consequences; and no summer must pass over without at least one death being attributed to the inconsiderate rashness of some insensate drinker. Woe unto him then who drinks without a doctor! You might as well, in an access of intense thirst, rush into the first apothecary's shop, and take a strong pull at one of the vicious little vials that fill the shelves, ignorant whether it might not be aqua fortis or Prussic acid.

Armed, then, with all the terrors of his favourite Spa, rich in a following which is as much partisan as patient, the Spa doctor has an admirable life of it. The severe and trying cases of illness that come under the notice of other physicians fall not to his share; the very journey to the waters is a trial of strength which guards against this. His disciples are the dyspeptic diners-out in the great worlds of London, Paris, or Vienna; the nervous and irritable natures, cloyed with excess of enjoyment and palled with pleasure; the imaginary sick man, or the self-created patient who has dosed himself into artificial malady-all of necessity belonging to the higher or at least the wealthier classes of mankind, with whom management goes further than medicine, and tact is a hundred times better than all the skill of Hippocrates. He had need, then, to be a clever man of the world; he may dispense with science, he cannot with savoir faire. Not only must he be conversant with the broader traits of national character, but he must be intimately acquainted with the more delicate and subtle workings of the heart in classes and gradations of mankind, a keen observer and a quick actor. In fact, to get on well, he must possess in a high degree many of those elements, any one of which would insure success in a dozen other walks in life.

And the Spa doctor must have all these virtues, as Swift says, 'for twenty pounds per annum'-not literally, indeed, but for a very inadequate recompense. These watering-place seasons are brief intervals, in which he must make hay while the sun shines. With the approach

of winter the tide turns, and the human wave retires faster than it came. Silent streets and deserted promenades, closed shutters and hermetically sealed cafés, meet him at every step; and then comes the long, dreary time of hibernation. Happy would it be for him if he could but imitate the seal, and spend it in torpor; for if he be not a sportsman, and in a country favourable to the pursuit, his life is a sad one. Books are generally difficult to come at; there is little society, there is no companionship; and so he has to creep along the tedious time silent and sad, counting over the months of his durance, and longing for spring. Some there are who follow the stream, and retire each winter to the cities where their strongest connection lies; but this practice I should deem rather dictated by pleasure than profit. Your Spa doctor without a Spa is like Liszt or Herz without a pianoforte. Give him but his instrument, and he will 'discourse you sweet music'; but deprive him of it, and he is utterly helpless. The springs of Helicon did not suggest inspiration more certainly than do those of Nassau to their votaries; but the fount must run that the poet may rhyme. So your physician must have the odour of sulphurets in his nose; he must see the priestess ministering, glass in hand, to the shivering shades around her; he must have the long vista of the promenade, with its flitting forms in flannel cased, ere he feel himself 'every inch a doctor.' Away from these, and the piston of a steam-engine without a boiler is not more helpless. The fountain is, to use Lord Londonderry's phrase, the 'fundamental feature on which his argument hinges,' and he could no more exist without water than a fish.

Having said so much of the genus, let me be excused if I do not dilate on the species; nor, indeed, had I dwelt so long on the subject, but in this age of stomach, when every one has dyspepsia, it is as well to mention those who rule over our diets and destinies; and where so many are worshippers at the Temple, a word about the Priest of the Mysteries may not be unseasonable.

He

And now, to change the theme, who is it that at this early hour of the morning seems taking his promenade, with no trace of the invalid in his look or dress? comes along at a smart walk; his step has the assured tramp of one who felt health, and knew the value of the blessing. What! is it possible-can it be, indeed? Yes, it is Sir Harry Wycherley himself, with two lovely children, a boy and a girl-the eldest scarcely seven years old; the boy a year or so younger. Never did I behold anything more lovely. The girl's eyes were dark, shaded with long deep fringe, that added to their depth, and tempered into softness the glowing sparkle of youth. Her features were of a pensive but not melancholy character, and in her walk and carriage' gentle blood' spoke out in accents not to be mistaken. The boy, more strongly formed, resembled his father more, and in his broad forehead and bold, dashing expression looked like one who would become one day a man of nerve and mettle. His dress, too, gave a character to his appearance that well suited him—a broad hat, turned up at the side, and ornamented with a dark-blue feather, that hung drooping over his shoulder; a blue tunic, made so as to show his chest in its full breadth, and his arms naked the whole way; a scarlet scarf, knotted carelessly at his side, hanging down with its deep fringe beside his bare leg, tanned and bronzed with sun and weather; and even his shoes, with their broad silver buckles, showing that care presided over every part of his costume.

