attended by two retainers, and demanded a parley. It was granted; he was admitted. Within five short minutes the lovely Gerda and her noble knight were at his feet; and he was pouring out blessings on them and their remotest posterity. Poor human nature! how consistent thou art on most occasions!

It is to be presumed-for it is not told in chronicle or tradition that the newly united couple lived happily, and died so.

The next place of note on the Rhine is the famous Mouse Tower, the legend of which has been made so extensively known in England by the admirable ballad of Southey. There are many theories to account for the name which the ruin bears. These are a few of them :-

"A musket-shot below the city of Bingen," says Merian,* "stands, in the middle of the Rhine, the Mouse Tower. It stands on a rock in the river, like a little castle; and is built of massive stones, so that no wave may cover it, nor any flood wash it away; how great so ever the fulness of the current, or the force thereof. When the Rhine is low," he proceeds, " and the channel is bare, ruins are discoverable branching off from the

*Topographiæ Archiep. Mogunt. Trevir. Colon. fol. 1646, p. 2 et supra.

basis of the tower, as though the original building to which it pertained were once larger; and in the tower itself, engraven on the greater stones which compose it, are still to be seen small crosses inscribed in circles, like, as it were, to wheels with spokes: also a deep hole, like that in the neighbouring tollhouse." Trithemius* tells us that, a thousand years ago, this edifice was standing; and that it had been erected as a watchtower, ages anterior to that era. Yet some ancient Latin verses ascribed to Willigis, archbishop of Mainz, would seem to sanction its foundation by him ;† and Serarius, a most accurate old writer, states that the name by which it is known to posterity, was derived from that prelate. The latter deduces it very naively thus :--"When a person is watching any thing, he is like a cat looking after a mouse; this tower was built as a watch-tower, and therefore it is called the Mouse Tower, because the coming barques, whether they be foes or strangers, are like unto mice." Serarius discountenances the legend of Bishop Hatto, and Trithemius positively denies it; yet such is the love of the marvellous inherent in human nature, that the story is not alone current, but has absolutely found thousands and tens of thousands of believers.

Little further can be said of the Mouse Tower, except that it is generally supposed to derive its singular appellative from the old French word Mousserie (musquetry), in consequence of its occupation as a watch-tower; and that it has been a subject of wonder and deep interest to all tourists on the Rhine, from time immemorial.

Every body knows, however, that its erection as a place of refuge from the mice who persecuted him, is attributed to Hatto,

*Chronic. Hirsch. A. D. 967.

+ The verses referred to run thus; they are part of a longer piece de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis :

"Pontem construxit apud Aschaffburg, benè duxit
Ac pontem per Nahe: miles transit quoque verna,
Et benè necesse prope Bing Mäusen dedit esse."

The "wheels with spokes cut into the greater stones," alluded to by Merian, would seem to countenance this claim; but that Trithemius, who lived before him, is reckoned an undoubted authority for the events of his time. Perhaps Willegis re-edified the structure; and thence, by a natural vanity, laid claim to its foundation.

archbishop of Mainz; and that it is from the fabulous circumstance of his destruction by these little animals, that the structure takes its present name. The ballad of Dr. Southey, alluded to, gives at once the most vivid and most popular version of this strange legend extant; and it is, therefore, offered here in preference to any other which could be adopted in these pages.

THE TRADITION OF BISHOP HATTO.

The summer and autumn had been so wet,
That in winter the corn was growing yet;
'Twas a piteous sight to see all around
The grain lie rotting on the ground.

Every day the starving poor

Crowded around Bishop Hatto's door,
For he had a plentiful last-year's store;
And all the neighbourhood could tell
His granaries were furnished well.

At last, Bishop Hatto appointed a day
To quiet the poor without delay;
He bade them to his great barn repair,
And they should have food for the winter there.

Rejoiced at such tidings good to hear,
The poor folk flocked from far and near;
The great barn was full as it could hold
Of women and children, and young and old.

Then when he saw it could hold no more,
Bishop Hatto he made fast the door;
And while for mercy on Christ they call,
He set fire to the barn and burnt them all.

"I' faith, 'tis an excellent bonfire!" quoth he,
"And the country is greatly obliged to me,
For ridding it, in these times forlorn,
Of rats that only consume the corn."

So then to his palace returned he,
And he sat down to supper merrily,

And he slept that night like an innocent man,
But Bishop Hatto never slept again.

In the morning, as he entered the hall
Where his picture hung against the wall,
A sweat like death all over him came,
For the rats had eaten it out of its frame.

As he look'd, there came a man from his farm, He had a countenance white with alarm;

My lord, I open'd your granaries this morn,

And the rats had eaten all your corn."

Another came running presently,

And he was pale as pale could be ;
"Fly! my lord bishop, fly!" quoth he,
"Ten thousand rats are coming this way;
The Lord forgive you for yesterday !"

"I'll go to my tower on the Rhine,” replied he, ""Tis the safest place in Germany;

The walls are high, and the shores are steep, And the stream is strong, and the water deep."

Bishop Hatto fearfully hastened away,
And he cross'd the Rhine without delay,
And he reach'd his tower, and barr'd with care
All the windows, doors, and loopholes there.

He laid him down, and closed his eyes;

But soon a scream made him arise;

He started, and saw two eyes of flame

On his pillow, from whence the screaming came.

He listen'd and look'd;-it was only the cat;
But the bishop he grew more fearful for that,
For she sat screaming, mad with fear
At the army of rats that were drawing near.

For they have swam over the river so deep,
And they have climb'd the shores so steep,
And now by thousands up they crawl
To the holes and windows in the wall.

Down on his knees the bishop fell,

And faster and faster his beads did he tell,
As louder and louder drawing near

The saw of their teeth without he could hear.

And in at the windows, and in at the door,

And through the walls by thousands they pour,

And down through the ceiling, and up through the floor,
From the right and the left, from behind and before,
From within and without, from above and below,

And all at once to the bishop they go.

They have whetted their teeth against the stones,
And now they pick the bishop's bones;
They gnawed the flesh from every limb,
For they were sent to do judgment on him.

It is but justice, however, to add, that, according to the testimony of historians the most worthy of credit, Hatto was rather a saviour of his country than an oppressor of its people and a ruthless tyrant, as this and the succeeding legend would make him appear in the eyes of posterity; and that it is more than probable his popularity with the common-folk, arising from the justice which he strictly administered to them, the restraints which he placed on their exacting neighbours, the robber-knights, and the general peace which he established in his diocess, was the cause of those unjust aspersions on his memory, originated, no doubt, and circulated by his enemies with all the energy and all the intensity of hate, known only to a state of semibarbarism.

A Rhenish antiquarian* has decided against the remote antiquity usually assigned to this remarkable structure, and

*Bodmer, " Rheingauische Alterthümer," band i. s. 148.

VOL. II.

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