor the long-winded cant of a dull refugee.This night and the next shall be hers, shall be mine,To good or ill fortune the third we resign.10Thus scorning the world, and superior to fate,I drive in my car in professional state.So with Phia through Athens Pisistratus rode;Men thought her Minerva, and him a new god.But why should I stories of Athens rehearse15Where people knew love, and were partial to verse,Since none can with justice my pleasures opposeIn Holland half-drownèd in interest and prose?By Greece and past ages what need I be triedWhen The Hague and the present are both on my side;20And is it enough for the joys of the dayTo think what Anacreon or Sappho would say?When good Vandergoes and his provident vrow,As they gaze on my triumph do freely allow,That, search all the province, you'll find no man dar is25So blest as the Englishen Heer Secretar' is.

M. Prior.

The Hague, 1696.

I gaze upon a city,A city new and strange;Down many a watery vistaMy fancy takes a range;From side to side I saunter,5And wonder where I am;—And canyoube in England,And I at Rotterdam!Before me lie dark waters,In broad canals and deep,10Whereon the silver moonbeamsSleep, restless in their sleep;A sort of vulgar VeniceReminds me where I am,—Yes, yes, you are in England,15And I'm at Rotterdam.Tall houses with quaint gables,Where frequent windows shine,And quays that lead to bridges,And trees in formal line,20And masts of spicy vessels,From distant Surinam,All tell me you're in England,And I'm in Rotterdam.Those sailors,—how outlandish25The face and garb of each!They deal in foreign gestures,And use a foreign speech;A tongue not learned near Isis,Or studied by the Cam,30Declares that you're in England,But I'm at Rotterdam.And now across a marketMy doubtful way I trace,Where stands a solemn statue,35The Genius of the place;And to the great ErasmusI offer my salaam,—Who tells me you're in England,And I'm at Rotterdam.40The coffee-room is open,I mingle in its crowd;The dominoes are rattling,The hookahs raise a cloud;A flavour, none of Fearon's,45That mingles with my dram,Reminds me you're in England,But I'm in Rotterdam,Then here it goes, a bumper,—The toast it shall be mine.50In Schiedam, or in Sherry,Tokay, or Hock of Rhine,—It well deserves the brightestWhere sunbeam ever swam,—'The girl I love in England,'55I drink at Rotterdam!

I gaze upon a city,A city new and strange;Down many a watery vistaMy fancy takes a range;From side to side I saunter,5And wonder where I am;—And canyoube in England,And I at Rotterdam!

Before me lie dark waters,In broad canals and deep,10Whereon the silver moonbeamsSleep, restless in their sleep;A sort of vulgar VeniceReminds me where I am,—Yes, yes, you are in England,15And I'm at Rotterdam.

Tall houses with quaint gables,Where frequent windows shine,And quays that lead to bridges,And trees in formal line,20And masts of spicy vessels,From distant Surinam,All tell me you're in England,And I'm in Rotterdam.

Those sailors,—how outlandish25The face and garb of each!They deal in foreign gestures,And use a foreign speech;A tongue not learned near Isis,Or studied by the Cam,30Declares that you're in England,But I'm at Rotterdam.

And now across a marketMy doubtful way I trace,Where stands a solemn statue,35The Genius of the place;And to the great ErasmusI offer my salaam,—Who tells me you're in England,And I'm at Rotterdam.40

The coffee-room is open,I mingle in its crowd;The dominoes are rattling,The hookahs raise a cloud;A flavour, none of Fearon's,45That mingles with my dram,Reminds me you're in England,But I'm in Rotterdam,

Then here it goes, a bumper,—The toast it shall be mine.50In Schiedam, or in Sherry,Tokay, or Hock of Rhine,—It well deserves the brightestWhere sunbeam ever swam,—'The girl I love in England,'55I drink at Rotterdam!

