ere
was, it is true, a domestic market in the great square, highly
interesting to a stranger from the number of curious costumes collected
together; the ringletted Polish Jew, old Germans from Altenburg, seeming
masqueraders from the mining districts of the Erzgeberge, and country
folks from every neighbouring village, who flocked to Leipsic with their
wares and edibles. But all this was at an end long before the church
service commenced. I have been in the Nicolai-Kirche (remarkable for its
lofty roof, upheld by columns in the form of palm trees), and the
congregation thronged the whole edifice. And at a smaller church, I was
completely wedged in by the standing crowd of unmistakable working
people, whose congregational singing was particularly effective. The
German Protestant church service is not so long as our own. There are
only a few pews in the body of the building; and the major part of the
audience stand during the service. I was not so well pleased with one
sermon I heard in the English church, for it happened to be the effort of
a German preacher; a student in our tongue, whose discourse was indeed
intrinsically good, and would have been solemn, if the pauses and
emphases had only been in the right places.

I never worked on Sunday in Leipsic, nor was I acquainted with any one
who did. The warehouses were strictly closed; and a few booths, with
trifling gewgaws, were alone to be seen. The city was at rest. Leipsic
has but one theatre, and to this the prices of admission are doubled in
fair-time, which placed it out of our reach. Thus we were forced to be
content with humbler sources of amusement, and to find recreation, which
we readily did, in the beautiful promenades round the city, laid out by
Dr. Muller; in country rambles to Breitenfeld, and other old
battle-fields; in tracing the winding paths of a thin wood, near the
town, wonderful to us from the flakes of wool (baumwolle) which whitened
the ground. Or again, among the bands of music and happy crowds which
dotted the Rosenthal--a title, by the bye, more fanciful than just,
seeing that the vale in question is only a grassy undulating plain. Here
we sometimes met the "Herr," with wife on arm, and exchanged due
salutations.

The fair, such as we understand by the name, commenced in the afternoon,
and was a scene of much noise and some drollery. The whole town teemed
with itinerant musicians, whose violent strains would sometimes burst
from