, tne eturett):1 Uigit to Germang.

QUEEN VICTORIA:10A Irer Consort left Coburg on Wednesday week, and passed to Gotha, the other domain of Prince Albert's family. We have, however, to go back to the last two days at Coburg.

On Monday evening the 25th August, the reigning Duke took his guests to the Theatre to see a German comedy—Gutzkow's Zopf and Schwert, (Queue and Sword); a farcical piece turning on the eccentricities of Fre- derick William the First of Prussia, and not very unlike the petite comedie of C'harles the Twelfth. " Of the acting, the costumes, and the general mice en scene," says the corm spondent of the Times, " it would be difficult to express too high praise. One advantage which the Continental system has over ours is, that a sovereign will, regulated by good taste and worked out with plenty of means, produces unity of effect. The theatre is the Duke's; the actors are, in the parlance of an old drama, the Duke's servants'; and the Duke's taste of course rules everything. There was nothing weak or incomplete in the performance, from the moment the curtain rose to its fall. The actor who played the part of the King showed great tact and comic humour; and the Demoiselle Miigge, who sustained that of the Princess Wilhelmina, showed herself to be that rare thing on the stage a finished gentlewoman. One scene at the close of the comedy was very amusing. The readers of the book called The Life and Times of Frederick the Great, edited by the late Thomas Campbell, will have been amused with the singular scenes which the eccentric tastes of Frederick's father created at his Court. Among the most singular were the meetings of the smoking and drinking club, where all rank was merged in jollity, and his Majesty chose to indulge in relaxation from the cares of state—relaxations not always of the most refined kind. One of these scenes was produced on the stage, softened down a little of course; and the effect was irresistibly comic. Her Majesty staid the whole time, and appeared to enjoy the comedy very mach. Perhaps the most hearty laughter of all that resounded through the theatre was from the Royal box." Tuesday was Prince Albert's birthday; and it was duly celebrated— scarcely by any public observances, but rather in the manner of a family festival: there was a rustic dance in a meadow at Rosenau in the morning; in the evening, a dance al fresco to the people of Coburg, given by the Duke; and a ball and concert at Rosenau, quite private, and limited to persons of the highest rank. The most interesting of these several pas times was the rustic dance, of which the Queen and her companions were spectators. After the usual breakfast in the open air, the Queen, Prince Albert, the King and Queen of the Belgians, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Duke of Saxe Coburg, and Princes too numerous to mention, came retina to another front of the palace, opposite which is an extensive lawn, enclosed in the most exquisite flowers and foliage. Presently there emerged from one of the leafy avenues a gay troop of villagers, all in their best holyday dresses, the men wearing large nosegays in theirlats, which also were wrapped round with the most sin,gular-looking hand- kerchiefs in the brightest colours. Each man led a peasant girl, flaunting gaily in the picturesque costume of the country,—the neat little jacket of red, green, or blue; the short skirt of black stuff, striped or variegated with the most brilliant colours; and, topping all, the grotesque coiffure which is peculiar to the women about this part of Germany, half cap half turban, with a profusion of long black ribands suspended from a bright gilt ornament let into the top of the cap, which hang down the back or float in the wind. Their faces, brown with exposure to the air and ruddy with healthy toil, were now lit up joyously to the merry strains of national music which burst forth from a band stationed at one end of the gar- 414a ego. in a few moments, at a signal from the Duke of Coburg, the whole of this gay party were whirling round the lawn in the gayest possible waltz. It was a pretty and heart-stirring sight; andahepseplennjoyed it so ! Not the people

only, but also a long line of Queens, Kings, Duke; 1Dutchesses, and Lords and

Ladhe; of who* our own QUM was the oentre measliest delighted of them all, if amerry laugh anti joyous face are any proofs of true pleasure. Nor were these the only spectatent 'True to the practice of this country—where nothing is shut in from the pablicve, and all seems one large anecession of parks and gardens, so impossible is at to 'detect /my boundaries—groups of people, either from Coburg