There was something intensely touching in the sight of this man of the world-for such I well knew he was-thus enjoying the innocence and fresh buoyancy of his children, turning from the complex web of men's schemes and plottings, their tortuous paths and deep designings, to relax in the careless gaiety of infant minds. Now pursuing them along the walk, now starting from behind some tree where he lay in ambush, he gives them chase, and as he gains on them they turn sharp round, and spring into his arms, and clasp him round the neck.

Arthur, thou hast had a life of more than man's share of pleasure; thou hast tasted much happiness, and known but few sorrows; but would not a moment like this outnumber them all? Where is love so full, so generous, so confiding? What affection comes so pure and unalloyed, not chilled by jealous doubts or fears, but warm and gushing-the incense of a happy heart, the outpourings of a guileless nature. Nothing can be more beautiful than the picture of maternal fondness, the gracefulness of woman thrown like a garment around her children. Her look of love etherealised by the holiest sentiment of tenderness; her loveliness exalted above the earth by the contemplation of those, her own dear ones, who are but a 'little lower than the angels'-is a sight to make the eyes gush tears of happiness, and the heart swell with thankfulness to Heaven. Second alone to this is the unbending of man's stern nature before the charms of childhood, when, casting away the pride of manhood and the cold spirit of worldly ambition, he becomes like one among his children, the participator in their joys and sorrows, the companion of their games, the confidant of their little secrets. How insensibly does each moment thus passed draw him further from the world and its cares; how soon does he forget disappointments, or learn to think of them less poignantly; and how by Nature's own magnetism does the sinless spirit of the child mix with the subtle workings of the man, and lift him above the petty jarrings and discords of life! And thus, while he teaches them precepts of truth and virtue, they pour into his heart lessons of humility and forbearance. If he point out the future to them, with equal force they show the past to him, and a blessing rests on both. The populus me sibilat of the miser is a miserable philosophy compared to his who can retire from the rancorous assaults of enemies and the dark treachery of false friends, to the bosom of a happy home, and feel his hearth a sanctuary where come no forms of malice to assail him!

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Such were my musings as I saw the father pass on with his children; and never before did my loneliness seem so devoid of happiness.

Would that I could stop here; would that I might leave my reader to ponder over these things, and fashion them to his mind's liking; but I may not. I have but one object in these notes of my loiterings. It is to present to those younger in the world, and fresher to its wiles than myself, some of the dangers as well as some of the enjoyments of foreign travel; and having surveyed the cost with much care and caution, I would fix a wreckbuoy here and there along the channel as a warning and a guide. And now to begin.

Let me take the character before me-one of whom I hesitate not to say that only the name is derived from invention. Some may have already identified him; many more may surmise the individual meant. It is enough that I say he still lives, and the correctness of the portrait may easily be tested by any traveller Rhinewards; but I prefer giving him a chapter to himself.

CHAPTER XXVI

SIR HARRY WYCHERLEY

SIR HARRY WYCHERLEY was of an old Hampshire family, who, entering the army when a mere boy, contrived, before he came of age, so completely to encumber a very large estate that his majority only enabled him to finish the ruin he had so actively begun, and to leave him penniless at seven-and-twenty. Before the wreck of his property became matter of notoriety, he married an earl's daughter with a vast fortune, a portion of which was settled on any children that might be born to their union. She, poor girl, scarcely nineteen when she married (for it was a love match), died of a broken heart at three-and-twenty