icturesque than this. The
shore is deformed with mud, and incumbered with a forest of reeds. The
fields, in most seasons, are mire; but when they afford a firm footing,
the ditches by which they are bounded and intersected, are mantled with
stagnating green, and emit the most noxious exhalations. Health is no
less a stranger to those seats than pleasure. Spring and autumn are sure
to be accompanied with agues and bilious remittents.

The scenes which environed our dwellings at Mettingen constituted the
reverse of this. Schuylkill was here a pure and translucid current,
broken into wild and ceaseless music by rocky points, murmuring on a
sandy margin, and reflecting on its surface, banks of all varieties of
height and degrees of declivity. These banks were chequered by patches
of dark verdure and shapeless masses of white marble, and crowned by
copses of cedar, or by the regular magnificence of orchards, which, at
this season, were in blossom, and were prodigal of odours. The ground
which receded from the river was scooped into valleys and dales. Its
beauties were enhanced by the horticultural skill of my brother, who
bedecked this exquisite assemblage of slopes and risings with every
species of vegetable ornament, from the giant arms of the oak to the
clustering tendrils of the honey-suckle.

To screen him from the unwholesome airs of his own residence, it had
been proposed to Pleyel to spend the months of spring with us. He had
apparently acquiesced in this proposal; but the late event induced him
to change his purpose. He was only to be seen by visiting him in his
retirements. His gaiety had flown, and every passion was absorbed in
eagerness to procure tidings from Saxony. I have mentioned the arrival
of another vessel from the Elbe. He descried her early one morning as
he was passing along the skirt of the river. She was easily recognized,
being the ship in which he had performed his first voyage to Germany.
He immediately went on board, but found no letters directed to him.
This omission was, in some degree, compensated by meeting with an old
acquaintance among the passengers, who had till lately been a resident
in Leipsig. This person put an end to all suspense respecting the fate
of Theresa, by relating the particulars of her death and funeral.

Thus was the truth of the former intimation attested. No longer devoured
by suspense, the grief of Pleyel was not long in yielding to the
influence of society. He gave h