look well before they settle down in such a place, "where offences will come," but the advantage may not come; while they are so richly offered to them in the capitals. Should any circumstances, however, induce any families to reside awhile there, they will find in Mr. Fries, the banker, the hospitable and worthy octogenarian, and in Messrs. Zimmerns, also bankers and drapers, the best and most zealous advisers in all difficulties, and the Director of Police aways ready to give any protection, in the promptest and most active manner, to the English.

CHAPTER VII.

THE last chapter which I shall address to such of my countrymen as are intending to visit Germany shall be on the subject of Education. This is the most important of all objects, and it is the one, if they go prudently about it, which will be crowned with the greatest success. In point of economy, alone, it may almost be said to be the sole economy, which, for its own sake, is sufficiently great to reward you for a long absence from your native land. In point of completeness it is equally excellent. The Germans are not only a very systematic, but plodding and persevering people; and they certainly do most admirably economise time, and by "stroke upon stroke, and precept upon precept," drill into your children a very thorough and practical acquaintance with a surprisingly ample circle of knowledge. Languages, old and new, music and singing, stand but as the palisadoes round a great enclosure of scholastic acquirements, which the unfortunate expenses of our own country actually put it out of the power of the mass of parents to confer here on their children. The cost

of a really good education of the children of a tolerably large family in England equals all other costs of living. As a mere matter of ordinary economy, where education is not wanted, families are and will be often disappointed in Germany, especially in Prussia and the Rhine country. The sum total of your expenditure there will be about twenty or five-and-twenty per cent. less than in London or its immediate neighbourhood; but will be very little different to what it would be in one of our own cheaper counties. In many of these, in fact, if you chose to live in the same simple way, you could live as cheap as you could in the Rhine towns of Germany. Mr. Murray, in his "HandBook," has inserted a passage in regard to the cheapness of Heidelberg, which has been a source of serious disappointment and inconvenience to numbers. He speaks of an Englishman who lived there in 1834, whose annual expenses were only 380., including horses, carriages, and servants. Every thing, no doubt, was then much cheaper, and such a miracle of living possibly might be done then; but it is difficult to credit this story even of that time, except the gentleman was a single gentleman. No family now, with carriage and horses, could live there for less than double that sum. A furnished house, or even apartments suitable to an establishment where a carriage is kept, would of itself cost him upwards of 100%. a year. The students who come there after having

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been at other universities, especially those of Bavaria, are invariably astounded at the expense of Heidelberg. They always assert, that they lived much more comfortably in Jena, Erlangen, Würzburg, etc., for half the sum. They complain regularly of two things. Of the high charges both for living and for university lectures, and of the inhospitable coldness of the inhabitants. The Heidelbergers excuse themselves for this coldness to the English by the fact of so many coming there. There may be something in that. One thing is very certain, that a German will receive in London, where strangers are more numerously presented to most families than they are in any German city, more hearty kindness any one day than an Englishman, be his standing or introductions what they may, will receive in seven years in Heidelberg. We ourselves, in all other places, received the most cordial kindness,-there, the most pressing attentions we received were in the shape of the "impertinences." This state of things, and the want of intellectual society, added to the want of the higher advantages of social life, as galleries, first-rate musical entertainments, as operas and schools equal to those of the capitals, have of late years driven most English families of any note from the place, and must, as the railroads open the way to other and larger towns, operate continually more in this direction. Heidelberg, in fact, is a charming place to visit for a few

days on account of its charming country, but is not in any respect desirable as a place of residence.

People, in their ideas of economy, do not take into account the expenses of taking out and bringing back a family seven or eight hundred miles. They do not consider that abroad they must live, not in a house with their own furniture, but in a furnished house or apartments; and under these circumstances must pay actually a greater rental than in England. In many old-fashioned and quiet towns of England, to say nothing of the country-houses, especially good family houses, with all necessary appurtenances for the accommodation of a family, are, after all, often to be had excessively cheap. I have seen many such in my rambles in different parts of this kingdom, perfect paradises, with land for horses and cows, and most ample gardens, really to be had almost for an old song. For fifty or sixty pounds a year, I have seen many places fit for a family of any rank. And spite of the high price of every thing in our towns, all articles of life have been equally low. In Devonshire, in Lincolnshire, in Northumberland, but more especially in Durham, I have been amazed at what a trifling expense a family might live. I once dined with a gentleman in the very suburbs of the city of Durham. He inhabited an old English hall; had a splendid view of the city from his windows, ample gardens, all sorts of outbuildings, and thirty acres of land; of which