T. Hood.

No plainer truth appears,Our most important are our earliest years;The mind, impressible and soft, with easeImbibes and copies what she hears and sees,And through life's labyrinth holds fast the clue5That education gives her, false or true.Plants raised with tenderness are seldom strong;Man's coltish disposition asks the thong;And, without discipline, the favourite child,Like a neglected forester, runs wild.10But we, as if good qualities would growSpontaneous, take but little pains to sow;We give some Latin, and a smatch of Greek;Teach him to fence and figure twice a week;And, having done, we think, the best we can,15Praise his proficiency, and dub him man.From school to Cam or Isis, and thence home;And thence, with all convenient speed, to Rome,With reverend tutor, clad in habit lay,To tease for cash, and quarrel with, all day;20With memorandum-book for every town,And every post, and where the chaise broke down;His stock, a few French phrases got by heart;With much to learn, but nothing to impart,The youth, obedient to his sire's commands,25Sets off a wanderer into foreign lands.Surprised at all they meet, the gosling pair,With awkward gait, stretched neck, and silly stare,Discover huge cathedrals, built with stone,And steeples towering high, much like our own;30But show peculiar light by many a grinAt popish practices observed within.Ere long, some bowing, smirking, smart abbé,Remarks two loiterers that have lost their way;And, being always primed withpolitesse35For men of their appearance and address,With much compassion undertakes the taskTo tell them—more than they have wit to ask:Points to inscriptions wheresoe'er they tread,Such as, when legible, were never read,40But, being cankered now, and half worn out,Craze antiquarian brains with endless doubt;Some headless hero, or some Caesar shows—Defective only in his Roman nose;Exhibits elevations, drawings, plans,45Models of Herculanean pots and pans;And sells them medals, which, if neither rareNor ancient, will be so, preserved with care.Strange the recital! from whatever causeHis great improvement and new lights he draws,50The squire, once bashful, is shame-faced no more,But teems with powers he never felt before;Whether increased momentum, and the forceWith which from clime to clime he sped his course,(As axles sometimes kindle as they go)55Chafed him, and brought dull nature to a glow;Or whether clearer skies and softer air,That make Italian flowers so sweet and fair,Freshening his lazy spirits as he ran,Unfolded genially, and spread the man;60Returning, he proclaims, by many a grace,By shrugs, and strange contortions of his face,How much a dunce that has been sent to roamExcels a dunce that has been kept at home.

W. Cowper.

Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternestBut the surest teacher is the heart;Studying that and that alone, thou learnestBest and soonest whence and what thouart.Time, not travel, 'tis which gives us ready5Speech, experience, prudence, tact, and wit.Far more light the lamp that bideth steadyThan the wandering lantern dothemit.Moor, Chinese, Egyptian, Russian, Roman,Tread one common down-hill path of doom;10Everywhere the names are Man and Woman,Everywhere the old sad sins findroom.Evilangels tempt us in all places.What but sands or snows hath earth to give?Dream not, friend, of deserts and oases,15But look inwards, and begin tolive!

Traverse not the globe for lore! The sternestBut the surest teacher is the heart;Studying that and that alone, thou learnestBest and soonest whence and what thouart.

Time, not travel, 'tis which gives us ready5Speech, experience, prudence, tact, and wit.Far more light the lamp that bideth steadyThan the wandering lantern dothemit.

Moor, Chinese, Egyptian, Russian, Roman,Tread one common down-hill path of doom;10Everywhere the names are Man and Woman,Everywhere the old sad sins findroom.

Evilangels tempt us in all places.What but sands or snows hath earth to give?Dream not, friend, of deserts and oases,15But look inwards, and begin tolive!

J. C. Mangan.

Had Cain been Scot, God would have changed his doom,—Not forced him wander, but confined him home.

J. Cleveland.

The gauger walked with willing foot,And aye the gauger played the flute;And what should Master Gauger playButOver the hills and far away?Whene'er I buckle on my pack5And foot it gaily in the track,O pleasant gauger, long since dead,I hear you fluting on ahead.You go with me the self-same way—The self-same air for me you play;10For I do think and so do you,It is the tune to travel to.For who would gravely set his faceTo go to this or t'other place?There's nothing under Heav'n so blue15That's fairly worth the travelling to.On every hand the roads begin,And people walk with zeal therein;But whereso'er the highways tend,Be sure there's nothing at the end.20Then follow you, wherever hieThe travelling mountains of the sky.Or let the streams in civil modeDirect your choice upon a road;For one and all, or high or low,25Will lead you where you wish to go;And one and all go night and dayOver the hills and far away!

