as a Museum to contain the Gallery of Hof; Goldner Ochse.
Paintings, the majority of which, except
some specimens of the Dutch school,
are very mediocre; a Collection of
Plaster Casts, and a Cabinet of Natural
History, with some good specimens of
minerals and fossils. The best part of
all the Mannheim collections were
transferred to Munich in 1778.

The Gardens behind the palace, ending in a raised terrace (Rheindamm) upon the brink of the Rhine, are a delightful walk.

The Planken,

a broad street, planted with trees, between the Heidelberg and Rhine gates, is another promenade of the inhabitants. The private gardens along the banks of the Neckar are a great ornament to the outskirts of the town. A pretty chain bridge has been thrown across the Neckar.

A small town

of 2500 inhab. Its Château had been from early times a seat of the Electors Palatine, when the Elector Charles Theodore made it his summer residence in 1743, and employed the 20 following years, and vast sums of money, in converting into an ornamental garden a flat sandy desert, indebted to nature for no favour but the very distant prospect of a picturesque chain of hills. Those who desire to see all the sights here may prolong their walk for 2 or 3 hrs. at any rate it is well to take a guide at the gate. The objects best worth notice are the Mosque, the temples of Mercury and Apollo, the Bath, the Roman aqueduct, and the Temple of Pan. The vista looking over the great basin towards the Vosges Mountains has the pleasing effect of a natural diorama. The Gardens themselves are not without beauty, though laid out in the formal French style, carried to perfection by Le Notre at Versailles, with straight basins edged with stone, and ruffled by ever-spurting fountains; with prim parterres, peopled with statues, flanked by cropped hedges, and intersected by long avenues. They contain about 114 English acres. The Botanic Garden, included within their circuit, contains a fine collection of Alpine plants. The conservatories and the orangery are worth notice.

If we except the Jesuits' Church, which, after all is not of first-rate architecture, and, though imposing, is Eoverloaded with marble inside, there is no remarkable building here.

Direct

The Theatre is on a good footing; the orchestra, under Lachner, is not the surpassed in this part of Germany. Here Schiller's "Robbers" was first brought out in 1782. Opposite the principal entrance to the theatre is the the house of Kotzebue, where he was assassinated by the mad student Sand; the victim and murderer are both buried in the Lutheran churchyard. Schiller lived on the Parade Platz, in the house called Zum Karlsberg.

English Church Service on Sundays. The reading room of the club called the Harmony, in the Planken, is thrown open to strangers properly introduced.

A very agreeable lounge here is the establishment of Messrs. Artaria and Co., where all the productions of the fine arts and literature in Germany and Italy are to be met with, and a tourist can supply himself with all sorts of maps, views, &c., indispensable on a foreign journey. M. A. has a fine collection of original paintings.

[Schwetzingen should be visited from Mannheim. It is about 9 m. disInns : Erb Prinz; Pfälzer

tant.

N. Germ.

Mutterstadt Stat.

Schifferstadt Stat. Here is the junction of the lines from Spires and Ludwigshafen, with the line which runs westward to Neustadt, and ultimately to Kaiserslautern and Bexbach.

1. SPIRES (Germ. SPEYER) Stat. Inns: Post (Wittelsbacher Hof), good; Adler. This ancient and venerable city, one of the oldest, and originally one of the chief cities in Germany, lies Its upon the 1. bank of the Rhine. population, which in the 14th cent. amounted to 27,000, is now reduced to about 9000, and it is in all other respects a mere shadow of its former self.

It received from the Romans the name Civitas Nemetun, or Noviomagus; but in their time it was only a fortified outpost on the Rhine to resist the attacks of the neighbouring Allemanni. Charlemagne, however, and the Emperors of Germany who followed him, especially those of the Franconian and Suabian lines, made it their chosen place of residence, and the seat of the Germanic Diet, bestowing upon it, at the same time, the privileges of a Free City of the Empire, which made it the centre of a flourishing trade, and poured wealth into its walls. The Charter (Freibrief) conferred by Henry V. in 111, gave to its citizens a monopoly of the carrying trade up and down the Rhine, and entitled them to destroy any baronial castle which might be built within 3 German miles of their gates an enactment intended effectually to secure them from troublesome and rapacious neighbours. The history of Spires during the period of the middle ages is an alternate record of

