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HOCHHEIM TO FRANCFURT.

and hock is hock; and both are very genteel things to put upon a table."

We descended from Hochheim into a wide extensive plain, not at all picturesque, but highly fertile and interesting to the agriculturist. There were fields where wheat, barley, poppies, and mangel-wurzel had been, but vineyards bore the bell for their number and extent.

Passed through the once-superbly decorated town of Weilbach, where there are sulphur springs. This place, some years ago, made a great noise in the world, but it is now deserted: grass grows in its broad streets, and the gilding on its capacious houses is mouldering and fading from neglect. Some of the buildings deserve a better fate, for they are well built, and even handsome.

Francfurt looked well in the distance, with its towers and steeples, and as we approached it, the busy traffic on the roads, and some handsome suburbs, announced an important commercial city at hand. Indeed the apparent opulence of the neighbourhood of Francfurt exceeds any thing of the kind we saw on the continent. Paris itself has not that metropolitan air about its vicinity.

CHAPTER II.

FRANCFURT.

WE directed our voiturier to drive to the Weidenbusche (Willow-Bush,) an hotel at which I beg every traveller at Francfurt to sojourn. It is a house on a very extensive scale, conducted in a superior style. The table d'hôte is renowned. The day we dined there we sat down ninety in number; and sometimes there are 150. The apartment in which it is held is a hundred feet by fortyfive; and on entering it a stranger is struck with its size, and the splendor of its furniture. From the ceiling thirteen handsome cut-glass chandeliers are suspended; at the upper end is a music gallery, filled during the hours of dinner and supper with excellent musicians, and around the room are a number of classic compositions painted on

the panels of the walls. The table d'hôte was well supplied. We had a dozen courses of fish, flesh, fowl, game, vegetables, and pastry; a bottle of wine, handsome dessert of fruits and confections; and all for two francs, or one shilling and eightpence English. During our elegant repast we enjoyed some airs of Mozart, Weber, and Rossini : : among others we had some from Il Barbiere di Seviglia and Der Freischütz.

We were much pleased with Francfurt. Some of the streets are very capacious, of which that called the Zeil is one of the best in Europe. The houses in some of them are large, and exceedingly well-built. I do not know a town having so many superb hotels; and, without going the length of a recent traveller, who says, "Francfurt may be called a city of palaces," every person acquainted with it must acknowledge it to be an extremely fine town.

There are also a number of very narrow streets, or rather lanes, in the oldest part of the town; in several of which we frequently strolled during our stay, musing and marking as we went, on" this picture and on that."

Commerce appears to be flourishing here, and, if one might judge from the number and excellence of the booksellers' shops, the book trade is amongst

THE GREAT FAIR.

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the foremost. No sooner is a book published in London than it is reprinted in Paris, Liege, Brussels, Francfurt, and other continental towns, and then smuggled into England in vast numbers.

Living is very cheap at Francfurt, and almost every necessary article of clothing reasonable. To a person of small income it must afford a desirable retreat. To-day a bootmaker asked my brother ten francs for a pair of Wellingtons, which in England would have cost thirty francs: a good pair of shoes may be had for five or six francs. In fact, every thing we asked the price of was cheap; and we thought, at one time, of engaging a van, and loading it with all manner of useful apparatus, to make life more comfortable.

The great fair was just commencing, at which assemble merchants from Stockholm and Constantinople-from Tobolsk and Malaga-from the mountains of Karpathia, and from the plains of Holland-from London, Liverpool, Lausanne, and Lisbon-in short, people of all countries in Europe frequent this important and long-established mart. Ranges of booths display the various productions of each nation-one might buy a Norway cloak of fur for the winter; a satin doublet from Spain for the summer; beads for devotion, and dominos for masquerades.

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LIONIZING AT FRANCFURT.

Among other resorts we visited the Exchange, or, as it is called, The Braunfels,

"Where merchants most do congregate ;"

and afterwards strolled to the river, and along the crowded quay, and over the old stone bridge, measuring 1020 feet in length, across the Maine. We then visited the cathedral of St. Bartholomew, in the possession of the Catholics. In it we saw some old curious monuments of German nobility, and several paintings of the ancient German school. We then grew ambitious, and mounted the belfry, 260 feet high; whence we commanded a panoramic view of the surrounding country, and the town at our feet. From it we could appreciate more fully the importance of the town, and the profusion of merchants' residences in the suburbs.

The old round towers, which I mentioned some days ago, marking the boundaries of the ancient territory of Francfurt, were curious and picturesque. In the distance were the mountains of Feldberg and Altköneg, rising 2000 feet above the level of the Maine.

Francfurt contains 40,000 inhabitants, all of which appear to be fully occupied. The Germanic diet holds its sittings here. Francfurt is a free city, having a distinct force of its own; besides which,