rise and fall of Protestantism, of which we have spoken. We would see that famous old university, one of the earliest in Europe, where Huss taught the doctrines of the Reformation to its forty thousand students, before a single university yet existed in Germany, and whence on the breaking out of the religious troubles twenty thousand German students marched forth, and founded the University of Leipsic. We would see the old Rath-Haus, under whose windows the Hussite priest passing with the sacramental cup in his hand, the bigoted counsellors threw stones down on him, and were soon after, by the indignant people, thrown out after them themselves. We would see where Wallenstein lived, and where Ziska fought; and truly no city can by its situation afford you a finer general view, or give a more venerable and stately impression by its details. It lies in a great amphitheatre. Around, for the most part, at the distance of several miles, rise bleak, naked hills, which however, under the different lights and shades of the day and the season, assume a variety of aspects, ever with a degree of silent wildness in them. Through the plain on which it stands, and through the city itself, rolls the Moldau, a noble river, as wide as the Thames at London bridge. as seen from the side by which you approach it from Vienna, lies stretched on this mountain-girded plain; a magnificent sight! with all its towers, spires, domes, and old palaces, ranging above its mass of other buildings, a place of 120,000 inhabitants. Masses of fine trees and gardens are interspersed; the Moldau rolls rapidly on between its deep and woody banks below it; near you rises the celebrated hill of Ziska, where he pitched his victorious camp; and on the opposite side of the city stands grandly aloft the Hradschin, a hill crowned with the great church of St. Vitus, and the old royal palace, and clustered over with other palaces of the nobility, with churches and convents. At the foot of the Hradschin stands the immense palace of Wallenstein, and between that side called the Kleine-Seite, or Little Side, and the old city stretches the celebrated Bridge of Prague, renowned for many a battle and bloody struggle.

The city,

As you wander through the city the old Rath-Haus, already mentioned, arrests your attention, with its huge horn fastened to the battlements of its tower, probably to be blown on alarm of fire or foes. The old Jews' Burial-ground, a perfect wilderness of

the war, found trees growing on their hearths; and even now, it is said, foundations of villages are in some places found in the forests, and the traces of ploughed lands. It is the fixed opinion that to this day Germany, in point of political freedom and the progress of public art and wealth, feels the disastrous consequences of this war.

A more solemn lesson on the horrible effects of the violation of conscience, and of Jesuitical bigotry, is not to be found in history. To this dismal Ferdinand II. it has been justly said that Napoleon was, in comparison of destructive power, but a pigmy. Napoleon traversed three quarters of the globe with fire and sword, yet came far short in human destruction of this Ferdinand, who, while he sat still and told his beads, accomplished the extermination of ten millions of men.

Such are the thoughts which crowd on you as you pass through Bohemia. None of the dispensations of Providence are more mysterious than those exhibited in it. In no nation were the people formerly more universally and firmly rooted in Protestantism: in none was it so resolutely defended; in none has it been so completely and permanently extirpated. From that day to this, the whole country of John Huss and Jerome of Prague lies prostrate in the most profound Catholic ignorance and bigotry; so much so, that when Joseph II. offered them freedom of political and religious opinion, they spurned it from them, and joined with the aristocracy in heaping on the too liberal Emperor those anxieties and mortifications which sunk him to an early grave. When he received the news that the people, and especially the peasantry of Hungary and Bohemia, were so stupid as to be incensed against him because he offered to make them freer and happier, he exclaimed, "I must die! I must be made of wood, if I did not die!" and his words were soon verified. Bohemia is a land of hereditary bondsmen, and it looks like one.

9. PRAGUE.

It is with similar feelings and ideas that you enter Prague. It is not for its galleries and works of art that you visit this city. It is to behold the scenes where so many singular and important events and revolutions have taken place: amongst the greatest, the

indignant representatives, with the Graf von Thurn at their head, threw the senators whom they knew to be in the interest of Austria and the Jesuits, Slawata, Martiniz, and their secretary Fabricius Platter, with which act commenced the miserable Thirty Years' War, the extirpation of Protestantism in Bohemia, and the final subjection of Bohemia to Austria. Here is the fine old church of St. Vitus, with many curious paintings, mosaics, and monuments; the most splendid, that massy silver shrine of St. John Nepomuck, with four large silver angels hovering over it. The external appearance of the church, however, is not less a monument of Frederick the Great; for it stands partly in ruins, as he battered it with his balls in the Seven Years' War. Here is the great untenanted palace of the Graf Czernin; not far distant the Strahow Convent, containing the portrait of Ziska; and below the hill, on the left hand, the vast pile of Wallenstein, still inhabited by his descendants. These, and a host of other buildings, old palaces, and towers, bring up so many historical matters, that it would require a volume for their details.

