THE TYROL.
Mn. Isntis is a pleasant travelling-companion: he is observant, good-humoured, experienced, and tolerably well-informed. His object being neither the consumption of time nor the investiga- tion of any particular subject, he has leisure and inclination to wander just where he lists. In travelling, it is the absurdest thing -in the world to lay down a route: the rule ought to be, to enter a country and then let accident take the helm. How common it is to hear travellers lament that they cannot pursue this or that particular line of gratification—that they cannot go here or stay there—because, forsooth; they were bound to set off according to a route laid down for them either by their own particular study of a map, or by some most intelligent friend, who had himself tra- velled the country ! Now, no map or guide-book can guide a tra- veller ; for distance and discretion are neither all nor the most im- portant elements in a tour of pleasure; and on the other hand, no one man's taste and feelings can serve as the sufficient guide for another's. Mr. INcus wanders as he pleases, and hence results a portion of the agreeableness of his books; and yet he has the weakness to lay down routes for others. A route turns a tour into a painful piece of task-work. We remember a punctual family that laid down their route from London to Naples and back again, and ordered dinner by their return at a particular day and hour : and
there they sat down to it as they had devised, the carriage stopping at the gate as the cook was beginning to wonder whether she bad lest put on the fish. This was a Tour to a Minute; and Englishmen are fond of performing similar feats,—more especially those in whose occupations punctuality forms so important an ele- ment. Some merchants would consider their summer adventures " dishonoured " unless they presented themselves at the appointed hour at home, to discharge their promises in the face of friends; servants, and tradesmen. Routes have their use, but it is only for a particular description of traveller—the traveller who travels be- cause others travel—the traveller without taste, feeling, know- ledge, who rushes abroad at a particular season, because he hears Rome, Naples, and Florence, sounded in his ears winter after winter, and beino.b often asked by. stupid questioners whether he ever placed his body, alias his dead-weight, within the horizon of Mont Blanc, has been always constrained to answer "No," it being more agreeable to his vanity and self-consequence to say " Yes." To such persons routes are necessary : they must go as they eat, par carte: routes serve. them in place of taste, language, reading, inquiry : they arrive at Geneva, or at Florence, as per contract, and enter the same in the ledger of the brain. They see sights on the same principle, and return home entitled to say that they have been here and have seen that and this and the other. In such cases, it is impossible not to remember the witticism of SHERIDAN—if you only go to a place in order to say you have been there, why not save all the trouble and say it at once ? The fact is, it is a question which shall be sacrificed, time or truth; now the first being probably of no value to the parties, and truth always being of some value to every body, SHERIDAN'S advice was more witty than wise. It is better that Mr. AULDJO should struggle up to the top of Mont Blanc, than come home and falsely tell all his friends he had dor.e so.
But to return to Mr. INGLIS. This is one of a series of pleasant little books that he has given-us on Foreign Countries. "Many Lands" have been visited by him, according to the titlepage of his Wanderings, under the nona de voyage of DERWENT CONWAY; Norway, Slain, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and more eS- pecially the Pyrenees, to a portion of which he dedicated the whole of a very agreeable little volume forming a Number of Constable's Miscellany. The work on Spain, as well as some of the others, we have already commemorated in our columns.
Mr. INGLis's art in travelling is to see for himself : be is given to pedestrianism, and. to occasional travelling: he walks, or he rides, or abides, as opportunities offer. This is the way to see a country. .Ordinary travellers traverse lands, and should change their names and titles,—it should be Mr. So and So, the traverser of Italy or Germany : and they should inscribe their works as "France seen out of a coach-window," or "Italy by So and So, en courier." Besides, Mr. INGLIS is a pleasant descriptive writer: he has a taste both for nature and society : he is good-humoured: it must be very bad accommodation indeed in NI) Welt he does not find something good ; and when he is pleased at an inn or by a casual entertainment, be crows like chanticleer. His best subjects are external nature, manners, and customs : he bits off costume with success, and is hardly less fortunate in the costume of the mind— the broad distinctive marks of a people's character.
The Tyrol and the Tyrolese are both plainly .set before the mind's eye: a lover of the picturesque will know well what he has to expect; and a statesman might reason on the part the Tyrol would play in any European commotion. In the mean time, the description of the land and the adventures of the author form a very agreeable fireside companion, and serve to wrest a few mo- ments from the lugubrious Influenza. This is surely as much as may be expected from two little volumes. The account Of Bavaria is quite as interesting as the-Tyrol, though in another way. It is the happiness and contentment of the people under a paternal and frugal government, presenting so remarkable a contrast to the rest of Europe, that attracts the at- tention in Bavaria, and solicits the investigation of the econo- mist. Education has had little to do with it,—that is to say, lite- rary education, for there are many other branches of it.
The account of Augsburg will somewhat surprise those of our readers who are not more than ordinarily acquainted with the condition of the South of Germany. . .
Before we visit any place, fancy has always been at work, and has already finished an etching,—I need scarcely say how very far retrieved from tenth.- It is perhaps surprising, however, since towns so much resemble each other, that these fancy sketches should so seldom approach to the truth : occasionally, I have found a slight resemblance between the etching of fancy, and the reality; but this is rare ; and Augsburg. was not one of the exceptions. I expected to see a dark, gloomy, ugly, ancient-looking town ; and I found an open, hand- some, fine city,—with streets that may be put in comparis4 with the most
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