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haughty Cartesianism, and numerous and bitter dislikes, rather revolt us; and we cannot forget, that her mother's pen is never dipped in gall, except for her gratification. Madame de Sévigné was thoroughly sweet-blooded. Even when she best ridicules Mademoiselle de Plexis, and most reviles Madame de Marans, we feel that she is only ill-natured out of good-nature, and that there is not a spark of real malice in her heart. There was too much of love and of natural piety there to leave room for hatred. For any sake,' she says to her daughter on one occasion, ' don't let us take the burden of a hatred upon our shoulders: 'tis a weary load.' And so it would have been to her; but the daughter's less healthy nature required the bitter stimulant, and the tender mother was too indulgent always to withhold it.

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There are many opinions among Madame de Sévigné's greatest admirers, as to what constituted the main secret of her great attraction. One places it in her perfect womanliness; another, in her abandon; another, in the largeness of her faculties, in her having carried to the highest perfection all the ordinary talents proper to her sex ;' and yet another, in the unconscious art with which she communicates her own ease, wit, and natural grace to those with whom she converses a miraculous gift indeed, and one which, to use her own words, ought one day to gain her a statue.' Sir James Macintosh thinks that her great charm lay in her natural virtue; and certainly nobody so impulsive was ever so often in the right; for in her the clear intellect as constantly and intuitively directed the heart, as the heart the intellect, and from such union and perfect accord must ever come the finest moral harmonies. And Mr Hunt, last and best, pronounces it to lie in her truth; finely adding: Truth, wit, and animal spirits, compose the secret of her delightfulness; but truth, above all, for it is that which shews all the rest to be true.' But in whichever of these directions lay the cause, there is no doubt as to the effect— that she does charm us-that we heartily love her; better perhaps than her wit, better than her good sense, vivacity, and fine tastebetter even than her virtue; and since it is so difficult to decide on what it is that so pleases and draws us to her, we must even be content to conclude, like the lover in the old song, that

'Tis Cynthia altogether.'

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O river in the world possesses such high and general interest as the Rhine. It has been eloquently observed by a German writer, that 'there are rivers whose course is longer, and whose volume of water is greater, but none which unites almost everything that can render an earthly object magnificent and charming in the same degree as the Rhine. As it flows down from the distant ridges of the Alps, through fertile regions into the open sea, so does it come down from remote antiquity, associated in every age with momentous events in the history of neighbouring nations. A river which presents so many historical recollections of Roman conquests and defeats, of the chivalric exploits in the feudal periods, of the wars and negotiations of modern times, of the coronations of emperors, whose bones repose by its side; on whose borders stand the two grandest monuments of the noble architecture of the middle ages; whose banks present every variety of wild and picturesque rocks, thick forests, fertile plains; vineyards, sometimes gently sloping, sometimes perched among lofty crags, where industry has won a domain amidst the fastnesses of nature; whose borders are ornamented with beautiful and romantic roads, salutary mineral springs, populous cities, flourishing towns, castles, No. 5.

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and ruins, with which a thousand legends are connected; a river whose waters offer choice fish, as its banks offer the choicest wines; which, in its course of 900 miles, affords 630 miles of uninterrupted navigation, from Basel to the sea, and enables the inhabitants of its banks to exchange the rich and varied products of its shores; whose cities, famous for commerce, science, and works of strength, which furnish protection to Germany, are also famous as the seats of Roman colonies, and of ecclesiastical councils, and are associated with many of the most important events in the history of mankind: it is not surprising that the Germans should regard such a river with a kind of reverence, and frequently call it, in poetry, Father, or King Rhine.'

The Rhine has its origin in three small streams in the Swiss canton of the Grisons. Of these streams, one is called the Fore Rhine, another, the Middle Rhine, and the third, the Hinder Rhine this last being united to the others at Reichenau. The Rhine is now completed, and a respectable-sized river of 230 feet in width, at a height of 3600 feet above the sea-level. Reichenau, where it thus starts on its course, will be remembered as having been the place where the unfortunate LouisPhilippe, when Duke of Orleans, found a refuge during the storm of the Revolution of 1793, and where, with much honour to himself, he sought and occupied the situation of tutor in an educational establishment. Leaving Reichenau, the Rhine flows along a valley for about 50 miles in length, passes Coire, and proceeds in a northerly direction, till it expands into a lake, 44 miles long, and 9 miles wide at its broadest part. Anciently, this fine lake was styled by the Romans, Lacus Brigantinus; by the modern Germans it is called the Boden-See. By us it is known as the Lake of Constance, from having the old city of Constance placed at its outlet. This lake is environed by five different states-namely, Baden, Würtemberg, Bavaria, Austria, and Switzerland. Flowing from the lake, the Rhine passes through Würtemberg; then between Switzerland and Baden, Baden and France; and afterwards touches on or goes through Rhenish Bavaria, Darmstadt, Nassau, Rhenish Prussia, Belgium, and Holland.

From its head waters to the ocean, the Rhine flows altogether 950 miles, being in all parts of its course essentially a German river, but having tributaries in France, and carrying to the sea the drainage of nearly 80,000 square miles, or a surface only 7000 miles less than the whole of Great Britain. Viewed either as regards its length, or its volume of waters, the Rhine is the fourth of European rivers, being inferior only to the Volga, Danube, and Dnieper. For the larger part of its course, however, it is a river very superior in appearance and in importance to the Danube, which is full of sand-banks and shallows, greatly obstructive of navigation, and far from being so picturesque in its scenery..

