Everybody knows Homberg. On one pretext or another--whether the mineral springs, the baths, the gaiety, or the gambling--the integral portions of that tide of voyagers which annually fluctuates through the Rheingau, find their way to that pleasant little pandemonium, and contribute, I have no doubt, very largely to the revenues of that high and puissant monarch who rules over a population not quite so large as that comprehended within the boundaries of Clackmannan. But various as its visitors always are, and diverse in language, habits, and morals, I question whether Homberg ever exhibited on any previous occasion so queer and incongruous a mixture. Doubtful counts, apocryphal barons, and chevaliers of the extremest industry, mingled with sleek Quakers, Manchester reformers, and clerical agitators of every imaginable species of dissent. Then there were women, for the most part of a middle age, who, although their complexions would certainly have been improved by a course of the medicinal waters, had evidently come to Homberg on a higher and holier mission. There was also a sprinkling of French deputies--Red Republicans by principle, who, if not the most ardent friends of pacification, are at least the loudest in their denunciation of standing armies--a fair proportion of political exiles, who found their own countries too hot to hold them in consequence of the caloric which they had been the means of evoking--and one or two of those unhappy personages, whose itch for notoriety is greater than their modicum of sense. We were not long in finding Mr Peter Pettigrew. He was solacing himself in the gardens, previous to the table-d'hôte, by listening to the exhilarating strains of the brass band which was performing a military march; and by his side was a lady attired, not in the usual costume of her sex, but in a polka jacket and wide trousers, which gave her all the appearance of a veteran duenna of a seraglio. Uncle Peter, however, beamed upon her as tenderly as though she were a Circassian captive. To this lady, by name Miss Lavinia Latchley, an American authoress of much renown, and a decided champion of the rights of woman, we were presented in due form. After the first greetings were over, Mr Pettigrew opened the trenches. "So Jack, my boy, you have come to Homberg to see how we carry on the war, eh? No--Lord forgive me--that's not what I mean. We don't intend to carry on any kind of war: we mean to put it down--clap the extinguisher upon it, you know; and have done with all kinds of cannons. Bad thing, gunpowder! I once sustained a heavy loss by sending out a cargo of it to Sierra Leone." "I should have thought that a paying speculation," observed Jack.