For when thy folding star, arising, shews
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp,
The fragrant hours and elves
Who slept in buds the day:
And many a nymph, who wreaths her brows with sedge,
And sheds the fresh'ning dew, and, lovelier still,
The pensive pleasures sweet
Prepare thy shadowy car.
A small half-way village, a stately convent, with its gardens, called Marienbaum, founded in the 15th century by Maria, Duchess of Cleves, and a few mud cottages of the woodcutters, were the only buildings on the road: the foot passengers were two Prussian soldiers. It was moonlight, and we became impatient to reach Xanten, long before our driver could say, in a mixture of German and Dutch, that we were near it. At length from the woods, that had concealed the town, a few lights appeared over the walls, and dissipated some gloomy fancies about a night to be passed in a forest.
XANTEN.
This is a small town, near the Rhine, without much appearance of prosperity, but neater than most of the others around it. Several narrow streets open into a wide and pleasant market-place, in the centre of which an old but flourishing elm has its branches carefully extended by a circular railing, to form an arbour over benches. A cathedral, that proves the town to have been once more considerable, is on the north side of this place; a fine building, which, shewn by the moon of a summer midnight, when only the bell of the adjoining convent calling the monks to prayers, and the waving of the aged tree, were to be heard, presented a scene before the windows of our inn, that fully recompensed for its want of accommodation.
There were also humbler reasons towards contentment; for the people of the house were extremely desirous to afford it; and the landlord was an orator in French, of which and his address he was pleasantly vain. He received us with an air of humour, mingled with his complaisance, and hoped, that, "as Monsieur was Anglois, he should surprise him with his vin extraordinaire, all the Rhenish wine being adulterated by the Dutch, before they sent it to England. His house could not be fine, because he had little money; but he had an excellent cook, otherwise it could not be expected that the prebendaries of the cathedral would dine at it, every day, and become, as they were, vraiment, Monsieur, gros comme vous me voyez!"
There are in this small town several monasteries and one convent of noble canonesses, of which last the members are few, and the revenues very great. The interior of the cathedral is nearly as grand as the outside; and mass is performed in it with more solemnity than in many, which have larger institutions.
We left Xanten, the next morning, in high spirits, expecting to reach Cologne, which was little more than fifty miles distant, before night, though the landlord and the postmaster hinted, that we should go no further than Neuss. This was our first use of the German post, the slowness of which, though it has been so often described, we had not estimated. The day was intensely hot, and the road, unsheltered by trees, lay over deep sands, that reflected the rays. The refreshing forests of yesterday we now severely regretted, and watched impatiently to catch a freer air from the summit of every hill on the way. The postillion would permit his horses to do little more than walk, and every step threw up heaps of dust into the chaise. It had been so often said by travellers, that money has as little effect in such cases as intreaties, or threats, that we supposed this slowness irremediable, which was really intended only to produce an offer of what we would willingly have given.
RHEINBERG.
In something more than three hours, we reached Rheinberg, distant about nine miles; a place often mentioned in the military history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and which we had supposed would at least gratify us by the shew of magnificent ruins, together with some remains of its former importance. It is a wretched place of one dirty street, and three or four hundred mean houses, surrounded by a decayed wall that never was grand, and half filled by inhabitants, whose indolence, while it is probably more to be pitied than blamed, accounts for the sullenness and wretchedness of their appearance. Not one symptom of labour, or comfort, was to be perceived in the whole town. The men seemed, for the most part, to be standing at their doors, in unbuckled shoes and woollen caps. What few women we saw were brown, without the appearance of health, which their leanness and dirtiness prevented. Some small shops of hucksters' wares were the only signs of trade.
The inn, that seemed to be the best, was such as might be expected in a remote village, in a cross road in England. The landlord was standing before the door in his cap, and remained there some time after we had found the way into a sitting room, and from thence, for want of attendance, into a kitchen; where two women, without stockings, were watching over some sort of cookery in earthen jugs. We were supplied, at length, with bread, butter and sour wine, and did not suffer ourselves to consider this as any specimen of German towns, because Rheinberg was not a station of the post; a delusion, the spirit of which continued through several weeks, for we were always finding reasons to believe, that the wretchedness of present places and persons was produced by some circumstances, which would not operate in other districts.
This is the condition of a town, which, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, was thought important enough to be five times attacked by large armies. Farnese, the Spanish commander, was diverted from his attempt upon it, by the necessity of relieving Zutphen, then besieged by the Earl of Leicester: in 1589, the Marquis of Varambon invested it, for the Spaniards, by order of the Prince of Parma; but it was relieved by our Colonel Vere, who, after a long battle, completely defeated the Spanish army. In 1599, when it was attacked by Mendoza, a magazine caught fire. The governor, his family, and a part of the garrison were buried in the ruins of a tower, and the explosion sunk several vessels in the Rhine; after which, the remainder of the garrison surrendered the place. The Prince of Orange retook it in 1633. Four years afterwards, the Spaniards attempted to surprise it in the night; but the Deputy Governor and others, who perceived that the garrison could not be immediately collected, passed the walls, and, pretending to be deserters, mingled with the enemy, whom they persuaded to delay the attack for a few minutes. The troops within were in the mean time prepared for their defence, and succeeded in it; but the Governor, with two officers and fifteen soldiers who had accompanied him, being discovered, were killed. All these contests were for a place not belonging to either party, being in the electorate of Cologne, but which was valuable to both, for its neighbourhood to their frontiers.
Beyond Rheinberg, our prospects were extensive, but not so woody, or so rich as those of the day before, and few villages enlivened the landscape. Open corn lands, intermixed with fields of turnips, spread to a considerable distance, on both sides; on the east, the high ridges of the Westphalian mountains shut up the scene. The Rhine, which frequently swept near the road, shewed a broad surface, though shrunk within its sandy shores by the dryness of the season. Not a single vessel animated its current, which was here tame and smooth, though often interrupted by sands, that rose above its level.
HOOGSTRASS.
The next town was Hoogstrass, a post station, fifteen miles from Xanten, of which we saw little more than the inn, the other part of this small place being out of the road. A large house, which might have been easily made convenient, and was really not without plenty, confirmed our notion, that, at the post stages, there would always be some accommodation. We dined here, and were well attended. The landlord, a young man who had served in the army of the country, and appeared by his dress to have gained some promotion, was very industrious in the house, during this interval of his other employments.
The next stage was of eighteen miles, which make a German post and an half; and, during this space, we passed by only one town, Ordingen, or Urdingen, the greatest part of which spread between the road and the Rhine.
Towards evening, the country became more woody, and the slender spires of convents frequently appeared, sheltered in their groves and surrounded by corn lands of their own domain. One of these, nearer to the road, was a noble mansion, and, with its courts, offices and gardens, spread over a considerable space. A summer-house, built over the garden wall, had no windows towards the road, but there were several small apertures, which looked upon it and beyond to a large tract of inclosed wood, the property of the convent.
NEUSS.
Soon after sun-set, we came to Neuss, which, as it is a post town, and was mentioned as far off as Xanten, we had been sure would afford a comfortable lodging, whether there were any vestiges, or not, of its ancient and modern history. The view of it, at some little distance, did not altogether contradict this notion, for it stands upon a gentle ascent, and the spires of several convents might justly give ideas of a considerable town to those, who had not learned how slightly such symptoms are to be attended to in Germany.
