its practices. It is said that prayers to the Virgin and Saints are offered to them as mediators, not as gods; yet we have but to see the mass of the people in any Catholic nation, to know that the saints and angels have taken the place of the Dii minores et tutelares worshipped by their Pagan ancestors. At one time, the traveller sees a statue of the Virgin and Child with a large bunch of grapes, represented after the manner of Pomona, and at another, temples dedicated Divo Francisco.

We know that the Carnival was admitted into the church, because the Saturnalia were never forced out of it. And those who may have the good or evil fortune to see the asses, and mules, and horses at Rome, (some of them sent by cardinals and princes), sprinkled with holy water, in the name of St Anthony, as I did, may think that the august Spirit of Christianity must long since have fled from so disgusting a spectacle.

The present Roman Pontiff may have partaken of the mild spirit of the age, but he has none of its illumination; and while we commend the retired devotion of the monk, we deplore the superstition of the Pope, and the despotism of the Sovereign. No man has a right to receive the investiture of civil authority, who devotes himself to the observances of solitary religion; and though Cardinal Consalvi may be an able deputy, it were better to disrobe churchmen before they are girded with the sword.

I left the walls of Trent with joy, for the green fields, and sunshine, and song of birds, and mountain torrents, and the last traces of snow which fringed their sources, and all the other indications of nature reviving in the beauty of spring.

M

Innspruck is a large and fine town upon the banks of the Inn; it has at times been the residence of a little court, which has left many traces of urbanity among its inhabitants.

Halle, situated at a few miles distance, was crowded with its annual fair, when I rambled so far to see its salt mines. These are in the mountains; and though of less extent than those of Saltzburg, are yet very curious. The water, impregnated with the salt, is conducted for miles from the springs to the river side, where the facility of obtaining wood has induced them to fix their furnaces. The salt is a government monopoly. In following the sources of the springs into the mountain, and endeavouring to come at the reservoirs of water, they have mined to a great depth. These extensive caverns were at this time fitted up for an illumination, on the occasion of a visit of the Archduke Regnier, then on his way to Milan, to govern the Italian territories of his imperial brother.

The mountains here are so high and rugged, that eagles build in their sides. I saw the poor

people clambering up the precipices, on the difficult enterprize, of robbing the nests of the king of birds.

THE

RHINE AND CONSTANCE.

Soon after descending from the Alps, which divide the Tyrol from the northern Cantons of Switzerland, I came upon the banks of the Lake of Constance. Having just before seen the sun, reflected from the perennial veil of snow which lies upon their lofty summits, I now beheld the evening rays at Bregentz, glittering in the undulating wave.

The feeling of loneliness has seldom more completely absorbed me, than in my journey from Innspruck towards these beautiful banks. The mountains so precipitous, the vales so narrow, the road so winding, the people so rudeall combined to give a solitary American tra