The suburbs of Francfort are very delightful, and after passing over a draw-bridge, and through a deep, gateway, we entered the city, the streets of which are crowded and full of gaiety and bustle, in consequence of the great autumnal fair which was holding there. All the best inns were brimful, and with great difficulty the Dutch officer and myself procured a miserable double-bedded room, at an inferior inn, filled with petty merchants and their families, whom the spirit of traffic had led to this celebrated mart, and was half choked up with cases and boxes containing their merchandize. This town swarms with French soldiers, about thirty of whom slept in rooms adjoining to ours, where they deported themselves with great order. My companion had just returned from the Cape, in consequence of its surrender to the British arms. He spoke with liberal rapture of gallantry of the English troops. In Germany, as in Holland, time is taken by the forelock, and at six o’clock the stiefelputzer, or boot-cleaner, knocked at the door, followed by the chambermaid with a composition of frankincense and other gums of a pyramidal shape, and about an inch high, much used in Germany, called a Räucher-kerz, for perfuming rooms, which she placed upon our candlestick and left smoking. My Dutch companion annoyed me at this hour, first by begging that I would hear him read one book of Milton’s Paradise Lost, a little English edition of which he had in his pocket, which he achieved in an incongruous mêlange of various languages; and secondly, by begging me to lend him my tooth-brush for a few minutes, observing, that he preferred an English tooth-brush to any other, and at the same moment applying it to his teeth with equal alacrity and gratification. After he had paid such a compliment to English tooth-brushes, and had done me the honour of using mine, the least I could do was to beg that he would favour me with keeping it for my sake, with which he was much pleased, and accordingly introduced it to a party of combs and razors in his shaving-case. In all other respects he was an agreeable man, and I am sure a liberal-minded soldier. This city, which was till lately imperial, is one of the most ancient towns in Germany, and has several handsome streets and noble buildings: it is particularly celebrated for the splendor of its hotels, which are reported to be the most magnificent in Europe, particularly those called the Rothen Haus or Red House, and the Rörniskchen Kaiser or Roman emperor, where the King of Prussia lodged when he visited this town; and the Darmstadter Hof, in which Mareschal Augerau and his suite resided whilst I was at Francfort: so crowded was the city, that it was with great difficulty and some interest I procured apartments at the Weiden-hof, or Willow-Court, a second rate inn, but of great magnitude. Our table d’hote, at which between two and three hundred persons of respectability sat down every