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1821.] Tour through Germany, in 1815.-Frankfort.

the History of the Author, and whe-
ther any other Work of his is known
at present.
W. B. R.

LETTERS FROM THE CONTINENT. (Continued from vol. XC. ii. p. 597.) LETTER XIII.

НОСКО

Cologne, Aug. 29, 1818,

JOCK and Rhenish wines are much drank at Frankfort, and the wine glasses at table are all green. In private houses the hock produced to guests is usually 50 years old, and is drank in green glasses, so thin, that they quiver from the weight of the wine. This is considered essential to the flavour. We find nearly all the wine sharp and rather sour; and the reason is, that it is only once in six or seven years, that the season is warm enough to ripen the grapes. The last year in which they ripened was 1811, and this wine is prized, and bears a high value. There is a favourable prospect this year; but three or four weeks of hot weather are still necessary to bring the grapes into perfection, and at present the weather is cool and autumnal.

Several carriages with four horses came into Frankfort whilst we were there. The fore-horses are always placed at so great a distance from those behind, that there is room for another pair between. There is no postillion to the fore-horses, but they are managed by one postillion; and are fastened to the shaft-horses by long ropes; if they swerve the postillion has little power over them. To-day we met at breakfast two Eng. lishmen who are going our route as far as Cologne. One is a young Navy Captain, who has lived two years in the South of France. They have just made the tour of Switzerland.

To-day we went into one or two booksellers' shops. There are two handsome works lately published, each in 1 vol. 8vo. containing Views of the Rhine, and a Description of the Country. In England they would be got up for a guinea and a half, but hear the price is near three guineas; and in general, books are rather dearer in proportion than in England. The shops are very dull and make no shew; but great preparations are making for the fair, which begins the first of September.

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The Country immediately round Frankfort is level; but there is a chain of bold hills six or seven miles to the North of the town. The bridge over the Mayne is a handsome one.

The Post-office and all the public Offices close from twelve to two, and all, the inhabitants cease their employments in order to dine. Coffee follows immediately after dinner. We found at the Cassino 40 or 50 newspapers. Several daily papers are published at Frankfort; one of which contains a list of the strangers arrived at every Inn; we saw to-day our own names in the list. The large silver pieces of money are worth 2 florins and 42 krentzers. There is no such coin as a florin. There are krentzers, 3 of which are worth a penny. There are 10 krentzer pieces, each worth 12 krentzers, and twenty krentzer pieces, each worth 24 krentzers. Sixty krentzers make a florin, which is about 1s. 94d. or two francs and three sous.

Frankfort was antiently a free town independent of other States, as perhaps its name may import. It has recovered its independence since the fall of Bonaparte, and is governed by its own Magistrates: but the Allies have a garrison here at present. I visited the public Madhouse, which is under the superintendance of the Magistrates. It contains about 50 patients, chiefly paupers, and the majority women. The house is in a confined situation in the middle of the town, with a very small garden, in which a few of the men and women were walking together. The rooms are very clean, the house well painted and white-washed. The beds are of wood, and are sloping boards, elevated a little towards the head. There are stoves in every lodging-room, and grated doors before the stoves and windows, which make it impossible for a patient to injure himself either by the fires or windows. They do not use chains, nor could I find out that they have any means of fastening the patients in their beds. Those whom I saw in bed were not confined.

None however were furious.

August 26.-We had intended to return by the water coach to MAYENCE; but finding it would be near all day in performing the voyage, and that the banks of the Mayne appeared dull and uninteresting, we set

off

30

Tour through Germany.-Mayence-Bingen.

off at six in the diligence, in company with the two Englishmen.

At the village of Hockst, about five miles from Frankfort, there is a very noble pile of building, which in England would be thought a palace; with a chapel, and every thing in the most princely stile. It was built in 1778, by two brothers, tobacco manufacturers, who had made a fortune. It is now falling into decay, and seems uninhabited. We had in the diligence two ladies who could not speak French.