On each side of the gate, cannon balls of various sizes remain in the walls. Within, you enter immediately into a close street of high, but dirty stone houses, from which you expect to escape presently, supposing it to be only some wretched quarter, appropriated to disease and misfortune. You see no passengers, but, at the door of every house, an haggard group of men and women stare upon you with looks of hungry rage, rather than curiosity, and their gaunt figures excite, at first, more fear than pity. Continuing to look for the better quarter, and to pass between houses, that seem to have been left after a siege and never entered since, the other gate of the town at length appears, which you would rather pass at midnight than stop at any place yet perceived. Within a small distance of the gate, there is, however, a house with a wider front, and windows of unshattered glass and walls not quite as black as the others, which is known to be the inn only because the driver stops there, for, according to the etiquette of sullenness in Germany, the people of the house make no shew of receiving you.
If it had not already appeared, that there was no other inn, you might learn it from the manners of the two hostesses and their servants. Some sort of accommodation is, however, to be had; and those, who have been longer from the civilities and assiduities of similar places in England, may, by more submission and more patience, obtain it sooner than we did. By these means they may reduce all their difficulties into one, that of determining whether the windows shall be open or shut; whether they will endure the closeness of the rooms, or will admit air, loaded with the feculence of putrid kennels, that stagnate along the whole town.
This is the Novesium of Tacitus, the entrance of the thirteenth legion into which he relates, at a time when the Rhine, incognita illi cœlo siccitate, became vix navium patiens, and which Vocula was soon after compelled to surrender by the treachery of other leaders and the corruption of his army, whom he addressed, just before his murder, in the fine speech, beginning, "Nunquam apud vos verba feci, aut pro vobis solicitior, aut pro me securior"; a passage so near to the cunctisque timentem, securumque sui, by which Lucan describes Cato, that it must be supposed to have been inspired by it.
This place stood a siege, for twelve months, against 60,000 men, commanded by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and succeeded in its resistance. But, in 1586, when it held out for Gebhert de Trusches, an Elector of Cologne, expelled by his Chapter, for having married, it was the scene of a dreadful calamity. Farnese, the Spanish General, who had just taken Venlo, marched against it with an army, enraged at having lost the plunder of that place by a capitulation. When the inhabitants of Neuss were upon the point of surrendering it, upon similar terms, the army, resolving not to lose another prey of blood and gold, rushed to the assault, set fire to the place, and murdered all the inhabitants, except a few women and children, who took refuge in two churches, which alone were saved from the flames.
When the first shock of the surprise, indignation and pity, excited by the mention of such events, is overcome, we are, of course, anxious to ascertain whether the perpetrators of them were previously distinguished by a voluntary entrance into situations, that could be supposed to mark their characters. This was the army of Philip the Second. The soldiers were probably, for the most part, forced into the service. The officers, of whom only two are related to have opposed the massacre, could not have been so.
What was then the previous distinction of the officers of Philip the Second? But it is not proper to enter into a discussion here of the nature of their employment.
Neuss was rebuilt, on the same spot; the situation being convenient for an intercourse with the eastern shore of the Rhine, especially with Dusseldorff, to which it is nearly opposite. The ancient walls were partly restored by the French, in 1602. One of the churches, spared by the Spaniards, was founded by a daughter of Charlemagne, in the ninth century, and is now attached to the Chapter of Noble Ladies of St. Quirin; besides which there are a Chapter of Canons, and five or six convents in the place.
COLOGNE.
From Neuss hither we passed through a deep, sandy road, that sometimes wound near the Rhine, the shores of which were yet low and the water tame and shallow. There were no vessels upon it, to give one ideas either of the commerce, or the population of its banks.
The country, for the greater part of twenty miles, was a flat of corn lands; but, within a short distance of Cologne, a gentle rise affords a view of the whole city, whose numerous towers and steeples had before appeared, and of the extensive plains, that spread round it. In the southern perspective of these, at the distance of about eight leagues, rise the fantastic forms of what are called the Seven Mountains; westward, are the cultivated hills, that extend towards Flanders; and, eastward, over the Rhine, the distant mountains, that run through several countries of interior Germany. Over the wild and gigantic features of the Seven Mountains dark thunder mists soon spread an awful obscurity, and heightened the expectation, which this glimpse of them had awakened, concerning the scenery we were approaching.
The appearance of Cologne, at the distance of one, or two miles, is not inferior to the conception, which a traveller may have already formed of one of the capitals of Germany, should his mind have obeyed that almost universal illusion of fancy, which dresses up the images of places unseen, as soon as much expectation, or attention is directed towards them. The air above is crowded with the towers and spires of churches and convents, among which the cathedral, with its huge, unfinished mass, has a striking appearance. The walls are also high enough to be observed, and their whole inclosure seems, at a distance, to be thickly filled with buildings.
We should have known ourselves to be in the neighbourhood of some place larger than usual, from the sight of two, or three carriages, at once, on the road; nearly the first we had seen in Germany. There is besides some shew of labour in the adjoining villages; but the sallow countenances and miserable air of the people prove, that it is not a labour beneficial to them. The houses are only the desolated homes of these villagers; for there is not one that can be supposed to belong to any prosperous inhabitant of the city, or to afford the coveted stillness, in which the active find an occasional reward, and the idle a perpetual misery.
A bridge over a dry fossé leads to the northern gate, on each side of which a small modern battery defends the ancient walls. The city is not fortified, according to any present sense of the term, but is surrounded by these walls and by a ditch, of which the latter, near the northern gate, serves as a sort of kitchen garden to the inhabitants.
Before passing the inner gate, a soldier demanded our names, and we shewed our passport, for the first time; but, as the inquisitor did not understand French, in which language passports from England are written, it was handed to his comrades, who formed a circle about our chaise, and began, with leaden looks, to spell over the paper. Some talked, in the mean time, of examining the baggage; and the money, which we gave to prevent this, being in various pieces and in Prussian coin, which is not perfectly understood here, the whole party turned from the passport, counting and estimating the money in the hand of their collector, as openly as if it had been a legal tribute. When this was done and they had heard, with surprise, that we had not determined where to lodge, being inclined to take the pleasantest inn, we wrote our names in the corporal's dirty book, and were allowed to drive, under a dark tower, into the city.
Instantly, the narrow street, gloomy houses, stagnant kennels and wretchedly looking people reminded us of the horrors of Neuss. The lower windows of these prison-like houses are so strongly barricadoed, that we had supposed the first two, or three, to be really parts of a gaol; but it soon appeared, that this profusion of heavy iron work was intended to exclude, not to confine, robbers. A succession of narrow streets, in which the largest houses were not less disgusting than the others for the filthiness of their windows, doorways and massy walls, continued through half the city. In one of these streets, or lanes, the postillion stopped at the door of an inn, which he said was the best; but the suffocating air of the street rendered it unnecessary to enquire, whether, contrary to appearances, there could be any accommodation within, and, as we had read of many squares, or market-places, he was desired to stop at an inn, situated in one of these. Thus we came to the Hotel de Prague, a large straggling building, said to be not worse than the others, for wanting half its furniture, and probably superior to them, by having a landlord of better than German civility.
