from the garden; this was the excessive
delight of the children over the figure; troops
and troops of children were in the church,
and now that there was more open space, you
saw them distinctly. Children of ten and
twelve, children even of seven and eight, held
up in fat little arms a fat little brother or
sister to see the gloriously beautiful figure.
There were lots of strassen buben (street lads)
and little gentlemen in their smart little
cloaks with their pretty hoods, and smart
little ladies, also all eagerness, brought by
their attendants. Several little girls, who
had no attendants, amused me vastly by
making the lowest, lowest of courtesies before
the beautiful figure, so very, very low, and
with such an air of respect, as if they said,
"Oh, thou beautiful, glorious figure, in thy
purple robe, how I love thee! how I will
courtesy to thee! " and then down they went
in the very centre of the marble pavement,
with the air of little princesses. And such a
troop of children rushed in before the
procession, as, with its crimson banners fluttering
against the cool, grey sky, it entered the
glowing church! you heard the tramp and
rush of little footsteps up the long church
before you heard the music and the bells.
And then the people bowed reverently as the
Host was borne aloft, and with music and
chanting a short mass was performed, and
Easter had arrived!

I passed Easter Sunday, pleasantly, out in
the country; and sate, that warm, balmy
afternoon, listening to the rejoicing anthems
that pealed forth from a quaint little church,
with a queer, little pea-green tower. It was
beautiful to hear the voice of the priest praying,
and the angelic voice of one of the choristers
coming to me, as I sate outside the church,
amid the picturesque crosses and shrines,
and with the breath of spring borne on the
soft wind, telling of beds of violets not far off;
and with rich, lush vegetation springing up
around; with the distant trees flushed into
crimson and amber, and some already of a
bright, tender green. Peasant girls came, with
their bright, old-fashioned costumes, and
round arms, and rosy faces, and clear eyes,
and wandered, arm-in-arm, round the church,
before and after service, sprinkling certain
graves with holy water, from the vessels hung
to the crosses; and one little girl there was
with oxlips wreathed into the thick plaits of
her hair, who came and wandered, solitarily,
through the churchyard. And, when all
were gone, a holy hush settled down upon the
churchyard; the silence only broken by the
long vibration of the clock-bell, as it told the
hour and its quarters a long, long musical
vibration, that quite startled me with its
strange poetry; and the warm odour of incense
lingered about the crumbling walls, a warm,
loving breath it seemed as of some calmly
slumbering existence!

The whole was a lovely idyl, more holy and
pure than any ever written, than any picture
ever painted, of peasant-life. There was such
a tenderness and simplicity, mingled with a
certain sadness, that one could only imagine
its spirit to be conveyed away from the spot
by a peasant musician, who should suddenly
improvise a melody which should become a
Volks Lied.

I shall long remember that Easter Sunday
afternoon as one of the loveliest bits of poetry
that I have enjoyed in Munich.

Beturning towards the city, I heard music
in all the public gardens; all the world
was out among the green, budding trees.
Spring is, indeed, come; the trees are almost
in full leaf; you seem almost to see the grass
and the flowers springing; birds carol from
every bough. Music swells in loud strains
through the fresh leaves of the English
Garden, the Spring Garden, the Garden of
Paradise. The Prater, and twenty or thirty
other gardens are crowded with happy, merry
people sitting beneath the trees, drinking coffee
and beer, and listening to music. It is quite
extraordinary what time Munich people spend
in this way, and quite as extraordinary what
quantities of beer are drunk. Alas, that beer!
—it is one of the unpoetical features of
Munich life; it gives that heavy, sleepy,
stupid look to the lower classes, and I fear,
also, to the citizen class, which is so at
variance with the spirituality and the
intellectuality of all this Munich art!

SUPPOSING.

SUPPOSING a stipendiary magistrate, honorably
distinguished for his careful, sensible,
and upright decisions, were to have brought
before him, a Socialist or Chartist, proved to
have wilfully, and without any palliative
circumstance whatsoever, assaulted the police
in the execution of their duty:

And supposing that stipendiary magistrate
committed that Socialist or Chartist to prison
for the offence, stedfastly refusing to adopt
the alternative unjustly and partially allowed
him by the law, of permitting the offender to
purchase immunity by the payment of a fine:

And supposing one of the great unpaid
county magistrates were to take upon himself
virtually to abrogate the rules observed, in all
other cases, in that prison, by introducing,
say fourteen visitors, to that Socialist or
Chartist during his one week's imprisonment.

I wonder whether Sir George Grey, or any
other Home Secretary for the time being,
would then consider it his duty to take a very
decided course of objection to the proceedings
of that county magistrate.

And supposing that the prisoner, instead of
being a Socialist or Chartist, were a gentleman
of good family, and that County Magistrate
did exactly this same thing, I wonder
what Sir George Grey, or any other Home
Secretary for the time being, would do then.

Because, supposing he did nothing, I should
strongly doubt his doing right.