A GERMAN RESIDENCE-TOWN.

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though cleanly neat in their appearance, and with few symptoms of poverty.

We were now again in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, announced by the Hessian Lion rampant on the posts of the Turnpike houses. We had entered the Duchy of Nassau at Cassel, and quitted it on passing the Main, the boundary between the two Principalities. About two leagues from Darmstadt, we entered upon a noble thick forest of firs, which continues nearly up to the gate of the town. A wide straight avenue leads for a league through the forest to this handsome little capital. The main street, three-quarters of a mile long, wide, and elegantly built, is a continuation of the avenue; and the façade of the Grand Duke's Castle, at the extremity, finishes, with an imposing air, the long stately vista. The town is pleasantly situated on the great high road from Frankfort to Basle, in a flat sandy country, relieved by the view of the wooded Bergstrasse mountains at a few leagues' distance. The handsome white buildings, the neat lodges of the corps-de-garde, the

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avenues, the spacious Exercise-Place, the well-appointed troops on parade, announce the dignified residence of a German sovereign and his court.

The metropolis of a minor sovereign of Germany, presents a curious union of splendour and insignificance, a sort of miniature elegance and microscopic grandeur, which is perfectly novel to a foreigner. There is nothing in England that resembles it. Our cities are more antique, interesting and gloomy-our little towns more mean and plebeian-a neat watering place, with its regular white buildings, its absence of the bustle of trade, and its air of quiet gentility, will perhaps best bear a comparison. The resemblance may be pushed to the inhabitants, in one single particular—a sort of straitened elegance and economical refinement in the manner of life, which bespeaks persons of better family than fortune. The town of Darmstadt has increased rapidly with its sovereign's consequence. The Capital of the old Landgraviate of Hesse was a collection of gloomy streets at the back of the Palace,

DARMSTADT.-COURT.

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how forming a dirty fauxbourg to the elegant modern town, which has grown up since the territory has been doubled, and the venerable Landgraviate of Imperial Germany, has been metamorphosed into a modern Grand Duchy. The little Capital has thus like its greater prototypes, its Court End and its City. The Palace, a remnant of the old Landgraviate, has the merit of being considerably more respectable than that of St. James's. If it had been completed on the plan in which two wings were finished by the Grand Duke's grandfather eighty years ago, and the magnificence of which excited a satirical remark of the Emperor Joseph, it would have been highly commodious and splendid; but various causes found other employment for the Landgrave's revenues, and the Court at present reside in a part of the ancient building, which possesses more comfort than splendour, while the fragment of the new Palace is appropriated to the Court Library, the Museums, and Picture Gallery.

Hospitality is a praise eminently due to a German Court; and this is no contemp

The

tible one, considering that it is costly, and that their revenues are by no means enormous. The Court entertainments at Darmstadt are principally dinners, to which invitations are issued with obliging liberality to the nobility and such strangers as have the honour of presentation. Fourrier of the Court visits you in the morning with the hospitable invitation of the Prince, which, of course, it is not seemly to decline. Sunday is a grand day, when the table is more than ordinarily crowded and splendid. The guests assemble in full dress at the old fashioned hour of two o'clock, in the large and handsome Saloons of the Palace. The Grand Duchess enters with her Ladies of honour and Chamberlains, and after half an hour occupied by her progress round the circle, gracefully addressing appropriate conversation to each individual, the exchange of affectionate kisses, of greeting, between the members of the reigning Family, and of civil speeches between the company, the party proceed, arm in arm, with ceremonious regularity to the spacious dinner Saloon. Here they take their seats in the

COURT DINNERS.

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order of the procession, the Grand Duchess and Court occupying the centre of the table. The table is splendidly covered with gold and silver plate, yperns, plateaux and flowers. The system of a German dinner, which is national, because the same at the table of a Prince and at the Table d'hôte of an Inn—bating the additional plate and delicacies of the former-would have precisely hit the taste of Justice Greedy, as being admirably contrived for the undisturbed dispatch of the business of a meal. On sitting down you find the board amply covered with dishes-there, merely to afford the eye a preliminary feast. In an instant the servants transport them to the sideboard, from whence they are offered one after another, in prescribed routine, ready carved to the company. In this way the knife and fork are kept in constant occupation, without the awkward interruptions of attention to others, by a succession of from fifteen to five-and-twenty dishes; beginning with invariable soup and bouilli, continued by ragouts, made dishes, and extremêts of various kinds, of course including sausages and sour krout, summed up with substan