THURNBERG.-THE MOUSE.

Thurnberg, more commonly called the Mouse, is also known as Kunoburg, in consequence of its re-edification by Kuno von Falkenstein, archbishop of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne, more than once mentioned in these pages, about the middle of the thirteenth century.

Kuno von Falkenstein was one of the most powerful princes on the Rhine, and one of the most politic sovereigns. Sprung from a warlike stock, he did not, although a priest, belie his militant descent. His earliest delight was in passages of arms; and it is recorded that he performed many signal feats in the various combats which the unsettled circumstances of the period gave such frequent rise to. He always wore armour in preference to the robes of an ecclesiastic: and he was usually known by the appellation of Ritter, or Sir Kuno. On one occasion, while attending the court of the Emperor Charles the Fourth, at Mainz, that weak monarch cut a sorry joke upon his warlike accoutrements; but the warrior priest had sufficient good sense to let it pass over unheeded.

The first dignity which he attained was more of a temporal than of a spiritual character. He was elected steward or administrator of the archdiocess of Treves, during a contention for the electoral throne between two rival candidates. His administration was vigorous in the extreme; and he soon put an end to the many disorders which civil strife is always certain to engender in a small state. It was not, however, with impunity that he effected these salutary reforms in that diocess; for he was, on more than one occasion, placed in circumstances of considerable danger by his enemies. He was beset on every side, and twice or thrice narrowly escaped with his life. Once he was waylaid on the high-road by an ambush placed there purposely for his destruction, and only escaped the assassins through the fleetness of his steed; and on another occasion, he was compelled to spring from a window of the castle of Ehrenfels, which was unexpectedly surrounded by his foes, or he would have been taken by them in his bed.

But it is not intended to write his history here; and, therefore, it will suffice to state that he lived long, and reigned gloriously for his own fame, as well as advantageously for his subjects' happiness; and that he died about the latter end of the fourteenth century, A. D. 1388.

The following legend relates not to the structure raised by this prelate; but to the more ancient one on whose ruins it was erected.

THE WHITE MAIDEN.

It is now centuries since a young noble of the neighbourhood was hunting in the valleys which lie behind the hills that skirt the Rhine opposite the ancient town of St. Goar. In the heat of the pursuit he followed his game to the foot of the acclivity on which are seated the ruins of Thurnberg; there, however, it disappeared all at once from his view. It was the noon of a midsummer-day, and the sun shone powerfully down on him. Despairing of being able to find the object of his pursuit, he determined to clamber up the steep hill-side, and seek shelter and repose in the shadow of the old castle, or, mayhap, in one of its many crumbling chambers. With much labour he succeeded in reaching the summit; and there, fatigued with his toil, and parched with a burning thirst, he flung himself on the ground, beneath one of the huge towers, some of whose remains still rear their heads on high, and stretched out his tired limbs in the full enjoyment of rest.

"Now," said he, as he wiped the perspiration from his sunburnt brow," now would I be happy indeed, if some kind being only brought me a beaker of the cool wine, which, they say, is ages old, down there in the cellars of this castle."

No sooner said than done. He had scarce spoken the words when a most beautiful maiden stept forth from a cleft in the ivycovered ruin, bearing in one hand a huge silver beaker of an antique form, full to the very brim of foaming wine. In her other hand she held a large bunch of keys, of all sizes. She was garbed in white from head to heel; her hair was flaxen ; her skin was like a lily; and she had such loving eyes, that they at once won the heart of the young sportsman.

"Here," said she, handing him the beaker; "behold, thy wish is granted. Drink, and be satisfied."

His heart leaped within him for joy of her condescension; and he emptied the contents of the goblet at a single draught. All the while she looked on him in such a manner as to intoxicate his very soul; so kindly and so confidential were her glances. The wine coursed through his veins like liquid flame; and his heart soon burned with unholy love for the maiden. The fever of his blood was by no means appeased by the furtive looks which ever and anon she contrived to cast on him. She saw his state of mind-she could not fail, indeed, to see it ;and when his passion was at its highest pitch, and all restraint seemed at an end from the potent influence of love and wine, she disappeared in a moment, by the way she came, equally sudden and equally swiftly. He rushed after in the hopes of detaining the fugitive, or, at least, of catching a parting glimpse of her retreating form; but the ivy-enwreathed cleft through which she seemed to have flitted, looked as though it had not been disturbed for centuries; and as he tried to force his path to the gloomy depths below, a crowd of bats, and owls, and other foul birds of evil omen, aroused from their repose, rose upwards, and, amidst dismal hootings and fearful cries, almost flung him backwards with the violence of their flight. He spent all the remainder of that afternoon in the search of his lost one; but with not the slightest success. At the coming of night he wended his way homeward, weary, heart-sick, and overwhelmed with an indefinable sensation of sadness and woe.

From that day forth he was an altered man;—altered in appearance as well as in mind and in manners. Pleasure was a stranger to his soul; and he knew no longer what it was to enjoy peace. Wherever he went, whatever pursuit he was engaged in, whether in the chase, in the hall, in lady's bower, or at church, his eye only saw one object-the white maiden. At the festive board she stood in imagination always before him, offering to his fevered lips the cool, brimming beaker; and in the long-drawn aisles of the sacred edifice, she was ever present, beckoning him from his devotions to partake of the generous beverage which she still bore in her right hand. Every matron or maiden he met with in the castles of his friends and acquaint

ances, seemed by some wondrous process to take her shape; and even the very trees of the forest, when the excitement of the chase was at the highest, all looked to his thought as though they resembled her. Thenceforward

"From morn till eve, from eve till dewy morn,"

did he haunt these ruins; still hoping to see, once again, her for whom he felt that he was dying; and living alone in that hope. The sun scorched him—but it was nothing to the heat that burned within him: the rain drenched him, but he cared not for it. Time, and change, and circumstance seemed all forgotten by him; every thing passed him by unheeded. His whole existence was completely swallowed up in one thought-the white maiden of the ruined castle; and that alas! was only vanity and vexation of spirit. A deadly fever seized him. It was a mortal disease. Yet still he raved of nothing, even in his delirium, but of her. One morn a woodman, who occasionally provided him with food, found him a corpse at the entrance of the crevice in the wall whence the maiden had seemed to come, and where she had to his thinking disappeared. It was long rumoured that he had struggled bravely with death-or rather that he could not die, because the curse was upon him—until the maiden, garbed in white as usual, appeared to him once more. He stretched forth -she stooped over him; - he raised his head-she kissed his lips;—and he died.

his arms

The white maiden, tradition tells us, has not since been seen in the ruins of Thurnberg.

Lurley, or the Lurley-berg, is a celebrated mass of rock of basaltic formation, situated a little above Thurnberg, on the same side of the river. Of few spots in the entire course of the Rhine are so many wild and wonderful legends related; but as it would be utterly impossible to detail them all here, the following selection is offered as a fair specimen :—

LORE-LAY.

In the early days of Germany-it may have been about the beginning of the eleventh century-there dwelt at Bacharachon-the-Rhine a damsel who was so surpassingly beautiful, that she turned the heads, or broke the hearts, of all those who approached within the sphere of her attractions. Yet she was a good as well as a beautiful maiden; and by no means prided herself on the distress which her beauty caused among her countless wooers. It would have been hard indeed if, amidst the crowd of suitors of all stations which hourly beset her, she had not found one to her mind; or that she alone should be insensible to the violent passion she inspired in others. It was