Imperial festivities and courtly show,
and of scenes of tumult and violence
within its walls, and deadly feuds and
combats without. Its citizens, in those
unquiet times, were as well versed in
the use of arms as in the arts of trade
At one time they were called upon to
issue from their walls in order to
chastise the lawless rapacity of some
feudal baron, who had waylaid their
merchants, and pillaged their property
on the high road, and who often paid
for his insolence by having his castle
burnt about his ears and levelled with
the ground: at another they were en-
gaged in a quarrel with a neighbouring
town, or in a feud with their bishop,
or even with the Emperor himself.
On several occasions armies of 20,000
men, composed of the levies of more
than 100 different barons and towns,
each marshalled under their Own
banners, in vain laid siege to Spires,
being repulsed by the bravery of the
citizens. Now and then fortune de
clared against them, and they suffered
from the plundering inroads of hostile
armies. In the 14th century the city
maintained in its pay an army of knights
and soldiers, to whom it partly intrusted
its defence, and whom it engaged to
fight its battles. At length the Im-
perial Edict, which abolished the right
of private war, in 1530, restored peace
to Germany. The Imperial Chamber.
Reichs-Kammergericht, by which its
enactments were enforced, and all in
fringements of them punished, was
established at Spires. This tribunal,
the paramount court of appeal in Ger
many, existed here 200 years, unti
removed to Wetzlar.

The trade and prosperity of Spire
began to decay in the 17th century;
but the final blow and the greates
injury was inflicted upon it by the
atrocities of the French under Lou
XIV., during the Orleans Succession
War, called' by the Germans "Mord
brenner Krieg." In 1689, the tow
was taken by the French, who short
after issued a proclamation
to th
citizens, commanding them to quit
with their wives and children, with
the space of 6 days; and to betak

a

1

a modern monument by Ohmacht; it consists of a kneeling figure of the Emperor in armour, on a Byzantine sarcophagus of black Nassau marble. Another monumental statue of Rudolph of Habsburg has been erected by the King of Bavaria; executed by Schwanthaler of Munich. Numerous judicious restorations have been made by the Bavarian government; and the church, which was a ruin in 1816, has been reopened for public worship since 1824. The subterranean Church or Crypt, under the choir, supported by short massy columns, is very curious. Traces of the mines formed by the French in their ineffectual attempt to blow up the building may still be perceived here. The font dates from the 9th or 10th century. In the Sacristy are a set of priest's robes of the 14th century, beautifully embroidered with subjects from Scripture, figures of the apostles, &c.; they were brought from Aschaffenburg. The treasures of the sacristy disappeared at the Revolution. In the ruined Chapel of St. Afra, on the N. side of the building, the remains of the unfortunate Emperor Henry IV. were laid by his faithful subjects, the citizens of Worms, and remained 5 years unburied, until the removal of the papal ban of excommunication opened for him the imperial vault. The Dom is surrounded by agreeable pleasuregrounds extending down to the Rhine. In the Hall of Antiquities, near the Dom, are deposited various Roman remains found in Rhenish Bavaria, chiefly at Rheinzabern; they consist of pottery of all kinds, elegant vases and dishes, with the moulds in which they were shaped, bas-reliefs in stone and terra. cotta, glass vessels, lamps, votive tablets, spear heads, sword blades, a good statue of Mercury in bronze, and the eagle of a Roman legion. Here is also preserved the gravestone of Rudolph of Habsburg, bearing his effigy carefully copied from the life.

One of the few surviving relics of the old city is a colossal tower and gateway, called Alt Portal, between the town and the Landau suburb; it is of considerable antiquity.

town.

Strangers can be introduced by the innkeepers to read the newspapers the club called Harmonie.

A good road leads to Landau, and the castle of Trifels, the prison of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, described in Rte. 104.

Continuing the voyage up the Rhine above Spires, we pass (rt.) Phillipsburg named after Philip von Sotern, Arc bp. of Spires, who founded it at the beginning of the Thirty Years' War; was formerly a fortress of the empir and makes an important figure in th Its works campaigns of Turenne. were razed in 1800. Marshal Ber wick was killed under its walls, 17 Large and unwholesome morasses, low the level of the Rhine, overspre the country about

21. Germersheim.

Inn, a filt hole, not fit for a dog; passengers may chance to stop here for the nigh had better remain on board the steamer It is a mile distant from the Rhin This is a miserable small town of 200 inhab., of which a barrack and a C spire rising above the ramparts a alone visible from the river. It w founded by the Empr. Rudolph Habsburg, who died here, 1291. It being converted into a fortress of German Confederations, and stro military defences have been in prog since 1834.

Bridge of boats over the Rhine be The shortest road hence to Strasb at a little distance from it, by Rhe runs along the 1. bank of the Rhine, h Izabern, 2 Germ. m.; Lauterberg