Probably it was this real or supposed pollution which caused the noble river to dive into the sands, soon after passing Cologne, and hide its head for ever. It cannot be denied that Cologne is a city of the dirty and malodorous order—and we cannot much wonder at the fact, seeing that it was Roman in the beginning, and has never changed its nature or name from the days of Germanicus to the present moment. After passing from the Romans to the Franks, and from the Franks to the Germans, it became a “HOLY CITY”—and that was enough to ruin Rome itself. It became, of course, the rendezvous of priests, monks, and nuns, and the seat of abbeys, monasteries, nunneries, and churches. Notwithstanding these misfortunes, it rose into a rich and flourishing entrepôt of commerce, when its bigotted ecclesiastical government took the wise resolution of banishing the merchants, because most of them were Jews and Protestants. The exiles settled in other cities on the Rhine, and left the swarms of monks and priests among their rotten relics, to starve and “stink in state.” Here we have a key to the malodorous effluvia that penetrated the perfumed handkerchief of the lady of the “Souvenirs”—for I will be bold enough to aver that she did not leave a nook or corner unexplored in Cologne, where anything _curious_ was to be seen. It is a great pity that Napoleon, when he suppressed the convents and monasteries, did not order the scavengers and police to sweep out all the mouldering bones, putrefying flesh, and decomposing integuments of saints and martyrs that have been congregated in churches, chapels, and other monastic institutions for two thousand years. If this had been done at Cologne, there would have been no occasion for perfumed handkerchiefs to the noses of travellers. By the way, where were the brains of the three magi, or _wise_ men of the east, (whose skulls are crowned and impearled here,) when they allowed the suicidal decree to go forth against the merchants of Cologne? These relics of the church perform miraculous cures of physical ills; but they never, by any accident, prevent, much less punish, the perpetration of moral mischief. The schoolmaster is much more wanted than the scavenger in Cologne! —— “Alchymists may doubt The shining gold their crucibles give out; But faith—fanatic faith—once wedded fast To some dear falsehood—hugs it to the last.”