The river Rhine, it is well known, But tell. ye nymphs, what powers divine noon. Dusseldorf, as a town, is in no way remarkable. It is neatly built, and the streets are of a comfortable width, and it carries on a considerable trade in the shipment and exportation of German fabrics, brought thither Somehow or other I had always regarded from various parts of the country. A fat Herr Johann Maria Farina as a myth, a fabold gentleman in bronze stands on horseback ulous type of a sweet-smelling savour, an inin the market-place, the Elector John Wil- corporeal representative of the idea of fraliam who, when in the flesh, erected the Pal-grance, and had looked upon his autograph ace near the Rhine, (so Murray says,) and on Cologne bottles from infancy as a sham, Prince Frederick, cousin of the King of an illusion, a take-in, a humbug. That I Prussia, resides in this town. We saw his should ever see the man himself, and receive Highness with a very red face, and in a a flash of his inimitable essence from his tight red uniform, driving in a most undigni- own hands, had never occurred to me. But fied and unprincely hurry down to the wharf this privilege I enjoyed the very morning to attend upon the King of Portugal, who after my arrival. De Quincy tells us that came along in the Dutch yacht about an hour after we had landed. beholding, through the haze of his opium intoxication, the apothecary who first sold him that baneful drug, the man appeared as an angel to his beatified perception; and in like manner I may say that, coming out of the horrible alleys of Cologne into the odorife seemed to me, as he stood behind the coun- gratitude. In sixty-five minutes after leaving Dusseldorf we reached a fine station, where we got into an omnibus and were whirled off at a rapid pace, through dark streets and over a long bridge of boats, to a city dotted with rous shop of Herr Farina, that individual gas lights on the other side of the river, immediately upon entering which we were assailed by a "rank compound of villainous smells" happily unprecedented in the experi- der he drives a good business. No man of ence of any of us. "C'est affreux," said a proper sensibilities can enter his establishFrench woman on the opposite bench. Of ment without purchasing a bottle out of sheer course I knew, without the assistance of Bradshaw, that we had arrived in Cologne. Of the Cathedral of Cologne, I scarcely There we did not abide many days, but know how to state my impressions, so maronly a sufficient length of time to see the vellously unreal did it seem to me in its most prominent objects of interest, the first unspeakable beauty. The tracery of the of which with every traveller ought to be frost-rime on the window pane, in the drear the shop of Herr Johann Maria Farina whose | December, is not more delicate than its rich fame, like the drum-beat of England in Mr. details of sculpture, and as one gazes upon Webster's magnificent sentence, has cir- the exquisite creation, he half fears that like cled the earth, and whose eau will be found the frost-rime it will melt into nothingness of momentary service wherever one goes in before him. The loveliest objects in nature Cologne. The good Colognese are careful are the most transient; the meteor, the of the reputation of their town in respect of rainbow, the sunset cloud, the early bloom of uncleanliness, and maintain the "bad odour" womanhood, endure but for a brief season, in which they have always stood, unimpaired and the brightness, the glory, the lumen purputo this day. Coleridge did not do them jus- reum, is gone forever. And so of this Cathetice, in the number and variety of the dral, as the visiter lingers in its long-drawn. stenches which prevail there, or, since his aisles, and drinks in the delight of its purpled visit, there have been additions, for every atmosphere, a sort of apprehension oppresses house sends out its own gush, and from him that it will presently fade away as a every street is wafted a spicy gale, so that dream. Begun at a period so remote that with a greater emphasis than ever, may the the very name of the architect is lost, and trite interrogatory of the poet be employed-never yet completed except in fragments; half a ruin and half perfection; with the moss of centuries clinging to the defaced worthy of remark. These are superb, and and mouldering towers, and the hammers of show that if the art of staining glass as praca hundred workmen clanking on the splen- tised in the olden time has been lost, the did gable; its pavements irised with hues modern method of colouring it is productive which the sun of the middle ages first shed of much higher effects. through the stained oriels, and the supersti From the Cathedral, recollecting what tions of a long period of mental debasement Coleridge had said of St. Gereon, we went yet mingling with the gloom of its cloisters; thither, and shuffled through the nasty, disit stands the most interesting link that con- agreeable old humbug of a church, descendnects our own time with one long gone by, ing into the abominable crypt to see the and the best symbol, perhaps, of the medi- Roman mosaics, and coming away thoroughly eval idea of religion. It is wonderful how disgusted. St. Gereon could not have been that idea worked itself out, in these endur- a very clean saint, for they perpetuate his ing and graceful