Filled me with an immortal soul, to spring Its heavenly flight beyond this little sphere, 9. O thoughts ineffable! O visions blest! Though worthless our conceptions all of Thee, God! thus alone my lonely thoughts can soar; The soul shall speak in tears of gratitude. 10. Freddy's correspondence was becoming so interesting that, at the time announced for the reading of the next letter, a larger company than usual was present at the Hall. In addition to all the young people that had been accustomed to attend the Saturday evening readings, there were present Mr. and Mrs. Raymond, the teacher, and our friend Mr. Bardou. The several portions of the letter were read by different persons, as designated by Mrs. Wilmot. 11. The teacher read the narrative portions. "Bing'en on the Rhine" was assigned to Mary Atkins, who read it with that subdued, tender feeling which the piece required, and for which her voice was so well adapted. I doubt that the Professor himself read the piece any better, surrounded though he was by so many circumstances that were calculated to add to its interest. Lulu Wilmot read "Napoleon's Return;" and Ralph Duncan, who chanced to be home on a short visit, read the "Ode on the Death of the Duke of Wellington," and the "Burial of Sir John Moore." CHAPTER VII.-AROUND THE WORLD.-No. 5. FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO GIBRALTAR. I.-To Rotterdam, and up the Rhine. 1. On our return voyage from St. Petersburg, which city we left on the 20th of September, we stopped at Dantzic, a seaport and fortified town of Prussia, situated on the west bank of the river Vistula, about three miles from its mouth. Here Dr. Edson, with Henry and five others of our party, left us, in order to visit some of the manufacturing towns of Prussia, designing to join us, by railway, at Dusseldorf, another Prussian town on the Rhine. 2. Continuing our voyage over our former route, we passed Amsterdam, and, steaming up one of the many mouths of the Rhine, came to anchor at Rotterdam, another large commercial city of Holland, fifteen miles from the sea. We remained here several days. We then chartered a smaller steamer than the Dolphin, and proceeded leisurely on our way up the river, always lying by at night, and landing when and where it suited our pleasure and convenience. Many were the historic incidents, and Dutch and German stories and legends, that were told by different members of our party during the evenings, on board of our steamer. 3. The first large city that we came to was Dusseldorf, which is beautifully situated among villas and gardens. It is now, as we are told, a great railway and steamboat centre; and much of the trade of the Rhine is carried on by its merchants; but it is most famous for its academy of paintings, with its fifteen thousand drawings by the old masters, and its twenty-four thousand engravings and casts. 4. Here Dr. Edson and the rest of our party joined us. They had stopped two days at Berlin, the capital of Prussia; and had visited several manufacturing towns, the most interesting of which, Henry says, is Essen, only eighteen miles northeast of Dusseldorf. 5. This town has obtained a great reputation for its caststeel cannon, and other guns, that are made in the vast iron-works of a man by the name of Krupp. His caststeel guns are the most famous in the world; and his works, Henry says, produce more than sixty thousand tons of manufactured steel annually! Prof. Howard admits that we have nothing of the kind in our country to equal this. 6. Up the Rhine, twenty-one miles beyond Dusseldorf, we passed Cologne, which has given its name to the celebrated Cologne water first manufactured there, and now used the world over. Although the city has a splendid Gothic cathedral, the largest specimen of Gothic architecture in the world,—many of the streets are very narrow and crooked. They were, formerly, exceedingly dirty, which led the poet Coleridge to say, in a well-known rhyme, that the Rhine itself needs washing, after bathing the walls of the city: "The river Rhine, it is well known, But tell me, Nymphs! what power divine 7. A little beyond Cologne Prof. Howard pointed out to us, on our left, the celebrated Drachenfels, or Dragon's Rock, on the lofty summit of which, a thousand feet above the bed of the river, is a ruined castle, which the poet Byron refers to in the following lines: "The castled crag of Drachenfels Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, Between the banks which bear the vine." 8. Ten miles farther on, on our right, as we went up the stream, we came to the city of Bonn, at which we stopped a whole day. It is an ancient, walled city, has seven gates, extensive botanical gardens, and one very fine public square, in which is a monument of the great German musician, Beet-ho'ven, who died here. It has also a cathedral with five towers, the centre one being very lofty. There is a grand university here, the chief source of the celebrity and prosperity of Bonn, as Prof. Howard says. We were told that this renowned university has now about ninety professors, and nearly nine hundred students. 9. We next stopped at the strongly fortified city of Coblentz, twenty-four miles beyond Bonn, and at the confluence of the lovely Moselle with the Rhine. We made only a short stay there; yet it was long enough for us to gather in a thousand beauties from the surrounding scenery,-especially as we had Prof. Howard with us to point them out. 10. The Professor says that the country around is a perfect paradise, with its happy peasants' cottages, its vineclad hills, and its loftier summits strewn with noble old ruins of feudal times. Then he quoted from Byron-for there is no end to the poetry that he can repeat about these places. Here are a few lines that refer to this particular section of country: 11. "And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes, Walk smiling o'er this paradise; Above, the frequent feudal towers |