At dinner at Mayence we met with a Russian family; a gentleman (or nobleman) with his two sons and their physician. They have been in England; and are travelling for the health of one of the young men. They visited London, Bath, and Manchester. They are very intelligent people; and interesting in their manners. One of the young men, on our asking if he found the English civil, said (in Engglish) "O yes, much more civil than French or Germans, not civil in much speaking, but in doing." He spoke with great animation of the character of the English nation; and said he wished he could see in Russia the English families to whom they had been introduced, that he might repay their hospitality. He spoke with great dislike of Paris and of the French; amounting as it seemed to me to a national prejudice; saying, there was no sincerity in the French, &c. &c. This family is going up the Rhine, and will winter in Italy as the young man cannot bear the climate of the North. This afternoon we put our cabriolet on board the packetboat for Cologne. The charge for its conveyance was enormous-44 florins, or about 95 francs, besides 12 francs each for our own passage; 1 florin for embarkation; 3 for taking the carriage to the river.

August 27. This morning we embarked on the RHINE with the two English gentlemen whom I mentioned. There was also a Scotch gentleman on board, an intelligent young man who had been travelling in Italy, and a sensible well-informed traveller on business, from Cheapside. The whole company amounted to from 50 or 60 persons.

The boat was long and narrow, about 7 feet wide, the cabin was comfortable, but crowded, and afforded

[Jan.

no prospect; and on deck there was no protection on the sides. At 7 the thermometer was 57. The morning was dull and hazy, but the day gradually improved.

As far as BINGEN the views were tame; we only arrived there by dinner-time, about one o'clock; the wind (West) was contrary, and our rate about three miles an hour. Two awkward large oars were used by the boatmen, but they relied chiefly on the current of the river for impulse, and the oars were rather for keeping the vessel in a proper direction. The Views resembled those on the Humber; there being a chain of hills about three or four miles to the right of the river. The cabriolet was in a small boat moored alongside the packet. The thermometer in the water was 61.

Between Mayence and Bingen we passed an old Abbey which has been converted into a House of Correction and Mad-house.

Saw one or two of the great rafts of timber which float down into Holland. They are above one hundred yards long, and have two or three huts on board. They are used for the conveyance of goods, and when they arrive are broken up and the timber sold. The value of a raft is from 500l. to 1000l.

At Bingen we landed and dined. I bought 12 large green gage plums for 4 krentzers or 14d. At Bingen the river contracts, and is closed in on both sides by steep hills, generally clothed with vines, rarely with wood. Our rate of progress increased to four miles in an hour from the rapidity of the stream. The vines are low, about three feet high; they are in rows, and have all the formality of a kitchen-garden; the reverse of any thing beautiful or picturesque. To make amends, however, we passed several villages in picturesque situations, and a great number of old baronial Castles on romantic points of rock and bold eminences. The hills in general are bare and hard-featured, and the want of wood cannot be com pensated for. The tops of the hills on both sides of the river are of nearly an uniform height, and have the appearance as if the country was level, except merely where the river has made a deep channel or bed for its

course.

Near Bacharach the boat stopped, and

1821.] Tour through Germany. -The Rhine.-Coblentz. 31

and some of us got out and walked forward three or four miles by a foot-path amongst the vineyards. We passed opposite the picturesque village of Weal, with a ruined castle and old walls. Here the packet-boat overtook us, and as the surly boatman would not wait or come to shore, we were glad to get into a small canoe, and were paddled to the packet at some risque from the slimness and narrowness of the boat.

Near SAINT GOAR the scenery becomes very grand. The rocks on both sides are bold and striking, and the river is inclosed within narrow limits; being perhaps between 2 and 300 yards wide. Several castles are seen on both banks; sometimes three are visible at once. The winding course of the river continually presents new points of view. Near St. Goar there is a whirlpool in the river; the water seems to form a circular hill, with hollows round it, but there is nothing dangerous except for a small boat; and there is also plenty of room to pass without approaching the whirlpool. If the castles and villages were taken away, the natural scenery of the Rhine would create very little interest.

It became dark before we arrived at the village of BOPPART, at halfpast eight-here we stopped, and the company divided themselves amongst three village inns to pass the night. Had the wind favoured, we should have reached Coblentz.

August 28.-We were summoned at three o'clock, and embarked at four in the dark, and during a shower of rain. The charges for supper, beds, and a pint of rum, for three persons, were only about 8s. The servants expect nothing.

We passed a few castles and villages, but there was nothing very interesting before we reached COB LENTZ. The day gradually mended, and the wind dispersed the showers. About seven we landed at Coblentz to breakfast. This is a town with 10,000 inhabitants, situated on a small elevation on the left bank of the Rhine; with several Churches. Opposite to it, there is a bold, projecting, and almost insulated rock on the right bank, with a fortress called Ebreinbreitstein, which is considered impregnable, and defends the town.