forms, gradually advancing pious memory in the dirtiest possible manfrom the grove in which the earliest Chris- ner. Madonnas with smutched faces look tians worshipped God, and borrowing from down from altars around which the dirt of the lofty arch of interlacing branches the six hundred years seems to gather, and vaulted ceiling, until the temples of the true soiled vestments hang up against discoloured faith became only the Temples of the Beau- walls, which greasy priests wear when readtiful and the spiritual part of devotion was ing out of breviaries that are almost black lost in the sensuous. with use. The bones of 6,000 martyrs, the One can buy for a few groschen an engra- Theban legion who were slain here in Dioving representing the Cathedral as originally cletian's time for their faith, line the sides planned, and as it will appear if ever com- of the building, and from one end to the pleted. What visions must that man have other is a smell of recently-extinguished had who conceived it, and by what mental tallow candles, that may perhaps be particuprocesses must the grand and harmonious larly grateful to the saintly patron. We structure have evolved from the confusion of found it rather the reverse. After leaving architectural details, the flying buttresses, this building the guide desired very much the pinnacles, the columnar masses of stone, we should visit the Church of St. Ursula, which enter into the general design! To form which is filled with the bones of the 11,000 a proper notion of the building, it is neces- virgins, but having had quite enough of os-sary to ascend to the top, and look down upon suaries in St. Gereon, we declined. the magnificent sea of turrets which heaves From Cologne to Bonn is but an hour's around you. Away in the distance stretches travel, which we performed in the evening a charming landscape-the Rhine flows twilight over a smooth railway, and upon arthrough it, first seen emerging from the hills riving in the latter city experienced a most towards the South-the curious town of agreeable transition from a region of offeneighteen centuries lies just below; yet neither sive smells to one delicious with the freshlandscape, nor river, nor city, is regarded, one feels absorbed in the building itself and can see nothing else. ness of flowers. The hotels of Bonn are all airy and surrounded with gardens, and the sense of comfort in looking out upon The chapels and their contents, the shrine verdure was most satisfactory to us in the of the three Kings of Cologne, who came caravanserai where we lodged. There were from the east with gems and spices for the numberless pilgrims besides ourselves who infant Saviour, which the sacristan swears," tied up" at that particular oasis just at that (Heaven forgive the poor man!) is worth time, for it was in the height of the travelmore than a million of dollars, and the mar- ling season, and Bonn is the point where ble saints in various parts of the edifice, are the grandeur of the Rhine commences and interesting, no doubt, to all who have a weak- at which the larger proportion of tourists is ness for such things; but apart from the inte- always concentrated. The register was full rior as a whole, I found the painted windows of names, English, American, French, Gerpresented by the late King of Bavaria alone man, and there were Rentiers and Proprie taires enough entered upon it to ensure even de non apparentibus et non existentibus eadem more than the usual amount of florins for est ratio. the summer. There is a famous University at Bonn delightfully situated in an open space of ground with noble shade trees around it, where the student may pursue his philosophic researches sub tegmine and fancy himself in the groves of Academus. It contains a great library of 150,000 volumes, and one of its principal halls is decorated with frescoes by Cornelius. Prince Albert's scholastic apprenticeship was passed here. Directly across the river from Bonn, the castled crag of Drachenfels frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine, and it was the first object which my eye sought the follow- About a mile and a half distant from the ing morning. Everybody went down to the town, upon the summit of a commanding river-side to see it, for who had not long been hill known as the Kreuzberg, there is a church familiar with the sweet lyric in Childe Har- to which we made a pilgrimage, not to pay old, in which my Lord Byron gives such mu- our vows at its dingy old shrine, but to enjoy sical expression to the one pure affection of the extended view it affords of the surroundhis nature that for his sister! If there ing landscape. The evening was serene, were any tourist at Bonn that had not read a sweet sunset slanted upon the spires of these verses before, he found them quoted Bonn and the intervening meadows, and the for his gratification by Murray, and became fine lines of Wordsworth's beautiful sonnet conscious of the poetic celebrity of the rock occurred to mebefore arriving in its vicinity. The Drachenfels, truth to speak, is a very picturesque object, and lifts itself proudly up from the turbid river, and the fragment of a castle which crowns it is yet quite capable of sug- but upon descending from the tower into the gesting to the lively imagination scenes of body of the church the poetic image of the violence and daring, and