miseries. I cannot tell what may be the
pleasure that awaits the _live_ "lion," but I envy no man the delights
that fall to his lot who inhabits the den of the _dead_ one.'

CHAPTER XX. BONN AND STUDENT LIFE

When I look at the heading of this chapter, and read there the name of a
little town upon the Rhine--which, doubtless, the majority of my readers
has visited--and reflect on how worn the track, how beaten the path
I have been guiding them on so long, I really begin to feel somewhat
faint-hearted. Have we not all seen Brussels and Antwerp, Waterloo and
Quatre Bras? Are we not acquainted with Belgium, as well as we are with
Middlesex; don't we know the whole country, from its cathedrals down
to Sergeant Cotton?--and what do we want with Mr. O'Leary here? And the
Rhine--bless the dear man!--have we not steamed it up and down in every
dampschiffe of the rival companies? The Drachenfels and St. Goar, the
Caub and Bingen, are familiar to our eyes as Chelsea and Tilbury
Fort. True, all true, mesdames and messieurs--I have been your
fellow-traveller myself. I have watched you pattering along, John Murray
in hand, through every narrow street and ill-paved square, conversing
with your commissionaire in such French as it pleased God, and receiving
his replies in equivalent English. I have seen you at table d'hote,
vainly in search of what you deemed eatable--hungry and thirsty in the
midst of plenty; I have beheld you yawning at the opera, and grave at
the Vaudeville; and I knew you were making your summer excursion of
pleasure, 'doing your Belgium and Germany,' like men who would not be
behind their neighbours. And still, with all this fatigue of sea and
land, this rough-riding and railroading, this penance of short bed and
shorter board, though you studied your handbook from the Scheldt to
Schaffhausen, you came back with little more knowledge of the Continent
than when you left home. It is true, your son Thomas--that lamblike
scion of your stock, with light eyes and hair--has been initiated into
the mysteries of _rouge et noir_ and _roulette_; madame, your wife, has
obtained a more extravagant sense of what is becoming in costume;
your daughter has had her mind opened to the fascinations of a French
_escroc_ or a 'refugee Pole'; and you, yourself, somewhat the worse
for your change of habits, have found the salads of Germany imparting
a tinge of acidity to your disposition. These are, doubtless, valuable
imports to