four black steeds, with traces of an unusual length between the leaders and wheel horses.  A grand Duke was parading to the right:  to the left, a Marchioness was laughing a pleine gorge.  Here walked a Count, and there rode a General.  Bavarians, Austrians, French, and English—­intermixed with the tradesmen of Baden, and the rustics of the adjacent country—­all, glittering in their gayest sabbath-attires, mingled in the throng, and appeared to vie with each other in gaiety and loudness of talk.

We gained a more private walk, within a long avenue of trees; where a small fountain, playing in the midst of a grove of elm and beech, attracted the attention both of the Professor and ourselves.  “It is here,” observed the former—­“where I love to come and read your favourite Thomson.”  He then mentioned Pope, and quoted some verses from the opening of his Essay on Man—­and also declared his particular attachment to Young and Akenside.  “But our Shakspeare and Milton, Sir—­what think you of these?” “They are doubtless very great and superior to either:  but if I were to say that I understood them as well, I should say what would be an untruth:  and nothing is more disgusting than an affectation of knowing what you have, comparatively, very little knowledge of.”  We continued our route towards the convent, at a pretty brisk pace; with great surprise, on my part, at the firm and rapid movements of the Professor.  Having reached the convent, we entered, and were admitted within the chapel.  The nuns had just retired; but we were shewn the partition of wood which screens them most effectually from the inquisitive eyes of the rest of the congregation.  We crossed a shallow, but rapidly running brook, over which was only one plank, of the ordinary width, to supply the place of a bridge.  The venerable Professor led the way—­tripping along so lightly, and yet so surely, as to excite our wonder.  We then mounted the hill on the opposite side of the convent; where there are spiral, and neatly trimmed, gravel walks, which afford the means of an easy and pleasant ascent—­but not altogether free from a few sharp and steep turnings.  From the summit of this hill, the Professor bade me look around, and view a valley which was the pride of the neighbourhood, and which was considered to have no superior in Suabia.  It was certainly very beautiful—­luxuriant in pasture and woodland scenery, and surrounded by hills crowned with interminable firs.

As we descended, the clock of the convent struck eight, which was succeeded by the tolling of the convent bell.  After a day of oppressive heat, with a lowering atmosphere threatening instant tempest, it was equally, grateful and refreshing to witness a calm blue sky, chequered by light fleecy clouds, which, as they seemed to be scarcely impelled along by the evening breeze, were fringed in succession by the hues of a golden sun-set.  The darkening shadows of the trees added to the generally striking effect