or from the neighbouring villages, the highest and the lowest mingled trustfully

aBa friendlike in one mutual enjoyment, were to be seen at different angles of the lawn, not twenty yards from the Queen, or in the garden under the very windows

of the palace. The prince and the peasant stood side by side, all heartily par-

ticipating in the same merry, laughing pastime. And on went the gay, easy- footed waltzers, now to a slow air, now to a quick one, sometimes intermingling

with the waltz the lightest and most sparkling of polka steps; and often, as some

little stop occurred in the quick whirling, when some one less apt at the spinning motion than the rest unwound the wavy throng, a laugh, loud, merry, and uncon-

strained, would burst out at the unlucky one, and off they were again with more right good dancing-will than ever. A shrill scream of delight—an indescribable sound something between a war-whoop and a shout—burst forth from the whole at certain pauses in the waltz, and sometimes at the close; a custom of the people, and one which is found in some shape or other in all national dances. It was the crowning peculiarity of this characteristic scene. Sometimes, in the intervals of the dance, her Majesty or the Queen of the Belgians would call one of the peasant girls and talk with her, praising her dancing, or perhaps her dress; and the maiden thus honoured of course became an object of intense envy to the rest. One or two of the most handsome, and who wore the most picturesque dresses,

were selected and detained at the palace as subjects for sketching; a distinction of which they seemed not a little proud. After this pretty scene had lasted more

than an hour, the whole troop filed off again by the way they came, to the music of their own rustic band; and not forgetting, as they threaded their way through the park, to treat their Royal visiters to a series of final shouts or screams."

The Royal party, including the Queen and Prince Albert, the King and Queen of the Belgians, the reigning Duke, and some of his relatives,

left Rosenau at eight o'clock on Wednesday morning, with a very numerous

cortege, for Reinhardtsbrunn, a hunting-castle of the Duke. The boun- daries of the different states here run in a curious zigzag fashion across

the road, morsels of different principalities and dutchies indenting each other, so that in the course of a few miles travelling you may have jour- neyed through the lands of half-a-dozen powers. At some of these points of intersection, the local officers were in waiting to greet the illus..

trious travellers. At the Meiningen boundary, the authorities of the state were in waiting to receive the Queen under a triumphal arch, a few gen- darmes and state-postillions joining the cortege. At HiMburghausen, the civic authorities were in full state: a sort of local national guard of citizens. lined the street, a band discoursed very respectable music, and a pretty double row of little girls, all white muslin and ivy wreaths, were arranged along the principal street. Nearly all the smaller towns and villages along the road were decked in wreaths and festoons; and the inhabitants,

men, women, and children, turned out in their holyday attire. Meiningen was reached at two o'clock. Here the travellers staid to visit the Duke of that state; partook of luncheon; and set forward. They entered the castle of Reinhardtsbnum at eight o'clock.

It is a picturesque building, pitched in a valley of the Thuringian mountains. At night a characteristic spectacle was shown to the Queen. "The district round Reinhardtsbrann contains several iron mines and many iron. forges; and after the Queen's arrival, a party of the miners and workers—smart sturdy fellows—stalked through the woods before the palace in rude procession,. each man bearing a flaming torch. The scene was worthy of Der Freischutz. Among the dark pine trees, winding in long irregular array, came the band of miners in their picturesque dresses—cloaks and high-crowned hats; the sputtering flambeaus flickering and glaring amid the trees, showing by turns the. foliage fresh and dripping with the night-dews, and by turns gleaming and flaring upon the stalwart forms and rough visages of the men who bore them. Her Majesty acknowledged the greeting of the miners from a window." The party staid at the castle nearly the whole of Thursday, enjoying the pleasures of the retreat. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Mr. Anson went out early in the morning, and brought home a fine buck, shot by the- Royal sportsman. In the course of the day, the Duke drove out the Queen in a pony phaeton.