tender histories of nun was at once dispelled by the sight of a "lady-love and war, romance and knightly flight of stairs begrimed with dirt, which are worth," as connected with it in the olden religiously supposed to be the very same by time. I sat under the chestnuts by the river which Christ ascended to the Judgment Hall side, and looked upon it for an hour, as the of Pilate and to retain the drops of blood rafts went down, and the songs of the lum- that fell from the wounds inflicted by the bermen broke the silence of the Sabbath, crown of thorns. It is difficult to conjecture and became quite sentimental as I again re- how the pious believer reconciles this assumpmembered the pretty rhymes of the poet-tion with the claim set up by the Scala Santa And peasant girls with deep blue eyes, It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, at Rome. The steamer that carried us away from Bonn was thronged with the summer tourists, of whom the gentler portion wore imDo they though? Would'nt I like to see mense straw flats upon their heads, and some of those young persons, thought I, and filled the bow of the vessel, where their I looked for them, but they were not. The pencils went all the time taking down the peasant girls I saw had'nt blue eyes at all, most remarkable scenery of Rhineland for and were not well chaussées, (walking o'er home admiration. They began with the the Paradise mostly with bare feet,) and their Drachenfels five minutes after we got into hands offered early carrots, so they were evi- the stream, and never stopped as long as we dently not the damsels alluded to by Byron- remained on board. Every rock, ruin, and indeed, before I left Bonn, I began to doubt rapid, was transferred to the sketch book in the existence of his charming paysannes, ap- a style that certainly might be called free plying to them the maxim of the law that and bold. While the young ladies thus sketched, their fathers occupied themselves the flunkey who shows the visitor through with the luggage; fast-looking German stu- the apartments recounts, with great empresSEdents, accompanied by powerful dogs, lounged ment, how such a suite has been occupied by along the deck; a young fellow countryman Queen Victoria, and points out a sword worn of my own, here and there, crept under the by Marshal Saxe, and another that had served shade of the awning and called for Rhenish the first Napoleon, among the weapons hung wine; fat ladies opened well-stuffed leather upon the walls, it is impossible to look upon bags, and drew out copies of Hyperion, or the Chateau as anything more than a curihuge lorgnettes and began to read of Paul ous piece of child's-play. As such it amused Fleming or to enjoy with a double-barrelled us, and we were returning to Coblentz quite satisfaction the beauties of the river; thus satisfied with the manner in which we had we passed by the convent of Nonnenworth, spent the afternoon, when there passed us and the castle of Rolandseck, and under on the road a royal equipage, preceded by many other rocky robber-holds of the feudal equerries in waiting, containing a young pertimes, until the burning glare of noon com- son whom to see was a happiness such as pelled us to leave the boat and take refuge cannot easily be forgotten. No wonder that in the Hotel Geant of Coblentz. Never was R-, impressible youth that he is, tore his shelter between brick walls more grateful. hair when he learned she was a daughter of The Rhine was not associated in my mind the Prussian monarch, and therefore only to with a high temperature-none of the wri-be gazed upon by a republican citizen of the ters have mentioned its mid-summer climate United States, as he might gaze upon Hesas tropical, Goethe does not speak of it as per, unattainable in the twilight sky; no exciting perspiration, so that I was really wonder that, when the flashing chariot, in not prepared for the blazing sun that sheeted its surface with fire. For the matter of comfort we might as well have steamed up the Ganges, and had one been set down at Ehrenbreitstein the day we visited that fortress, without a knowledge of its position on the map of Europe, he might very well have fancied himself at Seringapatam. which she was seated, whirled into the aristocratic gates of the palatial park of Coblentz, our friend thought to be a prince, and thereby entitled to seek the society of such a charming creature, would be altogether a pleasant thing for at least that particular evening, and wished himself the Hereditary Herzog of Selters wasser! Beautiful prinThe situation of Coblentz is extremely cess, if thou hadst not vanished so rapidly, picturesque, just at the confluence of the the homage of our admiration might have Moselle and the Rhine, and around it there descended at your feet in a bouquet or a sonare many spots of natural and historic inter- net, but the horses of royalty are swift courest which cause it to be a favorite stopping sers, and the eyes that we saw looking out place in the ascent of the river. The mon- of the carriage were but a moment blue, then ument to Marceau, the gallant young officer gone forever! of the French republic, whose early loss, like Beyond Coblentz, the course of the Rhine that of Andre, was lamented by friends and is tortuous through highlands terraced to their foes, stands near the point where the two summits with