covers the hill-side names have been cut.[1] There is
no monument here, no memorial on which the traveller can have his name
carved, no rocky wall on whose surface he can get it painted; so
visitors have the turf cut away for that purpose. The naked earth
peers through in the form of great letters and names; these form a
network over the whole hill. Here is an immortality, which lasts till
the fresh turf grows!

[Footnote 1: Travellers on the Continent have frequent opportunities
of seeing how universally this custom prevails among travellers. In
some places on the Rhine, pots of paint and brushes are offered by the
natives to the traveller desirous of "immortalising" himself.]

"Up on the hill stood a man, a poet. He emptied the mead horn with the
broad silver rim, and murmured a name. He begged the winds not to
betray him, but I heard the name. I knew it. A count's coronet
sparkles above it, and therefore he did not speak it out. I smiled,
for I knew that a poet's crown adorns his own name. The nobility of
Eleanora d'Este is attached to the name of Tasso. And I also know
where the Rose of Beauty blooms!"

Thus spake the Moon, and a cloud came between us. May no cloud
separate the poet from the rose!

SEVENTH EVENING.

"Along the margin of the shore stretches a forest of firs and beeches,
and fresh and fragrant is this wood; hundreds of nightingales visit it
every spring. Close beside it is the sea, the ever-changing sea, and
between the two is placed the broad high-road. One carriage after
another rolls over it; but I did not follow them, for my eye loves
best to rest upon one point. A Hun's Grave[2] lies there, and the sloe
and blackthorn grow luxuriantly among the stones. Here is true poetry
in nature.

[Footnote 2: Large mounds similar to the "barrows" found in Britain,
are thus designated in Germany and the North.]

"And how do you think men appreciate this poetry? I will tell you what
I heard there last evening and during the night.

"First, two rich landed proprietors came driving by. 'Those are
glorious trees!' said the first. 'Certainly; there are ten loads of
firewood in each,' observed the other: 'it will be a hard winter, and
last year we got fourteen dollars a load'--and they were gone. 'The
road here is wretched,' observed another man who drove past. 'That's
the fault of those horrible trees,' replied his neighbour; 'there is
no free current of air; the wind can only come from the sea'--and t