This is certainly one of the most splendid works of the kind ever
produced in this or any other country. This is high but not unmerited
praise; as the reader will believe when we tell him, that it contains
twenty-six large plates, from drawings by Stanfield, engraved by
first-rate artists, and superintended by Mr. Charles Heath. They are
all, strictly speaking, PICTURESQUE scenes, chosen with great skill,
and with right understanding of the Picturesque. The literary portion
consists of Travelling Sketches on the Rhine, and in Belgium, and in
Holland, by Mr. Leitch Ritchie. The plates are, of course, intended as
illustrations to the letter-press; but it is too evident, that the
latter has been _written_ to the plates. However, that matters not,
for the twenty-six engravings are amply worth twenty-one shillings, the
cost of the volume. The author's share is lively and jaunty, and of the
most here-and-there description. We only intend to quote the portion
accompanying the Engraving on the annexed page.[1]


ST. GOAR, (_on the Rhine_).

"We now arrived at St. Goar, and the ruins of the castle of Rheinfels:
but here the pen gives willing place to the pencil. In the view, the
town and river are seen through an arch, in such a way as to convey
a complete idea of what we call the Lakes of the Rhine. In entering
St. Goar by the gate of the Rhine, a stranger of these every-day times
thinks of nothing but being bothered about his passport. It was once
very different. A traveller of any consideration, who visited the town
for the first time, was asked by the functionary, 'Sir, My Lord, or Sir
Knight'--as it happened--'with what do you please to be baptized, wine
or water?'--'With wine,' of course was the answer, if the respondent