if the Duke would only abrogate, like a sensible man, some of his foolish tyrannical feudal laws, and become a father to his subjects, it would be a delightful spot every way. But the petty prince of every petty province seems to think he is more like a king the more despotic he behaves.

MAYENCE.

111.

XXI.

MAYENCE-THE RHINE.

MAYENCE or Mainz lies at the upper termination of the fine scenery of the Rhine. From this to Coblenz, nearly sixty miles, this river is lined with towns, and convents, and castles, as rich in association as the ruins around Rome.

Mayence has its sights for the traveller, among which are the cathedral, the ruins of an old Roman structure, a museum of paintings, several monuments, &c., which I will pass over. There are two things worth recording of Mayence. It was here the famous Hanseatic League (the result of the Rhenish League) was formed by a confederation of cities. It was the first effectual blow aimed against unjust restrictions on commerce. Robber chieftains had lined the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence with castles, which frowned down on the river that washed their foundations; and levied tribute on every passing vessel. In the middle ages there were thirty-two "toll-gates" of these bold highway. men on the river. Now the only chieftain on the Rhine who is still allowed to hold and exercise his feudal right, is the Duke of Nassau. Under this strong confederation, the haughty castles one after another went down, and there is now scarcely a ruin that does not bear the mark of the Emperor Rudolph's stroke. Commerce was freed from the heavy exactions that weighed it down, and sailed with spreading canvass and fearless prow under the gloomy shadows of the towers that had once been its terror and destroyer.

Byron looked on these castles with the eye of a poet, and felt vastly more sympathy for the robber chieftains that lived by violence, than for the peaceful traders whose bodies were often left

floating down the Rhine. It is well for the world that those who formed the Hanseatic League were not poets of the Lara, Childe Harold, and Manfred school. Seeing very little romance in having their peaceful inhabitants fired upon by robbers who were fortunate enough to live in castles, they wisely concluded to put a stop to it. Had they not taken this practical view of the matter, Byron would probably not have been allowed to poetise so much at his leisure and with such freedom of expression, as he did when he sung of the "chiefless castles breathing stern farewells."

"And there they stand as stands a lofty mind,
Worn but unstooping to the baser crowd,
All tenantless save to the crannying wind,
Or holding dark communion with the cloud.
There was a day when they were young and proud,
Banners on high and battles passed below;

But they who fought are in a bloody shroud,
And those which waved are shredless dust ere now,
And the bleak battlements shall bear no future blow.

Beneath those battlements, within those walls,
Power dwelt amidst her passions; in proud state
Each robber chief upheld his armed halls,

Doing his evil will, nor less elate

Than mightier heroes of a longer date.

What want these outlaw conquerors should have,
But history's purchased page to call them great?

A wider space an ornamented grave,

Their hopes were not less warm, their souls were full as brave

In their baronial feuds and single fields
What deeds of prowess unrecorded died?
And Love, which lent a blazon to their shields,
With emblems well devised by amorous pride,
Through all the mail of iron hearts would glide;
But still their flame was fierceness, and drew on
Keen contest and destruction near allied,

And many a tower for some fair mischief won,
Saw the discoloured Rhine, beneath its ruin run.

But thou, exulting and abounding river!
Making thy waves a blessing as they flow.

THE FIRST PRINTING PRESS.

Through banks whose beauty would endure forever
Could man but leave thy bright creations so,

Nor its fair promise from the surface mow

With the sharp scythe of conflict, then to see

Thy valley of sweet waters, were to know

Earth proved like Heaven; and to seem such to me,

Even now what wants thy stream ?—that it should Lethe be.

A thousand battles have assailed thy banks,
But these and half their fame have passed away,
And Slaughter heaped on high his welt'ring ranks,
Their very graves are gone, and what are they?
Thy tide washed down the blood of yesterday:
And all was stainless, and on thy clear stream
Glossed with its dancing light the sunny ray,

But o'er the blackened memory's blighting dream
Thy waves would vainly roll, all sweeping as they seem."

113

Thus mused the haughty misanthropic bard along the Rhine ;and these few sentences, by the conflicting sentiments that pervade them, exhibit the perfect chaos of principle and feeling amid which he struggled with more desperation than wisdom. One moment he expresses regret that those old feudal chiefs have passed away, declaring, on the faith of a bard, that they were as good as their destroyers, and the next moment pours his note of lamentation over the evils of war.

The other notable event in the history of Mayence is the first printing press was established here.

There is a monument here to Gensfleisch (goose flesh), called Gutemberg, a native of the place, who was the inventor of moveable types. This first printing office, occupied by him between the years 1443 and 1450, is still standing. One could moralize over it an hour. From the first slow arrangement of those moveable types to the present diffusion of printed matter, what a long stride! He who could hear the first crippled movement of that miniature press, the only one whose faint sound rose from this round earth; and then catch the din and thunder of the "ten thousand times ten thousand" steam presses that are shaking the very continents on which they rest, with their fierce action; would see an onward step in the progress of the race more prophetic of change

than in the conquests of the Cæsars. The quiet, thoughtful Gensfleisch little knew what an earthquake he was generating as he slowly distributed those few types. If the sudden light which rushed on the world had burst on his vision, and the shaking of empires and sound of armies, set in motion by the diffusion of thougnts and truths which the press had scattered on its lightninglike pinions, met his ear, he would have been alarmed at his labour, and trembled as he held the first printed leaf in his hand. That printed page was a richer token to the desponding world than the olive leaf which the dove bore back to the Ark from the subsiding deluge. Men, as they roam by the Rhine, talk of old Schomberg and Blucher and Ney, and heroes of martial renown, but John Gensfleisch and Martin Luther are the two mightiest men that lie along its shores. The armies that struggled here,are still, and their renowned battle-fields have returned again to the hand of the husbandman; but the struggle commenced by these men has not yet reached its height, and the armies they marshalled not yet counted their numbers, or fought their greatest battle. Well, brave Gutemberg, (to descend from great things to small) I here, on thy own moveable types, lay my offering to thee, and salute thee "greater than a king."

A bridge of boats, one thousand six hundred and sixty-six feet long, here crosses the Rhine to Cassel, the railroad dépôt for Frankfort and Wiesbaden. It is strongly fortified, and commands the bridge in a manner that would make the passage of it by a hostile army, like the passage of the bridge of Lodi. The boats which form it lie with their heads up stream, secured to the bed of the river by strong fastenings; and covered with planks. Sections here and there swing back to admit the free passage of boats, while nearly half of the whole line is compelled to retire before one of those immense rafts of timber which are floated down the Rhine.