Having counted from our windows the spires of ten, or twelve churches, or convents, we were at leisure to walk farther into the city, and to look for the spacious squares, neat streets, noble public buildings and handsome houses, which there could be no doubt must be found in an Imperial and Electoral city, seated on the Rhine, at a point where the chief roads from Holland and Flanders join those of Germany, treated by all writers as a considerable place, and evidently by its situation capable of becoming a sort of emporium for the three countries. The spot, into which our inn opened, though a parallelogram of considerable extent, bordered by lime trees, we passed quickly through, perceiving, that the houses on all its sides were mean buildings, and therefore such as could not deserve the attention in the Imperial and Electoral city of Cologne. There are streets from each angle of this place, and we pursued them all in their turn, narrow, winding and dirty as they are, pestilent with kennels, gloomy from the height and blackness of the houses, unadorned by any public buildings, except the churches, that were grand, or by one private dwelling, that appeared to be clean, with little shew of traffic and less of passengers, either busy, or gay, till we saw them ending in other streets still worse, or concluded by the gates of the city. One of them, indeed, led through a market-place, in which the air is free from the feculence of the streets, but which is inferior to the other opening in space, and not better surrounded by buildings.
"These diminutive observations seem to take away something from the dignity of writing, and therefore are never communicated, but with hesitation, and a little fear of abasement and contempt."2 And it is not only because they take away something from the dignity of writing, that such observations are withheld. To be thought capable of commanding more pleasures and preventing more inconveniences than others is a too general passport to respect; and, in the ordinary affairs of life, for one, that will shew somewhat less prosperity than he has, in order to try who will really respect him, thousands exert themselves to assume an appearance of more, which they might know can procure only the mockery of esteem for themselves, and the reality of it for their supposed conditions. Authors are not always free from a willingness to receive the fallacious sort of respect, that attaches to accidental circumstances, for the real sort, of which it would be more reasonable to be proud. A man, relating part of the history of his life, which is always necessarily done by a writer of travels, does not choose to shew that his course could lie through any scenes deficient of delights; or that, if it did, he was not enough elevated by his friends, importance, fortune, fame, or business, to be incapable of observing them minutely. The curiosities of cabinets and of courts are, therefore, exactly described, and as much of every occurrence as does not shew the relater moving in any of the plainer walks of life; but the difference between the stock of physical comforts in different countries, the character of conditions, if the phrase may be used, such as it appears in the ordinary circumstances of residence, dress, food, cleanliness, opportunities of relaxation; in short, the information, which all may gain, is sometimes left to be gained by all, not from the book, but from travel. A writer, issuing into the world, makes up what he mistakes for his best appearance, and is continually telling his happiness, or shewing his good-humour, as people in a promenade always smile, and always look round to observe whether they are seen smiling. The politest salutation of the Chinese, when they meet, is, "Sir, prosperity is painted on your countenance;" or, "your whole air announces your felicity;" and the writers of travels, especially since the censure thrown upon Smollet, seem to provide, that their prosperity shall be painted on their volumes, and all their observations announce their felicity.
2 Dr. Samuel Johnson.
Cologne, though it bears the name of the Electorate, by which it is surrounded, is an imperial city; and the Elector, as to temporal affairs, has very little jurisdiction within it. The government has an affectation of being formed upon the model of Republican Rome; a form certainly not worthy of imitation, but which is as much disgraced by this burlesque of it, as ancient statues are by the gilding and the wigs, with which they are said to be sometimes arrayed by modern hands. There is a senate of forty-nine persons, who, being returned at different times of the year, are partly nominated by the remaining members, and partly chosen by twenty-two tribes of burgesses, or rather by so many companies of traders. Of six burgomasters, two are in office every third year, and, when these appear in public, they are preceded by Lictors, bearing fasces, sur-mounted by their own arms! Each of the tribes, or companies, has a President, and the twenty-two Presidents form a Council, which is authorised to enquire into the conduct of the Senate: but the humbleness of the burgesses in their individual condition has virtually abolished all this scheme of a political constitution. Without some of the intelligence and personal independence, which are but little consistent with the general poverty and indolence of German traders, nothing but the forms of any constitution can be preserved, long after the virtual destruction of it has been meditated by those in a better condition. The greater part of these companies of traders having, in fact, no trade which can place them much above the rank of menial servants to their rich customers, the design, that their Council shall check the Senate, and the Senate direct the Burgomasters, has now, of course, little effect. And this, or a still humbler condition, is that of several cities in Germany, called free and independent, in which the neighbouring sovereigns have scarcely less authority, though with something more of circumstance, than in their own dominions.
The constitution of Cologne permits, indeed, some direct interference of the Elector; for the Tribunal of Appeal, which is the supreme court of law, is nominated by him: he has otherwise no direct power within the city; and, being forbidden to reside there more than three days successively, he does not even retain a palace, but is contented with a suite of apartments, reserved for his use at an inn. That this exclusion is no punishment, those, who have ever passed two days at Cologne, will admit; and it can tend very little to lessen his influence, for the greatest part of his personal expenditure must reach the merchants of the place; and the officers of several of his territorial jurisdictions make part of the inhabitants. His residences, with which he is remarkably well provided, are at Bonn; at Bruhl, a palace between Cologne and that place; at Poppelsdorff, which is beyond it; at Herzogs Freud, an hunting seat; and in Munster, of which he is the Bishop.
The duties of customs and excise are imposed by the magistrates of the city, and these enable them to pay their contributions to the Germanic fund; for, though such cities are formally independent of the neighbouring princes and nobility, they are not so of the general laws or expences of the empire, in the Diet of which they have some small share, forty-nine cities being allowed to send two representatives, and thus to have two votes out of an hundred and thirty-six. These duties, of both sorts, are very high at Cologne; and the first form a considerable part of the interruptions, which all the States upon the Rhine give to the commerce of that river. Here also commodities, intended to be carried beyond the city by water, must be re-shipped; for, in order to provide cargoes for the boatmen of the place, vessels from the lower parts of the Rhine are not allowed to ascend beyond Cologne, and those from the higher parts cannot descend it farther. They may, indeed, reload with other cargoes for their return; and, as they constantly do so, the Cologne boatmen are not much benefited by the regulation; but the transfer of the goods employs some hands, subjects them better to the inspection of the customhouse officers, and makes it necessary for the merchants of places, on both sides, trading with each other, to have intermediate correspondents here. Yet, notwithstanding all this aggression upon the freedom of trade, Cologne is less considerable as a port, than some Dutch towns, never mentioned in a book, and is inferior, perhaps, to half the minor seaports in England. We could not find more than thirty vessels of burthen against the quay, all mean and ill-built, except the Dutch, which are very large, and, being constructed purposely for a tedious navigation, contain apartments upon the deck for the family of the skipper, well furnished, and so commodious as to have four or five sashed windows on each side, generally gay with flower-pots. Little flower-gardens, too, sometimes formed upon the roof of the cabin, increase the domestic comforts of the skipper; and the neatness of his vessel can, perhaps, be equalled only by that of a Dutch house. In a time of perfect peace, there is no doubt more traffic; but, from what we saw of the general means and occasions of commerce in Germany, we cannot suppose it to be much reduced by war. Wealthy and commercial countries may be injured immensely by making war either for Germany or against it; by too much friendship or too much enmity; but Germany itself cannot be proportionately injured with them, except when it is the scene of actual violence. Englishmen, who feel, as they always must, the love of their own country much increased by the view of others, should be induced, at every step, to wish, that there may be as little political intercourse as possible, either of friendship or enmity, between the blessings of their Island and the wretchedness of the Continent.
