When upon the subject of music I must be the advocate of Mme. de Staël. She has been accused of falsehood in stating that in the Cottages in Germany a Piano Forte was a necessary piece of furniture. I cannot from my own knowledge go quite so far, but from my short experience of German manners I may safely say there is no nation in which Music is so popular. We have heard the notes of pianos and harpsichords issuing from holes and corners where they might least be expected, and as for flutes and other instruments, there is scarcely a village in which, in the course of an hour, you will not hear a dozen. At Cologne we were lodged at a French Inn kept by the landlord and his wife alone--no waiters, no other attendance--and yet the house was spacious, clean, and excellent. I never met with more attention and wish to accommodate, and not only in the house; the exertions of our host were exerted still further in our behalf. He introduced us to a Club chiefly composed of French Germans, who were as hospitably inclined as himself. One gentleman invited us to his house, would give us some excellent hock, introduced us to his family, amongst the rest a little fellow with a sabre by his side, with curling locks and countenance and manner interesting as Owen's. Hearing I was fond of pictures and painted glass, he carried me to a fine old Connoisseur, his father-in-law, whose fears and temper were a good deal roused by the "peste," as he termed it, of still having half a dozen Cossacks in his house. However, they were officers, and by his own account did him no harm whatever; but for fear of accidents he had unpanelled his great dining-room. Our friend had a large and excellent house, in a style very unlike and far more magnificent than is usually met with in England. In return for his civility I was delighted to have it in my power to give him a few ounces of our Pecco Tea which remained of our original stock. Travelling in Germany is certainly neither luxurious nor rapid; the custom of hiring a carriage for a certain distance and taking post horses does not extend here, and you are therefore reduced to the following dilemma, either taking a Carriage and the same horses for your journey or the "Post Waggon," or Diligence, which is of the two rather more rapid. Of two evils we preferred the last, and at half-past 8 this morning were landed at Aix la Chapelle, having performed the journey of 45 miles in 12 and a half hours shaken to death, choked with dust, and poisoned with tobacco, for here a great hooked pipe is as necessary an appendage to the mouth as the tongue itself. Under the circumstances above mentioned, with the Thermometer at about 98 into the bargain, you may conceive we were heartily glad to run from the coach office to the Baths as instinctively as young ducks. On looking over the list of persons visiting the place, we were delighted to find the names of Lord and Lady Glenbervie[86] and Mr.