To the former editions of this tale was prefixed a poem on “The Ideal,” which had all the worst faults of the author’s earliest compositions in verse. The present poem (with the exception of a very few lines) has been entirely rewritten, and has at least the comparative merit of being less vague in the thought, and less unpolished in the diction, than that which it replaces. CONTENTS. THE IDEAL WORLD THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE CHAPTER I. In which the Reader is Introduced to Queen Nymphalin CHAPTER II. The Lovers CHAPTER III. Feelings CHAPTER IV. The Maid of Malines CHAPTER V. Rotterdam.--The Character of the Dutch.--Their Resemblance to the Germans.--A Dispute between Vane and Trevylyan, after the manner of the ancient Novelists, as to which is preferable, the Life of Action, or the Life of Repose.--Trevylyan’s Contrast between Literary Ambition and the Ambition of Public Life CHAPTER VI. Gorcum.--The Tour of the Virtues: a Philosopher’s Tale CHAPTER VII. Cologne.--The Traces of the Roman Yoke.--The Church of St. Maria.--Trevylyan’s Reflections on the Monastic Life.--The Tomb of the Three Kings.--An Evening Excursion on the Rhine CHAPTER VIII. The Soul in Purgatory; or, Love Stronger than Death CHAPTER IX. The Scenery of the Rhine analogous to the German Literary Genius.--The Drachenfels CHAPTER X. The Legend of Roland.--The Adventures of Nymphalin on the Island of Nonnewerth.--Her Song.--The Decay of the Fairy-Faith in England CHAPTER XI. Wherein the Reader is made Spectator with the English Fairies of the Scenes and Beings that are beneath the Earth CHAPTER XII. The Wooing of Master Fox CHAPTER XIII. The Tomb of a Father of Many Children CHAPTER XIV. The Fairy’s Cave, and the Fairy’s Wish CHAPTER XV. The Banks of the Rhine.--From the Drachenfels to Brohl.--An Incident that suffices in this Tale for an Epoch CHAPTER XVI. Gertrude.--The Excursion to Hammerstein.--Thoughts CHAPTER XVII. Letter from Trevylyan to ----- CHAPTER XVIII. Coblentz.--Excursion to the Mountains of Taunus; Roman Tower in the Valley of Ehrenbreitstein.--Travel, its Pleasures estimated differently by the Young and the Old.--The Student of Heidelberg: his Criticisms on German Literature CHAPTER XIX. The Fallen Star; or, the History of a False Religion CHAPTER XX. Glenhausen.--The Power of Love in Sanctified Places.--A Portrait of Frederick Barbarossa.--The Ambition of Men finds no adequate Sympathy in Women CHAPTER XXI. View of Ehrenbreitstein.--A New Alarm in Gertrude’s Health.--Trarbach CHAPTER XXII. The Double Life.--Trevylyan’s Fate.--Sorrow the Parent of Fame.--Niederlahnstein.--Dreams CHAPTER XXIII. The Life of Dreams CHAPTER XXIV. The Brothers CHAPTER XXV. The Immortality of the Soul.--A Common Incident not before Described. --Trevylyan and Gertrude