Our inn had formerly been a convent, and was in a part of the town where such societies are more numerous than elsewhere. At five o'clock, on the Sunday after our arrival, the bells of churches and convents began to sound on all sides, and there was scarcely any entire intermission of them till evening. The places of public amusement, chiefly a sort of tea-gardens, were then set open, and, in many streets, the sound of music and dancing was heard almost as plainly as that of the bells had been before; a disgusting excess of licentiousness, which appeared in other instances, for we heard, at the same time, the voices of a choir on one side of the street, and the noise of a billiard table on the other. Near the inn, this contrast was more observable. While the strains of revelry arose from an adjoining garden, into which our windows opened, a pause in the music allowed us to catch some notes of the vesper service, performing in a convent of the order of Clarisse, only three or four doors beyond. Of the severe rules of this society we had been told in the morning. The members take a vow, not only to renounce the world, but their dearest friends, and are never after permitted to see even their fathers or mothers, though they may sometimes converse with the latter from behind a curtain. And, lest some lingering remains of filial affection should tempt an unhappy nun to lift the veil of separation between herself and her mother, she is not allowed to speak even with her, but in the presence of the abbess. Accounts of such horrible perversions of human reason make the blood thrill and the teeth chatter. Their fathers they can never speak to, for no man is suffered to be in any part of the convent used by the sisterhood, nor, indeed, is admitted beyond the gate, except when there is a necessity for repairs, when all the votaries of the order are previously secluded. It is not easily, that a cautious mind becomes convinced of the existence of such severe orders; when it does, astonishment at the artificial miseries, which the ingenuity of human beings forms for themselves by seclusion, is as boundless as at the other miseries, with which the most trivial vanity and envy so frequently pollute the intercourses of social life. The poor nuns, thus nearly entombed during their lives, are, after death, tied upon a board, in the clothes they die in, and, with only their veils thrown over the face, are buried in the garden of the convent.
During this day, Trinity Sunday, processions were passing on all sides, most of them attended by some sort of martial music. Many of the parishes, of which there are nineteen, paraded with their officers; and the burgesses, who are distributed into eight corps, under a supposition that they could and would defend the city, if it was attacked, presented their captains at the churches. The host accompanied all these processions. A party of the city guards followed, and forty or fifty persons out of uniform, the representatives probably of the burgesses, who are about six thousand, succeeded. Besides the guards, there was only one man in uniform, who, in the burlesque dress of a drum-major, entertained the populace by a kind of extravagant marching dance, in the middle of the procession. Our companion would not tell us that this was the captain.
The cathedral, though unfinished, is conspicuous, amongst a great number of churches, for the dignity of some detached features, that shew part of the vast design formed for the whole. It was begun, in 1248, by the Elector Conrad, who is related, in an hexameter inscription over a gate, to have laid the first stone himself. In 1320, the choir was finished, and the workmen continued to be employed upon the other parts in 1499, when of two towers, destined to be 580 feet above the roof, one had risen 21 feet, and the other 150 feet, according to the measurement mentioned in a printed description. We did not learn at what period the design of completing the edifice was abandoned; but the original founder lived to see all the treasures expended, which he had collected for the purpose. In its present state, the inequality of its vast towers renders it a striking object at a considerable distance; and, from the large unfilled area around it, the magnificence of its Gothic architecture, especially of some parts, which have not been joined to the rest, and appear to be the ruined remains, rather than the commencement of a work, is viewed with awful delight.
In the interior of the cathedral, a fine choir leads to an altar of black marble, raised above several steps, which, being free from the incongruous ornaments usual in Romish churches, is left to impress the mind by its majestic plainness. The tall painted windows above, of which there are six, are superior in richness of colouring and design to any we ever saw; beyond even those in the Chapter-house at York, and most resembling the very fine ones in the cathedral of Canterbury. The nave is deformed by a low wooden roof, which appears to have been intended only as a temporary covering, and should certainly be succeeded by one of equal dignity to the vast columns placed for its support, whether the other parts of the original design can ever be completed or not.
By some accident we did not see the tomb of the three kings of Jerusalem, whose bodies are affirmed to have been brought here from Milan in 1162, when the latter city was destroyed by the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa. Their boasted treasures of golden crowns and diamonds pass, of course, without our estimation.
A description of the churches in Cologne, set out with good antiquarian minuteness, would fill volumes. The whole number of churches, chapters and chapels, which last are by far the most numerous, is not less than eighty, and none are without an history of two or three centuries. They are all opened on Sundays; and we can believe, that the city may contain, as is asserted, 40,000 souls, for nearly all that we saw were well attended. In one, indeed, the congregation consisted only of two or three females, kneeling at a great distance from the altar, with an appearance of the utmost intentness upon the service, and abstraction from the noise of the processions, that could be easily heard within. They were entirely covered with a loose black drapery; whether for penance, or not, we did not hear. In the cathedral, a figure in the same attitude was rendered more interesting by her situation beneath the broken arches and shattered fret-work of a painted window, through which the rays of the sun scarcely penetrated to break the shade she had chosen.
Several of the chapels are not much larger than an ordinary apartment, but they are higher, that the nuns of some adjoining convent may have a gallery, where, veiled from observation by a lawn curtain, their voices often mingle sweetly with the choir. There are thirty-nine convents of women and nineteen of men, which are supposed to contain about fifteen hundred persons. The chapters, of which some are noble and extremely opulent, support nearly four hundred more; and there are said to be, upon the whole, between two and three thousand persons, under religious denominations, in Cologne. Walls of convents and their gardens appear in every street, but do not attract notice, unless, as frequently happens, their bell sounds while you are passing. Some of their female inhabitants may be seen in various parts of the city, for there is an order, the members of which are employed, by rotation, in teaching children and attending the sick. Those of the noble chapters are little more confined than if they were with their own families, being permitted to visit their friends, to appear at balls and promenades, to wear what dresses they please, except when they chaunt in the choir, and to quit the chapter, if the offer of an acceptable marriage induces their families to authorise it; but their own admission into the chapter proves them to be noble by sixteen quarterings, or four generations, and the offer must be from a person of equal rank, or their descendants could not be received into similar chapters; an important circumstance in the affairs of the German noblesse.
Some of these ladies we saw in the church of their convent. Their habits were remarkably graceful; robes of lawn and black silk flowed from the shoulder, whence a quilled ruff, somewhat resembling that of Queen Elizabeth's time, spread round the neck. The hair was in curls, without powder, and in the English fashion. Their voices were peculiarly sweet, and they sung the responses with a kind of plaintive tenderness, that was extremely interesting.
The Jesuits' church is one of the grandest in Cologne, and has the greatest display of paintings over its numerous altars, as well as of marble pillars. The churches of the chapters are, for the most part, very large, and endowed with the richest ornaments, which are, however, not shewn to the public, except upon days of fête. We do not remember to have seen that of the chapter of St. Ursula, where heads and other relics are said to be handed to you from shelves, like books in a library; nor that of the convent of Jacobins, where some MSS. and other effects of Albert the Great, bishop of Ratisbon, are among the treasures of the monks.
Opposite to the Jesuits' church was an hospital for wounded soldiers, several of whom were walking in the court yard before it, half-clothed in dirty woollen, through which the bare arms of many appeared. Sickness and neglect had subdued all the symptoms of a soldier; and it was impossible to distinguish the wounded French from the others, though we were assured that several of that nation were in the crowd. The windows of the hospital were filled with figures still more wretched. There was a large assemblage of spectators, who looked as if they were astonished to see, that war is compounded of something else, besides the glories, of which it is so easy to be informed.