The Rhine is usually spoken of as in three sections-the Upper,

Middle, and Lower Rhine-all differing considerably in character. The Upper Rhine extends from Reichenau to Basel, a length of 300 miles, and in this distance it has fallen 2750 feet. At Basel the Rhine is, therefore, only 860 feet above the level of the sea; and from this point to Cologne, in which is comprehended the Middle Rhine, a distance of 350 miles, the river has fallen 750 feet: but the principal part of this fall is above Mayence; from this last-mentioned place to Cologne, the descent is only 164 feet. At Cologne, where the Lower Rhine begins, the river is no more than 110 feet above the sea-level; and this, dispersed over 300 miles, gives a generally steady current. From Basel downwards, the aspect of the Rhine is grand and imposing; its waters placid yet forcible. In point of breadth, it may be described as varying from 500 to 1500 feet. In a large part of its course it is from 1000 to 1200 feet in breadth, and its depth is from 10 to 20 feet. Here and there, however, there are spots in which the waters run with considerable impetuosity, a circumstance which limits the navigation to moderate-sized steam-boats and other vessels; those craft which are not provided with steam-power, being under the necessity of being towed by horses or by steam-tugs. At present, there are probably 200 steamers on the river of one kind or other, and an incalculable number of other vessels, towed upwards against the stream, or dropping down with the current. The introduction of steam may be said to have given a new aspect to the general traffic, and to have opened the Rhine to tourists. our first acquaintance with the river, fourteen years ago, there were no steam-tugs. All the goods-craft, consisting of decked and masted vessels, were dragged by horses from Rotterdam to the upper country, a distance of 600 miles. The usual prac

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tice was to employ twelve horses and four men in dragging each vessel; the horses, with ropes attached to them, walked within the edge of the water, with the drivers seated sidewise on their backs; and the hooting, yelling, splashing, and cracking of whips, may be more easily conceived than described. The expense of this species of traction was very great, and enormously raised the price of every article of import. Now, all this is changed. Smart steam-tugs are seen drawing a number of vessels behind them, and ascending the stream at the rate of six to eight miles an hour.

There is another kind of floating craft on the Rhine which never fails to interest travellers. This is the great rafts of timber, that are observed winding their way downwards in the middle of the stream, under the guidance of large numbers of men. The timber consists of long squared logs of pine, the produce of the mountainforests in the upper part of the Rhine and its tributaries, more particularly the Neckar and the Main. The logs are placed neatly together, layer crossed upon layer, forming a depth of about six feet, the whole strongly bound together with chains and rivets. When completed, the craft may extend to a length of 500

feet, by a breadth of 250 feet; some rafts, however, are larger, and some smaller. A raft of the ordinary size is guided by about 200 rowers, who are seen tugging in groups at large oars in front and rear of the raft. A commander occupies an elevated position, giving orders; and pilots assist in pointing out the best channels. Standing on the deck of a steamer, as it pursues its way amidst picturesque scenery, the tourist is amused on coming in sight of one of these great floating islands of timber. It looks like a village moving on the bosom of the waters. Decked with rough plank, to afford dry standing-ground, the raft is further provided with cottages of wood, for the accommodation of the crew. One female is seen at a fire cooking, and another is occupied in washing, or some other domestic office. A dog scampers to and fro, and opens a salute of barking as the steamer shoots past. But nothing interrupts, the steady pull of the raftsmen at their oars. They quietly pursue their labour, only relieving its monotony with one of those national songs in honour of the Rhine so celebrated in the anthology of Germany. These rafts of the Rhine are floated down to Dort, in Holland; and there the materials are exported to England, and other countries. An idea of the size and value of such rafts will be attained, when we mention, that a single one will sometimes bring as much as L.20,000.

One of the points of interest to an observing traveller, is the colour of rivers. Running over a pebbly soil, a river is expected to be clear, white, and sparkling, except when rendered turbid by floods. Strangely enough, there are some curious contradictions to this. It is remarked, with curiosity and wonder, that the Rhine and the Rhône, flowing over a similar soil, differ entirely in point of colour. The Rhine has a delicate pea-green tint, while the Rhône is a beautiful dark-blue. Lifting the waters of either in a glass, each is seen to be pure and colourless; but when viewed in the mass, they are charged with the respective colours that have been mentioned. Various have been the philosophic speculations on this strange diversity of colour in the Rhine and Rhône; but we have never seen it satisfactorily accounted for, and any lengthened explanations on the subject would here be out of place. One thing is certain: the Rhine, when flooded, loses its greenish hue, and is charged with great quantities of sand and mud, brought from Switzerland and Germany. Of this débris, in fact, the whole of the Netherlands have been formed. Sandy banks have risen in the sea; and by slow gradations, dry land, with rich green fields, has taken the place of the trackless ocean. is stated by hydrographers, that at this present moment an island, formed by sands brought down from the Rhine, is rising in the sea between the coasts of Holland and England; and in future ages, this subaqueous island, the terror of mariners, may become the seat of a numerous and thriving population.

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So much may be said of the natural history of the Rhine:

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