Before four o'clock, the whole of the cortege resumed its way; and, travelling easily, reached Gotha by six o'clock. The town is larger than

Coburg, more commercial, handsomer in its shops, but less regal in the aspect of its public buildings. It contains, however, four or five palaces, in different parts of the city. Two face each other,—the Friedrichstein, a large palace, of no great architectural beauty; and the Friedrichsthal, smaller, but having a large garden-park, interspersed with flower-beds and lawns, and a magnificent orangery; this palace was destined for the residence of Queen Victoria. The town was entered in an imposing array.

On approaching the city, the cortege was joined by numerous bodies of eques- trians, forming a large procession. First came a large body of the municipal police, on horseback: they are a half-military body, and have a very soldierly appearance. Then came, also on horseback, the burgher guard: not quite so soldierlike. Next, a party of the mounted gendarmes; and after them a bead of

the postillions in their gay dresses. A body of some two or three hundred citizens and gentlemen of the town, excellently mounted, followed; and then the Dukes chasseurs, all in uniforms of green and gold. After these came the Queen's car- riage; containing, besides her 3bLjesty, the King and Queen of the Belgians and Prince Albert. The Duke of dare-Coburg rode on horseback by the carriage from Reinhardtsbrunn. Two other carriages, with the suite, closed the pro- cession. At the entrance of the city from the side of Reinhardtsbrunn, a very elegant triumphal arch was erected; and the long street leading from this point to the *ace in which the Queen was to take up her abode was one long avenue of festoons and garlands, suspended across the road from the lines of trees on each side of the way. The street was lined by a body of the gendarmes. Almost every house was festooned or garlanded, and that in a very tasteful way. That they were not similar to those at Coburg seemed to show that they were in both places spontaneous offerings of welcome, and not suggested by the authorities. It was surprising how so comparatively small a place could yield so many people: but, in fact, it wasa general holyday, and every man, woman, and child, came out to see the sight. And a most picturesque crowd they made. The peasant girls from the surrounding villages, many of them beauties of which any country might be proud, intermingled in the throng with their antique and picturesque costumes,, long since abandoned in the towns, but clung to by the villagers with rustic te- nacity. We have nothing in our country like their head-dresses. They are cer- tainly more quaint and elaborate than graceful; but a pretty face defies all the capnces of fashion in dress. The head is surmounted by a tower of black velvet, silk, or stuff, Recording to the taste or means of the wearer, which is shaped hie an infantry soldier's cap. This, again, is covered with short sable phmunage

slightly curled; and from the top falls a shower of long black silk ribands, reach- ing below the waist. A dozen or two of these women walking together reminded one of the top of a hearse. Others of the peasant women wore less ambitious coiffures; but then they had large cloaks of various colours thrown over the left shoulder after the Spanish fashion. The men wore very characteristic dresses. Some stalked along in long black coats, like priests' soutans, and boots fitting tight to the leg up to the knee. The costume of the miners, too, was very peculiar. These odd costumes mingling in the throng with the uniforms of the soldiery, huntsmen, postillions, and others who were there, produced a very pretty effect; nor were the gay colours in which the city damsels decked them- selves without their use in keeping up the ever-changing variety. The great centre of attraction, where the throng of people was most con- stant, was the triumphal arch already described. Here the chief municipal au- thorities of Gotha were assembled in a sort of tribune, to receive the Royal visitors on their arrival within the boundary of the city. At this spot the pro- cession stopped, and the Burgomaster delivered an address, of which the following is a translation-

.. Happy In the consciousness of the presence of your Majesty in our city, we lay our humblest and most heartfelt devotions at the feet of the Sovereign of the great British empire. Happy we are that the kind and natural sympathies of the mother and the wife have never lost their intensity amidst the splendours of the greatest throne in the world. To those sympathies we are indebted for the incomparable satisfaction we feel on this occasion. Welcome to the home of a beloved prince of our house. Welcome as his consort, 0 mightiest, and at the same time most amiable of Queens ! Little are we able to convey to your Majesty our unfeigned deep-felt joy at welcoming such illustri- ous guests to our unpretending town. Still, however far we could have carried the out- ward showing of our attachment, It nevercould have equalled our desire to offer homage and best love to Victoria Queen of Britain 1"

The Queen bowed, and returned a few words of gracious acknowledgment. The procession then passed on to the palace of Friederichsthal ; where the Queen and Prince Albert took up their abode.