The soldiery of Cologne are under the command of the magistrates, and are employed only within the gates of the city. The whole body does not exceed an hundred and fifty, whom we saw reviewed by their colonel, in the place before the Hotel de Prague. The uniform is red, faced with white. The men wear whiskers, and affect an air of ferocity, but appear to be mostly invalids, who have grown old in their guard-houses.
Protestants, though protected in their persons, are not allowed the exercise of their religion within the walls of the city, but have a chapel in a village on the other side of the Rhine. As some of the chief merchants, and those who are most useful to the inhabitants, are of the reformed church, they ventured lately to request that they might have a place of worship within the city; but they received the common answer, which opposes all sort of improvement, religious or civil, that, though the privilege in itself might be justly required, it could not be granted, because they would then think of asking something more.
The government of Cologne in ecclesiastical affairs is with the Elector, as archbishop, and the Chapter as his council. In civil matters, though the city constitution is of little effect, the real power is not so constantly with him as might be supposed; those, who have influence, being sometimes out of his interest. Conversation, as we were told, was scarcely less free than in Holland, where there is justly no opposition to any opinion, however improper, or absurd, except from the reason of those, who hear it. On that account, and because of its easy intercourse with Brussels and Spa, this city is somewhat the resort of strangers, by whom such conversation is, perhaps, chiefly carried on; but those must come from very wretched countries who can find pleasure in a residence at Cologne.
Amongst the public buildings must be reckoned the Theatre, of which we did not see the inside, there being no performance, during our stay, except on Sunday. This, it seems, may be opened, without offence to the Magistrates, though a protestant church may not. It stands in a row of small houses, from which it is distinguished only by a painted front, once tawdry and now dirty, with the inscription, "Musis Gratiisque decentibus." The Town-house is an awkward and irregular stone building. The arsenal, which is in one of the narrowest streets, we should have passed, without notice, if it had not been pointed out to us. As a building, it is nothing more than such as might be formed out of four or five of the plainest houses laid into one. Its contents are said to be chiefly antient arms, of various fashions and sizes, not very proper for modern use.
BONN.
After a stay of nearly three tedious days, we left Cologne for Bonn, passing through an avenue of limes, which extends from one place to the other, without interruption, except where there is a small half way village. The distance is not less than eighteen miles, and the diversified culture of the plains, through which it passes, is unusually grateful to the eye, after the dirty buildings of Cologne and the long uniformity of corn lands in the approach to it. Vines cover a great part of these plains, and are here first seen in Germany, except, indeed, within the walls of Cologne itself, which contain many large inclosures, converted from gardens and orchards into well sheltered vineyards. The vines reminded us of English hop plants, being set, like them, in rows, and led round poles to various heights, though all less than that of hops. Corn, fruit or herbs were frequently growing between the rows, whose light green foliage mingled beautifully with yellow wheat and larger patches of garden plantations, that spread, without any inclosures, to the sweeping Rhine, on the left. Beyond, appeared the blue ridges of Westphalian mountains. On the right, the plains extend to a chain of lower and less distant hills, whose skirts are covered with vines and summits darkened with thick woods.
The Elector's palace of Bruhl is on the right hand of the road, at no great distance, but we were not told, till afterwards, of the magnificent architecture and furniture, which ought to have attracted our curiosity.
On a green and circular hill, near the Rhine, stands the Benedictine abbey of Siegbourg, one of the first picturesque objects of the rich approach to Bonn; and, further on, the castle-like towers of a convent of noble ladies; both societies celebrated for their wealth and the pleasantness of their situations, which command extensive prospects over the country, on each side of the river. As we drew near Bonn, we frequently caught, between the trees of the avenue, imperfect, but awakening glimpses of the pointed mountains beyond; contrasted with the solemn grandeur of which was the beauty of a round woody hill, apparently separated from them only by the Rhine and crowned with the spire of a comely convent. Bonn, with tall slender steeples and the trees of its ramparts, thus backed by sublime mountains, looks well, as you approach it from Cologne, though neither its noble palace, nor the Rhine, which washes its walls, are seen from hence. We were asked our names at the gate, but had no trouble about passports, or baggage. A long and narrow street leads from thence to the market-place, not disgusting you either with the gloom, or the dirt of Cologne, though mean houses are abundantly intermixed with the others, and the best are far from admirable. The physiognomy of the place, if one may use the expression, is wholesome, though humble. By the recommendation of a Dutch merchant, we went to an inn in another street, branching from the market-place; and found it the cleanest, since we had left Holland.
Bonn may be called the political capital of the country, the Elector's Court being held only there; and, what would not be expected, this has importance enough to command the residence of an agent from almost every Power in Europe. The present Elector being the uncle of the Emperor, this attention is, perhaps, partly paid, with the view, that it may be felt at the Court of Vienna. Even Russia is not unrepresented in this miniature State.
The Elector's palace is, in point of grandeur, much better fitted to be the scene of diplomatic ceremonies, than those of many greater Sovereigns; and it is fitted also for better than diplomatic purposes, being placed before some of the most striking of nature's features, of which it is nearly as worthy an ornament as art can make. It is seated on the western bank of the Rhine, the general course of which it fronts, though it forms a considerable angle with the part immediately nearest. The first emotion, on perceiving it, being that of admiration, at its vastness, the wonder is, of course, equal, with which you discover, that it is only part of a greater design. It consists of a centre and an eastern wing, which are completed, and of a western wing, of which not half is yet raised. The extent from east to west is so great, that, if we had enquired the measurement, we should have been but little assisted in giving an idea of the spectacle, exhibited by so immense a building.
It is of stone, of an architecture, perhaps, not adequate to the grandeur of its extent, but which fills no part with unsuitable, or inelegant ornaments. Along the whole garden front, which is the chief, a broad terrace supports a promenade and an orangery of noble trees, occasionally refreshed by fountains, that, ornamented with statues, rise from marble basons. An arcade through the centre of the palace leads to this terrace, from whence the prospect is strikingly beautiful and sublime. The eye passes over the green lawn of the garden and a tract of level country to the groupe, called the Seven Mountains, broken, rocky and abrupt towards their summits, yet sweeping finely near their bases, and uniting with the plains by long and gradual descents, that spread round many miles. The nearest is about a league and a half off. We saw them under the cloudless sky of June, invested with the mistiness of heat, which softening their rocky points, and half veiling their recesses, left much for the imagination to supply, and gave them an aërial appearance, a faint tint of silvery grey, that was inexpressibly interesting. The Rhine, that winds at their feet, was concealed from us by the garden groves, but from the upper windows of the palace it is seen in all its majesty.
On the right from this terrace, the smaller palace of Poppelsdorff terminates a long avenue of limes and chesnut trees, that communicates with both buildings, and above are the hill and the convent Sanctæ Crucis, the latter looking out from among firs and shrubby steeps. From thence the western horizon is bounded by a range of hills, clothed to their summits with wood. The plain, that extends between these and the Rhine, is cultivated with vines and corn, and the middle distance is marked by a pyramidal mountain, darkened by wood and crowned with the tower and walls of a ruined castle.
The gardens of the palace are formally laid out in straight walks and alleys of cut trees; but the spacious lawn between these gives fine effect to the perspective of the distant mountains; and the bowery walks, while they afford refreshing shelter from a summer sun, allow partial views of the palace and the romantic landscape.
