MAYENCE. PUBLIC FEELING.

9

under bailiffs, and other statesmen in detail, who pocket salaries, and serve to clog the movements of government. The people of the Province, are in general, however, contented with their new Sovereign; and the citizens would be more so if they were not incommoded by the troops; but town's people and rustics, all look back to the mild rule of the Ecclesiastical Princes, as to bright days almost forgotten in the changing calamities which have succeeded them.

The liberal government of the Grand Duke, which has wisely left the administration of Justice, trial by jury, the Code Napoleon, and other French improvements on the footing in which he found them with slight modifications, deserves praise. The inhabitants of Mayence, and the whole province, are of course chiefly Catholics; but though now subject to a Protestant Prince, they have nothing to complain of on the score of religion.Their faith is no longer an aristocratical and splendid one-the days of luxurious Chapters and rosy faced Canons are gone by- but the people enjoy the freest toleration and every privilege of Pro

10

MAYENCE.

CATHEDRAL.

testants-their pastors and schools are upon an equal footing. In short, the new Hessians on this side the Rhine are so well contented with their condition, that they have refused to sign the general Address to the Diet for the restoration of the States of the Country-asserting that they have every reason to hope for just rule from a Prince who has shown himself so liberally disposed towards them. This is however rather the conduct of green politicians, who have not yet learnt to appreciate security for the future as well as present comfort.

The massive red stone Towers and light pinnacles of the Cathedral form venerable objects in a dirty dilapidated square in the centre of the town, filled with the barrows and baskets of a littering market, and thronged with motley groupes of passengers of all qualities. The meanness of the lower ranks, the white Austrian, and the blue Prussian, uniforms, here and there a prowling cock'd-hatted gendarme, or a solitary demure priest, are, however, the predominant features. The Cathedral has nothing very striking in its architecture beyond a heavy massive grandeur; and after

MAYENCE -OLD PRINTERS.

11

the eye has been delighted by the superb and graceful Gothic edifices of the Netherlands it is by no means remarkable. It contains some interesting and handsome monuments of the Electors. Besides Albert of Brandenburg and other men of celebrity, Fastrada, the wife of Charlemagne, is buried here, and honoured by an inscription, which I was not linguist enough to decypher. We did not omit paying due respect to the small stone erected to Henry Frauenlob, Anglice, Praise the Ladies," the old Minnesinger and Canon, whose surname vouches for the gallantry of his poems. The fair dames of Mayence displayed their grateful fondness of their bard by bearing him to his grave, and inundating his bier with tears and red wine.

As the birth-place of the art of printing, Mayence must ever be regarded with interest. The scite of Gutenberg's, the printer's house, is now not unappropriately occupied by the Casino and the Cabinet de Lecture, and his printing office is possessed by a learned Professor. The arms of the Gutenberg family are still to be seen on the walls. Faust's house is degraded into a low inn.

12

MAYENCE. ANTIQUITIES.

Mayence abounds in historical associations; but its existing vestiges of antiquity are very few. Its position at the confluence of the Main and the Rhine near the commencement of the bulwark of mountains, which form a natural fortification lower down the Rhine, has marked it out in all ages for a frontier fortress and consequently for a scene of battle and bloodshed. The Romans built it under the name of Moguntiacum, to protect Belgic Gaul from the inroads of the Germans on the other side the river-and 1900 years afterwards, when Gaul had again pushed her frontier to the Rhine, the Gallic Republic and the Gallic Empire kept it strongly garrisoned for the same object. The Germans now hold it as a bulwark against the descendants of the Gauls. How soon the tables may again turn, it is impossible to foresee. So uniform have been the disastrous fortunes of the city in time of war, that Tacitus' description* of its famine and sufferings, during the siege by the Batavians and Germans in the reign of

* Hist. Lib. iv.

MAYENCE. ANTIQUITIES.

13

Vespasian, might serve for the picture of the siege in 1792 by the French under Custine: "Cunctantibus solita insolitaque alimenta deerant-absumptis jumentis equisque et cæteris animalibus quæ profana fœdaque in usum necessitas vertit." Some few remains of the old Roman Fortress still exist; a massy stone on the ramparts called Drusus' Stone-and the scite of Drusus' Lake is said to be known. Just opposite our Hotel was a large open square, once the scite of a great Exchange or Kauf haus of the commercial Hanse. Mayence was one of the principal cities in this famous league. Not a stone of the building, which was a beautiful specimen of Gothic, remains. It was demolished a few years since, having gradually fallen into ruin along with the trade of the city.