glass, may catch cold, or face-ache, or rheumatism, it is true; but if I am to die or to suffer from atmospheric influence, let me do so in pure, rather than in mephitic air! I have grounded these reasonings on salubrity alone—leaving _comfort_ out of the question—as indeed it must be round the German stove! Why, the very sight of a cheerful fire in a Winter evening, is worth a German stove with the table-d’hôte thrown into the bargain! In a good fire we have company, conversation, and even meditation. I do not wonder that the Persees adore fire, as an emanation from the sun itself. I much doubt whether the Egyptians would have worshipped a German stove, even when they were so over-godly as to deify cats and crocodiles! But, to give the devil his due, the German stove is not without some good qualities. It is cheap—it does not set fire to ladies’ dresses—nor cause chilblains by scorching the fingers and toes in frosty weather. But as a drawback upon these negative good qualities, it renders the Germans a race of hot-house plants, who shiver in the blast whenever they issue from their vapour-baths, and are infinitely more liable to take cold than if they had come from an English room. The introduction into this country of the ANGLO-GERMANIC stove—that unsightly and unsocial laboratory of sulphur and suffocation—will not, I think, succeed. It is bad enough in Germany, where the Dutch tiles with which it is covered, emit no bad smell, and have a comparatively light and cheerful appearance; but here the hybrid iron mass—that dark lantern, “cui lumen ademptum”—is positively a nuisance. It may be borne, and even prove useful, in large halls, where there are constant currents of cool air. In a sitting-room or other chamber, it is very offensive—at least to my senses, from its metallic and sulphurous emanations. I had rather pitch my tent in the crater of Vesuvius, the valley of Solfatera, or the hut of a charbonnier in the Maremma, than in the vicinity of that sable distillery of “Northumberland diamonds,” from which every ray of light has been previously extracted by the gasometer.