lightning makes visible-who is there among us that has not fancied he has caught a shadow of the wrath, and a momentary glimmering of the mercy, of the Almighty?

Impressed with these hackneyed feelings, 1 slowly returned to my nook, and all being obscure, except just the red rough countenance of the helmsman, feebly illuminated by the light in the binnacle, I laid myself down, and sometimes nodding a little and sometimes dosing, I enjoyed for many hours a sort of half sleep, of which I stood in no little need.

As soon as we had crossed the Brill, the vessel being at once in smooth water, the passengers successively emerged from their graves below, until, in a couple of hours, their ghastly countenances all were on deck.

A bell, as if in hysterics, now rung most violently, as a signal to the town of Rotterdam. The word of command, "STOP HER!" was loudly vociferated by a bluff, short, Dirk Hatteraick-looking pilot, who had come on board off the Brill. "Stop her!" was just heard faintly echoed from below, by the invisible exhausted sallow being who had had, during the voyage, charge of the engine. The paddles, in obedience to the mandate, ceased-then gave two turns ceased, turned once again— paused, gave one last struggle, when, our voyage being over, the vessel's side slightly bumped against the pier. With a noise like one of Congreve's rockets, the now useless steam was immediately exploded by the pale being below, and, in a few seconds, half the passengers were seen on shore, hurrying in different directions about a town full of canals and spiritshops.

"Compared with Greece and Italy-Holland is but a platter-faced, cold gin-and-water country, after-all!" said I to myself, as I entered the great gate of the Hotel des Pays Bas;,,and a heavy, barge-built, web-footed race are its inhabitants," I added, as I passed a huge amphibious wench on the stairs, who, with her stern towards me, was sluicing the windows with water: "however, there is fresh air, and that, with solitude, is all I here desire!" This frail sentimental sentence was hardly concluded, when a Dutch waiter (whose figure I will not misrepresent by calling him "garçon,") popped a long carte, or bill of fare, into my hands, which severely reproved me for having many other wants besides those so simply expressed in my soliloquy.

As I did not feel equal to appearing in public, I had dinner apart in my own room; and, as soon as I came to that part of the ceremony called dessert, I gradually raised my eyes from the field of battle, until, leaning backwards in my chair to ruminate, I could not help first admiring, for a few moments, the height and immense size of an apartment, in which there seemed to be elbow-room for a giant.

Close before the window was the great river upon whose glassy surface I had often and often been a traveller; and, flowing beneath me, it occurred to me, as I sipped my wine, that in its transit, or course of existence, it had attained at Rotterdam, as nearly as possible, the same period in its life as my own. Its birth, its froward infancy, and its wayward youth, were remote distances to which even fancy could now scarcely re-transport us. In its full vigour, the Rhine had

been doomed turbulently to struggle with difficulties and obstructions which had seemed almost capable of arresting it in its course; and if there was now nothing left in its existence worth admiring-if its best scenery had vanished-if its boundaries had become flat and its banks insipid, still there was an expansion in its broader surface, and a deep-settled stillness in its course, which seemed to offer tranquillity instead of ecstasy, and perfect contentment instead of imperfect joy. I felt that in the whole course of the river there was no part of it I desired to exchange for the water slowly flowing before me; and though it must very shortly, I knew, be lost in the ocean, that great emblem of eternity, yet in everylyard of its existence that fate had been foretold to it.

Not feeling disposed again so immediately to endure the confinement of a vessel, I walked out, and succeeded in hiring a carriage, which, in two days, took me to Cologne, and the following morning I accordingly embarked, at six o'clock, in a steam-boat, which was to reach Coblenz in eleven hours.

As everybody, now-a-days, has been up the Rhine, I will only say, that I started in a fog, and, for a couple of hours, was very coolly enveloped in it. My compagnons de voyage were tricolored - Dutch, German, and French; and, excepting always myself, there was nothing English -nothing, at least, but a board, which sufficiently explained the hungry insatiable inquisitiveness of our travellers. The black thing hung near the tiller, and upon it there was painted, in white letters, the following sentence, which I copied literatim:

"Enfering any conversation with the Steersner and Pilotes is desired to be forborn."

On account of the fog, we could see nothing, yet, once or twice, we steered towards the tinkling invitation of a bell; stopped for a momenttook in passengers, and proceeded. The manner in which these Rhine steam-vessels receive and deliver passengers, carriages, and horses, is most admirable: at each little village, the birth of a new traveller, or the death or departure of an old one, does not detain the vessel ten seconds; but the little ceremony being over, on it instantly proceeds, worming and winding its way towards its destination.

Formerly, and until lately, a few barges, towed by horses, were occasionally seen toiling against the torrent of the Rhine, while immense rafts of timber curiously connected together, floated indolently downwards to their market: in history, therefore, this uncommercial river was known principally for its violence, its difficulties, and its dangers. Excepting to the painter, its points most distinguished were those where armies had succeeded in crossing, or where soldiers had perished in vainly attempting to do so; but the power of steam, bringing its real character into existence, has lately developed peaceful properties which it was not known to have possessed. The stream which once relentlessly destroyed mankind, now gives to thousands their bread;-that which once separated nations, now brings them together;— national prejudices, which, it was once impiously argued, this river was wisely intended to maintain, are, by its waters, now softened and decomposed: in short, the Rhine affords another proof

that there is nothing really barren in creation but man's conceptions; nothing defective but his own judgment, and that what he looked upon as a barrier in Europe, was created to become one of the great pavés of the world!

As the vessel proceeded towards Coblenz, it continually paused in its fairy course, apparently to barter and traffic in the prisoners it contained, -sometimes stopping off one little village, it exchanged an infirm old man for two country girls; and then, as if laughing at its bargain, gaily proceeding, it paused before another picturesque hamlet, to give three Prussian soldiers of the 36th regiment for a husband, a mother, and a child; once it delivered an old woman, and got nothing; then, luckily, it received two carriages for a horse, and next it stopped a second to take up a tall, thin, itinerant poet, who, as soon as he had collected from every passenger a small contribution, for having recited two or three little pieces, was dropped at the next village, ready to board the steam-vessel coming down from Mainz.

In one of these cartels, or exchanges of prisoners, we received on board Sir- -and Ladya young fashionable English couple, who having had occasion, a fortnight before, to go together to St. George's Church, had (like dogs suffering from hydrophobia or tin canisters) been running straight forwards ever since. As hard as they could drive, they had posted to Dover, hurried across to Calais-thence to Brussels--snapped a glance at the ripe corn waving on the field of Waterloo,-stared at the relies of that great Saint old Charlemagne, on the high altar of Aix-la-Chapelle, and at last sought for rest and connubial