It was the Elector Joseph Clement, the same who repaired the city, left in a ruinous state by the siege of 1703, under the Duke of Marlborough, that built this magnificent residence. There are in it many suites of state rooms and every sort of apartment usual in the mansions of Sovereigns; saloons of audience and ceremony, a library, a cabinet of natural history and a theatre. Though these are readily opened to strangers, we are to confess, that we did not see them, being prevented by the attentions of those, whose civilities gave them a right to command us, while their situations enabled them to point out the best occupation of our time. The hall of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, ornamented with portraits of all the grand masters, we are, however, sorry to have neglected even for the delights of Poppelsdorff, which we were presently shewn.
Leaving the palace, we passed through the garden, on the right, to a fine avenue of turf, nearly a mile long, bordered by alleys of tall trees, and so wide, that the late Elector had designed to form a canal in the middle of it, for an opportunity of passing between his palaces, by land, or water, as he might wish. The palace of Poppelsdorff terminates the perspective of this avenue. It is a small building, surrounded by its gardens, in a taste not very good, and remarkable chiefly for the pleasantness of its situation. An arcade, encompassing a court in the interior, communicates with all the apartments on the ground floor, which is the principal, and with the gardens, on the eastern side of the chateau. The entrance is through a small hall, decorated with the ensigns of hunting, and round nearly the whole arcade stags' heads are placed, at equal distances. These have remained here, since the reign of Clement Augustus, the founder of the palace, who died in 1761; and they exhibit some part of the history of his life; for, under each, is an inscription, relating the events and date of the hunt, by which he killed it. There are twenty-three such ornaments.
The greatest part of the furniture had been removed, during the approach of the French, in 1792; and the Archduchess Maria Christina, to whom the Elector, her brother, had lent the chateau, was now very far from sumptuously accommodated. On this account, she passed much of her time, at Goodesberg, a small watering place in the neighbourhood. After her retreat from Brussels, in consequence of the advances of the French in the same year, she had accompanied her husband, the Duke of Saxe Teschen, into Saxony; but, since his appointment to the command of the Emperor's army of the Upper Rhine, her residence had been established in the dominions of her brother.
We were shewn through her apartments, which she had left for Goodesberg, a few hours before. On the table of her sitting room lay the fragments of a painted cross, composed of small pieces, like our dissected maps, the putting of which together exercises ingenuity and passes, perhaps, for a sort of piety. The attendant said, that it served to pass the time; but it cannot be supposed, that rank and fortune have so little power to bestow happiness, as that their possessors should have recourse to such means of lightening the hours of life.
On another table, was spread a map of all the countries, then included in the Theatre of War, and on it a box, filled with small pieces of various coloured wax, intended to mark the positions of the different armies. These were of many shades; for the Archduchess, who is said to be conversant with military affairs and to have descended to the firing of bombs at the siege of Lisle, was able to distinguish the several corps of the allied armies, that were acting separately from each other. The positions were marked up to the latest accounts then public. The course of her thoughts was visible from this chart, and they were interesting to curiosity, being those of the sister of the late unfortunate Queen of France.
The walls of an adjoining cabinet were ornamented with drawings from the antique by the Archduchess, disposed upon a light ground and serving instead of tapestry.
The chapel is a rotunda, rising into a dome, and, though small, is splendid with painting and gilding. In the centre are four altars, formed on the four sides of a square pedestal, that supports a figure of our Saviour; but the beauty of this design is marred by the vanity of placing near each altar the statue of a founder of the Teutonic order. The furniture of the Elector's gallery is of crimson velvet and gold.
On another side of the chateau, we were shewn an apartment entirely covered with grotto work, and called the hall of shells; a curious instance of patient industry, having been completed by one man, during a labour of many years. Its situation in the middle of an inhabited mansion is unsuitable to the character of a grotto: but its coolness must render it a very convenient retreat; and the likenesses of animals, as well as the other forms, into which the shells are thrown, though not very elegant, are fanciful enough, especially as the ornaments of fountains, which play into several parts of the room.
Leaving the palace by the bridge of a moat, that nearly surrounds it, we passed through the pleasant village of Poppelsdorff, and ascended the hill Sanctæ Crucis, called so from the convent of the same name, which occupies its summit. The road wound between thick woods; but we soon left it for a path, that led more immediately to the summit, among shrubs and plantations of larch and fir, and which opened into easy avenues of turf, that sometimes allowed momentary views of other woody points and of the plains around. The turf was uncommonly fragrant and fine, abounding with plants, which made us regret the want of a Botanist's knowledge and pleasures. During the ascent, the peaked tops of the mountains of the Rhine, so often admired below, began to appear above a ridge of dark woods, very near us, in a contrast of hues, which was exquisitely fine. It was now near evening; the mistiness of heat was gone from the surface of these mountains, and they had assumed a blue tint so peculiar and clear, that they appeared upon the sky, like supernatural transparencies.
We had heard, at Bonn, of the Capuchins' courtesy, and had no hesitation to knock at their gate, after taking some rest in the portico of the church, from whence we looked down another side of the mountain, over the long plains between Bonn and Cologne. Having waited some time at the gate, during which many steps fled along the passage and the head of a monk appeared peeping through a window above, a servant admitted us into a parlour, adjoining the refectory, which appeared to have been just left. This was the first convent we had entered, and we could not help expecting to see more than others had described; an involuntary habit, from which few are free, and which need not be imputed to vanity, so long as the love of surprise shall be so visible in human pursuits. When the lay-brother had quitted us, to inform the superior of our request, not a footstep, or a voice approached, for near a quarter of an hour, and the place seemed as if uninhabited. Our curiosity had no indulgence within the room, which was of the utmost plainness, and that plainness free from any thing, that the most tractable imagination could suppose peculiar to a convent. At length, a monk appeared, who received us with infinite good humour, and with the ease which must have been acquired in more general society. His shaven head and black garments formed a whimsical contrast to the character of his person and countenance, which bore no symptoms of sorrow, or penance, and were, indeed, animated by an air of cheerfulness and intelligence, that would have become the happiest inhabitant of the gayest city.
Through some silent passages, in which he did not shew us a cell and we did not perceive another monk, we passed to the church, where the favour of several Electors has assisted the display of paintings, marble, sculpture, gold and silver, mingled and arranged with magnificent effect. Among these was the marble statue, brought from England, at a great expence, and here called a representation of St. Anne, who is said to have found the Cross. Our conductor seemed to be a man of good understanding and desirous of being thought so; a disposition, which gave an awkwardness to his manner, when, in noticing a relic, he was obliged to touch upon some unproved and unimportant tradition, peculiar to his church and not essential to the least article of our faith. His sense of decorum as a member of the convent seemed then to be struggling with his vanity, as a man.
But there are relics here, pretending to a connection with some parts of christian history, which it is shocking to see introduced to consideration by any means so trivial and so liable to ridicule. It is, indeed, wonderful, that the absurd exhibitions, made in Romish churches, should so often be minutely described, and dwelt upon in terms of ludicrous exultation by those, who do not intend that most malignant of offences against human nature, the endeavour to excite a wretched vanity by sarcasm and jest, and to employ it in eradicating the comforts of religion. To such writers, the probable mischief of uniting with the mention of the most important divine doctrines the most ridiculous of human impositions ought to be apparent; and, as the risk is unnecessary in a Protestant country, why is it encountered? That persons otherwise inclined should adopt these topics is not surprising; the easiest pretences to wit are found to be made by means of familiar allusions to sacred subjects, because their necessary incongruity accomplishes the greatest part of what, in other cases, must be done by wit itself; there will, therefore, never be an end of such allusions, till it is generally seen, that they are the resources and symptoms of mean understandings, urged by the feverish desire of an eminence, to which they feel themselves inadequate.