An annual festival awaited the Queen's arrival at Gotha; or rather did not await it, for three days of the festival had passed. There is, it seems, in Gotha, an association called the Rifle Society, established, as the name implies, for the purpose of rifle practice. They have, at a distance of about a mile from Gotha, a place specially devoted to the use of their society, where there are all sorts of targets for the rifle-shooting, and more particularly one mark which towers high above the rest, and which gives its name to the festival. It is the image of a large bird—some may call it an eagle, others will insist on its being a goose; but the point is a knotty one to decide, seeing that its head has been long since shot away, and its body and wings are riddled and battered with rifle-shot. Once a year a whole week is (nominally) devoted to the rifle-shooting, and especially to the demolition of this devoted bird. The reigning Duke, or the Prince of the house of Saxe-Coburg who may happen to be in Gotha at the time, opens the festival or sport by firing the first shot at the bird. There are three crowns on its head; all ot which it is the especial pri- vilege of the Duke to shoot away, and then the general sport begins. The shoot- ing itself is rather a dull affair; but its accessories are not. Attached to the shooting-ground is a very handsome ball and concert-room, used daily; and all around the grounds during the week the festival lasts the owners of itinerant booths are accustomed to cluster.

On Friday, there was a special feature in the day's entertainments—a grand procession of some thousand or twelve hundred peasants and villagers, male and female, all in their national costumes; and this rustic parade the Queen signified her desire to witness-

" Arrived at the ground about three o'clock, the Royal party took their stations in a spacious gallery overlooking the whole scene; and a singular scene it was to be Witnessed by those to most of whom it must have been so new. Imagine all the din of a fair,—showmen puffing. their exhibitions with lungs of brass and brazen trumpets blowing notes of won, cymbals, gongs automaton bands—in short, all the uproar, the mingled sounds of time-honoured St. Bartlemy crowded into half the space once allotted to that now neglected festival; add to these elements of gleeful discord dense crowds of people of all ranks, some in the oddest possible costumes, smoking, beer-drinking, laughing, shouting; and you have some idea of the scene that assailed the Queen's eyes when she mounted her high post of observation, if indeed it was to be seen at all through the clouds of dust.

"With the arrival of the Royal party came the novel part of the festival—the procession of peasants. A description of one section of the endless line of horse- men and vehicles that wound itself past the Royal party will serve for all. The procession was headed by a large body of peasants farmers, and small proprietors on horseback, dressed in their close-fitting coats of green, black, or blue; the little bizarre German cap, with its long front, stack on their heads. These ambled or paced along two abreast; most of them pulling the eternal pipe, as with astound- ing gravity they defiled before the Royal party, saluting them as they passed. After these came the lumbering waggon peculiar to the country; consisting gene- rally of a few boards nailed together rudely into affirm resembling a boat. These were sometimes decorated with garlands, and were filled with the peasant women in their national costume, and especially the towering head-dress with its hearse- like plumes. So many villages, so many of these waggons, or nearly so; and, painful to add, so many village-bands also, who politely persisted in playing 'God save the Queen,' with a discordant unanimity which even royal ears could not torture into flattery. These horsemen, bands, and waggons, multiplied endlessly, formed the long and apparently interminable procession which passed before the Royal party; and, what with the din of the fair, the roaring of the emulous bands, and the clouds of dust, long before the last heavy vehicle had passed the Royal party, the whole had become sufficiently wearisome. One thing alone made it endurable—the extreme and at the same time the very peculiar beauty of the great majority of the peasant women."