There was formerly a bridge here over the Rhine.

Before breakfast I went into the Church of St. Caistor, which is an old Saxon building with towers; it stands close to the river on a piece of low ground which was formerly an island. The interior is modern, and contains nothing material. This seems however the principal Church. The river is here not much wider than the Seine at Paris, but is very rapid: at eight we again embarked. The thermometer at four in the morning was 58, at nine 59. The town of Coblentz forms a sort of bow along the shores of the rivers Rhine and Moselle, just at their confluence; and over the latter river there is a very handsome bridge of 14 arches. Coblentz signifies Coblend, the blending of two rivers.

After leaving the town there was a beautiful view of it, and of the opposite rock of Ebreinbreitstein. There are wooded bills behind the town, and it is a more interesting place than Mayence in point of situation. Soon after quitting it the views became tame.

We passed the village of Weiserthurm where Cæsar crossed the Rhine, and where the Austrians thrice crossed it within the last thirty years; there is a pyramid to the memory of General Hocke, who crossed it here in 1794.

We passed Newied, a town which stands low, on the banks of the Rhine, and where the Moravians have a settlement. Here we put on shore a paralytic gentleman.

Our company to-day had the addition of a Scotch party; two gentlemen, with their father, an old infirm man. One of the gentlemen is come for the purpose of taking sketches, either for profit or amusement, but from his appearance I suppose the former. He has spent two years in Italy, and has been very industrious in seeing every thing, making drawings of antique remains, &c. He is very quick and accurate in sketching, and is a most intelligent and welleducated man, between 40 and 50. He was greatly disappointed with the Rhine, which he observed had no grandeur; that the hills were tame and unbroken, and the castles were of slate and not picturesque.

At

37

Isthmus of Darien.-On Native Genius.

At the village of Andernach we passed an old Gothic Church with four towers, and soon after came to the Castle of Hammerstein, in a romantic situation on the right bank. The scenery near Andernach im. proves, and the hills again rise on both sides the river; several of the rocks in this neighbourhood are basaltic.

At half past two we arrived at the village of LINTZ to dinner; the nine Englishmen sat together. X.

(To be continued.)

Mr. URBAN,

Jan. 3. ERMIT me to offer some addiPERMIT tional remarks concerning the project for cutting through the Isthmus of Darien; noticed in p. 482.

The first step would be, to send out one or two able surveyors (with the requisite protecting facilities from the respective Governments) to ascertain the practicability of the project. Their charges might be defrayed by a voluntary subscription of opulent merchants; by whom individually, the loss of that subscription would not be felt, supposing the report of the Surveyors to be against the undertaking; but if it should be

[Jan.

effort of human labour than the Great Wall in China, to say nothing of various kinds of stupendons works projected and accomplished by other nations?

With regard to the united contributions, in men and money, of the Allied Potentates, this part of the plan, incumbered with many difficulties, might perhaps be dispensed with; and I cannot but think that this great project might be accomplished without foreign assistance, by an Association of Merchants and other opulent individuals of this Country, sanctioned by Government, and indemnified, as before stated, by a perpetual toll. PROJECTOR. Yours, &c.

P. S. The completion of this undertaking would require many years; advantages to be derived from it by so that, independently of the ultimate commercial nations, it would, during its progress, afford labour and subsistence to thousands of unemployed inhabitants of this and other coun

tries.

REMARKS

in favour of the undertaking, they, I

the aforesaid subscribing merchants, should have the privilege of forming themselves into a chartered body, to be termed "The Isthmus of Darien Company ;"-who, at the completion of the undertaking, should receive interest for the money advanced, by a toll on every vessel passing along the canal, similar to that levied on ships passing through the Sound.

That this Project involves in itself various and great difficulties, cannot be denied; among these may be mentioned the opposition to be expected from political jealousy, and the arrangements to be made respecting a military protection for the parties employed, against the natives of the country. But these preliminaries being once settled, the execution of the undertaking would freely proceed. Would a Canal however broad and deep-and broad and deep it should be-fifty or sixty miles in length-either passing thro' the interior of opposing mountains, or conducted through vast openings made between them-be a mightier

ON THE SPONTANEOUS
DISPLAY OF NATIVE GENIUS.
T was finely said by Akenside,-
." from Heaven descends

The flame of Genius to the human breast;"

and it has been generally acknowledged that the aspirations of true Genius, if they have been_regulated by, have not been dependant upon the advantages of Education, or the light of Learning.