From the chapel we ascended to a tower of the convent, whence all the scattered scenes, of whose beauty, or sublimity, we had caught partial glimpses between the woods below, were collected into one vast landscape, and exhibited almost to a single glance. The point, on which the convent stands, commands the whole horizon. To the north, spread the wide plains, before seen, covered with corn, then just embrowned, and with vines and gardens, whose alternate colours formed a gay checker work with villages, convents and castles. The grandeur of this level was unbroken by any inclosures, that could seem to diminish its vastness. The range of woody heights, that bound it on the west, extend to the southward, many leagues beyond the hill Sanctæ Crucis; but the uniform and unbroken ridges of distant mountains, on the east, cease before the Seven Mountains rise above the Rhine in all their awful majesty. The bases of the latter were yet concealed by the woody ridge near the convent, which gives such enchanting effect to their aërial points. The sky above them was clear and glowing, unstained by the lightest vapour; and these mountains still appeared upon it, like unsubstantial visions. On the two highest pinnacles we could just distinguish the ruins of castles, and, on a lower precipice, a building, which our reverend guide pointed out as a convent, dedicated to St. Bernard, giving us new occasion to admire the fine taste of the monks in their choice of situations.
Opposite to the Seven Mountains, the plains of Goodesberg are screened by the chain of hills already mentioned, which begin in the neighbourhood of Cologne, and whose woods, spreading into France, there assume the name of the Forest of Ardennes. Within the recesses of these woods the Elector has a hunting-seat, almost every window of which opens upon a different alley, and not a stag can cross these without being seen from the chateau. It is melancholy to consider, that the most frequent motives of man's retirement among the beautiful recesses of nature, are only those of destroying the innocent animals that inhabit her shades. Strange! that her lovely scenes cannot soften his heart to milder pleasures, or elevate his fancy to nobler pursuits, and that he must still seek his amusement in scattering death among the harmless and the happy.
As we afterwards walked in the garden of the convent, the greater part of which was planted with vines, the monk further exhibited his good humour and liberality. He enquired concerning the events of the war, of which he appeared to know the latest; spoke of his friends in Cologne and other places; drew a ludicrous picture of the effect which would be produced by the appearance of a capuchin in London, and laughed immoderately at it. "There," said he, "it would be supposed, that some harlequin was walking in a capuchin's dress to attract spectators for a pantomime; here nobody will follow him, lest he should lead them to church. Every nation has its way, and laughs at the ways of others. Considering the effects, which differences sometimes have, there are few things more innocent than that sort of laughter."
The garden was stored with fruits and the vegetable luxuries of the table, but was laid out with no attention to beauty, its inimitable prospects having, as the good monk said, rendered the society careless of less advantages. After exchanging our thanks for his civilities against his thanks for the visit, we descended to Poppelsdorff by a steep road, bordered with firs and fragrant shrubs, which frequently opened to corn lands and vineyards, where peasants were busied in dressing the vines.
About a mile from Bonn is a garden, or rather nursery, to which they have given the name of Vauxhall. It is much more rural than that of London, being planted with thick and lofty groves, which, in this climate, are gratefully refreshing, during the summer-day, but are very pernicious in the evening, when the vapour, arising from the ground, cannot escape through the thick foliage. The garden is lighted up only on great festivals, or when the Elector or his courtiers give a ball in a large room built for the purpose. On some days, half the inhabitants of Bonn are to be seen in this garden, mingling in the promenade with the Elector and his nobility; but there were few visitors when we saw it. Count Gimnich, the commander, who had surrendered Mentz to the French, was the only person pointed out to us.
The road from hence to Bonn was laid out and planted with poplars at the expence of the Elector, who has a taste for works of public advantage and ornament. His Grandmastership of the Teutonic Order renders his Court more frequented than those of the other ecclesiastical Princes, the possessions of that Order being still considerable enough to support many younger brothers of noble families. Having passed his youth in the army, or at the courts of Vienna or Brussels, he is also environed by friends, made before the vacancy of an ecclesiastical electorate induced him to change his profession; and the union of his three incomes, as Bishop of Munster, Grand Master and Elector, enables him to spend something more than two hundred thousand pounds annually. His experience and revenues are, in many respects, very usefully employed. To the nobility he affords an example of so much personal dignity, as to be able to reject many ostentatious customs, and to remove some of the ceremonial barriers, which men do not constantly place between themselves and their fellow-beings, except from some consciousness of personal weakness. All sovereigns, who have had any sense of their individual liberty and power, have shewn a readiness to remove such barriers; but not many have been able to effect so much as the Elector of Cologne against the chamberlains, pages, and other footmanry of their courts, who are always upon the alerte to defend the false magnificence that makes their offices seem necessary. He now enjoys many of the blessings, usual only in private stations; among others, that of conversing with great numbers of persons, not forced into his society by their rank, and of dispensing with much of that attendance, which would render his menial servants part of his company.
His secretary, Mr. Floret, whom we had the pleasure to see, gave us some accounts of the industry and carefulness of his private life, which he judiciously thought were better than any other panegyrics upon his master. His attention to the relief, employment and education of the poor, to the state of manufactures and the encouragement of talents, appears to be continual; and his country would soon have elapsed from the general wretchedness of Germany, if the exertions of three campaigns had not destroyed what thirty years of care and improvement cannot restore.
His residence at Bonn occasions expenditure enough to keep the people busy, but he has not been able to divert to it any part of the commerce, which, though it is of so little use at Cologne, is here spoken of with some envy, and seems to be estimated above its amount. The town, which is much neater than the others in the electorate, and so pleasantly situated, that its name has been supposed to be formed from the Latin synonym for good, is ornamented by few public buildings, except the palace. What is called the University is a small brick building, used more as a school than a college, except that the masters are called professors. The principal church of four, which are within the walls, is a large building, distinguished by several spires, but not remarkable for its antiquity or beauty.
Many of the German powers retain some shew of a representative government, as to affairs of finance, and have States, by which taxes are voted. Those of the electorate of Cologne consist of four colleges, representing the clergy, nobility, knights and cities; the votes are given by colleges, so that the inhabitants of the cities, if they elect their representatives fairly, have one vote in four. These States assemble at Bonn.
One of the privileges, which it is surprising that the present Elector should retain, is that of grinding corn for the consumption of the whole town. His mill, like those of all the towns on the Rhine, is a floating one, moored in the river, which turns its wheel. Bread is bad at Bonn; but this oppressive privilege is not entirely answerable for it, there being little better throughout the whole country. It generally appears in rolls, with glazed crusts, half hollow; the crumb not brown, but a sort of dirty white.
There are few cities in Germany without walls, which, when the dreadful science of war was less advanced than at present, frequently protected them against large armies. These are now so useless, that such cannon as are employed against batteries could probably not be fired from them without shaking their foundations. The fortifications of Bonn are of this sort; and, though they were doubtless better, when the Duke of Marlborough arrived before them, it is wonderful that they should have sustained a regular siege, during which great part of the town was demolished. The electorate of Cologne is, indeed, so ill prepared for war, that it has not one town, which could resist ten thousand men for three days.
