violation of their newly regained privileges; and no one doubts that the magistrates themselves would fain have evaded the summons, if compliance had not been the only politic course.

Frankfort, for so considerable a city, is by no means rich in public buildings and objects of curiosity. The Cathedral, a large awkward edifice, possesses little interest but for its antiquity, and as having been the scene of the coronation of the ancient Emperors. The celebrated Roemer (the town house) has still less architectural beauty: it is an ordinary old white house, on the Roemer Square, undistinguished among other buildings. In a shabby office of the municipality, you are shown the renowned Golden Bull; or according to the translation of a French traveller, the taureau d'or. This venerable parchment forms one of the most important constitutional archives of the old German Empire.-It was passed in the year 1355, in the reign of the Emperor Charles IV, and is principally remarkable for settling the constitution of the Electoral College. It fixed the number of Electors at seven, enhanced their dignity, de

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clared them equal to Kings, and denounced the penalties of high treason on conspirators against their persons. It fixed the place of election of the Emperor at Frankfort, and of coronation at Aix-la-Chapelle. -The Jacobin destroyer of the Empire, who was always fond of decking out his dynasty in the symbols of legitimate rule, conveyed this respectable instrument among his other captured treasures to Paris, from whence it has since been restored. This was in keeping with Napoleon's favorite system of figuring as the lawful inheritor of the glory and the honors of Charlemagne ; in pursuance of which, he anointed his son with the second title of the Empire, fitted the Iron Crown on his own head, and studded the Imperial mantle with bees from the tomb of Chilperic.

Above this apartment, is the Kayser's Saal (Imperial Saloon) a large dreary chamber, with a gloomy vaulted roof- once the scene of the splendid pageant of the Election banquet, by which Goëthe describes his young imagination to have been so powerfully dazzled. The youthful Bard

gained admission by persuading one of the Elector Palatine's servants to intrust him with a silver dish. The walls are decorated with defaced fresco paintings of the Emperor's" veterum effigies ex ordine avorum." The last compartment, singularly enough, contains the figure of his present Majesty of Austria, the last Emperor of Germany. By another curious coincidence, in the Church of St. Stephen at Vienna, where the statues of the Emperors are placed in niches round the walls, the present Emperor of Austria occupies the last niche. And to complete this ex post facto list of terrible omens to the unfortunate House of Hapsburgh, a lady who was present at the present Emperor's coronation as Emperor of Germany, assured me that the Imperial Crown sat so painfully on his Majesty's head, that he was obliged to relieve himself by laying it aside for several minutes. The inspection of these vestiges of the good old days of Imperial Germany, naturally suggests reflections on its modern condition. The scene of its splendid constitutional ceremonies is dreary and deserted; the Golden Bull, once so

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important, is laid on a shelf, and never disturbed but for the gratification of travellers-the Election Chamber overlaid with dust and cobwebs: the single Elector of Hesse Cassel is the only Prince whose empty title calls to mind that splendid constitutional rank;-and in the place of the august assembly where the Emperor presided over assembled Sovereigns, Frankfort is now the seat of a Diet of Envoys, who are eternally disputing in the name of amity and confederation, and professing to impose a harmony on the jarring states, which they rarely preserve in their own diplomatic notes and debates.

The Michaelmas fair, during which I was in Frankfort, commences early in September; and its bustle and vivacity last throughout the month. The most considerable wholesale dealings are, however, transacted within the first week, when numbers of the merchants flock to the fair at Leipsic. The Exchange, a small neat quadrangle, surrounded by a range of warehouses and shops, called the Braunfels, is thronged during the fair with a respectable cluster of merchants of all nations; per

haps a twentieth part of the number who assemble daily on our Exchange. High Change is about 12 o'clock, from which the merchants return home to dinner; they generally commence business at six or seven in the morning, and toil till 10 or 11 at night; not having, as yet, attained to that methodical celerity, which in London, dispatches a hundred times the amount of affairs between the commodious hours of nine and six. The large rooms in the Braunfels are fitted up as show-rooms and shops, in humble imitation of the Palais Royal, and loaded with merchandizes, showy and useful, from all quarters of Germany, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, and Bohemia. "Thomson's fine cotton goods from Manchester"-" Picard, Marchand de Modes de Paris" Zwingler, Uhrmacher aus der Schweitz" and other such announcements of the trades and domiciles of the traders, attract notice in glittering capitals. The fairs, which had naturally declined during the obstructions of war, are gradually resuming their former alacrity. Frankfort, has, during the Fair, the animated aspect of a bustling, trading

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