little stream have been planted, artificial obstructions and cascades
formed, paths cut, bridges thrown across the rivulet, rocks piled, etc.,
and by these simple means, one walks a mile in a belt of wood a few rods
wide, and may fancy himself in a park of two thousand acres. Ten years
would suffice to bring such a promenade to perfection, and yet nothing
like it exists in all America! One can surely smoke cigars, drink
Congress water, discuss party politics, and fancy himself a statesman,
whittle, clean his nails in company and never out of it, swear things
are good enough for him without having known any other state of society,
squander dollars on discomfort, and refuse cents to elegance and
convenience, because he knows no better, and call the obliquity of taste
patriotism, without enjoying a walk in a wood by the side of a murmuring
rill! He may, beyond dispute, if such be his sovereign pleasure, do all
this, and so may an Esquimaux maintain that whale's blubber is
preferable to beefsteaks. I wonder that these dogged and philosophical
patriots do not go back to warlocks, scalps, and paint!

The town of Wiesbaden, like all German towns of any consequence I have
ever been in, Cologne excepted, is neat and clean. It is also
well-built, and evidently improving. You may have heard a good deal of
the boulevards and similar places of resort, in the vicinity of French
towns, but as a whole, they are tasteless and barren-looking spots. Even
the Champs Elysees, at Paris, have little beauty of themselves, for
landscape gardening is but just introduced into France; whereas, to me,
it would seem that the Germans make more use of it, in and near their
towns, than the English.

We left Wiesbaden next morning, after enjoying its baths, and went
slowly up to Frankfort on the Maine, a distance of about twenty miles.
Here we took up our old quarters at the White Swan, a house of a
second-rate reputation, but of first-rate civility, into which chance
first threw me; and, as usual, we got a capital dinner and good wine.
The innkeeper, in honour of Germany, caused a dish, that he said was
national and of great repute, to be served to us pilgrims. It was what
the French call a _jardiniere_, or a partridge garnished with cabbage,
carrots, turnips, etc.

I seized the opportunity to put myself _au courant_ of the affairs of
the world, by going to one of the reading-rooms, that are to be found
all over Germany, under the names of _Redoutes