the vine, with here and there streams commingle, and long inscriptions re- a sterile rock defying cultivation, rearing itcount the story of his fall less eloquently and self precipitously from the water, and quaint enduringly than Lord Byron has done it in old towns, with musical names, nestling unamaranthine verse. A pleasant drive of three derneath. The journey was but a repetition miles upon the river side takes one to Stoltz- of that of the day previous. The English enfels, an old castle for centuries dismantled maidens, the German students, Young Amerand moss-covered, but recently restored as a ica, the castles, and the luggage, with the country residence for the King of Prussia, equatorial sun pouring down upon all. Just by the corporate authorities of Coblentz. after we passed St. Goar, the bare cliff of the The style of its restoration is Gothic, but Lurlei appeared in view, and we entered the baby-house Gothic, such as Horace Walpole whirlpool where the dangerous Syren once carried out at Strawberry Hill; and though resided, whose bewildering music, according as to ancient legends, lured so many to destruc- [One can not climb to the top of a height, tion. The steamboats have frightened her that Miladi is not there with her footman, beladyship away long ago, and the whirlpool is fore him, nor stroll at sunset out of any of dangerous only as are all rapids to raftsmen the Rhenish towns, that he doesn't meet in certain conditions of the river. There is Jobson, with an eye-glass, ingeniously stuck a sweet little song, written I think by Mrs. in his dexter orb and Murray under his left Norton, of Bingen, "fair Bingen on the arm, bent upon the same diversion. The Rhine," which, lingering in my memory, hotel overflows with the English, they are caused me to look upon that town with the everywhere. Now if Miladi or Jobson were inevitable interest of agreeable association, an agreeable, companionable person, this and a certain respect for cabinet Johannis- would render the Rhine not a whit the less berger gave Prince Metternich's Chateau on charming, but it so happens that of all dethe distant heights, a factitious importance scriptions of people in the world, the English in my eye, after seeing which I thought no are the most frigid, isolated, selfish, self-immore of the scenery but only of keeping portant men and women one can possibly cool, until we left the boat at Biberich, where, encounter. No concurrence of circumstanafter a delay of half an hour, we got into ces can elicit from them in behalf of a stranthe cars and whizzed off to Wiesbaden. ger a salutation or a civility, and they seem It was at Biberich, therefore, that we took perpetually in the way. Would you read the leave of the Rhine, having faithfully perform- Times or Galignani, your English friend has ed the fashionable ascent of its stream under just taken it up, and will assuredly not relincircumstances of more than ordinary discom-quish it, until he has read every line over and fort, yet certainly not without pleasure. It over again. Are you disposed to drive, Jobis impossible to regard this river with indif- son has gone out with the last pair of horses, ference, rolling through so varied and beau- Miladi having preceded him with her own tiful a country and connected with the trans-equipage brought all the way from Park Lane. actions of so many centuries. We cannot There is no sort of exaggeration, I think, wonder that to the German it appears almost I am sure there is not a particle of bad feela sacred stream. From the point where ing towards the English in this account of boldly and brightly it rushes in a flood from the them upon their travels, for while I can not blue lake of Constance to the levels of Hol- consider John Bull a pleasant fellow to fall land, which it severs into many islands in in with accidentally, I admire many of his pouring itself into the sea, it flows continu-qualities, his honesty, his independence, his ously by the habitations of people who speak invariable cleanliness and air of respectabilthe language of Schiller, and would thus seem ity; and have received at his hands (after to form the natural boundary of that United making his acquaintance) real kindnesses not Germany, which stretching to the Vistula on to be forgotten. Let no one, therefore, acthe other side and from the Alps to the Bal-cuse the writer of malice in the slight altertic, has been the dream, the hope, the aspi-ations he has ventured to make in the folration of the patriot for long years. Poetry lowing verses of Childe Harold, which he has linked its name with some of the finest flung upon Rhine-stream in bidding it fareof lyrical compositions, and painting has en- welldeavoured, not altogether vainly, to imitate its landscapes. "King Rhine" would seem no extravagant name for a river of such memorials, and "Father Rhine" not too indicative of reverence in the mouth of a dweller upon its banks. If to the American tourist, the summer excursion along its course should prove less agreeable than might have been expected, the fact may be attributed more to the throng of English men and women that annually resort thither, than to anything else. VOL. XX-97 Beneath these castles and in these hotels A Harold's Pilgrimage their deeds to show And what they fancied wild and what they voted “slow.” In their baronial trips the country round |