The German Spas, or watering-places, especially those of the first rank, seem to me to offer the best opportunities which a stranger can desire for the study of the German character, as, in its most unguarded moments, it presents itself to notice. Whatever a man's rank or station may be, he seems, from the hour of his entrance into one of these regions of joy, to lay aside, at least, all belonging to it, which elsewhere may trammel or incommode him. Princes, nobles, citizens, officers of every class, natives, foreigners, soldiers, civilians, and diplomatists, seem to be brought hither by one impulse only,--that is, by the pursuit of amusement. Business may be, and I doubt not is, carried on elsewhere than in the shops, but when or how people find time to attend to it, may well puzzle all save the initiated. I say nothing of the necessity under which every human being appears to be laid, of taking the baths as often as an opportunity may offer; for the bath is to a German what his medicine chest is to an Englishman,--something without which he could never exist throughout the year. But the round of amusements which is perpetually going on, the promenade early in the morning, the ride in the forenoon, the dinner at one o'clock, the music and lounge afterwards, then the theatre or ball, and last of all, the supper, these are the events in Toeplitz for which alone persons of every condition seem to live. It is really a most animating spectacle for a few days, and then--to me at least--it becomes irksome in the extreme. With the solitary exception, perhaps, of Carlsbad, Toeplitz takes rank as at once the most fashionable and best ordered watering-place in all Germany. It is the favourite resort of the King of Prussia, who, without designing to lead a host of fine people in his train, is, as he deserves to be, a centre of attraction. Singularly unassuming in all his habits, he is to be seen passing to and fro, sometimes on foot, without any attendant whatever, sometimes in a carriage, so plain, that it might almost pass for a fiacre, or common hackney-coach. It cannot be said that, in these respects, the nobility of Russia, Austria, and the German principalities in general, follow his example. The Germans do not, indeed, affix the same importance to splendid equipages and fine horses which we find attached to them by the aristocrats of Italy and Hungary; but they relish these things, to a certain extent, too; and at Toeplitz,--and to say the truth, at the Spas in general,--they take care that their best displays shall be made. The roads out of Toeplitz, in all directions, are, at the fashionable hours, well filled with gaily-dressed parties, both in carriages and on horseback.