In the winding staircase, while descending from the Tower, met different people, who seemed to be going to make neighbourly visits to the family above. Passed through the market-place, very entertaining, and nowhere a greater variety of people and of head-dresses than there. The women's caps were high. My eye was caught by a tightly-clad, stiff-waisted lady who wore a gold cap (almost as lofty as a grenadier's) with long lappets of riband behind. I saw no reason why that cap (saving its silken ornaments) might not have belonged to her great grandmother's grandmother. The _Maison de Ville_ stands on one side of a handsome square, in the centre of which is a noble fountain, that used to flow with wine at the crowning of the Emperors. Oxen were roasted in the square, and, in memory of the same, two heads, with their horns, are preserved under the outside of a window of an old church adjoining the _Maison de Ville_. _Heidelberg, Thursday, July 27th._--After dinner, Mary, Miss H., and I set off towards the castle.... The ascent is long and steep, the way plain, and no guide needed, for the castle walks are free; and there--among treasures of art, decaying and decayed, and the magnificent bounties of nature--the stranger may wander the day through. The building is of various dates: it is not good in architecture _as a whole_, though very fine in parts. There is a noble round tower, and the remains of the chapel, and long ranges of lofty and massy wall, often adorned with ivy, the figure of a saint, a lady, or a warrior looking safely from their niches under the ivy bower. The moats, which must long ago have been drained, retain their shape, yet have now the wild luxuriance of sequestered dells. Fruit and forest trees, flowers and grass, are intermingled. I now speak of the more ruinous and the most ancient part of the castle.... We walked upon a platform before the windows, where a band of music used to be stationed, as on the terrace at Windsor--a fine place for festivals in time of peace, and to keep watch in time of war.... From the platform where we stood, the eye (overlooking the city, bridge, and the deep vale, to the point where the Neckar is concealed from view by its winding to the left) is carried across the plain to the dim stream of the Rhine, perceived under the distant hills. The pleasure-grounds are the most delightful I ever beheld; the happiest mixture of wildness, which no art could overcome, and formality, often necessary to conduct you along the ledge of a precipice--whence you may look down upon the river, enlivened by boats, and on the rich vale, or to the more distant scenes before mentioned. One long terrace is supported on the side of the precipice by arches resembling those of a Roman aqueduct; and from that walk the view of the Castle and the Town beneath it is particularly striking. I cannot imagine a more delightful situation than Heidelberg for a University--the pleasures, ceremonies, and distractions of a Court being