follower. Arrived at Rome, he visited all those places consecrated to the genius, the sufferings, the history, and the triumph of Christianity; and performed his devotions at each shrine with the fervour of a faithful votary of the cross. But, before all, he visited the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, which stands now beneath the dome of that wonder of the world St. Peter. There, in a rapture of religious feeling, he vowed another vow, -that he would relinquish the pleasures of sovereignty to be the humblest servant of the church, and dispose of all his superfluous property among the poor and the afflicted. This done, he returned to Bingen by the same route he had departed from it, and in the same lowly and painful manner.

Bertha received her beloved son as might be expected; she covered him with caresses, and wept over him as over one long lost and never more expected. He told her of his pilgrimage, and he spake to her of his vow. Her heart had been so long turned towards heaven, that she had not a thought for earth save what centered in her darling son; so she offered no opposition to his views, but cordially approved of them. He then set about fulfilling his vow; and he kept it to the letter.

From that time forward he lived more the life of a recluse in the desert, than that of one of the most powerful sovereign princes in Germany. But he was not spared long to his people; and perhaps it was a mercy that he was cut off in youth before lawlessness had taken head in his dominions. Ere he had completed his twentieth year he died, worn out by the fatigue of his pilgrimage to Rome, and the acerbities he had practised on his return. His mother survived him but a few months. They were both buried in the same grave, in the ancient collegiate church of Bingen.

In later times, Rupert received the honour of canonization; and his pilgrim's garb, the only relic remaining of him to posterity, was enwrapped in a magnificent purple mantle and enshrined in the convent of Eubingen, on the other side of the Rhine above Rudesheim.

This legend of St. Rupert is derived from the authority of the celebrated prophetess Hildegard, abbess of the convent of St. Rupertsberg, contemporary and fellow-labourer of St. Ber

nard in exciting the nobles of Germany to the second crusade, who claimed descent from the ancient dukes of Bingen, of whose direct line the subject of this tale was the last male issue inheriting the title. Mention has already been made of her.

Bingen subsequently passed into the possession of various princes, the chief of which were the archbishops of Mainz and Treves. A colony of Lombard merchants, from Asti in Piedmont, settled there in the middle ages, and greatly benefited the town and neighbourhood by the extension of traffic.

In the year 1302, the army of the Emperor Albert beleaguered Bingen, and threatened to extirpate the inhabitants. And one-and-twenty years afterwards the town was the scene of a series of the most sanguinary executions, arising out of a quarrel caused by the trifling circumstance of striking a dog. This quarrel originated between the boatmen and the butchers, in consequence of one of the latter beating a hound belonging to one of the former; and the towns-folk participating in it as it took head, several lives were lost in the affray which ensued. The butchers bore away the victory; but they paid dearly for it soon afterwards. When peace and order were restored, and the law enabled to take its course, several of the delinquents were beheaded; some were mutilated-their hands and feet being cut off; and many were banished from the town for ever.

Bingen shared the fate of the other towns and cities on the Rhine in the subsequent changes which took place on that river. It is now the property of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt.

KLOPP.

Directly above Bingen, on a high hill overlooking and commanding that city, stand the ruins of Klopp, supposed to have been originally built by Drusus Germanicus. It was subsequently tenanted by the unfortunate Emperor Henry the Fourth, of whom the following tradition is related.

It was Christmas night, in the year 1105; a thick sheeting of snow covered the hills and the valleys in the vicinity of Bingen, the roofs and battlements of the houses in that old town, the fortifications which surrounded it, and, above all, the strong castle of Klopp, then standing erect in all its pride of power, dominant over the entire neighbourhood: yet was there joy in every heart which looked on that cheerless scene, or dwelt within its circle, save in one. Why was it so? and who was this man of sorrow?

In the coved recess of a narrow-grated window of the castle of Klopp, situated high up in the rere-ward tower from the town, stood a man advanced in years, looking out on that picture of wintry desolation, as it lay below him in the cold, clear light of the winter moon. His aspect was, at the same time, noble and sad; his long gray hairs streamed in the chill gusts which came, ever and anon, from the river up the steep ascent on which the castle stood; and his form, though stately, seemed bent like the aged and weather-beaten oak. But still it was evident that sorrow had anticipated age in his constitution; that grief and vexation of heart had done the work of time; and that the weight of heavy troubles, more than the pressure of years, had bowed that erect form, and brought nearer to the earth that majestic brow. There was, however, a dignity and a grandeur in his aspect which shewed at once that he was no common man; and though his eyes were filled with tears, the flashes which they occasionally emitted, as his thoughts reverted to the past, or fluttered over the dim future, proved that he was one accustomed in his early life to command, unknowing what it was to be disobeyed. This melancholy being-this solitary in the midst of social joy-this mourner in that season of universal mirth—was the hapless Emperor Henry the Fourth.

Already has it been told how his treacherous and unnatural son decoyed him to Bingen, and there made him a close prisoner in the strong castle of Klopp.* That very morning the miserable sire had been betrayed: and he now stood in his prison window, musing on the instability of human hopes-the baseness of human feelings; wishing himself buried in his grave when he thought of the hand which had shut him up in that tower, on this the anniversary of man's redemption.

He had been not long in this position when the braying of trumpets, the tramp of horses, and the shouts of men, were borne on his ear by the breeze of night; and looking towards the town he beheld the narrow streets crowded with troops, lighted onwards by torches, and headed by two armed individuals, who seemed neither wholly warriors nor altogether civilians, judging from the singular and anomalous costume in which they

* Vol. i. (§ Hammerstein. The Emperor Henry the Fourth.) p. 415.

were clothed. Their long under-garments denoted in that period the clerical dignity; but the mantles which covered their shoulders were those then worn only by dubbed knights. The glistening sabres borne in their upraised hands indicated aught but the apostleship of peace: yet the ecclesiastical stole and cingulum, peering forth from the folds of their cloaks, seemed part of the proper garb of a priest. To render the anomaly still more complete, their heads were defended by curiously constructed helms of tempered steel, fashioned in the fore-part to resemble the front of a mitre, and surmounted by the cross the symbol of Christianity. The puzzled monarch knew not what to make of the scene, or how to imagine the actors; he was lost in perplexity and amazement at its singularity; and could not, with all his efforts, divine its cause. He was soon to feel its effects.

Even while he stood there, in that grated window, torturing his soul with vain surmises, an armed man entered the narrow chamber. The emperor started and turned towards the intruder; a flash of indignation lit up his clouded eye; he drew himself up to his full height, and stood erect to receive him: but it was only the warder to whose especial charge he had been confided: and, with a sensation of sickness at heart, he once more looked forth on the advancing cohort.

"My lord," spake the warder, in a hesitating manner

"What would ye?" asked Henry, sharply. "Why thus intrude upon my solitude? Am I not wretched enough already?" he added, after a momentary pause, in which he dashed a tear from his overflowing eye,-" Am I not wretched enough already? Must I be made more so? Oh, my son! my son !"

The miserable monarch could not suppress his emotions— he hung down his head, and wept aloud, even as David over the untimely fate of his rebel son Absalom. When he raised his eyes, he saw that the warder was weeping also; and he heard the thick sobs he uttered, as the stalwart soldier, tried to suppress his emotions. The desolate heart is easily touched; -Henry felt at once the love of a brother for one who could sympathise with his sorrows;-his indignation had all vanished.

"My friend," he said, when the moment of grief had passed over," my friend, know ye what is the meaning of this scene?"