But Prague is not less alive to the enjoyments of the present than any city of Germany. It has its haunts of recreation and pleasure. It has its theatre and opera. Its walls on the heights around are converted into delightful planted promenades, whence you can see over the city on all sides. It is the same on the Hradschin and the Lorenzi-berg beyond it; and still farther out on that side lies the Baum-garten, one of those large park-like gardens which they term English, and where a coffee-house, music, and gay people are often to be found. But in the Moldau, close to the city, lie two or three islands, which are justly the favourite places of resort. In the Färber-Insel, the one closest to the shore on the city side, there is a fine cassino, with splendid ball and conversation rooms, gardens, a musical orchestra; and several evenings in the week you may see the most distinguished people of Prague there, and hear some of the finest military music in the world. In no part of Germany have I seen a finer race of women, dressed with a more elegant taste, than the ladies whom I have seen in these gardens.

A chain-bridge has just been thrown over the Maldau near this island, resting as a centre on the next island; and it was curious

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heavy Hebrew monuments overgrown with tangled elder trees, so old themselves that they lean for support on the tombs. These and the dark old synagogue bearing evidence to the antiquity of the Jews here, who claim to be the original founders of the city soon after their national dispersion. You reach the great bridge crowned with whole rows of statues of saints, larger than life, and in the centre arch that pre-eminently of St. John Nepomuck, who was thrown into the river by the Emperor Wencezlaus, and his corpse setting the Moldau on fire, he was drawn out, buried in St. Vitus's church on the Hradschin, and, in due time, canonized, and now is become the great protector of all German bridges.

This But it is the Hradschin which is the fullest of interest. hill is literally clustered all over with palaces, and churches, and buildings, every one of which has a history which might set up a writer of romance. Here is the old Bohemian palace, with its large antique rooms, so quaint and spacious, looking for all the world such a place as you would imagine the monarch of Bohemia living in. Here are portraits of many of them, and amongst them the majestically beautiful Maria Theresia, and her beautiful daughters, the most beautiful of them the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Here, again, you have from the windows another splendid view of the city, this "old discrowned queen" of Bohemia; and can see it as that weak but ambitious prince, Frederick of the Palatinate saw it, as he sate here for one winter, whence he was called the Winter King, dreaming himself monarch of Bohemia, without taking one step to secure himself in that post to which the Bohemian people had invited him. He had left his hereditary state, the Palatinate, to the mercy of his enemies, which was speedily devastated by Spinola and his Spaniards and Netherlanders, and here, without taking a single measure for his security, but on the contrary, alienating the nobles by his folly and German favouritism, he sate and feasted with his equally weak and ambitious wife, Elizabeth, the daughter of James I. of England, till the forces of the League were suddenly upon him; and he was the first to fly with his wife, who in that and many a succeeding hour of misery and destitution must have bitterly repented exciting him to assume a crown he was so unfit to wear.

Here you see the council chamber, out of whose windows the

indignant representatives, with the Graf von Thurn at their head, threw the senators whom they knew to be in the interest of Austria and the Jesuits, Slawata, Martiniz, and their secretary Fabricius Platter, with which act commenced the miserable Thirty Years' War, the extirpation of Protestantism in Bohemia, and the final subjection of Bohemia to Austria. Here is the fine old church of St. Vitus, with many curious paintings, mosaics, and monuments; the most splendid, that massy silver shrine of St. John Nepomuck, with four large silver angels hovering over it. The external appearance of the church, however, is not less a monument of Frederick the Great; for it stands partly in ruins, as he battered it with his balls in the Seven Years' War. Here is the great untenanted palace of the Graf Czernin; not far distant the Strahow Convent, containing the portrait of Ziska; and below the hill, on the left hand, the vast pile of Wallenstein, still inhabited by his descendants. These, and a host of other buildings, old palaces, and towers, bring up so many historical matters, that it would require a volume for their details.

But Prague is not less alive to the enjoyments of the present than any city of Germany. It has its haunts of recreation and pleasure. It has its theatre and opera. Its walls on the heights around are converted into delightful planted promenades, whence you can see over the city on all sides. It is the same on the Hradschin and the Lorenzi-berg beyond it; and still farther out on that side lies the Baum-garten, one of those large park-like gardens which they term English, and where a coffee-house, music, and gay people are often to be found. But in the Moldau, close to the city, lie two or three islands, which are justly the favourite places of resort. In the Färber-Insel, the one closest to the shore on the city side, there is a fine cassino, with splendid ball and conversation rooms, gardens, a musical orchestra; and several evenings in the week you may see the most distinguished people of Prague there, and hear some of the finest military music in the world. In no part of Germany have I seen a finer race of women, dressed with a more elegant taste, than the ladies whom I have seen in these gardens.

A chain-bridge has just been thrown over the Maldau near this. island, resting as a centre on the next island; and it was curious