The inhabitants of Bonn, whenever they regret the loss of their fortifications, should be reminded of the three sieges, which, in the course of thirty years, nearly destroyed their city. Of these the first was in 1673, when the Elector had received a French garrison into it; but the resistance did not then continue many days. It was in this siege that the Prince of Orange, afterwards our honoured William the Third, had one of his few military successes. In 1689, the French, who had lately defended it, returned to attack it; and, before they could subdue the strong garrison left in it by the Elector of Brandenburg, the palace and several public buildings were destroyed. The third siege was commanded by the Duke of Marlborough, and continued from the 24th of April to the 16th of May, the French being then the defenders, and the celebrated Cohorn one of the assailants. It was not till fifteen years afterwards, that all the houses, demolished in this siege, could be restored by the efforts of the Elector Joseph.
The present Elector maintains, in time of peace, about eight hundred soldiers, which is the number of his contingent to the army of the Empire: in the present war he has supplied somewhat more than this allotment; and, when we were at Bonn, two thousand recruits were in training. His troops wear the general uniform of the Empire, blue faced with red, which many of the Germanic sovereigns give only to their contingent troops, while those of their separate establishments are distinguished by other colours. The Austrian regiments are chiefly in white; faced with light blue, grey, or red; but the artillery are dressed, with very little shew, in a cloak speckled with light brown.
Bonn was one of the very few places in Germany, which we left with regret. It is endeared to the votaries of landscape by its situation in the midst of fruitful plains, in the presence of stupendous mountains, and on the bank of a river, that, in summer, is impelled by the dissolved snows of Switzerland, and, in winter, rolls with the accumulation of a thousand torrents from the rocks on its shores. It contained many inhabitants, who had the independence to aim at a just taste in morals and letters, in spite of the ill examples with which such countries supply them; and, having the vices of the form of government, established in it, corrected by the moderation and immediate attention of the governor, it might be considered as a happy region in the midst of ignorance, injustice and misery, and remembered like the green spot, that, in an Arabian desert, cheers the senses and sustains the hopes of the weary traveller.
GOODESBERG.
The ride from Bonn to this delightful village is only one league over a narrow plain, covered with corn and vineyards. On our right was the range of hills, before seen from the mountain Sanctæ Crucis, sweeping into frequent recesses, and starting forward into promontories, with inequalities, which gave exquisite richness to the forest, that mantled from their bases to their utmost summits. Many a lurking village, with its slender grey steeple, peeped from among the woody skirts of these hills. On our left, the tremendous mountains, that bind the eastern shore of the Rhine, gradually lost their aërial complexion, as we approached them, and displayed new features and new enchantments; an ever-varying illusion, to which the transient circumstance of thunder clouds contributed. The sun-beams, streaming among these clouds, threw partial gleams upon the precipices, and, followed by dark shadows, gave surprising and inimitable effect to the natural colouring of the mountains, whose pointed tops we now discerned to be covered with dark heath, extended down their rocky sides, and mingled with the reddish and light yellow tints of other vegetation and the soil. It was delightful to watch the shadows sweeping over these steeps, now involving them in deep obscurity, and then leaving them to the sun's rays, which brought out all their hues into vivid contrast.
Near Goodesberg, a small mountain, insulated, abrupt and pyramidal, rises from the plain, which it seems to terminate, and conceals the village, that lies along its southern skirt. This mountain, covered with vineyards and thick dwarf wood to its summit, where one high tower and some shattered walls appear, is a very interesting object.
At the entrance of the village, the road was obstructed by a great number of small carts, filled with soldiers apparently wounded. The line of their procession had been broken by some carriages, hastening with company to the ridotto at Goodesberg, and was not easily restored. Misery and festivity could scarcely be brought into closer contrast. We thought of Johnson's "many-coloured life," and of his picture, in the preface to Shakespeare, of cotemporary wretchedness and joy, when "the reveller is hastening to his wine, and the mourner is burying his friend." This was a procession of wounded French prisoners, chiefly boys, whose appearance had, indeed, led us to suspect their nation, before we saw the stamp of the fasces, and the words "Republique Françoise" upon the buttons of some, whom our driver had nearly overset. The few, that could raise themselves above the floor of their carts, shewed countenances yellow, or livid with sickness. They did not talk to their guards, nor did the latter shew any signs of exultation over them.
In a plain, beyond the village, a row of large houses, built upon one plan, and almost resembling a palace, form the little watering place of Goodesberg, which has been founded partly at the expence of the Elector, and partly by individuals under his patronage. One of the houses was occupied by the Archduchess, his sister, and is often used by the Elector, who is extremely solicitous for the prosperity of the place. A large building at the end contains the public rooms, and is fitted up as an hotel.
The situation of this house is beautiful beyond any hope or power of description; for description, though it may tell that there are mountains and rocks, cannot paint the grandeur, or the elegance of outline, cannot give the effect of precipices, or draw the minute features, that reward the actual observer by continual changes of colour, and by varying their forms at every new choice of his position. Delightful Goodesberg! the sublime and beautiful of landscape, the charms of music, and the pleasures of gay and elegant society, were thine! The immediate unhappiness of war has now fallen upon thee; but, though the graces may have fled thee, thy terrible majesty remains, beyond the sphere of human contention.
The plain, that contains the village and the spa, is about five miles in length and of half that breadth. It is covered by uninclosed corn, and nearly surrounded by a vast amphitheatre of mountains. In front of the inn, at the distance of half a league, extend, along the opposite shore of the Rhine, the Seven Mountains, so long seen and admired, which here assume a new attitude. The three tallest points are now nearest to the eye, and the lower mountains are seen either in the perspective between them, or sinking, with less abrupt declivities, into the plains, on the north. The whole mass exhibits a grandeur of outline, such as the pencil only can describe; but fancy may paint the stupendous precipices of rock, that rise over the Rhine, the rich tuftings of wood, that emboss the cliffs or lurk within the recesses, the spiry summits and the ruined castles, faintly discerned, that crown them. Yet the appearance of these mountains, though more grand, from Goodesberg, is less sublime than from Bonn; for the nearness, which increases their grandeur, diminishes their sublimity by removing the obscurity that had veiled them. To the south of this plain, the long perspective is crossed by further ranges of mountains, which open to glimpses of others still beyond; an endless succession of summits, that lead on the imagination to unknown vallies and regions of solitary obscurity.
Amidst so many attractions of nature, art cannot do much. The little, which it attempts, at Goodesberg, is the disposition of some walks from the houses to a spring, which is said to resemble that at Spa, and through the woods above it. Twice a week there are some musical performances and a ball given by the Elector, who frequently appears, and with the ease and plainness of a private gentleman. At these entertainments the company, visiting the spring, are joined by neighbouring families, so as to be in number sixty, or a hundred. The balls, agreeably to the earliness of German hours, begin at six; and that, which we meant to see, was nearly concluded before our arrival. The company then retired to a public game, at which large sums of gold were risked, and a severe anxiety defied the influence of Mozart's music, that continued to be played by an excellent orchestra. The dresses of the company were in the English taste, and, as we were glad to believe, chiefly of English manufacture; the wearing of countenances by play appears to be also according to our manners; and the German ladies, with features scarcely less elegant, have complexions, perhaps, finer than are general in England.