great city, and bring into the country its sea-borne coal, its native porter, its colonial imports. Sometimes I gaze upon the evidence of another great change. Smoke from the funnel of a steam-tug clouds the bright atmosphere, and three or four barges are dragged leisurely along. The pair of swans that I see leading their cygnets fearlessly out of their sheltering nook of osiers attest the progress of change. They are here to enjoy an unpolluted river. Shakspere had 66 seen a swan With bootless labour swim against the tide." It is not the tide which now keeps them far away from what was once the "silver Thames" of the Blackfriars' Stairs. I see nothing of the commercial character of the muddy stream as it glides to the sea by the great market of the world. But I see how it administers to the happiness of a mighty population, who, in our time, have been permitted to enjoy, in "meads for ever crown'd with flowers," gardens of delight and treasures of art, which were once jealously guarded for the exclusive use of a Court. "The heroes and the nymphs" have passed away, for whom the old glades that William planted after his grand Dutch fashion were exclusively held. The alleys of Kew, "carpeted with the most verdant and close-shaven turf," are no longer appropriated by such as the maids of honour who hovered around Queen Caroline when Jeanie Deans entered the private gate with the Duke of Argyle. The pleasure grounds are no longer a sequestered region of verdure, seldom approached by the commonalty, but in which I remember having seen, with the joyous wonder of a school-boy, a herd of kangaroos, feeding fearlessly, with their young leaping in and out of their pouches. These regal haunts of another age now belong, in the happiest sense of the word, to the people. Nearly twenty years ago, I rejoiced in a spring morning walk from Richmond to Bushy. Yes!-I could then walk on, unfatigued by a stretch of a dozen miles. My pleasures of the picturesque must now chiefly abide in the remembrance of scenes which float unbidden before my mental eye. My outward vision is somewhat dim; my footsteps are feebler. Yet life is full of enjoyment. The thoughts of my youth have not altogether passed away. The Thames is to me now, as it was long ago, an evervarying source of gladness. I sit at my open window, now that the second week of July has really brought a summer evening. Gradually the sun casts long shadows of elm and poplar across the stream. The west is all a-glow. The pleasure boats still linger beneath the green banks. The shadows deepen. The plash of the oar becomes less frequent. A crescent moon rises in the south, and I sit watching its course, as it throws a pencil of silver light over the rippling water, and then sinks behind the distant woods. Many weeks of the loveliest weather succeed the passing away of the ungenial cold of June. Never was there a more exquisite English summer. Each day is "The bridal of the earth and sky." The feelings of my early days are renewed, as I gaze upon the same stream, upon whose green banks "Once my careless childhood play'd." Much of the Romance of fifty years ago is gone; but with it were mingled some aspirations which have not been delusive. I then wrote-as the leading idea of a Sonnet "Spoil me not, world! but let my ripening age Cling to the green fields and the breathing grove; And fit my soul for the bright scenes above." In these my "chair days" I am not wholly unfitted for out-door pleasures. I can take boat within a few hundred yards of my temporary retreat, and glide down the river, "though gentle, yet not dull," past populous places and sequestered dwellings. The rumble of the train over the railway-bridge at Kingston disturbs me not. The whole scene has the repose of solitude with the gaiety of civilization. I sit in the stern of the light but steady craft, not troubling myself even to steer. I am molested not by the paddle of the steam-boat destroying the calm mirror of the current. That belongs to the lower regions of the Thames, and comes not now, with its crowded deck and its brass band, above Kew. glide on past Teddington. Past Twickenham, whose associations with Pope are gone. Past Ham House, which Hood has immortalized in his exquisite verses, "The Elm Tree." A glimpse of Richmond Hill tells me it is time to return. But I need not be sculled home against stream. The railway will carry me to Kingston in half an hour. Thus with little fatigue I have an afternoon of tranquil enjoyment. A writer in a "Review" which,-joining, with youthful vigour and more than youthful knowledge, the old clever and honest band of Examiners and Spectators,-has rendered weekly criticism a thing to be respected, I and sometimes feared,-delights me, at the time when I am renewing my familiar intercourse with my beloved Thames, by terming it "the most beautiful river in Europe." Some persons," he says, vainly talk of the Rhine." He admits that the Rhine is larger, its banks more mountainous, and has in it more water than the Thames, but he utterly denies that it is more beautiful. "In fact, the Thames is the incarnation of refined comforts, and contains the essence of the best of English scenery."* I have recollections of the Rhine which do not in the slightest degree interfere with my admiration of the Thames, but lead me to enjoy it the more by the force of contrast. These recollections take me back to the point of time past, from which I have wandered in a dreamy enjoyment of time present. On the 27th of June, 1844, I started in company with Mr. Long on an expedition to Germany. My ostensible object, always kept in view but very imperfectly carried out, was to hunt amongst the stores of the German booksellers for "Folk-lore," that might serve as material for the series of the Weekly Volume. My companion's perfect acquaintance with the language promised to be of essential service to me in this research. I was quite sure from previous experience that my friend would be as much disposed as myself to look with cheerful aspect upon whatever we encountered, and not render travelling that misery which sometimes ensues from the fastidiousness of those who are not ready to accommodate themselves to foreign habits. Our steam-boat voyage to Antwerp was accomplished in four-and-twenty * 66 Saturday Review," July 2, 1864. hours. It is now easily performed in eighteen hours. We saw the Cathedral and the Picture Galleries, and for the first time understood, what we could never have learnt at home, how great a painter was Rubens. We reached Liege late at night, having been detained long upon the railway by the imperfect arrangements of that new mode of travelling. There was then only one line of rail from Malines, and at one station we had to wait an hour until another train from Prussia had met us and passed on. My late excellent friend the Chevalier Hebeler had given us a letter or two of introduction, but we found none more valuable than a recommendation to the host of the principal inn at Aix-la-Chapelle to provide us with his best wine and his nicest apartments. We at length reached the Rhine, and saw the great Cathedral at Cologne, in which the work of restoration was then going on very slowly. We enjoyed the hospitalities of a friend at Bonn for a day or two, hearing incessant murmurs against the Prussian government. We then joined the crowd of steamboat tourists. To many of these the Rhine must have appeared monotonous. The real sense of the picturesque is not very widely diffused, even now, when people have ceased to talk about "horrid rocks," as they did in the last century. The voyage up the Rhine was a somewhat tedious affair twenty years ago. Some beguiled the tedium with hock and seltzer-water; some with a book; some with a quiet nap. A friend of mine, a few years before, beheld one ingenious traveller who had a peculiar mode of enjoying the beauties of the noble river. He sat in the cabin hour after hour with the map of the Rhine spread out before him. Ever and anon he called out |