nner, or crossing and
recrossing, and circling round his table. He is apt to fancy himself
the sole object of curiosity; while, in reality, the eyes which seem
to mark him out, have in them perhaps as little speculation as if they
were turned on vacancy. We have been amused, and sometimes ashamed, in
witnessing the painful awkwardness of many of those numerous
steam-boat voyagers who, subscribing in London for their passage to
and from the Rhine in a given time, and for a trifling sum, find
themselves in a few hours transported from the bustle of Oxford
Street, Ludgate Hill, or the Strand, to the happy, idle, _fat_,
laughing, easy enjoyment of a German _Thee-Garten_, in the midst of
four or five hundred men, women, and children--all eating, drinking,
and smoking as if time, cares, and business had no influence over
them. It is a life so new to him, and so diametrically opposed to all
his habits and notions, that, in general, it affords him anything but
ease and enjoyment. To those, however, who know how to enjoy it, it
affords both. There is in these popular reunions an ease and
confidence, a _bonhomie_ and freedom, of which a Briton, with all his
boasted liberty, has no idea. What is strangest of all to him, no
distinction of rank, wealth, or profession is acknowledged. There are
no reserved places. The rich and the poor, the prince and the artisan,
sit down at the same kind of modest little green-painted tables, with
rush-bottomed chairs, all kind, affable, and jovial--all respecting
each other. The child of the citizen comes up without restraint, and
plays with the sword-knot of the commander-in-chief; and the little
princess will naively offer her bunch of grapes to the peasant who
sits at the next table with his pipe and his tall glass of Bavarian
beer. And yet the truest decorum is observed. There is no noise, no
rioting, no intoxication; we have never witnessed a single example of
any of these inconveniences. The education and habits of all the
inhabitants of this part of the world, have been from infancy so
regulated, and during many generations so completely formed to this
sort of life, that not the smallest ungracious familiarity ever
troubles these kindly popular reunions.

But let us come to a definite description. We will take the
Blum-Garten at Prague, for example--a city where the aristocracy are
as exclusive, as it is called, as anywhere in the world. This garden,
or rather park, is an imperial domain,