search of him, and he turned back. A rope-dancer likewise, erecting some poles in the market-place, on which to fix his slack rope, was precipitated into the same vault, where he found some old rusty

arms.

The famous tun of Heidelberg is a pitiful curiosity, which does not even interest by its antiquity; for the old tun is gone to pieces, and the elector, Charles Theodore, by building a new one, has not gained immortality. Yet I would advise every traveller to go into the cellar, for he will find something which he does not expect, and which will please him just as it pleased me: it is Clemens. -I mean the wooden statue of an old fool of the electoral court, with a real fool's physiognomy. In this individual we recognise the genus at the first look. It is not so much wit (which is never pardoned any truth) as jollity (of which nothing is taken amiss) that lives and speaks in, and out of, this face. In the mouth of this lusty, well-fed personage, every thing is turned into joke; into home-felt joke; but never into bitter sarcasm. Indeed I should like to have such a fool about me, and I must find fault with all the crowned heads for having allowed such an useful custom to become obsolete.

The statue of honest Clemens is going fast to decay, and surely that is a pity. His physiognomy alone gave me a lucid moment of delight, and I had much rather recall him to life than the celebrated Lady Moratta, whose monument you find at St. Peter's church in Heidelberg. She died in the twenty-ninth year of her age, and notwithstanding her youth, understood several learned languages. Her husband, too, one Grundler, is mentioned in the inscription by her side. You

know I am no admirer of those ladies who are so learned, that they make of a husband a mere domestic animal.

If you, my dear girl, ever come to Heidelberg, you will, perhaps, inquire for the spring called Wolfsbrunnen, which was so famous, and so pleas ant, and at which our good king is said to have once taken his breakfast. Yes, in those times, lime trees, three hundred years old, formed the dome over the fountain, and their branches had grown so closely together, that they could be used like a floor to walk on, to place tables and chairs on the top, and make merry in the verdant twilight.

The female visitors (so the neighbours relate) sat on the top of the trees, engaged in reading or knitting stockings; or even had a harpsichord placed by them; while the gentlemen played on the flute, among the umbrageous branches; in the cool grotto below, tea or coffee was made; the source murmured secretly and invisibly behind the green tapestry, exhaling perfume. But all this you must not now ask for you will find nothing but a square basin surrounded with trunks of trees. All those beautiful lime trees were felled a few weeks ago. "Who gave these orders?" exclaimed I with indignation. "The electoral treasury," was the reply. Those thick trees yield fine wood, and the fat trouts in the stream could not bear the excessive coolness of the shade. I really wish that every counsellor of the treasury who consented to this robbery of beauteous nature, may be obliged to wander about, twice a year, in the parching summer heat and in the glow of the midday sun, panting in vain for such a shady spot.

Oh, this is not the only sin which the spirit of electoral economy, which was never designed to hover over such a paradise, has committed, or at least wished to commit. It was intended to have demolished the magnificent ruins of the Hall of the Knights, in order to sell the stones. The fairy gardens of Schwetzingen were to have been let out for potatoe fields, as the expense of keeping them was deemed too great. This I call making a poet an accountant; but both these measures have been effectually protested against. With the Hall of the Knights, the ancient castle of Heidelberg would be deprived of its finest ornament; and if Schwetzingen causes a great expense, it on the other hand attracts a multitude of wealthy strangers. O! may every hand be blasted which is eager to destroy whatever has given pleasure to mankind for centuries!

Before we take our final leave of Heidelberg, I must conduct you to the beautiful bridge, built on the site of that which was swept away by a flood in 1783 or '84. At that time, St. John, to the great joy of all pious believers, remained standing alone upon a solitary pillar. Notwithstanding this undeniable miracle, the good saint was obliged, after the new bridge was built, to give way to the blind heathen goddess Minerva.

Facing her, stands the statue of the elector, Charles Theodore. In an engagement whick took place last war on this bridge, the goddess was terribly maltreated with grape-shot, and is now perfectly qualified to be the emblem of the Germanic empire.

KOTZEBUE.

TASSO'S "JERUSALEM DELIVERED."

SINCE you left us, I have been reading Tasso's "Jerusalem," in the translation lately published by Hoole. I was not a little anxious to peruse a poem which is so famous over all Europe, and has so often been mentioned as a rival to the " "Iliad," "Eneid," and "Paradise Lost." It is certainly a noble work; and though it seems to me to be inferior to the three poems just mentioned, yet I cannot help thinking it in the rank next to these. As for the other modern attempts, as the "Epopee," the "Henriade" of Voltaire, the "Epigoniad" of Wilkie, the "Leonidas" of Glover, not to mention the "Arthur" of Blackmore, they are not to be compared with it. Tasso possesses an exuberant and sublime imagination; though in exuberance it seems, in my opinion, inferior to our Spenser, and in sublimity inferior to Milton. Were I to com. pare Milton's genius with Tasso's, I would say, that the sublime of the latter is flashy and fluctuating, while that of the former diffuses a uniform, steady, and vigorous blaze: Milton is more majestic, Tasso more dazzling. Dryden, it seems, was of opinion, that the "Jerusalem Delivered" was the only poem of modern times that deserved the name of epic: but it is certain that criticism was not this writer's talent; and I think it is evident, from some passages of his works, that he either did not, or would not, understand the "Paradise Lost." Tasso borrows his plot and principal characters from Homer, but his manner resembles Virgil's. He is certainly much obliged to Virgil, and scruples not to imitate nor to translate him on many occasions. In the pathetic he

is far inferior both to Homer, to Virgil, and to Milton. His characters, though different, are not always distinct, and want those masterly and distinguishing strokes which the genius of Homer and Shakspeare, and of them only, knows how to delineate. Tasso excels in describing pleasurable scenes, and seems peculiarly fond of such as have a reference to the passion of love: yet, in characterizing this passion, he is far inferior, not only to Milton, but also to Virgil, whose fourth book he has been at great pains to imitate.

BEATTIE.

THE VOYAGE OF MAGELLAN

FERDINAND MAGALHAENS, or Magellan, a Portuguese gentleman of honourable birth, having served several years in the East Indies, with distinguished valour, under the famous Albuquerque, demanded the recompense which he thought due to his services, with the boldness natural to a highspirited soldier. But as his general would not grant his suit, and he expected greater justice from his sovereign, whom he knew to be a good judge and a generous rewarder of merit, he quitted India abruptly, and returned to Lisbon. In order to induce Emanuel to listen more favourably to his claim, he not only stated his past services, but offered to add to them by conducting his country. men to the Molucca or Spice Islands, by holding a westerly course; which he contended would be both shorter and less hazardous than that which the Portuguese now followed by the Cape of Good Hope, through the immense extent of the Eastern Ocean. This was the original and favourite pro