Whether as regards health, spirits, or musical taste (the latter palled by inanimate repetitions of inferior works, or disappointed by imperfect versions of master compositions), I can imagine no tonic better than the Leipsic Autumn Fair, as I took it in 1839 and 1840.

From Berlin to Leipsic, the journey of a night and half a day is singularly insipid, save for Wittemberg: from Frankfort, the road, two nights and a day and a half in length, to measure distance by schnellpost time, is more engaging. First comes the fruit district, which is rich and joyous by reason of its plenty. To this succeeds the country in the Kinsig Thai, which, though not particularly beautiful, has a pastoral character of its own. When the Red Land and the Thuringian Wood are entered, there is some fine forest scenery; and about Eisenach the road winds among a succession of hills, clothed with trees, which make a brilliant panorama, when they are seen in their autumnal dress. The towns, too, along this road are most of them worth a day's halt: Fulda, for its ecclesiastical remains; Eisenach, for its clean, picturesque market-place, and its vicinity to the Wartburg — Luther's Patmos, where the stains of ink with which he assaulted The Devil still blot the wall; Gotha, for its University and Palace; Weimar, for the sake of the brilliant court of intellect and genius which once ruled Germany thence.