to the delicious effect of atmosphere: perhaps my very malady has made me more susceptible to influences of the kind. I feel a kind of intoxication of the heart, as I draw in the pure air of the mountains; and the clear, transparent atmosphere, the steady, serene, golden sunshine, seems to enter into my very soul. There seem to be no caprices in this weather. Day succeeds to day of glorious sunshine. The sun rises bright and clear, rolls all day through a deep blue sky, and sets all night without a cloud. There are no chills, no damps; no sulky mist to take one by surprise, or mar the enjoyment of the open air.

Awaiting his arrival at Heidelberg, which he had expected to reach much earlier, when he set out on his tour, Mr. Irving found the following letter.

From Thomas Moore.

MY DEAR IRVING:

August 5, 1822.

I have been so deplorably lazy about writing to you, that I fear I am now too late to catch you at Heidelberg, and lest it should be the fate of my letter to die in the Dead Letter office of a German town (“la plus morte mort" as Montaigne calls it, that I can imagine), I will only venture two or three hasty lines, to tell you that we are all quite well, and full of delight at the idea of seeing you here in autumn. I have taken up a subject for a poem since I came to Passy, and nearly finished it-only about twelve or thirteen hundred lines in all, which I shall publish singly. Bessy has been for some weeks (with that "John Bull," as Tom now calls himself,) at Montmorenci, drinking the waters. I will just give you

an extract from a letter I received from her yesterday, because I think it is about as good criticism as is to be had (for love at least, whatever there may be for money), now-a-days. "I have just finished Bracebridge Hall, and am more than ever delighted with the author. How often he touches the heart! at least mine." I think you will agree with me that the modesty of this last limitation is such as critics would do well to imitate oftener. "Parlez pour vous" would dispel the illusions of the plurality exceedingly.

I want you very much here, and often express my wants aloud, though I have not Mrs. Story to give her gentle echo to them. She complains in her last letter to Bessy, that she has no longer any traces of your existence in the world. I could scribble a good deal more, now I have begun, but having the fear of that Epistolary Death at Heidelberg before my eyes, I must stop short, and am, my dear Irving,

Ever faithfully yours,

THOMAS MOORE.

At the receipt of this letter, Mr. Irving was undetermined which way to direct his course, whether to return to Paris, where Moore was expecting to welcome him; to make a tour in the country of the Black Forest, or to strike into the interior of Germany and pass his winter in Dresden or Vienna. Not three weeks before he set out on his tour, he had written to Brevoort:

I shall leave London in two or three weeks for the continent, and so soon as I have reinstated my health, I shall make a hasty tour, that I have been contemplating for several

years past when that is accomplished, I shall have one grand obstacle removed to my return home; and will endeavor to arrange my concerns so as once more to see my native land, which is daily becoming dearer and dearer to my imagination, as the lapse of time gives it all the charms of distance.

Yet so it was, with this purpose constantly in his thoughts, years were to roll by before he should again revisit its shores.

CHAPTER VI.

LETTERS TO MRS. VAN WART-HEIDELBERG-BADEN-OLD CASTLE-SUBTERRANEAN APARTMENTS-SECRET TRIBUNAL-Pays d'or-Strasbourg-ADIEU TO THE RHINE-THE BLACK FOREST-ULM-THE FIELD OF BLENHEIM-MUNICH -EUGENE BEAUHARNOIS-TRANSLATION OF SKETCH BOOK-BRACEBRIDGE HALL -SALZBURG-VIENNA—THE YOUNG NAPOLEON-CASTLE OF DUNSTEIN-CONVENT OF GOTTWIED.

I

BRING together some further extracts from letters to his sister, Mrs. Van Wart:

his

Sept. 20th. I have been three days at Heidelberg, and have passed the time very pleasantly. This is a famous little old town, situated just at the entrance of a narrow valley, between steep mountains. The Neckar, a clear, beautiful river, flows by it, and between the mountains you look out over a vast, rich plain, through which the Neckar winds its course to the Rhine; and the distant horizon is bounded by Mont Tonnere, and the high Vosges mountains that wave along the frontiers of France. On a hill which rises immediately above Heidelberg, are the ruins of the old castle, one of the most splendid and extensive ruins in Germany. There is a public garden and fine shady walks laid out along the brow of the hill, all about the old castle, from whence you have charming views over the plain of the Rhine, and up the valley of the

Neckar. I have received the most hospitable attentions from Count Jennison, who resides at this place, to whom I brought letters from his friends in England. He is a very elegant and agreeable man, and speaks English as perfectly as an Englishman. He was Grand Chamberlain to the late King of Wurtemberg, and was once minister to the Court of St. James, where he married an English lady of rank. His daughters speak English, and the family is very amiable and agreeable. As it is the fashion here, to dine at one o'clock, we have long afternoons, which in this serene golden season, are delightful. Count Jennison has taken us out each afternoon in an open carriage, and shown us some of the loveliest prospects in this enchanting neighborhood. We have likewise made the acquaintance of a young Silesian prince, and Count Shoenberg, a young Saxon nobleman, who both reside in the same hotel with us, so that we have plenty of society and amusement. As this neighborhood abounds with old castles, famous in legend and goblin tale, and the country is wonderfully diversified by wild and rich scenery, you may imagine how delightful every little excursion must be. I am now so much recovered from my lameness, as to be able to take long walks among the hills, and to scramble among the ruins of old castles, and I find the exercise has a fine effect upon my general health. There is a good bathing house opposite the hotel, where I take a tepid bath every morning, medicated with sulphuret of potasse, which I find to be extremely efficacious.

[To Mrs. Sarah Van Wart.]

MY DEAR SISTER:

HANSACK (BLACK FOREST), Oct. 3, 1822.

My last letter was written from Heidelberg, which place I left on the 30th September in company with Capt. Wemyss,