It has, on the contrary, been thought, that although Education, including all the means of intellectual culture, has afforded facilities in calling forth and directing the fine suggestions of Genius, yet her native and indigenous creations of fancy, the teeming images of a mind finely oppressed by a generous enthusiasm, will burst forth in spite of the rustic garb and the inauspicious circumstances which, perchance, environ and obscure it; although capricious fortune has thrown her numerous obstacles, of poverty, want of educa tion, and want of patronage around it.

The exquisite paintings of a mind, tuned by nature to the mental enjoy. ment of vivid impressions of imagery,

ог

1821.]

Spontaneous Display of native Genius.

er of fine and illimitable prospects of imaginary existence; the bursts of feeling and of sentiment which gains utterance, not perhaps in the chaslised and measured flow of eloquence, which distinguishes the man of extensive intellectual cultivation, and refined habits of thought,-which attends the periods of the student long inured to polished numbers and academical honours, but rather in the simple, but plaintive language and thoughts which is understood in every age and every nation, which commands respect and admiration among every class of society whose "mind's eye" is capable of opening to pleasure beyond those of sense,-of feeling a sympathy with passion and sentiment abstracted from mercenary views and sordid joys, these artless but fervid emanations of a mind alive to "gentlest beauty" must be ever read with peculiar interest and avidity, by all descriptions of mankind, who can appreciate the generous flow of a heart cast in a fine mould, and fired by emotions far above those of his own level and occupation.

Whether it is that the child of Nature, in her rude unlettered character, has peculiar appeals of bis own, and that his beauties, from their intrinsic pleadings, find their way at once to the hearts of all;or from the benevolent wish to foster and aniinate to still greater things the humble but aspiring swain, in whom dawns the fire of Genius,-it is certain, that all ranks feel a sudden impulse within them (although that impulse may possibly never realize any active or permanent display of patronage), to eulogize, and render honours and assistance to him whose productions gild, with a new radiance, the intellectual horizon.

The appearance of these literary phenomena or anomalies in the moral and mental world may likewise give birth to speculations to their existence and formation.

The philosophic investigator on the subject of mind,-its laws, its compoDent principles and its stimulative mediums, might, perhaps, find scope for theories variously connected with the openings of the human faculties.

Whether from his birth, the peasant who rises to literary honours and immunities, possessed a secret power GENT. MAG. January, 1821.

33

and propensity, which led him to poetry and to song; or whether certain associations in early childhood or infancy opened, at once, his perceptions and his taste to a range of thinking vastly superior to the standard of his ordinary compeers, has been a question, which, in the opinions of many, is still undecided.

Whatever be assumed as the operative cause, or whether there be any cause which may be termed operative or secondary, (thus referring this disparity to the immediate decree of the Deity,) the fact has repeatedly of late been sufficiently evident to the world,-of Genius, in the more refined studies of the human mind, rising, as it were, from the clods and the dunghill, and attaining, from its own native stores of imagery and force of sentiment, eminence, and justly-merited fame among the productions of those higher lucrubators, who, from the appointment of nature, or certain favourable circumstances connected with their moral being, retain, in general, an exclusive dominion in the empire of mind.

It is certain that the powers of mind or of understanding are as unequal among subordinate and labouring classes, as among those where mind is cultivated, and endowments carefully expanded.

Observe two peasants of equal birth and fortune, perhaps the one appears stupid and dull as the clods which his industry attempts to fertilize and animate, and his sordid soul revolves in a narrow circle of gross enjoyments, whilst the other enjoys his faculties in far brighter vigour,thinks with greater precision and correctness, and looks upon men and things with more acute and aspiring views. But he may be equally far from seeing nature, and nature's scenery, through the delightful medium of Poetry; or of measuring the fitness of things, material and immaterial, through the subtle and profound theory of metaphysics.-His faculties, so far as the finer operations, necessary to render him a proficient in these pursuits, were concerned, remained equally barren and deaf to every outward solicitation.

Many instances bave occurred in which peasants have evinced an acuteness and sagacity in mechanical inven

tion,

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