The gauger walked with willing foot,And aye the gauger played the flute;And what should Master Gauger playButOver the hills and far away?

Whene'er I buckle on my pack5And foot it gaily in the track,O pleasant gauger, long since dead,I hear you fluting on ahead.

You go with me the self-same way—The self-same air for me you play;10For I do think and so do you,It is the tune to travel to.

For who would gravely set his faceTo go to this or t'other place?There's nothing under Heav'n so blue15That's fairly worth the travelling to.

On every hand the roads begin,And people walk with zeal therein;But whereso'er the highways tend,Be sure there's nothing at the end.20

Then follow you, wherever hieThe travelling mountains of the sky.Or let the streams in civil modeDirect your choice upon a road;

For one and all, or high or low,25Will lead you where you wish to go;And one and all go night and dayOver the hills and far away!

R. L. Stevenson.

The difficulty has been to select from a wealth of poems with which volumes could have been filled. Indeed three collections dealing exclusively with Greece, with Italy, and with Switzerland have already been published by the Oxford University Press. In this volume the traveller is not confined to one country, and he is not asked to drag a lengthening chain beyond the limits of Europe. Here are some poems about travel generally, and then country by country a grand tour is traced. My obligation to the authors or owners of copyright poems is duly acknowledged with grateful thanks.

P.7.Clough.—The opening lines ofAmours de Voyage.

P.7.Tennyson.—A few lines only fromUlysses.

P.8.Goldsmith.—FromThe Traveller.

P.11.Bridges.—By kind permission of the Poet Laureate and Messrs. Smith, Elder.

Pp.12and13.Arnold.—FromStanzas composed at CarnacandStanzas from the Grande Chartreuse.

Pp.20and21.Tennyson.—The passage fromOenoneand the idyll fromThe Princessare given here because their imagery was inspired by the Pyrenees, which the poet repeatedly visited, first of all in 1830 with Hallam, intending to aid in the Spanish revolt against Ferdinand VII. Tennyson also spent some time in the Pyrenees with Clough in 1861. It is Hallam who is referred to inIn the Valley of Cauteretz, a poem which Tennyson selected to write in Queen Victoria's album. Swinburne has praised 'the solemn sweetness' of these 'majestic verses'.

P.25.Byron.—FromChilde Harold's Pilgrimage, canto i, 18 and 19.

P.26.Godley.—By permission of the author and Messrs. Methuen.

P.29.Butler.—By permission of Mrs. A. G. Butler. The poem originally appeared inThe Timesshortly after the Matterhorn accident in 1865.

P.31.Hardy.—By permission of the author and Messrs. Macmillan.

Pp.32and33.Watts-Dunton.—By kind permission of the author, given shortly before his death.

P.35.Arnold.—The first portion is fromStanzas in Memory of the Author of 'Obermann'(Étienne Pivert de Senancour); the second fromObermann once More, composed many years afterwards.

P.38.Symonds.—By permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder.

P.47.Byron.—FromChilde Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iv, 73, 74, and 75.

P.48.Clough.—The concluding lines of the introduction to canto iii ofAmours de Voyage.

P.51.Rogers.—FromItaly.

P.52.Shelley.—FromLines written among the Euganean Hills.

P.53.Byron.—FromChilde Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iv, 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, and 13.

P.56.Byron.—FromChilde Harold's Pilgrimage, canto iv, stanzas 48, 49.

P.60.Byron.—FromManfred, act III, sc. iv.

P.62.Hardy.—FromWessex Poems, etc.By permission of the author and Messrs. Macmillan.

P.64.Clough.—FromAmours de Voyage, canto iii. There is a note to line 8:

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