as well off as at home, and the expense very
little, if at all, inferior. Instead, therefore, of
conforming, as some five-and-twenty or thirty
years ago we should have done to the habits
of those amidst whom we found ourselves, we
now set about colonising wherever we settle.
It is a fact not unworthy of notice, that, if
there be in the chief cities and towns of the
Continent houses as it were set apart for English
occupancy, and a class of servants whose
prescriptive right it is to serve only the English,
there is also a section of society just as distinctly
destined for English circles. These
people, whether French, German, Italian, or
Spanish, have done more to diffuse false notions
of the Continent, than any other influence
I am aware of. They trade, so to
say, on a certain supposed tone for England,
usually expressed in some broken sentences of
our language. They love our freedom and our
parliament, and our domestic virtues, and our
roast beef, and our red petticoats, and the rest
of it. They sigh for the time when their own
country shall have such liberties as ours, and
be as prosperous and as rich as we are. The
Englishman, judging of the foreigner by such
specimens as these, who are in reality " outsiders"
in all social respects amongst their own,
may be forgiven if he forms a very low estimate
of the nation they belong to. Many are the
meannesses of such folk. They are leagued
with your landlord and your tradespeople; they
are on intimate terms with your cook. They
are full of little suggestions about economy,
so dear to the housekeeping heart, and they
know all the small flatteries about English
extravagance and waste, never listened to
with more avidity than by the miserly and
sparing.

It is through the agency of this persistent
class that Englishmen grow so vainglorious and
insolent, so boastful of their own country and so
contemptuous of the foreigner. Taking the
count or the baron (they are all titled in this
category) to represent the upper section of his
countrymen, how can they form any but
disparaging notions of his nation? Bull does not
know that exclusive as England is, the Continent
is still more exclusive, and that really good
foreign society is far more inaccessible than half
the great houses of which he never so much as
dreamed of entering at home.

It is, however, by the English, with these
facilities, that our books of travel are written.
It is the information from such sources as these
we are invited to accept. It is thus we get
such gems as the Court Life of Germany;
Social Scenes in the Upper Three Hundred of
Vienna; Italy, Aristocratic, Artistic, and Political.
Travel-writing, like table-talk, is most
commonly monopolised by the least capable, for
hardihood in either case is the great requisite.
By these hints I would indicate that Bull has
other perils abroad than robbing bookkeepers
and cheating valets. All our errors about
foreign nations entail, as the consequence,
misconception, regarding our own, and we either
exaggerate unjustly, or disparage unfairly, what
we have left behind by these comparisons.

Portrait-painting has long been divided into
the ferocious or the smirking; and your Bull
abroad, in the same way, is either an insolent
despiser of the foreigner, or his slavish affectator
and admirer. You know the former by his wide-
awake hat and his thick-soled boots, worn in
promenades with an air that says, " These are
the birthrights of a Briton as much as red whiskers
and the income-tax." The latter sneaks
about with a much-moustached friend, poking
into curiosity-shops and old book-stalls, talking
"mediaeval " and eschewing his countrymen.
These men see a wonderful future for Germany,
and a glorious destiny for Italy. As to England,
she " has done all, or nearly all, of the task
assigned her."

THE LADY WITCH.

THE lady witch foreknew her doom,
The fatal hour was slowly looming,
The sky grew coffin-black, the tomb
Was gaping for her: she must die.
The term, the devil's bond, laid down
Had run: good angels on her frown.

She went to bid her magic world
A long good-by. The forest flowers
No more for her on dewy showers
Must nightly feed. The clouds were furled
That floated o'er her as she walked:
She went to let her subjects free,
Enslaved for that long century.

The sunlight, striking through a cloud
That lit the rosy twilight air,
Shed on her blanchèd cheek, once fair,
False hues that seemed to make her proud,
As from the wood that lady came,
And laughed to see the fountain gay
Shower pearls in wantonness away.

She spoke a word that could eclipse
The moon at midnight, stay the bird
In the mid sky, yea! chill the lips
Of the hot devil. It was heard
By the cold figure of the fountain god:
He dropped his carvèd marble horn,
And trembled as she laughed in scorn.

He trembled, and his fountain's stream
Shook as if driven by the wind,
As fierce against the elm-trees' rind,
The water, with a banner's gleam,
Flew silvering out, and then sank back:
Now, when she turned towards the south,
Broke murmurs from his marble mouth.

She touched the rough oak, lo! it shook
Up to its topmost leaf and spray;
All its rude branches bent one way,
Casting snake shadows in the brook—-
Dark winding shapes that writhed about:
The very roots beneath the ground
Were heaving at that magic sound.

She struck the water with her hand,
And pale drowned faces crowded up,
Like bubbles in a brimming cup.
The dead were all at her command:
The ripples ceased, the brook stood still.
She passed—- the shadows in her train,
And all was life and joy again.