When all had passed, the Royal party went to Reinhardtsbrunn to dinner. In the evening, there was a grand reception at the Friedrichsteiu Palace, at which the following persons were present— The Queen. of Great Britain, King Leopold of the Belgians, the Datchess of

Kent, the reigning Dutchess Alexandrine of Saxe Coburg Gotha, &c., Queen Louise of the Belgians, Prince Albert, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Grand Duke of Saxe Weimar Eisenach, the Hereditary Prince of Saxe Weimar Eisenach, the Prince of Reuss-Schleitz, the reigning Duke of Saxe Coburg, the Prince and Princess Holienlohe-Langenburg, the Prince and Princess of Hohenlobe-Walde- burg, Duke Ferdinand of Saxe Coburg Gotha Kohary, Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg Gotha Kohary, the Grand Duke Gustave of Mecklenberg Schwerin, the Prince of Reuss Ebeisdorffi the Prince of Leiningen, the Duke Alexander of Wurtemberg, the Duke Ernest of Wurtemberg, the Grand Princess Anna Feodorowna of Russia, the Dutchess Dowager of Saxe Coburg Gotha, the Prince of Ffirstenburg, Prince Elodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfiirst ; besides others of lesanote.

On Saturday, Queen Victoria witnessed a deer-hunt, after the fashion of the country;

The place chosen for the purpose was about three or four miles from Rein- hardtsbrami, and fourteen or fifteen from Gotha, on the skirts of the great Thurin- gian range; where the scenery much resembles the Scotch Iiighlan& The spot was a cleared space on the slope of a hill, enclosed on all sides with a sort of wall of white canvass and net-work, sufficiently high to prevent the deer from escaping. In the centre was erected a sort of pavilion, open at the sides, formed ad' fir branches and leaves, and decorated with heather, forest-flowers, and berries. At another part of the ground a nent-wooden table was fixed, and on it were placed peederand shot. In the enclosed space were stationed the chassenrs or hunts- men of the Duke, all clad in brilliant uniforms of green and gold; and by the pavilion was a fine military band. When the very numerous Royal party arrived, Queen Victoria, the Queen of the Belgians, and the Dutchess AlexandAna, took their seats on easy-chairs in the pavilion: in the pavilion also were Prince Albert, King Leopold, and Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg. The other gentle- men took up their station by the wooden table, whence they supplied thernselve.s with ammunition. 'When all was arranged, men in long-skirted coats, with white wands, drove the deer, panting and frightened, into the enclosure. There was -a pause, which the band filled up with polkas and national airs. The shooting then began. The deer were driven past, to that they came within range of the gentlemen in the pavilion, and then of Howe at the table ; and so well was it contrived, that if they were missed by one set of sportsmen they were pretty sure to be brought down by another. A few of the animals managed, with a convulsive bound, to clear the enclosure; at which the crowd of people collected without always sent forth a shout of delight. Soon the field was strewn with the dead and dying deer; and the shooting wits suspended while the killed and wounded were dragged or slung on poles and carried towards the pa- vilion; where a huntsman with an enormous eauteau de ehersse cut their throats. That done, the shooting proceeded again, until more deer were prostrated and brought to have their throats cut. At each throat-cutting pause, the band played some lively airs. This process of alternate shooting and throat-cutting, with an accompaniment obligato, was continued for two hours; and then the ladies prepared to depart. But now a new spectacle presented itself: during the brief interval of preparation, all the deer had been collected and ranged on either side of the pathway from the pavilion to the place of exit from the enclosure; so that the whole party had to pass through this avenue of deed beasts: forty-eight fine animals were stretched in this way, twenty-four of which were stags.

After the hattue, the party repaired to Reinhardtsbrunn to dinner.

On Sunday, the Court attended Divine service in the church of St. Augustine, a large bernlike edifice; and Queen Victoria went in the after- noon to see two ruined castles in the neighbourhood — Tentershausen and Molsdorff. The rest of the day was spent in retirement.